It hasn’t been exactly one week since my last week review, but I wanted to make this entry before the Tigers start their weekend series vs the Rangers. Our Boys of Summer just finished their first road trip of the season, and come home with a 4-2 record from the 2 series. The trip started out a little rocky, but finished strong. Detroit now has two 4 game winning streaks on the year, this includes 2 sweeps out of 4 series. Although they didn’t win the Chicago series, their cumulative road record is equivalent to 2 series wins. Detroit has started out extremely hot on the season, the 9-3 record is enough to give them a 2.5 game lead over the 2nd place White Sox.
Let’s jump into the action. The bats went dead against the South-siders over the weekend. I knew this team wouldn’t be able to score 7 runs a game for the season, but I was a little surprised with how much they were shut down against the Sox. The first game was full of strikeouts, but then in the later innings the Tigers were able to hit the ball hard. The problem here was that they couldn’t buy a break with Chicago making two spectacular diving plays to save multiple runs. Saturday the at bats were pretty terrible, and they could only scrape together a late Boesch home run for their lone score of the afternoon. Sunday saw a lot more breaks go Detroit’s way, with 2 runs scoring from wild pitches. The Tigers also had runners in scoring position with less than 2 outs in 3 different innings, yet they couldn’t manage to get a clutch hit. One thing that came from the weekend is the starting pitching looked great. Yes, there will be different series where the starting pitching struggles to get 1 quality start, but so far this year Detroit is 2nd in the AL in ERA (even after winning one game 13-12). It was important to come out of the Windy City with at least 1 win, and that win sparked the team heading into the BBQ capitol of the world.
Before matching up with the Royals, I had a feeling the bats would come alive in the 3 game set. This is mostly because the Indians scored 33 runs in the 3 games prior to the Tigers arriving. I guess the terrible pitching resulted in the starters being very rested, but the bullpen was in shambles. The Royals are built to score runs, their roster is loaded with young talent but the youth insurgence hasn’t made it to the pitching rotation yet. Yes, they have a veteran 29 year old lefty, and a future star in the mix, but the other guys are average. This series turned into 3 pitcher’s duels. Verlander and Duffy battled each other with high 90’s fast balls, Smyly and Chen battled throwing some nasty breaking balls, and then Scherzer and Sanchez had a power/finesse duel. You already know the outcome (and my feelings) about Verlander’s start. Smyly and Scherzer followed with gems of their own. The bats began getting some clutch hits in the last 2 games of the series, and hopefully this carries over to the 4 game set with Texas starting tonight. Miggy started hitting again, and it seems like every time he gets on base Prince has a great at bat to follow. Austin had his first rough series, but still had a couple of walks and some nice at bats that didn’t result in hits. For some Detroit fans, the possible highlight of the trip to KC was Brandon Inge with his first home run for the big ball club this season (it ended up being the game winner on Monday night).
Out of the 12 games the Tigers have played this season, the starting pitching has 8 quality starts. What is even more crazy is they would have had 10 if not for injuries (Fister was working on a shutout when he pulled a muscle in his side, and Wilk had given up 2 runs in 5 innings before he got blasted by a Fielder foul ball). Going into this season most people had some questions about this pitching rotation, and then even more concerns came up from the Fister injury. So far the pitching staff has looked very good overall. This is not unusual for this early in the season with the cold weather, but it is still impressive for a team made for hitting. The bullpen has been less than spectacular so far in the first 2 weeks though. To nobody’s surprise, the worst of the bunch is Schlereth. He should serve one purpose for this team… pitching batting practice before every game. Valverde and Benoit have had their share of struggles as well. I have confidence in the latter to get it turned around, which will make our bullpen one of our strengths. If these guys can stay healthy, the postseason can look a lot more enjoyable than last year (Albequerque, Coke, Dotel, Benoit, and The Big Spud… if needed Balester and Below have looked pretty tough at times as well). This was the big difference between us and the Rangers last season, but the Tigers have the look of a strong Fall baseball team right now.
Moving forward, the Tigers come to the friendly confines of Comerica Park. Except they welcome one of the best teams in the league. In the last ESPN Power Rankings, Texas was number 1 and Detroit was number 2. These teams are a combined 19-5 on the season, and they lead the AL in almost all categories (ERA: Tex #1, Det #2; BA: Tex #1, Det #2, Home runs: Tex #1, Det #4). I don’t remember being this excited for an April series before. This could definitely be a preview of postseason baseball. After the Rangers come to the Motor City, Detroit welcomes the Mariners. It should be a fun week of baseball for Tiger’s fans!
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