Tigers' Galarraga Struggles After Hot Start: Haven't We Seen This Before?

After Armando Galarraga’s strong rookie season, many writers wrote about how they didn’t totally buy his performance.  They acknowledged that he had a good season but that a lot of it had to do with luck.  I considered this all over the offseason but threw it out the window after his dominating April.  Now, here we are in June and the guy is a disaster.

Is it possible that Armando Galarraga is another Chris Shelton?

Many Tigers fans remember Shelton’s amazing start to the 2006 season.  It looked like this:

• 13 games, .471/.500/1.216  9 HR, 17 RBI, 24 H

Just an unreal start for Shelton.  Things would obviously cool down from there.  This is similar to Galarraga’s start this April.  Like Galarraga, Shelton’s April of 2006 didn’t come out of nowhere.

In 2005 Shelton put together a pretty solid season, seemingly out of nowhere.  He hit .299 and slugged 18 HR in just over 100 games.  The Tigers acquired him prior to the 2004 season in the Rule Five Draft, so they gave up next to nothing to get him.  Similarily, the Tigers got Galarraga prior to the 2008 season for a minor league player who has yet to appear in the majors.

Shelton and Galarraga each put together surprisingly solid rookie seasons.  They each earned some praise form the media and fans alike.  However, after hot starts in the second full seasons, each player really struggled.

• After his first 13 games in 2006 Shelton hit only .242/.316/.348 the rest of the way with 7 HR in 102 games.  He was left off the Tigers postseason roster.
• Since Galarraga started the 2009 season 3-0, he’s gone 0-5 with an ERA of 8.49.  He is currently in danger of getting cut from the Tigers starting rotation.

Shelton could never recover.  He spent all of the 2007 season in the minors and got only a few at-bats in 2008 with the Texas Rangers.  Hopefully we don’t see the same thing happen to Galarraga.  The guy was a great story in 2008 and could play a major role in the Tigers 2009 run to the postseason.