Alright, I need to put some perspective on this because it is starting to simply look bad. Of course I am not a professional sports writer. (Hey, it's only the third time I've posted to this blog so I won't even claim amateur status for sports writing.)
I will comfortably claim "Tigers' fan" and "baseball fan" status though and that gives me as much qualification as anyone else for looking at today's situation. Let's look at this hard and close-don't flinch now because it stings a little...
Tigers
Swept
at Home
by
the Royals
The mighty Tigers who (statistically) should score somewhere between 5 and 6 runs per game with all of the incredible hitters they have up there every day. The Tigers who have been picked by many of those professional writers to win the American League Central Division (aka "The toughest division in baseball"). The Tigers who we wish would just start selling 2008 World Series Tickets now so we can get it over with. Uh, yeah, those Tigers. I guess that's why Mr. Leyland reminds us that we have to actually play the games to see who wins. Because this series didn't show us any winning.
The first game was actually the most competitive for the Tigers. They scored runs, hit the ball and overall played well rounded baseball. The Royals simply did the same thing with one more run than Detroit when it was all said and done on Monday. Wednesday the batters (except for Renteria) simply never woke up. Thursday there were more hits, but only one more run. Brandon Inge showed us his power again with a solo home run that amounted to Detroit's only run of the day. Actually it was the only run since the Carlos Guillen solo home run on Monday.
Bonderman pitched a pretty good game until the 4th. He was throwing lots of strikes and getting outs. Then he gave up a 2 run home run to Alex Gordon. Not exactly "The Big Inning" people worry about with Mr. Bonderman (and much later than the 1st) but if Brandon Inge is your plan for run support then those 2 runs can seem like 20. Bonderman seemed to be losing his gas in the 6th and 7th innings and he gave up a run in each. He was certainly not dominating in those innings like he was early in the game (not one but TWO 1,2,3 innings today (the 1st and 3rd)!!
Now for the perspective part-
Flashback 12 months. April 6, 2007. The Tigers (defending American League Champion Tigers) have just completed 3 games. They are in last place because they have lost 2 of those 3 games. In fact the second loss was to the Royals. In fact I remember April of 2007 as being a rather dismal month for the Tigers. They came out of it with a winning record, but the hitters weren't hitting and the bullpen was scaring people (just like this week). So while we certainly don't like to see them lose. And we certainly don't like to see them get swept- At home- By the Royals. All in all these are three games with 159 (plus?) to go.
The White Sox come to Detroit Friday for a 3 game series. Let's see what happens with them.
Royals 4, Tigers 1
0 - 3
5th place
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