Week 21
4 Wins, 2 Losses
Soooo, perhaps this team can compete in a playoff series after all? It seems to look more and more like it. You might ask "Are you crazy?!" and you might ask with good reason, but here is what I am seeing right now that makes me believe that this team might advance in the post-season.
Exhibit A: this past week the 1st place Detroit Tigers took a series in LA against the Angels. The Angels are another 1st place team and have a better record (74 - 48 when the series started) than the Tigers (65-58 at the time). The Angels (36-22), like the Tigers (40-20), play very well at home this year. Yet Detroit came in and took the first 2 games (and the Season Series) this week. Washburn and Verlander each won their games, and neither was especially dominating. Each gave up 8 hits and Verlander walked 4, but they didn't allow those runners to score.
Exhibit B: after taking down the Angels the Tigers came home to face the defending AL champion Tampa Bay Rays. Tampa is another good team (69-58 at the start of the series) who score lots of runs but don't allow many. But Detroit in Detroit is nearly unbeatable and they have proven it so far in this series. Friday they scored 6 runs and allowed only 2 (Porcello picked up the win). Saturday they seemed t0 sleep (again) losing 1-3 but Sunday Polanco provided an 8th inning 3 run HR to give the Tigers a 4-3 win. Once again, a good team beaten at a crucial time.
Exhibit C: this one is more historical. So far in Leyland's tenure as manager the month of August has not been a good month for Tigers' baseball. They were a combined 31-50 in the past 3 Augusts (2006-2008). In 2006 and 2007 they watched their division rivals over take them in the
Dog Days. (Of course in 2008 they didn't worry about being chased). Yet this year the
Tigers are 15-12 with one game to go. Whether is is the young talent coming up from the farm system (
Avila,
Thomas) or the pick ups of
Guillen off of the DL and
Washburn in a late trade. Magglio Ordonez has gotten hot with his bat (yes, I know that he still isn't hitting home runs but he is still the
second best hitter since the All Star Break) (thanks to
Spot Starters for doing the work on that). Cabrera is smok'n hot right now. Inge and Granderson are starting to warm up again after slowing way down. (Maybe it's the
tattoos on Inge?) Who cares?
In the "month of August" (weeks 18-21) the hitters have scored 114 runs (4.38/ game) on 228 hits (.258 BA) and a Slugging % of .436. Compare this to July (weeks 14-17) where they scored 91 runs (4.14/ game) on 186 hits (.249 BA) and SLG % of .391 and they were 10-12.
This is a good thing because it appears that the pitchers are starting to show that they are human (at least the starters). The ERA for the starters has risen to 4.57 in August. The WHIP hasn't risen a great deal, but the number of HR they have given up has risen. Home runs per 9 innings pitched in August was 1.52, by far the worst month of the season for that stat.
I don't have the stats set up to break down the Bull Pen's numbers, but
Tiger Tales has done a much better job of it than I could, so
look here to see that the Pen is doing well.
Defensively the Tigers allowed 16 errors weeks 18 through 21, an average of .62 per game. This has been pretty consistent all year.
So, to wrap up- August is basically over and the Tigers made it through better than any time in the last 3 years. 80% of the season has been played and our
Detroit Tigers are still in first place!
here are the standings....
Tigers 1st
Twins 2nd 4.5 back
W. Sox 3rd 6.0 back
Clev 4th 11.5 back
Royals 5th 19.5 back
(photo from mlb.com)
