The sky is falling in Detroit!

The Tigers dropped three-in-a-row to the lowly Royals!  The AL Central is surely lost!  We will all perish in flames!

Relax, everybody.  While yesterday’s loss to the Royals, and their subsequent sweep of the Tigers is embarrassing, it is far from devastating.

Minnesota managed only one win in their trip to the barren Rogers Centre.  Time is on the Tigers side.  If Minnesota and Chicago keep playing sub-capable baseball, all we have to do is wait them out.

While it is tragic that the Tigers couldn’t take advantage of this heavily favored match up further, they did technically shave a game or two games off of their magic number in the AL Central, which now stands at 18.

Now that I have quelled your fears, let’s focus on what we just saw.

A Bullpen – Battered!

Anemic offense has been an ongoing problem this season.  But the brunt of this series loss can be placed on a uncharacteristically mediocre Tigers bullpen.

Starting pitching was, again, dependable.  But it’s tough to win games when your bullpen gives up 14 hits and 9 earned runs over 7 innings of work while walking 7 and striking out 3.

Numbers like this you could expect from a tough series in New York or Boston, but this was against a team that’s not exactly nationally-renown for its offensive prowess.  Kansas City is among the bottom five teams in runs scored this season.

Let’s hope the bullpen gets its mediocrity out of its system with this performance.

A Lefty – Awakened!

In a recent post discussing the lack of production on behalf of the Tigers late season acquisitions I talked about how it would only be a matter of time before Aubrey Huff’s bat woke up.  And if it didn’t, who cares, we got him for a song.

This prognostication looks like it is beginning to ring true, as Huff has put up some good numbers in the past three series.  So far in September Huff has hit .320 with 3 doubles, 1 home run and 6 RBIs.  He’s also drawn a couple of walks.

That’s more like it.

Another Lefty – Contained!

Looks like another Tiger has been de-clawed by apparent “knee problems.”

While Jarrod Washburn hardly threw a gem yesterday in Kansas City, it wasn’t a disaster like some of his outings in a Tigers uniform.  One thing is obvious- he’s certainly struggling.  He didn’t put the game out of reach, but he labored through 5 innings throwing over 100 pitches.

His walks are up, his home runs allowed are up and many believe his sinker isn’t nearly as effective as it was earlier in the season.

Bring on Toronto!

Time to move on from this defeat.  We have the Blue Jays coming to down for a four game series.  There’s a few bright spots to that.  They’re a sub-500 team and we won’t have to face Roy Halladay.

Time to shrink that magic number down to size.