DETROIT — It comes down to this:

The Detroit Tigers, once 24 games over .500, held the best record in baseball for four months, had held the top spot in the Central Division alone since April 23 and had a 10-game cushion as recently as Sept. 4, go into Cleveland for three games starting Tuesday still holding a one-game lead in the Central Division.

The Atlanta Braves finished off a three-game sweep of the Tigers Sunday with a 6-2 win before a crowd of 34,042 at Comerica Park. The game was briefly (27 minutes) halted by rain before the Tigers batted in the seventh.

It was the Tigers’ sixth straight loss, ninth in their last 10 games and they finish their home schedule with an incomprehensible seven straight losses.

The Cleveland Guardians, meanwhile, had their 10-game winning streak halted by the Minnesota Twins Sunday.

Still, it will be two teams going in opposite directions with everything on the line at Progressive Field.

Fair to ask, how’d we ever get here?

The third inning provided a nutshell demonstration of how things have gone for the Tigers during this horrific slide.

With a runner at third and two outs in the top half of the inning, Tigers’ starter Casey Mize threw a 95-mph sinker that darted in on Ronald Acuna, Jr.’s hands. The pitch broke his bat, but Acuna was able to muscle it just over Gleyber Torres into short right field.

The exit velocity off his bat was 67.9 mph but it still changed the scoreboard.

In the bottom of the inning, Braves starter Spencer Strider walked Parker Meadows and Torres ahead of the heart of the Tigers’ batting order.

Kerry Carpenter flew out to right field, not advancing the runners. Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson, the Tigers’ top two run producers, struck out against a barrage of sliders and changeups.

The frustration in the dugout and the crowd was palpable.

That angst was compounded in the fourth inning. Once again, the Tigers put the first two runners on against Strider. But Zach McKinstry struck out and Javier Báez hit into a fast 5-4-3 double-play.

The Braves, meanwhile, kept cashing in on their opportunities.

Ha-Seong Kim jumped a 92-mph four-seam fastball in the fourth inning and launched his fifth homer. With two outs in the fifth, Mize left another four-seamer (94 mph) in the middle of the plate against Drake Baldwin and he sliced it down the left-field line.

Greene made a dive for it, but it bounced past him to the wall. Baldwin ended up at third with an RBI triple.

Mize finished his day striking out Kim and Marcell Ozuna in the sixth. Once again, his stat line belied how well he pitched. The three walks were bothersome but he struck out five and got seven whiffs on 13 swings at his splitter along with 10 called strikes with his four-seamer.

But the Tigers continue to strand runners. They had runners on base in every inning through the sixth, multiple runners in six of the first eight, but were 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position before the ninth.

Manager AJ Hinch certainly wasn’t saving any bullets. With two on and one out in the sixth inning, he sent up left-handed hitting Jace Jung to pinch-hit for Báez, anticipating that Braves manager Brian Snitker would counter with a lefty.

And he did, bringing in Dylan Lee. That actually gave Hinch two right-handed swings off his bench. But Lee got both pinch-hitters, Andy Ibáñez and Jahmai Jones to end the inning.

The maneuverings left the Tigers without two of their better defensive players — shortstop Báez and center fielder Parker Meadows — for the rest of the game. But down 3-0, they had to take their shot.

They had runners at second and third with two outs in the eighth and Hinch sent up lefty-swinging Trey Sweeney against right-hander Tyler Kinley. Sweeney fouled out to third base on the first pitch.

The Braves padded their cushion in the ninth inning. Veteran right-hander Tanner Rainey, brought up Sunday morning after Charlie Morton was released, walked the first two batters and gave up an RBI double to Ozzie Albies in what turned into a three-run inning.

Down by six runs, the Tigers finally broke through in the ninth. Torres, who had two hits Sunday and seven in the series, doubled in a run and Greene lofted a sacrifice fly to score another. Insufficient.

The Tigers drew 2,413,442 fans to Comerica Park this season, the most since 2016.

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