SeattleMike

They score 4 runs on one swing and then do nothing the rest of the game. That has happened too often this season. Then again who thought Gio Urshela would be hitting cleanup on June 11.

He was very good on the radio a week or so ago. Why can’t he bring that same style to TV?

He has played most of his games at 3rd, where he has been above average as a defender.

One game sample size: he does not look like an MLBer in the field.

I was more or less pleased with the first 6-7 weeks of the season. They were in every game and playing a lot of young guys. You could see the makings of a future contender. But now. Tork is in purgatory. Meadows and Lange have been banished there as well. Greene is in an extended slump. Carpenter is out indefinitely. Keith's burst of offensive production has fizzled. Perez, as expected, is fighting it. The bullpen is erratic, to put it kindly. Manning and Mize's growth has stalled. The defense has plummeted in just about every metric. It's hard to be optimistic, certainly about the rest of this season. And now who knows what to expect next year.

Pretty much everyone has an OPS of 1000 this year in AAA.

The Tigers are around 11th in the AL in attendance. They are already staying away.

6 runs in last 3.5 games. Without Carpenter and a slumping Greene I’m afraid there will be a few more stretches like this going forward. Tork flaming out is such a huge setback.

Recent history suggest trouble ahead.

In May the offense 15th in wRC+. SP 5th in xFIP. RP 28th in ERA and 20th in xFIP. Tough month for the bullpen.

Yeah. Not sure there are too many, or any, teams that regularly play 4 guys 24 years old or younger.

And Meadows would have caught that ball.

It does seem as though when Greene isn't hitting the entire operation grinds to a halt. I was hoping Greene was past slumps that last 50-75 PAs. Not that the 5-14 May record is all on him, but this recent slump of his is more depressing than previous ones.

The Royals overachieving has a bunch of folks losing perspective. Wouldn’t surprise me if the Tigers and Royals ultimately finish within a game or two of each other.

You may be right about the reason, I don't know. But the pen needs to figure it out. Over the last month, a period in which the Tigers were 4 games under .500, the starting pitching was the best in MLB by xFIP. It was 10th in ERA. The Tigers offense was 14th in wRC+ and 10th in runs scored per game. The bullpen during this time had an ERA of 5.16, good for 28th in MLB. It's xFIP was better, at 14th. So they are probably a little unlucky, but that is what happens to bullpens that don't have high K rates. Royals pen has the same problem. That will catch up to them. So will the fact that they are currently second in MLB in hitting with RISP. Considering they are 19th in MLB in wRC+ I suspect a serious run scoring regression is on the horizon for them.

What is wrong with RF? He's currently the best hitter on the team, if you don't count the current CF. You can't blame either of those positions for the Tigers woes.

First series all year where the Tigers were never really in any of the games. It happens. If this starts happening more regularly I'll start to worry. Still feel a winning season is likely. Biggest concern for me is the bullpen. It's been knocked around for about a month now.

Out of what? Despite this week, they are still only 2 games out of the final playoff spot. Contending for the division looks unlikely, but there are still more than 100 games to play.

I doubt Perez will continue to post a 163 OPS+ the rest of the season. I also doubt they win 90 games. But they are now 13 games over .500 and have positioned themselves well to make a run at a playoff spot.

Tigers haven’t had many of these this year, although 3 in the last week is disconcerting.

I don’t think Harris was promising much this offseason. In fact he tended to downplay things. Finish with 83-85 wins, which is still possible, and I’ll be happy. Then get dealing during the offseason. As for the Royals, low K/9 rates for their pitching and ridiculously high success with RISP for the offense screams regression. But they have banked these 32 wins and have a decent shot at making the playoffs.

The Tigers are 17th in runs scored per game. That is the definition of slightly below average. I suspect, however, that this average is skewed by the handful of games the Tigers scored in double digits. An equal culprit in the Tigers spinning their wheels the last 2-3 weeks has been the bullpen, which has blown (jusing FG's blown lead metric) the most leads in MLB. This rarely gets mentioned for some reason.

Going today I hope.

That game was a bunch of singles. At least this one includes a good bit of gap power.

Nelson was hitting 96-97 pretty consistently