Baseball By Paul

The season is just 32 games young, or rather 20% completed, and there has been plenty to love about the start of the Detroit Tigers. First off, though their home run hitting ability gets most of the press, it has been their superior starting pitching that has powered the team early on. Of course, I say that on the heels of dropping two of three to the Minnesota Twins. Jeremy Bonderman was knocked around a bit, Todd Jones blew his first save, and despite the best efforts of Mike Maroth, he ran into Johan Santana, who carried a no-hitter into the 7th inning. Nevertheless, things are looking great for the Tigers. I put together their numbers for the whole season based on the first 32 games. The offense:

Initially, I’m pleased with just how well Magglio Ordonez has been playing despite the fact that he’s not walking very much. If he is able to hold pace and play 152 games while hitting 40+ HRs, this team is going to be very successful. A few things that I don’t see happening at all include Chris Shelton‘s triple and home run totals being sustained. For Craig Monroe to come anywhere near 40 home runs, he’ll need to greatly improve his patience at the plate and take some walks. Curtis Granderson‘s pace for 96 walks is very pleasing. He is progressing nicely and the Tigers have to be thrilled with their leadoff man. I’m not at all concerned that Granderson is only on pace for 15 steals, moreso miffed that it is just a 60% success rate. If Carlos Guillen can play every game, that’d just be amazing. A 20-20 season would be icing on the cake. Brandon Inge will not hit 35 home runs, but Marcus Thames could if he finds some at-bats. Sooner or later, if Monroe continues to struggle, Jim Leyland will have to consider giving Thames more time at Monroe’s expense.

Now for the pitching:

Kenny Rogers almost certainly won’t win 25 games, but he has been a great addition to the Tigers despite all the griping (from myself included) about his large contract. There is just no way that a bullpen will only be responsible for 15 decisions in a season, the wins and losses paces of individual pitchers is a tad ridiculous. I wish Mike Maroth would win 20, though, he deserves it. The strikeout paces of most of the bullpen are very encouraging. Rodney, Seay, Walker, & Zumaya are on pace for excellent strikeout-to-walk ratios… especially Walker as he has yet to walk a batter.

I’ll update these paces several times throughout the season as they will start to even out, undoubtedly. Right now, the Tigers need to rebound from a tough series in which the Twins really came to play. They head to Baltimore for a three-game set facing Daniel Cabrera in the opener. They need to exhibit more patience than they have so far and it will be rewarded by the control-leary Cabrera (25 walks in 32.1 IP).

Posted on Monday: 05.8.2006 at 10:33 pm in Data & News, Detroit Tigers   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL