DETROIT – A 162-game season has its natural ups and downs, something both the Detroit Tigers and backup Jason Foley know well.

The 28-year-old with the shaggy hair had a brilliant start to the season – similar to the Tigers – and posted an ERA of 0.00 by the end of April.

Then there was a 10-week stretch in the middle of the summer where he struggled to miss at-bats, with his strikeout rate hovering dangerously close to 10 percent.

The Tigers also struggled, trading away veterans like Jack Flaherty and Carson Kelly at the trade deadline, seemingly signaling a shift toward next year.

But then the winning started, and it hasn’t stopped. Since August 11th, the Tigers have posted an incredible 30-11 record.

“It’s not often that a team trades away a lot of key players at the deadline and still wins and is there on the last weekend of the year,” Foley said. “The young people who were there were fantastic. You can’t replace the people we replaced, but they did their part as best they could and it worked for us.

“A month and a half ago our playoff chances were pretty low, almost zero. But we fought and fought. We have a lot of young guys, newcomers and players who are new to arbitration and everyone is doing their part. Everyone is playing for something and it was fun.”

Foley was instrumental in the Tigers’ late-season recovery. Since August 11, he has posted a 2.04 ERA with 12 saves, struck out 16 times in 17 2/3 innings and held opponents to a .150 batting average

“He’s becoming someone I can turn to at any time,” Hinch said. “He was a key component in those close games for us. That doesn’t mean he had to be perfect. Guys have to make adjustments throughout the year to perform as strongly as these guys did. Jason is a great example of that…I see him doing everything he can to get important outs whenever and wherever they are, and most of the time those are the most important outs of the game.”

Foley pitched a perfect ninth inning to complete the Tigers’ victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday. He also secured the parade in the critical series finale on Sunday in Baltimore.

Despite his 27 saves, Foley isn’t a traditional closer. It’s no surprise to see him in the eighth or even seventh inning. Beau Brieske, Tyler Holton, Will Vest and others could also be asked to make big outings – as the regular season ends and the postseason begins.

The Tigers played their 55th one-run game on Thursday, the most in the major leagues. They have a 31-24 record in those games, including a remarkable 13 wins in their last 15 one-run contests. Foley was at the center of many of these.

“(Thursday) was kind of a representation of how we’ve been playing lately,” he said. “We were down for the first five or six innings, things looked bleak. We were dominated in all aspects of the game but were always able to come out on top, even against some pretty good pitchers. It was a team effort and we scored enough runs to take the lead.”

Now that the Tigers are on the verge of securing a playoff spot, Foley and his teammates want to carry their late-summer magic into October.