1969–71
1969 saw further expansion as both leagues realigned into two divisions of six teams, and the Tigers were placed in the American League East. That year, Detroit failed to defend its '68 title, despite Denny McLain having another outstanding season with a 24-9 campaign, earning him his second straight Cy Young Award. The Tigers' 90 wins placed them a distant second in the division to a very strong Baltimore Orioles team, which had won 109 games.

McLain, suspended three times in 1970, was only 3-5 that season and was traded after the season was done. Mayo Smith was also let go after a disappointing fourth-place finish in 1970, to be replaced by Billy Martin. In the final year of his playing career, which was primarily spent with the New York Yankees, Martin spent his final games with the Minnesota Twins and stayed in that organization after his retirement. He managed the Twins to an AL West Division title in 1969, but was fired after that season due to rocky relationships with his players which included a legendary fight with pitcher Dave Boswell in an alley behind Detroit's Lindell AC sports bar.[10] He would spend the 1970 season out of baseball.

After the 1970 regular season, Denny McLain was part of a seven-player deal with the Washington Senators in what would turn out to be a heist for Detroit. The Tigers acquired pitcher Joe Coleman, shortstop Eddie Brinkman and third basemanAurelio Rodríguez. Coleman paid immediate dividends for Detroit, winning 20 games in 1971, while McLain went 10-22 for the Senators and was out of baseball by age 29.

Martin's Tigers posted 91 wins in 1971, but again had to settle for a second-place finish behind the Orioles, who won 101 games to take their third straight AL East Division crown. The season was highlighted by Mickey Lolich's 308 strikeouts, which led the AL and is still the Detroit Tigers single-season record as of 2012. Lolich also won 25 games and posted a 2.92 ERA while throwing an incredible 376 innings and completing 29 of his 45 starts.

1972 AL East Champions

Main article: 1972 Detroit Tigers season
The Tigers post-1970 acquisitions (Joe Coleman, Eddie Brinkman and Aurelio Rodríguez) all played critical roles in 1972, when the Tigers captured their first AL East division title. Oddities of the schedule due to an early-season strike allowed the 86-70 Tigers to win the division by just ½ game, just as they had won the pennant in 1908. Brinkman was named Tiger of the Year by the Detroit Baseball Writers, despite a .203 batting average, as he committed just 7 errors in 728 chances (.990 fielding percentage) and had a 72-game errorless streak during the season.[11] Mickey Lolich was his steady self for the Tigers, winning 22 games with a sparkling 2.50 ERA, while Coleman won 19 and had a 2.80 ERA. StarterWoodie Fryman, acquired on August 2, was the final piece of the puzzle as he went 10–3 over the last two months of the regular season and posted a miniscule 2.06 ERA. Fryman was also the winning pitcher in the division-clinching game against the Boston Red Sox, a 3-1 victory on October 3.

1972 ALCS

Main article: 1972 American League Championship Series
In the 1972 American League Championship Series, Detroit faced the American League West division champion Oakland Athletics, who had become steadily competitive ever since the 1969 realignment. In Game 1 of the ALCS in Oakland, Mickey Lolich, the hero of '68, took the hill and allowed just one run over nine innings. The Athletics' ace, Catfish Hunter, matched Lolich, and the game went into extra innings. Al Kaline hit a solo homer to break a 1–1 tie in the top of the 11th inning, only to be charged with a throwing error on Gonzalo Marquez's game-tying single in the bottom half of the frame that allowed Gene Tenace to score the winning run. Blue Moon Odom shut down Detroit 5–0 in Game 2. The end of Game 2 was marred by an ugly incident in which Tiger reliever Lerrin Lagrow hit A's shortstop and leadoff hitter Bert Campaneris on the ankle with a pitch. An angered Campaneris flung the bat at Lagrow, and Lagrow ducked just in time for the bat to sail over his head. A bench-clearing brawl ensued, and both players were suspended for the remainder of the series. It was widely thought (and years later confirmed by Lagrow) that Martin had ordered the pitch that hit Campaneris, who had three hits, two stolen bases and two runs scored in the game.[12]

As the series shifted to Detroit, the Tigers caught their stride. Joe Coleman held the A's scoreless on seven hits in Game 3, a 3–0 Tiger victory. Game 4 was another pitchers' duel between Hunter and Lolich, resulting again in a 1-1 tie at the end of nine innings. Oakland scored two runs in the top of the 10th and put the Tigers down to their last three outs. Detroit pushed two runs across the plate to tie the game before Jim Northrup came through in the clutch again. His single off Dave Hamilton scored Gates Brown to give the Tigers a 4-3 win and even the series at two games apiece.

A first-inning run on an RBI ground out from Bill Freehan, set up by a Gene Tenace passed ball that allowed Dick McAuliffe to reach third, gave Detroit an early lead in the deciding fifth and final game in Detroit. Reggie Jackson's steal of home in the second inning tied it up, though Jackson was injured in a collision with Freehan and had to leave the game. Tenace's two-out single to left field plated George Hendrick to give Oakland a 2–1 lead in the fourth inning. The run was controversial to many Tiger fans, as Hendrick was ruled safe at first base two batters prior to the Tenace hit. Hendrick appeared to be out by two steps on a grounder to short, but umpire John Rice ruled that Norm Cash pulled his foot off first base. Replays and photos, however, show that Cash did not pull his foot.[13] Thanks to that play and four innings of scoreless relief from Vida Blue, the A's took the American League pennant and a spot in the World Series.

A slow decline (1973–78)
The 1973 season saw the Tigers drop to third place in the division, with an 85-77 record. Joe Coleman posted another 23 wins, but the other Tiger starters had subpar seasons. Willie Horton hit .316, but injuries limited him to just 111 games. Jim Northrup posted the best batting average of his career (.307) but was inexplicably limited to part-time duty (119 games played), which Northrup attributed to an ongoing feud with Billy Martin that had actually started in the 1972 ALCS. Northrup even proclaimed to the press that Martin "took the fun out of the game."[14] Martin did not survive the 1973 season as manager. He was fired that September after ordering his pitchers to throw spitballs (and telling the press that he did so) in protest of opposing Cleveland Indians pitcher Gaylord Perry, whom Martin was convinced was doing the same. Base coach Joe Schultz served as interim manager for the final 28 games of the season.

A bright spot for the Tigers in 1973 was relief pitcher John Hiller, who marked his first full season since suffering a heart attack in 1971 by collecting a league-leading 38 saves and posting a brilliant 1.44 ERA. Hiller's saves total would stand as a Tiger record until 2000, when it was broken by Todd Jones' 42 saves. (Jones' record would later be broken by Jose Valverde's 49 saves in 2011.)

The Tigers spent much of the next decade in the middle or lower ranks of the AL East. In 1974, Ralph Houk, who managed the dominant Yankee teams of the early 1960s, was named manager of the Tigers. "The Major" served in that capacity for five full seasons, through the end of the 1978 season. The roster of players who played under Houkwere mostly aging veterans from the 1960s, whose performance had slipped from their peak years. The Tigers did not have a winning season from 1974 to 1977, and their 57 wins in the 1975 season was the team's lowest since 1952. Perhaps the biggest signal of decline for the Tigers was the retirement of Kaline following the 1974 season, after he notched his 3,000th career hit. Kaline finished with 3,007 hits and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1980.

1976

Main article: 1976 Detroit Tigers season
Tiger fans were provided a glimmer of hope when 21-year old rookie Mark Fidrych made his debut in 1976. Fidrych, known as "The Bird", was a colorful character known for talking to the baseball and other eccentricities. During a game against the Yankees, Graig Nettles responded to Fidrych's antics by talking to his bat. After making an out, he later lamented that his Japanese-made bat didn't understand him. Fidrych was the starting pitcher for the American League in the All Star Game played that year in Philadelphia to celebrate the American Bicentennial. He finished the season with a record of 19–9 and an American League-leading ERA of 2.34. Fidrych, the AL Rookie of the Year, was one of the few bright spots that year with the Tigers finishing next to last in the AL East in 1976.

Aurelio Rodríguez won the Gold Glove Award for 1976 at third base, snapping a 16-season streak in which Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson had won every award at the position.

Injuries to his knee, and later his arm, drastically limited Fidrych's appearances in 1977–78, as the Tigers remained in the lower ranks of the AL East. Perhaps more important, however, was the talent coming up through the Tigers farm system at the time.

The "Bless You Boys" era (1979–87)
Houk's immediate successor as Tiger manager in 1979 was Les Moss, but Moss would only last until June of that year. From June 14, 1979 until the end of the 1995 season, the team was managed by George "Sparky" Anderson, one of baseball's winningest managers and owner of two World Series rings as manager of the Cincinnati Reds during their peak as The Big Red Machine. When Anderson joined the Tigers in 1979 and assessed the team's young talent, he boldly predicted that it would be a pennant winner within 5 years.[15]

Acerbic sports anchor Al Ackerman of Detroit's WXYZ-TV (and later WDIV-TV) initiated the phrase "Bless You Boys" whenever the Tigers would win a game—sarcastically at first, because the team still wasn't winning enough to be respectable. But the Tigers became steadily competitive, with winning records in each of Anderson's first four full seasons (1980–83), and Ackerman's phrase would take on a new meaning in 1984.