Justin Verlander
The Detroit Tigers are in a bad way.
They just dropped two of three to the punchless Seattle Mariners.
They have won just four of their last 14 games.
The offense has ground to a halt and the results of the last four series read as such; loss, loss, split, loss.
But there is a silver lining. And it has nothing to do with these Tigers, specifically.
It has to do with the other teams in the American League Central. To be blunt, they all stink.
There isn’t a real threat in the bunch.
After such a brutal stretch of Tigers’ baseball that has even the most orange-clad of fans reaching for the panic button, you wake up today and the nearest neighbor in the standings would be Chicago, sitting harmlessly 4.5 games back with a ho-hum record of 29-29.
Then it’s the Twins at 5.5, the Indians at 6, and allergic-to-postseason-play Kansas City at 6.5.
You can’t deem any of these clubs officially out of the race, but they aren’t exactly breathing down anybody’s neck, either.
Miguel Cabrera. Photo/AP
If you want to get a general idea of how underwhelming this group is, let this stat sink in with your morning coffee...
Through the baseball season’s first two months, which is right around 60 games for most, the high-water mark for each one of these teams is a whopping two games over .500. Not three, not four, not ten. Two. For every one of these so-called Major League squads.
It’s sad, but true.
The White Sox were victorious in their first two contests of the year. They haven’t returned to such “heights” in the 56 games since.
The Twins got there a bit later at 23 and 21, but did little with that momentum and currently rest at two under the break-even mark.
The Royals last found themselves plus-two in the standings back on April 30th, which looks mighty good in comparison to the Tribe, who haven’t felt such joy since their eighth game of the year.
It is without debate or argument that the Tigers are playing very shoddy baseball of late. Their starting pitching recently experienced a very rough patch, Joe Nathan looks like he is aging a year or two with each passing week, and the offense appears to be about 6 or 7 Victor Martinez’s short of fielding a quality big league lineup.
Yet, there they are perched safely in the catbird seat. They can see the other logos in the rear-view mirror if they really squint, but none are close enough to require more than a cursory look before getting over to the left lane.
At some point, you know the Tigers will string together a batch of sterling pitching performances, and the offense will come back to life. The team will roll off seven out of nine, and the divisional lead will fatten back to near-double digits.
Of course, you’d always like for your team to be firing on all cylinders and playing their best ball.
But sometimes you just have to be grateful that such precision isn’t necessarily required.
Such is life in the American League Central in 2014. The Tigers are by no means Secretariat at the Kentucky Derby, but don’t be surprised if they still wind up lapping the rest of the field.
When the playoffs commence in October, the league office doesn’t ask how you got there.
Or who you beat to clinch your spot.
And it’s a good thing they don’t. The answers might be a tad embarrassing.
