The Cleveland Guardians looked totally and utterly out of it, and that was before they lost their closer indefinitely due to a sports betting investigation by MLB.
But the same team that was eight games below .500 in July is now eight games above .500 after a 10-inning win over the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night.
The Guardians have closed to within 2.5 games of the Boston Red Sox in the AL Wild Card race with 12 games to play. They're 5.5 games behind the Tigers in the AL Central.
This is the same team that had a 10-game losing streak in July and a 1-9 stretch in August.
They were 40-48 when the Tigers handed them their 10th consecutive loss. They're now 79-71, a 39-23 stretch that has provided hope.
On Tuesday, the Guardians needed just one more out in the ninth, but Kerry Carpenter hit a solo home run to force extras.
But then the Guardians had four consecutive extra-base hits in extra innings, the first time in the Expansion Era (since 1961) that they've done that, according to MLB.com.
They gave two back but had scored four, and so a 7-5 win was in the books.
Cleveland still has five games against the Tigers among its final dozen. The Guardians could almost get all the way back into the division race just by handling Detroit.
But there's still help needed, either for the Wild Card or the division. The Guardians can take solace in the fact that it never looked like they'd be in this position, and now they have a chance.
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