If the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians had been going toe-to-toe for the lead in American League Central all season long, this would be viewed as a fun division race between two scrappy-if-flawed teams.

But timing is everything -- and that's not how each team's wins and losses unfolded.

Instead, we get the much more intriguing storyline of the Guardians surging to a miracle comeback to make the playoffs and the Tigers trying to avoid an epic collapse.

In early July, after the Tigers swept the Guardians, Cleveland trailed Detroit by 15½ games in the division race. No team has ever won a division title or pennant after a deficit that large. On July 8, Cleveland's odds of winning the division were a minuscule 0.1%, according to FanGraphs. At the time, the Tigers were 59-34, the

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