Red-hot but inexperienced Tigers prepare for veteran Astros

HOUSTON — The Astros had to rebound from a miserable start to the season to win their fourth straight American League West title. Now they carry an overwhelming advantage in postseason experience into their matchup vs. the Detroit Tigers in the American League wild-card series, which begins Tuesday.

Game 1 of the best-of-three series will be a battle of left-handed aces: Tarik Skubal of Detroit (18-4, 2.39 ERA, 228 strikeouts in 192 innings) against Framber Valdez of Houston (15-7, 2.91 ERA).

Skubal claimed the AL pitching triple crown this season and this will mark his first postseason appearance, with Skubal representing a Tigers organization that last qualified for the postseason in 2014.

The Astros, on the other hand, are postseason participants for the ninth time during that 10-year span with two World Series titles, four AL pennants and seven consecutive ALCS appearances on their ledger.

Coincidentally, Tigers manager A.J. Hinch was at the helm for the first half of the Astros’ current run of success. He will try to impart his vast playoff experience on a club sorely lacking it.

“It’s super important as a manager to have postseason experience, not as important for the players to have played in the postseason,” Hinch said, tongue in cheek. “I can’t lay it out any simpler than that.

“Obviously you cannot replace experience. We’ve got guys that have never played in Houston let alone played in a playoff atmosphere, so we’re going to learn on the fly. We’ve done that. We’ve gone to a couple of pretty rowdy places in September and our guys got to play playoff baseball for the better part of two months just to be a part of the playoffs. Come (Tuesday) afternoon, we’re going to be a playoff-experienced team.”

While Hinch touted the Tigers’ status as underdogs, both Detroit and Houston arrived in the postseason via a similar trajectory. The Astros were 10 games behind the Seattle Mariners in the AL West on June 18 before mounting their rally.

The Tigers were sellers at the trade deadline but took full advantage of the collapsing Minnesota Twins down the stretch of the regular season. Detroit won 18 of 26 games to claim their postseason bid, and the Astros are acutely aware that the squad they’ll meet in this best-of-three series barely resembles the team they last faced in mid-June.

“If you really watch their games, they have matured a lot as a club,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “Making fewer mistakes than you probably saw earlier in the season. They’re playing good baseball so there’s that emotional aspect as a team when they start believing in themselves. That’s what you’ve seen with this Tigers team. I’m expecting a pretty good series and we’ll be ready for them.”

As for Houston, Valdez’s volatility on the mound has been well documented, and his postseason history is checkered.

He did exceptional work during the Astros’ championship run in 2022, finishing finished 3-0 with a 1.44 ERA in four starts, including a stellar effort in Game 6 of the World Series. Then came his struggles in 2023, when he finished 0-3 with a 9.00 ERA in three starts, punctuated by his collapse in Game 2 of the AL Championship Series, when he allowed five runs on seven hits and lasted just 2 2/3 innings.

Valdez will likely garner some top-five votes for the AL Cy Young Award on the strength of a brilliant second half, when he went 7-2 with a 1.96 ERA across a dozen starts. Should that version of Valdez arrive at the ballpark Tuesday, the Astros will feel emboldened going against the presumptive Cy Young Award favorite in Skubal.

Houston needs the best iteration of Valdez — and for Valdez to forget how much he labored during their repeat bid.

“He has left that in the past,” Espada said. “I expect Framber to go out there and perform the way Framber has performed this entire second half as one of the best pitchers in the league. He wants the ball, and I expect him to go out there and give us a great start.”

–MK Bower, Field Level Media