Week 24: How badly do they want this?

The Tigers have just completed their 2 worst weeks of the season after completing two of their best weeks before that. I guess that is just how this team plays the game. In this last week they did do one thing differently though: 3 of the 4 aspects of the game sucked for Detroit instead of only 1 or 2 areas lacking.

Starting Pitching: how about an ERA of 6.69? That is 27 earned runs in 36 1/3 innings pitched for the starting rotation this week. Believe it or not, the starter with the best game was Nate "Gum Time" Robertson! Nate returned from his injury with a 5 hit, 2 run performance over 5 innings on Sunday to salvage one game from the Twins in the H.H. Dome. Other than that it was: Verlander getting hung with 5 runs twice (although I think Leyland left him in too long on Saturday and he was tired). Washburn didn't make it into the 2nd inning giving up 4 runs from his injured knee. Jackson gave up 5 runs in 5 innings. Porcello pitched well with only 3 runs allowed in 6 innings, but the Tigers couldn't give him any run support in a 3-0 loss.

Bullpen: if a 6.69 ERA wasn't bad enough, how about adding 4.21 on top of it? 12 runs in 12 2/3 innings this week. That was certainly not stopping the leaks left by the starters. Casey Fien, Bonderman and Galarraga gave up the runs in batches (4,3,3 respectively). Certainly it was an improvement over Week 23's ERA of 9.35 but it still came out to an average of 2 runs per game. Add that to the 4.5 runs/ game the starters dished out and your are in a hole and need LOTS of run support to have a hope of winning. Which brings us to...

Lineup: I'm not sure "lineup" is the correct term for this week's performance. Perhaps "rollover" or "lay down" is more appropriate. The batters (whatever name you wish to give them) came into Sunday's game against the Twins scoring only 2.5 runs per game for the week. This was the 2nd weakest week of the season for runs scored (Sunday's game brought it up to 3/game for the week). In fact after this week the Tigers have been OUTSCORED for the season! Yup. The Tigers have scored 678 runs and allowed 681. To let you understand how completely the Tigers have given up the concept of scoring runs in the last two weeks, compare that stat to where they were just 2 weeks ago. On 9/13 they had scored 630 and allowed 607. In the last two weeks they have scored a total of 48 runs while allowing 74! Don't forget the teams they have played in the last 2 weeks- KC 6 games, Toronto 4 and Minnesota 3. KC! Really? KC? Yes. Detroit allowed KC to pull their own winning % up from .375 to .409.

The one area where the Tigers continued to excel was defense. This past week had zero errors charged to Detroit. The improvements made on defense this season have been amazing. Polanco is playing an amazing 2nd base (he is a free agent this year). Inge even makes great plays on foul balls, just because he can and we like to see it. Laird has been rock solid behind the plate and throws out more baserunners than anyone else. He cut down 2 men in Saturday's game like the sheriff in an old western- bang! bam! Go sit down! There were some miscues (like Kelly's losing a flyball in the Dome Saturday) but who hasn't done that in the Dome?

So where does that leave us? Well, for me personally it leaves me depressed that they have allowed this to become a race when it never should have been. But with 13 games left to play in this season the Tigers are 3 games ahead of the Twins and 6.5 over the White Sox. They are still in 1st place and other teams have to catch them. However the Twins have caught the Tigers at the last minute before (remember 2006 anyone?) and the Wildcard is not coming from the AL Central this year, so I'm pretending not to be nervous here.**

Here are your end of week standings with 13 games to play:

Week 24		Games back	Elimination #
	Tigers	--	--
	Twins	3	11
	W. Sox	6.5	7
	Indians	18	E
	Royals	18	E

Next up is a road series starting in Cleveland and then to Chicago. The last 7 games are in Detroit against, yup- the Twins and White Sox. I'm hoping that the Twins' series is simply prep for the ALDS against the Yankees.

(**note, when I first posted this I had 9 games remaining. It's like that test in grade school where you had the correct answer but second guessed yourself and then put the wrong answer. Regardless, there are indeed 13 games left to play as of 9/21).

Other things of interest from this past week:

Rookies have no right to dignity. (Bless You Boys)

We learned what some Tigers enjoy off of the field. (Roar of the Tigers)

We were exhorted to keep perspective by Kurt at Mack Ave Tigers

The wrap up of the "8th Inning" of 2009 from Detroit Tigers Weblog (this is a very cool analysis)