Detroit Tigers vs Cleveland Guardians Game 1 Prediction - 9/30/2025
Updated July 9, 2026
The Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Guardians will meet in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series on Tuesday afternoon. The Guardians pulled off one of the wildest comebacks in MLB history, erasing a 15.5-game deficit to take the American League Central from the Tigers. They now host Detroit in a best-of-three series this week. Detroit is still the favorite in Game 1 thanks to the presence of Tarik Skubal. Before the action begins from Cleveland, continue reading for my Tigers vs Guardians Game 1 prediction.
Detroit turns to Tarik Skubal to open this series. He finished the regular season with a 13-6 record and a 2.21 ERA, along with 241 strikeouts over 195.1 innings. Opponents bat just .200 against him. Skubal went six innings in each of his last two starts against the Guardians and allowed one earned run in each of those starts.
Cleveland will open this series with Gavin Williams on the mound. Williams enters with a 12-5 record and a 3.06 ERA. Williams tossed six strong innings in a 5-2 win over Detroit late in the season and also threw six innings of shutout ball in another start against Detroit down the stretch. Williams has shown he can compete with this Detroit lineup.
Detroit’s late-season collapse is well-documented. After holding a double-digit lead in mid-September, they went 7–17 in September and lost the division title to the Guardians. Cleveland went on a tear, winning 17 of 19 in one stretch and overtook Detroit to win the AL Central. In September, they beat Detroit in five of six games.
Player | Prop |
|---|---|
Riley Greene | Under 1.5 Total Bases |
José Ramírez | Under 1.5 Total Bases |
Tarik Skubal | Over 7.5 Strikeouts |
Gavin Williams | Over 5.5 Strikeouts |
Score Projection: Detroit 3 – Cleveland 2
Win Probability: Detroit 55%, Cleveland 45%
Game 1 between the Tigers and Guardians should be a tight, low-scoring affair. Both pitchers have shut down the opposing lineup a couple of times late in the regular season and should perform well again in this game. My best bet for this contest is for the under to cash, as Skubal and Williams should be very effective and both offenses should have a hard time generating anything against them.
Jay Sanin is the GM and Head of Sports at ATS.io. He has been writing about sports gambling since 2013, handicapping tens of thousands of sporting events. He plays sides and totals aggressively across most sports and is more selective in player prop markets. He does his own modeling across most sports, and his family is jealous of how much time he spends on his precious spreadsheets.
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