It’s been 19 long years, some longer than others, but the Detroit Tigers are heading back to the playoffs for the first time since 1987. After an 11-4 win over the Kansas City Royals, the Tigers celebrated and enjoyed the moment!

“One-hundred-nineteen to a playoff,” said pitcher Jeremy Bonderman, referencing the number of times the team lost in 2003. “Unbelievable.”

That is a perfect word to sum it up. Back in spring training who knew that adding manager Jim Leyland, starting pitcher Kenny Rogers and reliever Todd Jones would help springboard the team to a playoff berth and a possible division championship? Some of us thought health would be the key and it has been, but the maturation of Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya, and Curtis Granderson was another big part of it as well!

Listening to ESPN last night on the old AM radio, they were talking about watching out for the Tigers. They are suddenly on a winning streak, the Yankees are losing (they are playing some younger guys), but a team that gets hot can do a whole lot of damage in the playoffs (just look at the White Sox last year). I am just saying, don’t count out these Tigers!

Read Cheers and tears: Finally, Tigers get an Octoberfest in the Freep

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 9:42 am and is filed under Detroit Tigers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.