The Detroit Tigers were supposed to win Thursday.

They had the best pitcher in baseball on the mound, and they were playing against the third-worst team in baseball. But the Tarik Skubal-led Tigers lost, 4-2, to the Colorado Rockies in Thursday's series finale at Comerica Park.

The Tigers have a 75-72 record with 15 games remaining.

"We're all aware," manager A.J. Hinch said Tuesday, two days before the end of a four-game winning streak. "We know that the stakes are high. I try to shield that as much as I can from a young team, but the reality is, we know what's going on."

ACE CARD: How Tigers plan to use left-hander Tarik Skubal in postseason race

Don't worry, the Tigers — winners in 20 of 29 games — are still in the hunt for the third and final spot in the American League wild-card race, sitting 3½ games back.

Their playoff odds dropped from 10.7% to 7.2%, according to FanGraphs, after Thursday's loss to the Rockies. Even worse, the Tigers' toughest stretch of the postseason push begins now.

Are they thinking about it?

“I try not to," center fielder Parker Meadows said Tuesday, "but sometimes, I look at the standings. We’re focused on ourselves.”

The next 12 games pit the Tigers against the wild-card leaders, the Baltimore Orioles (three games, Friday-Sunday), ans then the wild-card second-place team, the Kansas City Royals (three games, Monday-Wednesday), and then the Orioles again (three games, Sept. 20-22) and finally the Tampa Bay Rays (three games, Sept. 24-26), who emtered Friday trailing the Tigers by three games.

After that, the Tigers finish the season with three games against the MLB-worst Chicago White Sox (Sept. 27-29).

"We think we can win every night," Hinch said Tuesday, "and then we come out and test ourselves against somebody different. We’ve talked about wanting to play important baseball. This is important baseball. This is what it looks like. But we need to focus on the next game."

LEADING THE WAY: Matt Vierling is leader of young Tigers in postseason race

The Orioles (83-64), Royals (80-67) and Rays (72-75) have a combined .533 winning percentage. Skubal, the frontrunner to win the AL Cy Young Award, isn't lined up to pitch in any of the six games against the Orioles, but he is scheduled to clash with the Royals and Rays (and possibly the White Sox).

The upcoming 12 games on the schedule will be more difficult than most of the past 19 games, which featured 13 games against the White Sox (33-114), Los Angeles Angels (60-86), Oakland Athletics (64-83) and Colorado Rockies (55-92). Those are four of MLB's five worst teams in 2024. (The Tigers went 1-2 against MLB's second-worst team, the NL East cellar-dwelling Miami Marlins in May.)

The bad news: The Tigers don't have room for error as the opponents get tougher.

"You can't let the moment get too big and change the way you play baseball," Skubal said Tuesday, two days before throwing six innings of one-run ball in Thursday's loss. "We need to continue doing what makes us win and what makes us a good team."

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BREAKING DOWN THE SEPTEMBER STRETCH: Predicting final 18 games in chase of Twins for MLB playoffs

The Tigers are four losses behind the Minnesota Twins, occupying the final spot in the AL wild-card race. But the deficit in the loss column is actually five losses, given the Twins won the tiebreaker over the Tigers in the head-to-head record. (The Royals, by the way, also control the tiebreaker over the Tigers.)

The Twins (78-68) have 16 games remaining; the Tigers (75-72) have 15 games remaining. If the Twins finish 8-8, the Tigers must finish 12-3 to beat them in the wild-card race.

"When I say we’re going to play our whole schedule, I mean it," Hinch said, "and we’re going to play the entire game. I’m proud of the way we play. We should enjoy it. We’ve earned the right to be asked these questions. We’ve earned the right to play important games. That only goes as far as your next game."

Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.

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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers' toughest stretch of games begins now