Tigers lose again, fall to 0-7

All winter long baseball fans heard about how the Detroit Tigers were stacked. If I didn't know my geography well, I would have thought Detroit was a city on the East Coast with all of the attention that the Tigers were receiving from ESPN and other major sports news outlets. Heck, our own 2008 Tigers preview picked Detroit to win the AL Central. With their acquisition of Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis during the offseason, the Tigers added to a team that won 88 games in 2007 and 95 games in 2006, but these acquisitions were not enough to make a believer of me as a lack of bullpen depth concerns me even today.

Now the 2008 MLB season has begun and the Tigers are struggling. After a surprising 3-0 series sweep by the Kansas City Royals shocked the baseball world, the Tigers were again swept by the Chicago White Sox to fall to 0-6 on the season. Then Detroit traveled to face the defending World Series Champion Boston Red Sox, and the Tigers were blanked by Boston 5-0. Fans throughout the AL Central cities must be rejoicing, especially in Cleveland and Chicago.

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Typically, the start to the baseball season is all about hitters being ahead of the pitchers. While spring training is the time to knock the rust off it is surprising to see that the Tigers and their much-hyped offense have scored just 15 runs (2.1 runs/game) in their first seven games. This is the same Tigers offense that several ESPN announcers were saying on the first Sunday night game of the year would score more than 1,000 runs this season. Top top off their inability to score runs, the Tigers' have allowed a whoppng 44 runs (6.3 runs/game). Justin Verlaner has started the season 0-1 with 8 earned runs allowed in 11 2/3 innings for a 6.17 ERA.

Time will tell if the Tigers can get their season turned around, but for now, there are a lot of happy fans in other AL Central cities. The Tigers already find themselves 5 games behind the White Sox and 3.5 games behind Cleveland, the two true AL Central contenders. If the Tigers cannot begin to play above .500 baseball in the next month, histry tells us that Detroit will not be a happy city come October.

By Michael Shull
ProBaseball-fans.com Guest Writer

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