The Mariners had their eight-game win streak snapped on Wednesday, but they maintained their 2.5 game lead over the Athletics with the series win over the Mets. Now the team embarks on their longest road trip of the season, a 10-day affair that will take them through Detroit, Baltimore, and Washington DC. Thanks to this extended stretch of play without an off day, Seattle will be reinserting Bryce Miller and Luis Castillo into a six-man rotation.
The Tigers entered the season as the favorite to win
the AL Central. With two straight playoff appearances, a competitive showing in the ALDS against the Mariners last year, a bolstered starting rotation, and one of the top prospects in baseball ready to make his debut, it really looked like Detroit was ready to ascend to the top echelon of the AL. Things haven’t exactly gone to plan. Through the end of April, the team was hovering around .500 but battling for the lead in their division. Then, on May 4, Tarik Skubal was placed on the IL with bone spurs in his throwing elbow. Since then, the Tigers have gone 7-21 and have fallen all the way to the bottom of the standings in the AL.
While the injury to Skubal has gotten all the headlines, it’s actually the offense that can be blamed for a lot of the team’s struggles this year. The Tigers scored just 2.89 runs per game in May and scored more than five runs in a game just three times last month. Riley Greene, Dillon Dingler, and Kevin McGonigle have been the lone bright spots. Greene is in the midst of his best offensive season yet, though his BABIP is an unsustainable .439 and his power output has concerningly subsided. Dingler should be getting more attention if it weren’t for Shea Langeliers’ breakout overshadowing Dingler’s big step forward. The young catcher has already blasted 14 home runs and has already accumulated 2.5 fWAR. McGonigle has performed extremely well in his first taste of the majors and is currently the favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year award. Detroit did just activate Gleyber Torres and Kerry Carpenter off the IL last weekend which means the lineup is pretty close to full strength now.
Probable Pitchers
A familiar foe from his time in Houston, Framber Valdez signed a huge free agent contract with the Tigers this offseason. The idea was that he’d form a formidable one-two punch atop Detroit’s starting rotation with Skubal, though that hasn’t exactly played out as planned. Valdez has struggled a bit to start the year, though a 10-run meltdown against Boston is doing a lot of heavy lifting propping up his high ERA. Still, his strikeout rate and his groundball rate are the lowest they’ve ever been. Those were his two calling cards during his time with the Astros. For whatever reason, he’s allowing a bunch more contact, and the majority of it is in the air.
Keider Montero has been pressed into service as a core piece of the Tigers rotation this year. He’s spent most of the last two years bouncing between starting and relieving, but he’s performed admirably as a replacement for the injured Justin Verlander this year. He won’t overpower batters with stuff; instead he utilizes a deep repertoire well enough and manages to induce a lot of weak contact. His changeup is nearly impossible to square up, though it’s not good enough to induce swings and misses. Instead, batters pop it up or mishit it leading to lazy flyballs.
Jack Flaherty lives and dies by the feel for his breaking pitches. His fastball is decent enough, but when he can’t command his curveball or slider, it’s very easy for batters to focus on his heater and do damage. That’s been his issue to start this season. Through his first nine starts of the year, he was walking 15.9% of the batters he faced. Over his last four starts, he’s walked just three total. The other issue is that his breaking pitches just aren’t enticing as many chases out of the zone or as many swings and misses overall. All those issues have combined to balloon his ERA over five.
The Big Picture:
Both the Athletics and the Rangers won their respective series this week to keep pace with the Mariners. The Astros dropped their series against the Pirates and fell to 5.5 games back in the division. The A’s and Astros meet in Houston while the Rangers host the Guardians this weekend.
