Detroit Tigers mania has crossed over Brush Street.
Despite not being able to tune into too many Tigers games due to a packed schedule with his own team, Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell is following along with the race to the postseason and was fired up Thursday as the Tigers close in on an American League wild-card spot a playoff appearance for the first time since 2014 .
"It's awesome, dude," Campbell said with a grin from the Lions ' practice facility in Allen Park. "The Tigers were written off in July, I heard it. ... Now look at 'em."
The Tigers sat eight games below .500 entering Aug. 11 with a less than 1% chance of reaching the postseason according to multiple predictive models, but went 29-11 in the 40 games between then and Thursday's matchup against the Tampa Bay Rays, including four wins in a row and eight of nine to jump ahead of the Minnesota Twins for the final wild-card spot in the AL.
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Though Campbell hasn't been able to watch, he's still impressed with the work done by manager A.J. Hinch and the entire 40-man roster , as someone who understands the trials and tribulations of professional sports.
"I'm rooting for those guys, I do," Campbell said. "I love it because I think when you sit in these seats and you do what they are doing at a professional level, it doesn't matter where you are at. You just gotta keep improving. You just improve, improve, improve, work, work, work — and that's what they've done.
"And you just don't know how many kinks you're working through, that you are trying to figure out. Find the best rotation and figure it out, work on this, and work with this and what about this lineup? And pretty soon you find it and you get better and better and better. And that's what they've done, they are playing really good right now. So yeah, I'm fired up for them."
The Tigers are on pace to become the second Detroit team to reach the postseason this calendar year, after Campbell's Lions won the NFC North and snapped a 32-year playoff victory drought with a run to the NFC championship game . The Tigers have been on a run reminiscent of the 2022 Lions, who won eight of their final 10 games to go from 1-6 to 9-8 and just miss the playoffs.
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The Tigers entered Thursday with a magic number of three with four games remaining, meaning they need a combination of three wins against the Rays and White Sox or Twins' losses in their final four games (against the Miami Marlins and Baltimore Orioles) to clinch a postseason bid (or a magic number of five with Kansas City).
"Man, it's good to be hot late," Campbell said.
The 2-1 Lions host the Seattle Seahawks (3-0) on Monday night trying to continue their quest for a second consecutive postseason berth for the first time since doing it three straight seasons in 1993-95.
Jared Ramsey is a sports reporter for the Detroit Free Press covering the city's professional teams, the state's two flagship universities and more. Follow Jared on X @jared_ramsey22 , and email him at jramsey@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lions coach Dan Campbell 'fired up' for Detroit Tigers push to make MLB playoffs
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