whats goin on with the Tigers

The Tigers can't even buy a victory is what it seems like of late. They either get decent pitching and don't hit, or hit and get crappy pitching. Or they can do both and get routed. Of late their has been nothing to cheer about and a team that I thought would fare better than last year's team looks to be heading toward the same kind of finish.



Not to long ago there was a stretch where the Tigers had played good ball and had gotten back in to the wild card chase with a string of winning baseball. But since that stretch things have gone south. Its usually at the end of the year that you want to be playing your best ball, but the Tigers are at a season worst 12 games below .500. Now it could be worse and Detroit could be like the lowly Kansas City Royals. But the Tigers had a season similar to K.C.'s not to long a go when they almost set the American League record for losses in a season.

Its too often in Detroit that you have to look towards next season for hope of breaking the stretch of under achieving baseball. The Tigers haven't finished above .500 since I was in freakin fifth grade - its been a good 12 years.

Magglio Ordonez, the Tigers big free agent acquisition this past offseason, even came out and stated that the team stinks in an article in today's Detroit Free Press.

The Tigers, and for quite some time now, cant seem to have players who stay healthy for an entire season to aid their cause. You have Carlos Guillen, who seemed to have never fully recovered from the injury that cut his 2004 season short. Then their is Ordonez who missed half the entire first half of the season because of injury.

The pitching seems to have run out of gas, in particular Sean Douglass and Jason Johnson. Jeremy Bonderman looks like he hasn't recovered since gettin hit a few starts back and is having elbow problems which are forcing him to miss his next start.

Usually when a team falters like the Tigers have of late, blame is turned to the manager. Obviously something isn't right - it might not necessarily be Trammell but something needs to be done differently because what the Tigers have right now isn't working. Which makes it interesting that the Detroit News had an article about Jim Leyland, who had a lot of success as a manager in professional baseball and is looking to get a job as a coach again.

Should Trammell be let go at the end of the season he might be the perfect candidate, especially since he actually has a track record of having success as a manager.



So I'm done with my venting about how the Detroit has yet again under performed, but here is hopes that next year the Tigers and fans won't have to look toward September as being a month to gauge what kind of team/talent you will have next year. Lets hope next year we can be in the thick of a wild card race, which shouldn't be too much to ask - accept it is when your in Detroit.

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Here is a Michael Rosenberg column about the Tigs. A funny line from his column:

"Pudge Rodriguez can fly to Columbia but can't drive anybody home"

- in reference to Pudge's low RBI total