One Month In...

We are just about one month into the season, so let's see where we are at, shall we?

First, I think that the schedulers can not give any scheduled off days in April and maybe even May, since the weather will give you them anyway. Save those off days for later in the season when we're making up all these rain/snow-outs and need a break. But that's not about the Tigers.

I know, it's still early, but the Tigers are blowing all the expectations away. I don't think anyone was expecting this. Really early on, it was our pitching and defense carrying the team and all our wins came when Shane Greene closed a game. (Seriously, how amazing has he been? Did anyone see that coming?)

The rotation was kind of in flux after losing Michael Fulmer. And don't get me wrong, we still miss him. Just imagine how much better we'd be with him. But Zimmermann looks like he just might be good this year, Moore and Ross were turning out to be surprisingly solid (before we lost Moore), Boyd is just astonishing and is going to be our rock it seems, and Turnbull is performing amazingly well for a guy who has barely started above Double A before joining the rotation. With Moore out, now Norris will finally get a chance to show what he can do when he's healthy. I'm excited for him.

The bullpen hasn't been too shabby! Besides Greene's dominance, we've had surprising contributions from guys like Farmer and Alcantra. VerHagen has been injured for a few weeks, so he is a bit behind the others and our Rule 5 guy, Reed Garrett, is holding his own so far (future blog post on the RUle 5 to come). Jimenez is scuffling right now but he'll figure it out and get back to being our lock-down eighth inning guy.

You look at the Tigers' position players and it's not that impressive. We don't have a lot of big names but these guys come to play and play with grit. Our catchers are throwing out everybody! It's not going to be long before teams just stop running on us. Early on, (and this is actually still the case), it all came down to pitching and defense. If either or both were having an off-day, we probably weren't going to win.

Ahh, the offense. It's an enigma. Once again, the contributions are coming from surprising places. Christin Stewart, before he got hurt, and Niko Goodrum were two of our best bats early on. Pretty much everyone is struggling to get going. Castellanos and Cabrera are still homer-less. It's odd but not worrisome. No one expects this to go on much longer. Harrison getting dropped from the lead-off seems to be helping him and hopefully he can take this back when he gets moved back up.

We've had quite a few injuries already this year, some that have taken out our guy for the season, but we were a cobbled together team to begin with, so more young guys doesn't change much. No one expected much from this Tigers team but they don't care what anyone expects. They come to play and give it their all. So far, it's keeping them relevant and interesting to watch. You have a feeling they can win almost any game. Most of their games have been close and they are doing well in the late innings and extra innings. It's exciting and I think even the most dour critics are having to sit up and take notice.

There is a lot of season left and anything can happen, but so far, this Tigers team is encouraging and fun to watch. They make you believe they just might be a force in the Central. Playoff bound? Probably not. But making other teams sweat and work for their places? Sure thing!