With the Detroit Tigers showing signs of recovery after a 12-2 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks, bettors might find value in wagering on the Tigers as they seem to have regained their momentum, especially with key players performing well.
DETROIT — Strange things happen throughout a major-league season. Sometimes teams look unbeatable. Sometimes teams look like they will never win again. We have seen instances of both with the Detroit Tigers this season. For the bulk of the first half, the Tigers got good breaks, executed in big spots, dashed around the bases and gave their opponents headaches.
Then they lost 12 of 13. For a stretch in the heat of July, they could not hit, could not pitch, could not field. The team appeared, at times, deeply broken.
Now, after trouncing the Arizona Diamondbacks 12-2 on Tuesday, the Tigers are winners of three in a row. For all the numbers and projections, this can still be an odd, mysterious game. Even when it all starts clicking, the explanations can be varied. There are old truisms. “It’s baseball,” Casey Mize said. “We play a lot of games.” There are also foolhardy superstitions.
Over the weekend, Tigers outfielder Riley Greene shaved his beard and left a ridiculous mustache. Greene is known to change walk-up songs in a slump. He once slept with his bat in the minor leagues in search of a spark at the plate. He has sworn off superstitions entirely and then returned to them in times of need. In this instance, with him and his team looking lost, he turned to facial hair.
“It’s for the boys,” he said.
the stache has been blessed https://t.co/hzMlohvqBF pic.twitter.com/NtzhM5Ojmh — Detroit Tigers (@tigers) July 30, 2025
Weird things like this come and go. A few weeks ago, Colt Keith started growing a beard, attributing it to bad razors in Cleveland and one good day at the plate. After one hitless performance, though, the beard was gone. But with a mustachioed version of Greene, the Tigers won Sunday and won again Monday.
Tuesday against the Diamondbacks, they looked and played and acted like a team that has rediscovered its mojo. Kerry Carpenter had three hits. Greene had two doubles and a homer, ignited first by a fourth-inning ball that stayed fair down the right-field line. “It feels like last week it would have gone foul,” manager A.J. Hinch said.
Zach McKinstry hit a home run, Andy Ibáñez reclaimed his role as a lefty-killer, and Wenceel Pérez was an all-around menace. After a difficult, short start from Mize, the Tigers tied the score at 2 in the fourth, when Pérez stole second on a two-strike count with two outs. Catcher Dillon Dingler followed with a base hit to center to bring home two runs, the kind of timely execution the Tigers have seen so much of this year.
Brant Hurter — not long ago all but unable to throw the ball over the plate — gave the Tigers 3 1/3 innings of stellar relief. Pérez, meanwhile, joined an absurd list of Tigers to have a single, a double, a triple and two stolen bases in the same game. The only others to do so? Ossie Vitt, Sam Crawford and a fellow named Ty Cobb. Gleyber Torres homered, too. He tugged on Greene’s mustache after his blast and then again in the dugout after Greene went deep.
All day, Tigers were coming up and rubbing Greene’s facial hair, hoping to obtain a bit of the magic. Bizarre? “No, I think it’s great,” Greene said. “If it gets the boys going, whatever gets the boys going.”
Even Hinch — typically one to shake his head at such gags — joined in and rubbed Greene’s facial hair. “Twice,” Greene said. In the postgame handshake line, Greene turned to his manager and reminded him that the Tigers are 3-0 since Greene decided to rock the ‘stache.
For whatever it’s worth, the Tigers are also 3-0 since Carpenter’s return from the injured list. Carpenter is one of the seemingly few dissenters when it comes to the power of the mustache. “That’s fake news,” he joked. “No superstitions.”
Win or lose, mustache, beard or clean-shaven, the Tigers’ behavior at the trade deadline was never likely to be influenced too much by any short stretch of games. There’s no evidence the front office is wavering from its pragmatic approach before Thursday’s deadline. After dealing with the Twins for starter Chris Paddack and minor-league reliever Randy Dobnak on Monday, the Tigers remain in discussions with other clubs. The relief market in particular seems to be a focus.
And long shot or not, fans and observers remain glued across the hall, where Arizona slugger Eugenio Suárez seems OK after taking a Will Vest fastball off the hand Monday night.
But if it mostly seems quiet, perhaps that’s because the Tigers have never hinted at making massive additions to this roster. Even as the losing streak grew dark last week, the Tigers and president of baseball operations Scott Harris seemed intent on trusting the larger body of work.
“I don’t know that he’s too reactionary,” Hinch said Tuesday. “I think he’s very strong-minded in belief. We believe in this team. I think what these last couple weeks show is we are a tough team. We can endure a little bit of stress. We come out of it with our chest out, our heads held high and still in first place and continue to fight the fight. Whatever is done or not done in the next 72 hours, we’ll see. At the end of the day, we believe in this team. We’ve believed in this team the entire time.”
Perhaps this is how it goes. Front offices are most likely to remain even-keeled and scientific in their approach to team building. Managers such as Hinch have to balance the short term with the long view and understand how the race is run. Players, though, have to search for levity in a game in which we can measure everything and still have nothing make sense. “It’s not a good look,” Greene said of his mustache. “But if it means winning, then I’ll keep it.”
(Top photo: Junfu Han / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
The Tigers have won three in a row, with help either from a new superstition or the corrective ebbs of a long season.
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