Week 7: 5 Wins, 2 Losses

Lots of W's, not so many R's...

The Tiger's finished up what was, overall, an impressive week at home. They won 5 out of 7. They finished up a sweep of Oakland. Then they swept Texas. They lost the final series to Colorado.

Pitching: Galarraga continues to struggle badly. He had two starts and gave up 9 runs in a total of 6 innings over 2 starts. The first start lasted only 2/3 of an inning with 5 runs. The next one was better, but 4 runs over 5 1/3 wasn't enough to prevent the first loss of the homestand. Verlander continues to dominate everyone he pitches (77 strikeouts in 56 1/3 innings- 2nd in the Major Leagues behind Peavy). Willis had 2 good starts (actually one great start and one good start). Jackson and Porcello also had solid starts.

Hitting: After starting very strong the bats kind of lost it this weekend against the Rockies. Both Marquis and Hammel pitched very good games for Colorado and Detroit only put up 4 runs in the last two games of the week. But prior to that they were averaging 5.6 runs per game as they swept their way through Oakland and Texas.

Defense: Tigers' defense this week was very solid. There were many great plays and only 1 error for the week. Lee Panas at Tiger Tales writes up the difference in defense between last year and this year. It adds up to a great cycle of "win"- the defense helps the pitchers and the pitchers help the defense. Starters go longer into games. Last week the starters averaged 5.5 innings of work (and that includes Galarraga's 2/3 inning).

Overall: This week saw the 40 game mark that Sparky used as his bench mark for determining if a team had what it takes to compete. Well, at the 40 game mark of 2009 the Detroit Tigers were 24 and 16. Their starting rotation has an ERA of 4.0 and the Bullpen has an ERA of 4.58. They are scoring an average of 5.29 runs per game. They have 2 lights out starters (Verlander and Jackson). Porcello, at 20 years old, leads the team with 5 wins and looks like a great pitchers. The team is in 1st place of the AL Central by 3 games and just had an 8 game winning streak. So far, this looks like a very solid team and one that the rest of the League won't be able to ignore.