DETROIT — If there were a case for the Detroit Tigers to avoid a deadline sell-off, it looks like this: Go into the Bronx and sweep the New York Yankees. Head to Texas, suffer an ugly loss, then battle back to take two of three games from the Texas Rangers with top-end starting pitching. Come back home with Tarik Skubal on the mound. Get five powerful — even if less than efficient — innings from your ace, then capitalize on a big sixth-inning mistake by the Athletics and walk away with a 6-2 victory.The Tigers have now won six of their past seven games. They are 19-12 since June 1, the best record in the American League. They have a plus-15 run differential and a 47-44 Pythagorean record that hints at how much has gone wrong at inopportune times.If we’re being real, the math here is still tilted against them. At the conclusion of Tuesday’s game, the Tigers were seven games out of the division lead and 4 1/2 games out of a wild-card spot. Perhaps more importantly, there are still five teams they have to jump to get into a playoff spot. FanGraphs put the team’s postseason odds at 28.3 percent.But the Tigers have hit their stride at long last. Their 3.06 ERA from starters since June 1 is the best in baseball. Tigers hitters entered Wednesday with a .779 OPS in this span, second in the American League.A bullpen that has blown 20 saves this season still feels like a weakness. But the ERA from relievers dating to June 1 is 3.35, fourth in the sport.“I said it last week,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “I wasn’t trying to make this big statement, but we have a good team and a bad record. Now, that bad record has gotten better since the last time I said that. That’s what we have to do: Continue to chip away to get truly back in this thing. But I feel optimistic because our team is starting to do the things we expected to do.”After a disastrous May and a slog that saw the Tigers dip to 16 games below .500, the stakes of every game feel heightened. There is no conversation greater than the one around Skubal, who threw five innings of one-run ball and struck out nine batters Tuesday.If the Tigers want to avoid trading their ace before the Aug. 3 deadline, they need to keep playing like this.“We all knew the whole season this is the team that we have,” Skubal said. “We’re a very good baseball team. We do all the things right. We prepare really well. Just kind of got some bad luck and beat ourselves a little bit early in the season. It doesn’t seem like we’re doing that anymore.”Skubal himself has now made five starts since his well-publicized return from a loose body procedure. He has a 3.62 ERA in those outings. Although he hasn’t looked quite like the otherworldly force who won back-to-back Cy Young Awards, the stuff is there. Tuesday, Skubal came out of the gates with a tremendous first inning, striking out the side in dominant fashion. Later, he fought lapses in command. His velocity even dipped to the 94-95 mph range during the second and third innings as Skubal focused on throwing strikes and prolonging his day. Then he finished his outing with his best velocities of the night. His fastball averaged 97.7 mph in the fifth.All in all, the Athletics worked Skubal for 96 pitches. No. 9 hitter Henry Bolte homered off a hanging 3-1 slider. Skubal himself was far from pleased afterward.“I don’t think it was my best showing by any means,” he said.Even if Skubal hasn’t quite delivered the flawless performance he craves, he looks the part of a pitcher almost every team would take to start Game 7 of the World Series. He generated 22 swings-and-misses Tuesday.“To give him some grace, this guy is going out where one run is sort of deemed an OK outing,” Hinch said. “Think about that standard every time you take the mound, where no matter what you do, the bar is really high. He can handle it.”Skubal’s stature atop the sport means the Tigers have hard decisions to make in the weeks ahead. Truthfully, those decisions might only get harder if the Tigers keep winning and keep looking like a team to be taken seriously.In a world where the Tigers battle back from the edge before the trade deadline, they could stand pat and trust the team they assembled. If it’s a close call, they could also attempt to thread the needle, trading Skubal for what could be a heavy haul but keeping other players and trying to remain competitive.But if you are really playing to win, there’s an increasingly compelling case to keep Skubal and make a run for it. If the Tigers wanted to trade Skubal and reassemble their roster without tearing it down, the time to do that would have been the offseason.Of course, a couple of more series losses between now and Aug. 3 could still mean the Tigers have to trade not just Skubal but also Casey Mize, Gleyber Torres and likely others.Despite this hot stretch, they have a difficult task ahead. But with each victory, the picture becomes more blurred.Here with their backs against the wall, the Tigers are, if nothing else, making this interesting.“Best pitcher in baseball,” Kevin McGonigle said of Skubal. “To be behind him and play for him is really special. Looking forward to keep watching that.”Jul 8, 2026Connections: Sports EditionSpot the pattern. Connect the termsFind the hidden link between sports terms