Tanking Tigers: Detroit in Complete Free Fall

On May 18th, Detroit Tigers held a 27-12 record. They were one of the best teams in baseball at the time.
No one was surprised by this given the Tigers' success in the last couple of years with a World Series appearance and making the playoffs the last three seasons. Since that date, Detroit has been a complete and utter dumpster fire as they have lost the last 15 of their last 21 games sending this team in a complete tailspin. The major problem starts with their once elite starting pitching staff and the severe drop-off of their offense after Victor Martinez and Miguel Cabrera.

Once upon time, Detroit bolstered one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball. As Matt Sussman of Baseball Prospectus pointed out only the Colorado Rockies have a worse starting pitching ERA than the Tigers do in the last 30 days. It starts with their ace Justin Verlander. At the middle of May when things were all hunky dory, Verlander had an ERA of 2.67 on a streak of going seven innings in three consecutive starts. Since then, it has went completely off the rails. In five of his last six starts, Verlander has given up at least five runs with his high watermark being a nine-run disaster against Texas in a 12-4 defeat. Is one of the problems, Manager Brad Ausmus is letting him go too long?

In the last six starts where we highlighted how bad Verlander has been, he also pitched an average of 114 pitches. How on earth does that make sense?  Ausmus is a new manager, and it appears he is timid when it comes to removing Verlander from the game. If he is not good, get him and try to salvage the game instead of hoping Verlander will figure out. Sure, he will be upset, but right now for Detroit, he cannot let his ego get in the way. Max Scherzer, the man whom turned down 150 million dollar deal before the season started, had an ERA of 1.83 at May 16th since then Schrezer's ERA is up nearly one and a half runs with him giving up at least four runs in all four stars including giving up an average of 10 hits. Scherzer's highest hit total before May 16th was giving up seven against Chicago in late April. If the Tigers want to fix this staff, it starts with Verlander and Scherzer.

Their starting pitching isn't their only problem though as their hitting is not helping out things either in Detroit Rock City. Victor Martinez and Miguel Cabrera are having All-Star caliber-like years, but after that, there is not much to write home about. Ian Kinsler was one of the biggest splashes in the offseason is hitting .154 for the month of June with an anemic OBP of .175 with only one home run. It is fair to wonder if Kinsler peaked in 2011 when he hit 32 home runs as he has seen his homer numbers decrease in the last two years and on pace for only 16 this season. Torii Hunter got off to a blazing start hitting .342 with 10 of 24 hits being extra-base variety and while he had a decent May, Hunter's June has been below-average with .195 average with only one home run, his only extra-base hit. Tigers desperately need someone other than Martinez and Cabrera to get hot quick.

All hope is not lost for Detroit. They play in arguably the weakest division in baseball. Detroit still leads the division despite this terrible streak. In any other division, Detroit is trailing a division leader and if not for the NL East, they would be trailing by more than five games as well.  Although the one problem is all five teams are within four games of each other meaning this could be an all-out war for the AL Central crown by September even if it only takes 87 wins to take the title.

Charlie.