(Photo credit: Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

Jack Flaherty made five postseason appearances during the Los Angeles Dodgers' run to the World Series title last season.

He's looking forward to starting pressure-packed games for the American League Central-leading Detroit Tigers in the coming weeks.

Flaherty will have that opportunity in the middle game of a three-game home series against second-place Cleveland on Wednesday night. The Guardians (79-71) won the series opener on Tuesday, 7-5 in 10 innings, to pull within 5 1/2 games of the first-place Tigers (85-66).

That sounds like a tough hurdle for Cleveland with 12 games to go, but consider this: Including Wednesday, the teams have five games remaining between them, and just two weeks ago, too, the Guardians were 10 1/2 games back.

Cleveland has won 10 of its past 11 games, while Detroit is 5-6 in the same span. The Guardians are only 2 1/2 games out of the third and final wild-card spot in the AL.

Flaherty (8-13, 4.69 ERA), who started last season with the Tigers before a trade to Los Angeles, re-signed with Detroit as a free agent during the offseason to be its No. 2 starter behind ace Tarik Skubal. Flaherty has struggled to find consistency, but he delivered five scoreless innings in an 11-1 victory over the New York Yankees last Wednesday.

He's aiming to finish the season strong and help the Tigers go on a long postseason journey.

'Just a lot of emotion just from the way the year has gone,' Flaherty said after the win over the Yankees. 'I'm going to try to carry some of that emotion into the days in between and into my next start day.'

Flaherty labored through 99 pitches but only allowed two hits and a walk while recording seven strikeouts.

'Just keep fighting,' Flaherty said. 'Overall, this hasn't been the year I wanted for myself, for this team or for the city. All I can do at this point is keep fighting, keep competing and keep giving us as good a chance as I can every time I take the mound. I'm just going to keep giving everything I have every day going forward.'

Flaherty is 2-3 with a 2.25 ERA in eight career outings against the Guardians.

The Guardians will start their own right-hander, Gavin Williams (10-5, 3.16 ERA). He has three consecutive quality starts, spanning 20 innings. Williams has allowed just four earned runs during that stretch but three homers.

In his most recent outing on Thursday, he limited Kansas City to two runs and four hits in six innings but got no decision in a 3-2 win.

'We've seen him mature and come to a better understanding of who he is, how and where his stuff plays in the strike zones,' pitching coach Carl Willis said. 'He's gained a tremendous amount of confidence in that.'

Detroit is well aware how stingy Williams can be when he's on point. He tossed six shutout innings against the Tigers on July 6, holding them to one hit. Williams is 1-2 with a 1.98 ERA in five career outings against Detroit but didn't figure into the decision in the 7-2, 10-inning loss.

Left-hander Logan Allen was skipped for this series in order to line up Williams and Tanner Bibee (Thursday's starter) in this divisional showdown.

'It's the matchup with Detroit, and then obviously moving Gavin to [Wednesday] gets him three starts until the end of the year,' Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said. 'We played with a lot of different things, but with the six-man rotation, they all would have had six days' rest. This still keeps [Williams and Bibee] on that five-day rest the same turn.'

--Field Level Media