The Sleepers awake?!

Can this be for real? Do we dare hope? Can we handle more ups and downs from these 2008 Tigers?

I don't pretend to know all of the answers, but let's look at the numbers and see what they say?

I've said before that although the hitting hasn't been that great this year it is really the defense and pitching that are hurting the Tigers, so how is that working out lately?

In Weeks 1 through 3 the ERA for the Starting Rotation was just north of 6 (6.17 by my figures) and they were facing an average of 4.67 batters per inning (BPI). During that stretch the Tigers' record was 5 and 13.

Compare that to Weeks 9 through 11 (we are finishing up Week 11 now)- ERA for Starters is 3.66. That number includes both Dontrelle Willis' terrible night Monday against Cleveland and Justin Verlander's amazing night on Wednesday against Chicago. Not giving up over two runs per game is huge! The Starters are also facing fewer batters per inning, only 4.21 since June 1 so they are staying in the game longer with lower ERA's.

Now to that hitting thing...
In the first two weeks the lineup scored 33 runs (3 runs per game). For this week and last week they have scored 43 runs (4.3 runs per game). Their Batting Average was .246 at the beginning. In the last two weeks is has been .254. Their slugging percentage (total bases/ at bats) was .356 in the early weeks and has been .375 in the last two.

All of these trends are in the right direction! In the first 3 weeks of the year their record was 6 and 12 (.333). In the last 3 weeks it has been 7 and 9 (with 3 games to play yet this week). If the Starting pitching continues at this rate and the batters continue to score runs there is still hope that they can make this race exciting for Tigers' fans.