Tigers, Mets, Rays and Braves among 6 teams to see most dramatic playoff odds shift since Opening Day

We’ve arrived at the 50-game mark, just under one-third of the way through the marathon that is the MLB season. Teams have completed 16 of their 52 scheduled regular-season series, and the standings have begun to take shape in a way that can no longer be waved away as small-sample nonsense. A lot of wins and losses have already been banked, meaningfully altering clubs’ chances of qualifying for October based on how much of a cushion they’ve earned or how much ground they’ll need to make up.

Memorial Day is a common time on the baseball calendar to start taking the standings a little more seriously, so with that benchmark right around the corner, let’s take a look at which teams’ playoff odds have shifted the most since Opening Day. For the purposes of this exercise, we’ll utilize FanGraphs’ playoff odds from March 24 (the day before the Yankees and Giants’ Opening Night game), and compare them to those on the morning of May 22 . This past week featured a ton of divisional action that impacted these percentages, and another weekend of consequential matchups — Rays at Yankees, Cardinals at Reds, Dodgers at Brewers, among others — is on deck.

There’s plenty of time left for teams to play their way in or out of the playoff picture. But for now, here are the teams who have diverted most dramatically from their preseason projections, for better or for worse: Detroit Tigers — 20-31 (fifth place in AL Central) Preseason odds: 45% to win AL Central, 60% to make postseason May 22 odds: 12% to win AL Central, 24% to make postseason A disastrous stretch for Detroit continued this week as the rival Guardians strolled into Comerica Park and took all four games, stretching their lead in the standings to a staggering 9. 5 games over the suddenly last-place Tigers, all before June has arrived.

The Tigers mustered just 13 runs during their seven-game homestand against Toronto and Cleveland, never scoring more than three in a single game, a brutal encapsulation of the offensive struggles that have plagued them for much of the season. Injuries to Gleyber Torres and Kerry Carpenter haven’t helped matters, but the lineup’s severe shortcomings make it difficult to feel particularly optimistic about Detroit turning things around, even if ace Tarik Skubal can return to the rotation sooner rather than later than as his expedited recovery from arthroscopic elbow surgery seems to suggest he could. Skubal then becomes a fascinating character in an entirely different respect if the Tigers continue to scuffle.