Are the Detroit Tigers Finally Pulling Together?

Throughout this season, the Tigers have been the most frustrating team in baseball. They’ve shown flashes of talent that could take them all the way to the World Series, and they’ve inexplicably gone 0-6 against Kansas City.

Sometimes they’ll blow hot and cold in the same weekend.

With their string of recent results (seven wins out of their last eight games, nine of 12 at the time of writing), they seem to be pulling things together.

How do they maintain this, and mount a serious title challenge, like all the preseason predictions said they would? Read on and find out.

Justin Verlander: Some of my co-workers once told me that I bear a slight resemblance to Justin Verlander, if he was slightly overweight and threw a 74 MPH fastball. So naturally, Verlander is my Tiger.

I actually quit a job because they made me stay late the night he threw his no-hitter.

He has actually been looking pretty good over his last seven starts. He hasn’t given up more than four runs in any of them, and he has allowed only one run three times. He has only two victories to show for this, but he’s getting no run support.

As long as he keeps throwing well, the numbers will come. He’s managed to bring his ERA down to 4.55 from 7.03 (yikes!). Look for that number to continue dropping, maybe into the threes before the All-Star break.

Dontrelle Willis: I can’t figure this guy out. He used to be a really good pitcher. He never had these massive control problems. Of all of the Tigers, he best personifies the way their season has gone so far.

With the season he had before being sent down, I expected a line like this:

Willis: 9 IP, 0 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 17 BB, 2 K, 147 pitches.

That’s right, Dontrelle Willis issuing 17 walks while pitching a no-hitter wouldn’t faze me one bit. That’s how far expectations have dropped for him this year. On a related note, the stuff outlined in this article is totally feasible.

Tigers Fun Fact: I used to deliver sandwiches for Jimmy John’s, and a few summers ago I stopped in the shop to say hi, and to my surprise, former Tigers’ pitcher Andy Van Hekken had taken the job I’d left. You might not remember Van Hekken because he wasn’t in the bigs for that long.

But in his first start, against Cleveland in September of 2002, he threw a complete-game shutout. And now he was doing my old job. I think it’s only reasonable that I go and do his.

Gary Sheffield: I think it’s safe to say that he’s lost a little something. He still has one of the fastest bats in the majors, but he’s become very injury prone in his time in Detroit. His age is finally showing, and even when he’s finally healthy, I think Leyland should stick with Marcus Thames (pronounced tha-MEZ) in left field. Speaking of Marcus...

Marcus Thames: Due to work, summer classes, and an attention span to rival that of a hyperactive four-year old in Toys-R-Us, I’ve only seen about 10 of Marcus’ at-bats this season. How is he faring in those at-bats? Nine for 10 with nine home runs.

This is not a joke. Going into last night’s game against San Francisco, he’d hit a home run in every single at-bat I’d seen him take this year. So obviously, Detroit would be smart to give me season tickets for the rest of his career. Marcus, I’ll be giving your induction speech in Cooperstown in 2020.

Curtis Granderson: As long as he doesn’t continue to bat .250, the Tigers should be okay. They need him to terrorize opposing defenses like he did last season. He’s always a threat to steal, and he is an extra-base hit machine. He’s not your prototypical leadoff hitter, but he’s still dangerous.

If he gets on base to start the game, and Leyland decides to work the hit-and-run with Polanco, the pitcher can be looking at runners on first and third, no outs, with Carlos Guillen, Magglio Ordonez, and Miguel Cabrera coming to the plate.

Miguel Cabrera: He got off to a very slow start, to put it nicely. I don’t buy all the talk of him having to adjust to American League pitching. Good hitters don’t care who they’re facing, they just hit.

So how do I explain his recent awakening? He realized that the guy who signs his paycheck is also the guy who owns Little Caesars. Miguel wanted to make a good impression and possibly get paid in sausage.

Kenny Rogers: I challenge you to find a more grizzled vet in the game today. Moises Alou comes close, but peeing on his hands grizzled him prematurely, an unfair advantage. Rogers is one of my favorite players, but at the beginning of this season, it looked like he had tried to hang on for one season too many.

Now he’s given up four runs total in his last five starts (only one win to show for it though), and he looks like the Kenny Rogers we saw in the 2006 postseason. His secret? Chicken, I’m told. Roasted chicken.

Edgar Renteria: My roommate Nick is still bitter about this moment. So naturally, I’m as obnoxious as possible whenever Edgar gets a hit, fields a ground ball, or even ties his shoes. Who knew an Indians fan could be so sensitive?

Anyway, for him to be successful, all he’s got to do is pretend that he’s back in a Cardinals uniform. He won a bunch of Silver Slugger awards and made a few All-Star appearances. In a season-and-a-half in the AL, he hasn’t come close to producing like he did in the NL. He’s got to figure this out.

Jason Grilli: He’s played his part already by getting traded. He is the worst pitcher I’ve ever seen, and this includes the 2003 edition of Mike Maroth. He’s like the anti-Marcus Thames. Whenever he entered a game, he would surrender a lead or dig a bigger hole.

I’m thinking back to a game in early April of this year against the White Sox. The first three pitches resulted in a double, single, and a three-run homer. The next two hit singles back through the box and ended up on second and third when Grilli uncorked a wild pitch to Juan Uribe.

Luckily, a massive base-running mistake by the White Sox let Detroit turn an easy double play and make it out of the inning down 7-5, after being up 5-4.

And yet, Leyland still insisted on using him. I don’t get it. He would routinely give up two or three runs in relief appearances. We want relievers to be consistent, but not like that. Had he not been traded to Colorado, I was mere days away from trying to frame him for murder or slip cocaine into his Frosted Flakes.

Jim Leyland: Every so often, the Tigers will put together a poor string of results. It will look like things are spiraling out of control. Jim Leyland calls a meeting, everything is very secretive, and then the Tigers pull it together for a little while.

What goes on in these meetings? I have a few theories that involve everything from voodoo (a la Pedro Cerrano) to an underground fight club. It’s pretty easy for me to picture him going around to each player who has been under-performing and putting a cigarette out on the back of their hand. That’s motivation.

Outlook for the rest of the season: Pitching and hitting are finally working at the same time for these Tigers. The way the AL Central has been working this year, it would not take much for somebody to jump into the lead and start to pull away. I honestly believe that the Tigers are this team. It’s just a good thing they don’t play the Royals 80 more times.