Embrace The Fear Of August, Detroit

It's no secret, August has not been kind to the Tigers in the past.

For most of this decade, bad teams, bad injuries, bad luck and bad baseball have crushed runs at .500 and division titles alike during the penultimate month of the regular season.

Remember that 10-game lead Aug. 7, 2006?

It was but a mirage barking in the summer's heat when the Tigers go 7-15 the rest of the month.

A half-game lead Aug. 15, 2007?

By Sept. 1 it was all over but the crying because the Detroiters went 5-9 to finish the month 5.5 games out.

And those were the only two seasons the team finished above .500 for the season.

The best August was an 18-10 month in 2000. The worst? When Detroit went 6-23 in 2003 (But that season was so bad, let's call it the 11-18 in 2007, because it meant a lot more than most other years).

In April, I'm thinking about August. In May, I'm thinking about August. In June and in July, I'm really thinking about August.

Uh-oh. It's here.

And the Tigers are in first place.

You tell yourself, "It's different this year." Different players, different team. Better pitching. Better fielding. Worse division-opponents (I mean, really, the Twins are in a pennant race while playing under .500?). You tell yourself to throw out the numbers between 2001 and 2004, because the team was essentially a Triple-A squad being trotted out to the field every day of the month. Talk about statistical noise if that's your thing.

But in the end, you just can't shake 2006 and 2007, when good teams picked a bad time to have an awful month.

I'm not going to tell you it's going to be any different this year. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Who's to say? But embrace the fear.

Because fear means the games matter.

It's not going to be an easy month for the Detroiters. The always-pesky Twins come to town before the Tigers head off for a four-game set in Boston. That is followed later in the month by a six-game trip to Oakland and Anaheim, and we know how the Tigers play on the west coast. And finally, there's still the matter of a set of games with the still-fighting Rays.

But despite everything, I like the Tigers' chances. I really do.

It all comes down to pitching, and Detroit has the American League's second-best earned run average (4.07) to show for it. When the summer months heat up and pitchers wilt under the sun, the Tigers still put up their best monthly ERA split of the season (3.53).

And that was before replacing a long line of pitchers—from Zach Miner to Dontrelle Willis to Alfredo Figaro to Luke French—with Jarrod Washburn in the rotation. Seattle fans can laugh. Saber folks can snicker. But none of those names can even begin to compare favorably to Washburn.

No doubt, the Tigers will need to hit better—or at least a bit more timely. The terrific pitching performance of July was essentially squandered by low-run production and bad luck. Detroit scored seven more runs than it allowed for the month, yet went 10-14.

But there is certainly room for improvement, and it's actually hard to believe the Detroiters can score much less than they did in July.

There's no guarantees here. August has always been bad, but that doesn't mean it will be bad again. It doesn't mean it will be good, either. But really, it's just another month.

What matters in the end is riding a pennant race for all it's worth. We don't get one of these things all that often.

Embrace the fear.