Tigers Win Series, But Make No Progress [BLOG]
By: Brian Chapman
@bchapsports
Tuesday was a good day to be a Detroit Tigers fan. For the second straight day they had beaten the Kansas City Royals. For the third straight day they had won a baseball game. For the first time in weeks they had tied the Royals for the lead in the American League Central (and considering the Royals trail 4-2 in their suspended game against the Cleveland Indians, you could make the argument that the Tigers were all alone in first place.) And for the first time since the All Star break they were fifteen games above .500.
The Tigers were showing signs that they were flipping the switch during this series and rounding into championship form. On Monday and Tuesday, watching the Royals was like watching an opponent of Tiger Woods go head to head with him in the final paring on the final day of a major (at least before his car accident.) Woods's opponents always crumbled under the pressure allowing him to win on Sundays with ease and it seemed as if the Tigers' mere presence on the field with the Royals scared them into miscue after miscue. How else can you explain Eric Hosmer making two errors on one play and Jarrod Dyson getting picked off of second base in the ninth inning?
I also heard a new and improved message coming from clubhouse on Tuesday night. Ian Kinsler: "We kind of control our own destiny." Max Scherzer: "We have the talent in this clubhouse to get it done. We can play with anybody in baseball and we can beat anybody in baseball if we play our 'A' game." Those are the comments of a team that knows it owns the division and expects to make a deep run in October. Those comments also sound so much encouraging than last month's nonsense from Brad Ausmus, Victor Martinez and others about how fans expectations for the team to run away with the division were unreasonable. (If you ask me, a three-time division champion trying to publically lower the bar sounds pretty unreasonable.)
In addition, the Tigers were getting healthier. Miguel Cabrera's move to designated hitter coincided with an increase in power and helped him in the American League Player of the Week last week. On Tuesday night the team announced that relief pitcher Joakim Soria would be activated from the disabled list the next day. There was even a positive health report on Jose Iglesias!
Everything was setting up for the Tigers to prove they were back. All they had to do was hope that Mother Nature would not rain on Wednesday's game and complete the sweep of the choking Royals.
Then Wednesday's game happened. "Big Game" James Shields was dominant, he and the Royals bullpen shutout the Tigers and the Tigers were back in their unfortunately familiar position of second place in the division. From a purely mathematical standpoint, the Tigers chopped the Royals lead in half over the course of the series. That is better than losing two of three or getting swept. But with the series complete, I don't feel like the Tigers made any progress over the last three days and I am just as dissatisfied with this team as I was head into the series.
For me, this is about more than inching closer to the Royals or trying to take it one game at a time or one series at a time. This is about a baseball team that has been mired in mediocrity for most of the season. Since their 27-12 start, the Tigers are 53-54 over their last .500 games. Whether you classify that as basically .500 baseball (which it is) or losing baseball (which it is) it is completely unacceptable for a team that is supposed to be a World Series contender. A win on Wednesday also would have pushed them to 16 games above .500 for just the second time this year. Instead the Royals are there once again and the Tigers continue to hit their head on the glass ceiling that should have been their glass floor after the 27-12 start.
I value playing well and finding ways to win games more than I do just being in first place because if you play well and find ways to win games, what the competition does is basically irrelevant. I've been waiting for this team to do that and to get to 20 games above .500, then 25 games above .500 and beyond for months, but they continue to show no improvement as a team and at 14 teams above .500 with 16 games to play it seems more and more likely that they will never get to 20 games above .500 this season. And 20 games above .500 is not asking a lot. That just means finishing with a 91-71 record which is good, but hardly great.
We've been waiting for this team to break out of this stretch and put together a long winning streak to pass Kansas City and surge comfortably into lead in the division. Instead the Tigers can't even manage a four-game winning streak. Check the schedule. The Tigers' longest winning streak since the All Star break is a mere three games. Wednesday was a chance to get to four straight (which is by no means a grand accomplishment) and instead the Tigers were blanked, proved that nothing has changed and showed that the flip has not been switched.
With all that said, I still absolutely believe that the Tigers have clinched the division and they will go to the playoffs as the American League Central champions for the fourth straight year. I just don't trust the Royals offense, I don't trust their mental fortitude and I still believe that the Tigers will somehow rattle off maybe 11 or 12 wins down the stretch to close the casket because they are the better team. But until they do that I will continue to be disappointed in this team and fans have will have to continue the pathetic practice of scoreboard watching and rooting for the Royals to lose the division because the Tigers refuse to just win it.
And if the Tigers back into a division title with a mere 88 wins, it will force their fans into believing they have a chance to win it all only because the MLB playoffs are a crapshoot, not because their team actually looks the part of a World Series champion.