The Houston Astros will not appear in the American League Championship Series for the first time since 2016 after being eliminated by the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday.

The Astros lost to the Tigers in straight games in their best-of-three Wild Card Round matchup.

The Tigers’ victory is a stunning turn of events for a franchise that was 55-63 after a loss to the San Francisco Giants on August 10. The Tigers went on to finish the season 31-13 and capture the final Wild Card spot in the AL. With the Kansas City Royals beating the Baltimore Orioles, the two lowest seeds in the AL have now advanced to the next round.

The wins by the Tigers and Royals continue the trend of lower-ranking players advancing when the playoffs expanded to 12 teams three seasons ago. Last season, no team in the NLCS was a division winner.

Houston won just 88 games during the regular season en route to the AL West crown. Excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020, that’s the fewest wins the Astros have had since missing the postseason entirely in 2016.

From 2017 to 2023, Houston not only competed in the ALCS every year, but also made it to the World Series four times, winning twice and losing twice.

The only other team to make multiple World Series appearances during that span is the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have made three and won once in 2020.

The Astros’ string of appearances in the Championship League series came under the specter of one of Major League Baseball’s most infamous scandals.

In 2019, an investigation by The Athletic found that Houston coaches’ players had devised an elaborate sign-stealing system in an effort to help hitters. Using cameras in centerfield, players or coaches watching the live feed could then communicate to the batters at the plate what pitch was coming via audio cues, such as banging on a garbage can.

It was revealed that the Astros used the sign-stealing system as early as 2016 through the 2018 season, which included their 2017 World Series win.