Yes, the Detroit Tigers Can Win the AL Central Division

As you know if you’re a regular reader, I know better than to think how a team is doing on Memorial Day will be a direct prediction for how the team finishes the year (although, if you look back the past two years in the American League, it predicted all but one of the playoff teams).

Nonetheless, I’d rather the team I root for be leading the division by four games and have the best ERA in the AL on that day, you know? That is the fortunate place the Tigers find themselves in now that they are more than 25 percent through the season.

Comparisons to 2006 are popping up all of a sudden, and for good reasons. For one, Tigers fans and writers really don’t a lot of other successful seasons to compare this to in recent years, because the franchise was so wildly bad for nearly two decades.

But also, Detroit is getting it done with crisp pitching and solid defense yet again. Obviously, 2006 was a banner year for the team, with the Tigers finishing the season as one of the final two teams playing due in large part to running through the playoffs.

My sights aren’t set so high this year: You never know what will happen in October. But based on what we’ve seen so far, I think the 2009 Tigers have a pretty good shot to pick up what they lost on the last day of the regular season in 2006: the Central Division pennant. It would be their first.

What Detroit had in 2006 and 2009, but not in the middle two years, was consistent pitching at this point in the season. The Tigers lead the AL with a 3.87 ERA. They lead baseball with six shutouts.

Their top two pitchers have ERAs of 2.55 and 3.55 respectively, and the second number belongs to Justin Verlander, who has gone six consecutive games of allowing two runs or less.

Throw in the rookie, Rick Porcello (with a 1.13 ERA his last four starts, 3.55 overall), and you’ve got a step toward a series sweep when these three take the mound in order.

If Dontrelle Willis deals anything like his past two games, and Jeremy Bonderman looks like the pitcher he was before having a rib and blood clot removed, the Tigers pitching staff with a league-best 4.34 runs allowed per game may get even better as the season unfolds.

How’s this compare to the past couple of seasons? I glanced through my archives a bit to get a feel. Let’s just throw out 2008 right now, that will teach us nothing. In 2007, the Tigers were allowing 4.79 runs per game at this point in the season, making due with Chad Durbin, Mike Maroth and Nate Robertson in the rotation.

In 2006, they were off to an incredible start with a rookie Verlander being joined by Maroth (before his injury cost him most of the season), Jeremy Bonderman and Kenny Rogers. They allowed just 3.39 runs per game and had nine shutouts through 48 games.

The bullpens in 2006 and 2009 look similar too, in style if not substance. Joel Zumaya was just earning his reputation as a rookie flamethrow that year. In 2007, he was lost for much of the season in May when he blew up a tendon on a finger in his pitching hand. He was never the same that year, and injured for a large chunk of 2008.

Now, he reprises his roll as a flame-thrower, this time as the setup man. Likewise, Fernando Rodney was a healthy setup man in 2006, missed chunks of 2007 and 2008, and has now moved up an inning to close for the Tigers.

Gone is lefty-specialist Jamie Walker, but now he’s called Bobby Seay, and he can get right-handers out, too. Gone is Todd Jones, but enter … Bobby Lyon? At least he’s not pitching in the ninth, right?

On top of it, the Tigers can now trot out another radar-buster in Ryan Perry, and he’s not even being asked to work the late innings right now, but he’s got 18 strikeouts in 19 innings to go with a 2.33 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP.

And I’ve said nothing of the offense, which is scoring half a run per game more than it was at this point in 2006, and that’s with Curtis Granderson and Magglio Ordonez battling slumps this year, and Carlos Guillen on the disabled list.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you this team is better than 2006—though I have to tell you, it looks better at this point than the 2007 team that won 88 games did. But I am going to tell you this:

I don’t think it’s a fluke. This is a good baseball team. It should be considered the AL Central favorites

Again, the standard boilerplate “but” goes here. There’s almost 120 games left. The Tigers still have to beat Chicago and Minnesota with a bit more regularity than they have in the past few years. They’re going to have to limit Porcello’s innings. And unforseen injuries can knock all but the deepest teams off track.

I’m not saying to stand in line to buy your postseason tickets quite yet. But you might want to keep your October plans open, just in case.