Hello everyone, I am back. I know you had many sleepless nights and worried work days since I havent posted in over a month, but now you can relax. I have to be honest, I didnt know how much work blogging about every Tiger series, posting power rankings, and trade rumors was going to be, but by mid-July I was burned out. So I took a break, and now I have the blogging itch again.
Since my last post, the trade deadline has come and past and the Tigers were again amongst the major buyers. Detroit offered up their once untouchable pitching prospect, Jacob Turner, with 2 other possible major leaguers for a rental pitcher, Anibal Sanchez, and former Detroit Tiger Omar Infante. At first I thought that the Tigers over spent for these two players, but in reality, every team in the league knows that Mike Illitch wants to win a world series title before he leaves ownership. On paper, this trade should sure up the Tigers rotation, and actually make a decent competition for the 4th (and final) starting spot for the playoff rotation. This is of course if the Tigers can get to the postseason again. But after a month of this trade, Sanchez is taking longer than expected to get accustomed to the AL. However, Infante continues to show Tigers fans just how big of a black hole second base has been for the past 2 seasons.
Anibal has had one quality start out of 4 with his new team and just seems uncomfortable pitching in the new league. He is struggling to get people out with the low strike out rate and appears to be over-pitching because of a lack of confidence in his stuff. I don't know if he will turn things around to even push Rick Porcello for the final spot on the postseason rotation. I hope so. Luckily, Omar Infante is proving that this trade was positive. He started slowly, but now is quickly becoming one of the Tigers most consistent hitters. All the while, he plays an above average 2nd base. I am glad he is locked up through next year.
The good: the offense seems to be more consistent than earlier in the season. If they can continue, hopefully they can carry the Tigers into the postseason. The best of the lineup has been Miguel Cabrera. He has become the first Tiger to ever hit 30 bombs with 100+ RBIs in 5 straight seasons. Folks, he is the best hitter in baseball right now, and we are witnessing history with each at bat. At this point in the season, Miguel should make the Tigers the first team in 13 years to have back to back MVP's. Yes, wonderboy Mike Trout can push Miguel for the crown, but I am crossing my fingers that the voters finally reward Miguel for being incredible. The starting pitcing, overall, has been very good. Justin Verlander is having similar secondary stats to his historic season last year, but has been the victim of the least amount of run support in the AL. This has led to only a 12-7 record, with many NDs. Verlander likely will not win back to back Cy Young awards, but he is still the clear best pitcher in the game. Doug Fister is practicing his inner Ryan Raburn by having his second strong last half of the season in a row. He has gotten his record back to 7-7, and had looked dominant on the mount lately. Finally, Max has continued his unbelievable strike out rate throughout the season and seems to be a lot more consistent this year. His less than dominant starts are still going for 6 innings and 3-4 runs, I think we can all live with that. If he continues on this pace, we can easily say we have a Big Three starting pitchers and a Big Three bashers.
There have been a few disappointing things lately, mostly it involves the gas cans in the bullpen... but this is my first post back so I dont want to focus on the bad right now. If Benoit keeps giving up bp homeruns, then I might complain soon, but for now Go Tigers.
Currently the team sits at 2.5 games behind the Dirty Sox and 1 game behind the surprising O's for the final wild card spot. With a weekend series against Baltimore, Detroit can be back in the playoff picture soon. With 16 games at Comerica in the next 19, look for Detroit to get on a bit of a hot streak.
No comments:
Post a Comment