DETROIT — Before the Detroit Tigers went into the All-Star break with a 5-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies, manager A.J. Hinch was talking about the turbulent season Tarik Skubal has endured. The injury. The contract status. The reality of being what Hinch called the ace “of a team that has been all over the map in the first half.”All over the map is right.At points in the first half, the Tigers seemed lost and listless. Their gritty identity had dissolved. The offense was cold. The pitching was not meeting expectations. The play was sloppy.At more recent points, the Tigers have played like the team that once started this season with World Series aspirations. Even after a series loss to the Phillies, the Tigers are 22-14 since June 1. They entered Sunday with a 2.95 team ERA since that same date, the best in the major leagues. They have slugged a league-high 64 home runs in that same period.The Tigers are still eight games under .500, but even after entering the All-Star break with back-to-back losses at the hands of Phillies dynamos Cristopher Sánchez and Zack Wheeler, they have shown reasons to believe.“We still have momentum,” Hinch said. “That’s a 4-2 homestand coming off a successful trip. I like how our guys are playing.”From a broad perspective, the fact the Tigers are still holding on to slivers of optimism could speak volumes. A 6-22 May could have sunk their season for good. Instead, we’re here trying to make sense of an up-and-down ride.“We’ve found ways to lose,” Skubal said last week. “We beat ourselves. We kind of did that whole thing in May. I think we all knew that wasn’t the team that we are, and just keep reminding ourselves that we’re a really good baseball team and never let confidence be dictated by results.”Still, the Tigers are facing a difficult reality. Their margin for error is razor-thin. They cannot afford many more losses before the Aug. 3 trade deadline. Whether they buy, sell or thread the needle could largely hinge on what happens in the days after the All-Star break. After a four-day layoff, the Tigers return to play Friday against the last-place Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim.The Tigers are no strangers to wild momentum swings. They overcame 0.2 percent playoff odds to make a miraculous run in 2024. Last season, they entered the break with the best record in the league, then choked away the division, then held on for dear life and made the playoffs.“I think the past couple of years have been a really good testament that anything can happen,” catcher Jake Rogers said.This iteration of the Tigers has somehow been even more difficult to figure out than the Tigers of the past two seasons.Kevin McGonigle and Dillon Dingler are two of the top seven position players in the sport based on fWAR. The rotation is obviously fearsome when everyone is healthy. But calls down to the bullpen can feel like mystery slots — you never know quite what you’re going to get.Beyond McGonigle, Dingler, Riley Greene and an injured Gleyber Torres, the Tigers have a long list of position players hovering near or below 0 WAR, and yet, the likes of Hao-Yu Lee, Ben Malgeri and Eduardo Valencia have provided feel-good moments and clutch contributions. Other players, such as Colt Keith and Jack Flaherty, have started to turn their seasons around after difficult starts.“These guys in here just continue to keep working and got through that stretch of May and have kind of put that weight behind us,” Flaherty said. “It was important for me to do the same.”That’s all to say this has been a difficult team to dissect. That’s all to say every game on the other side of the break matters deeply. And Skubal remains the game’s most intriguing storyline.Sunday, Hinch pulled Skubal in the sixth inning at 93 pitches. Skubal had just navigated a lengthy fifth inning and battled Bryce Harper for 10 pitches before Harper poked a ball for a single. Skubal wasn’t happy leaving the game. He left the field and headed straight down the tunnel. Afterward, Skubal said he felt he had more in the tank. He also made clear he wasn’t going to second-guess his manager’s decision or spark some controversy.“I’ve always respected A.J’s decision on what he’s trying to do,” Skubal said.For all the noise around Skubal, he’s been a leader in saying the Tigers need to keep winning. He and others would like to build a strong enough case to compel the team’s front office to go for it rather than hold a fire sale.“My belief will never change in these guys,” Skubal said of his teammates.Two weeks ago, the mood was at a low point after the Tigers had blown another game against the Houston Astros. Even then, closer Kenley Jansen maintained a positive spirit. Jansen was not here two years ago for the Tigers’ against-all-odds run. But he did talk of the 2019 Washington Nationals, a team that started 19-31 but went on to win the World Series. For reference, the Nationals were 47-42 at the All-Star break. The Tigers are 44-52, but they are still within shouting distance of a playoff spot in a weak division and a weak American League.Outliers such as those Nationals or last year’s Cleveland Guardians can keep teams playing even when times are tough.Those are the sort of occurrences that — though unlikely — mean the story of the Tigers’ 2026 season is still being written.“The Nats did it, right, in 2019,” Jansen said. “So it’s not impossible.”