I’m At A Loss
By Blake VandeBunte • Apr 13th, 2008 • Category: 2008 season, Dontrelle Willis, Ivan Rodriguez, Jason Grilli, Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, Placido PolancoSo here we are, 2-10. The Tigers are 8 games under .500 was in 2005. Last year the worse off they were was one game under and in 2006 they didn’t spend a single second under the break even point. If you’ve spent any time this season watching the Tigers you’ve seen some sick stuff. Errors. Walks. Strike outs. High pitch counts. Pop ups. A disaster all the way around. Let’s take a fun little look at some of the problems:
The Small Four: The Tigers currently have four regulars, five if you count Marcus Thames hitting below .200. Placido Polanco (.154), Gary Sheffield (.179), Ivan Rodriguez (.195), and Miguel Cabrera (.
175) are hitting well below where they should be. These four play every single day so you can see that this would lead to a huge lack of base runners and when there are runners these guys do what they can to end the rally. Obviously the optimist likes to say that they’ll all turn it around and start hitting. What if they don’t though? Then what? What if they all hit around .250 this season? Is that impossible? I don’t think so. Sheffield and Pudge are clearly past their prime and may have reached their drop off points. Polanco is injured and he played over his head last season. That brings us to Cabrera. The guy signed the huge deal just before the season started and the team has huge expectations. It could be that he’s feeling the pressure. If the Tigers and Miguel continue to struggle he will get booed. How will he handle that? Let’s see.
The Rotation: Four members of the Tigers starting rotation currently sport ERA’s above 6.50. Everyone but Jeremy Bonderman is really struggling right now. Rogers and Willis are really struggling with their control and I breathe a sigh of relief every time one of them actually records an out. Justin Verlander hasn’t won yet and has that elevated ERA but for the most part he’s been pretty decent, he’ll get it going. Nate Robertson has allowed 9 earned runs in his 10.1 innings of work so far. This group features the old (Rogers), the ineffective (Robertson) and the puzzling (Willis). This group is the key to the Tigers success this year. If they can’t get it together we are screwed.
The Bullpen: Aside from an one really awful game the bullpen hasn’t been that bad. Sure it’d be nice if Rodney and Zumaya were healthy, but they’re not. That’s why this team is frustrating. While Jason Grilli isn’t the ideal 8th inning guy it’s not his fault he’s being put in that role. For the Tigers to be good this year they need all of their pieces to fit together at once. They need career years out of some unexpected arms in the bullpen. So far Aqulino Lopez looks like he could be one of those guys and maybe Denny Bautista, but it’s a long season it’s just too soon to say. Yorman Bazardo and Zach Miner have looked absolutely awful so far and Bazardo has already played his way off of the team. This group is a work in process which obviously isn’t ideal. It’s hard to hold much against them though when there are plenty of bigger problems on the squad.
So, what happens from here? I have to imagine there will be some changes here at some point and if there aren’t there should be. This team has no excuse for being 2-10, that’s a joke. They have the second highest payroll and all I keep hearing is that it’s too cold out and it’s making things tough or they just weren’t prepared to start the season, they aren’t hungry, they are realizing they still need to work for their wins even though they are packed with talent. All that crap sounds the same and it sure as hell doesn’t make me feel any better about the team.
I still have around 30 games to go to this season. I want to see a team that is at least competitive. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
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Blake VandeBunte is a posting fiend.
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What are we paying Cabrera per RBI? Like $77 million. That’s good value right there. Somebody (maybe Leyland)needs to go. They don’t even look like they are trying. It’s aweful. I was more interested in the 2003 team because we knew what to expect and at least they were young. I hate this team right now.