Tigers Win Thanks to Amazing Rally

Even the ever-optimistic Alan Trammell was close to giving up on his Detroit Tigers.

“I was actually going to take a couple guys out,” Trammell acknowledged.

Detroit’s manager decided otherwise and the Tigers staved off a historic defeat with a startling rally, coming from eight runs down to beat Minnesota, 9-8, on a wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth inning Saturday night.

The Tigers were in danger of matching the modern major league record of 120 losses set by the expansion 1962 New York Mets (40-120) before pulling off their biggest comeback in 38 years.

Detroit (42-119) now will try to avoid tying the post-1900 record for losses when it finishes the season today against the Twins.

“We’re not the worst team in baseball, no matter what,” Carlos Pena said. “We’re going to have a better winning percentage than the Mets, and we won’t beat their record. You’ve got to compare apples with apples, not apples with oranges, OK?”