DETROIT – The Detroit Tigers have announced their 26-man roster for the first round of the playoffs.

Game 1 of the best-of-three wild card round begins at 2:32 p.m. Tuesday, as the Tigers take on the Astros in Houston.

A.J. Hinch and Scott Harris had some tough decisions to make, cutting down the roster to 26 players after all 28 contributed throughout the month of September.

The way Hinch utilizes his bullpen and bench bats makes every single roster spot important.

Teams are allowed to include as many as 13 pitchers on a playoff roster, but since the wild card round is only a maximum of three games, it’s no surprise that the Tigers went with an extra bat to potentially give them a matchup advantage late in games.

Here are the position players who made the roster:

• Catcher Jake Rogers.

• Catcher Dillon Dingler.

• First baseman Spencer Torkelson.

• Second baseman Colt Keith.

• Third baseman Jace Jung.

• Shortstop Trey Sweeney.

• Infielder Zach McKinstry.

• Infielder Andy Ibanez.

• Infielder/outfielder Matt Vierling.

• Outfielder Riley Greene.

• Outfielder Parker Meadows.

• Outfielder Wenceel Perez.

• Designated hitter/outfielder Kerry Carpenter.

• Designated hitter Justyn-Henry Malloy.

Here are the pitchers who made the roster:

• Tarik Skubal.

• Reese Olson.

• Tyler Holton.

• Casey Mize.

• Will Vest.

• Jason Foley.

• Beau Brieske.

• Brant Hurter.

• Sean Guenther.

• Brenan Hanifee.

• Jackson Jobe.

• Ty Madden.

Notable omissions

The position players on the roster are more or less what we all expected. The Tigers won 31 of 42 games on the backs of their young players, so why change now?

It couldn’t have been a tough decision to leave Kenta Maeda off the roster after he couldn’t even hold up against the worst team in MLB history on Sunday.

Maeda has been a bit better since moving to the bullpen, but it’s been a disastrous season overall, and even his previous playoff experience with the Los Angeles Dodgers couldn’t save him.

Fans might think of Keider Montero’s complete game shutout a few weeks ago and wonder, “How do you leave that guy off the roster?”

Well, Montero has been really inconsistent at the MLB level, and he’s been mostly bad in big games down the stretch. His underlying numbers suggest he’s been fortunate to post even a 4.76 ERA, and Hinch probably doesn’t want him out there against lefty sluggers like Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker.

For the Seahawks, Geno Smith had 395 passing yards and 38 completions from 56 attempts – all career highs – with one touchdown pass and one interception.

The Lions, playing at home at Ford Field, led 21-7 at half-time thanks to two scores from Jahmyr Gibbs and one from David Montgomery.

The Seahawks rallied to move within one score of Detroit, but Goff found Jameson Williams for a 70-yard touchdown to make it 35-20 going into the final quarter.

Kenneth Walker III went for a 21-yard touchdown run to reduce the deficit early in the fourth quarter, but Goff picked out Amon-Ra St. Brown in the end zone to seal the victory.

Earlier, it was St. Brown who passed to Goff on a trick play for the quarterback’s own touchdown.

The Lions remain second in the NFC North behind the undefeated Minnesota Vikings. Despite the defeat, the Seahawks still top the NFC West.

The Vikings and Super Bowl champions the Kansas City Chiefs are the only teams in the NFL with a perfect 4-0 record.

In Monday’s other game, the Tennessee Titans beat the Miami Dolphins 31-12 for their first win of the season.

Nick Folk kicked five field goals while Tony Pollard and Tyjae Spears rushed for touchdowns at Hard Rock Stadium.

Titans quarterback Will Levis was replaced by Mason Rudolph in the first quarter after landing heavily on his shoulder and did not return.

Dolphins quarterback Tyler Huntley, deputising for the injured Tua Tagovailoa, went on a one-yard scoring run late in the game to end the Dolphins’ run of 10 straight quarters without a touchdown.

The Titans stay third in AFC South ahead of the winless Jacksonville Jaguars. The Dolphins are bottom of AFC East on 1-3.

Through three games this season, the Detroit Lions have a top-five offense in the league.

What do coaches always preach when talking about getting the offense rolling? We need to establish the run, and Detroit is doing that with their two stellar running backs.

Starting with second-year back Jahmyr Gibbs. There were some questions about why the organization took him in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft, bu those are quickly being answered.

This season, he’s already compiled more than 200 yards on the ground, averaging more than five yards a carry to go along with two touchdowns.

His counterpart, the veteran David Montgomery, is getting a slightly larger load of the carries. He’s up to 230 yards and three touchdowns.

Montgomery was critical in the week one overtime win against the Los Angeles Rams, which included the game-winning touchdown.

The two are on a bit of a historic run. In every game, Montgomery and Gibbs have each topped 70 scrimmage yards, making them the first running back duo to do so in each of the first three games since 2006.

While they are similar in productivity, assistant head coach and running backs coach Scottie Montgomery said they are very different stylistically.

“A lot of people don’t understand how shifty David is. So as he’s coming off of these jump cuts, a lot of people when they come off of jump cuts are very light, but when he comes off of jump cuts he’s heavy. So when they’re hitting him off of jump cuts they think when he gets hit it’s going to knock him off balance, but it’s not he’s very solid. As when Jah comes off the jump cut, more people wait, so now they’re waiting for what’s going to happen after the jump cut, and now he’s very heavy. So it’s just a different way of being able to use a skill,” Montgomery said.