Rick Porcello
27 and 12
The Tigers are pacing the entire league after 39 games. And it’s not even close. The Athletics have the second fewest losses in baseball with 16.
8 Starts: 7 Wins: Only 7 Walks
The sparkling numbers thus far for one Frederick Alfred Porcello. He’s been dominant, and is doing it with pinpoint control. The fewest walks allowed so far this season in the American League is six (David Price, Phil Hughes). Porcello is right behind with just seven.
His best performance of the year came Saturday night in Boston when he fired eight sharp innings, allowing only a solo homer in the 5th and nothing else. If Porcello continues to pitch like Orel Hershiser, you can close the book on the AL Central race (if you haven’t already), and maybe reserve a place in the Fall Classic for these Tigers.
Zero
After a rocky start to his Tigers career, Joba Chamberlain has settled in quite nicely down in the pen. He’s surrendered a run in just one of his last ten outings. And alluding back to the zero at the top of this segment, Joba has yet to serve up a gopher ball in 2014.
To his first three batters of the year, it went went single, triple, single. Since that time, he’s worked hard to clean things up and is a main cog in what has arguably become the majors’ strongest bullpen.
First DH to Win MVP?
Victor Martinez is on fire and might look to alter the landscape of the baseball record books come awards season. Since the DH was introduced in 1973, no player has won the MVP when the majority of their starts that season came at that position. Jim Rice, Don Baylor, and Juan Gonzalez all spent some time DH’ing during their MVP campaigns, but it was not their primary position.
Martinez is a true DH. Twenty nine of his 38 starts have come as a hitter only, while mixing in a handful at first base and a couple behind the plate (in NL stadiums). And despite Victor’s advanced age (35), he’s been raking at the plate all season long.
His .331 batting average ranks first in the American League (this is somehow 60+ points behind the NL leader, Troy Tulowitzki, who at .393 in late May, is quietly flirting with the famed .400 mark). Martinez has also reached double digits in the home run department already with 10. He’s never hit more than 14 as a Tiger.
All this bodes very well for the Tigers going forward. There was plenty of concern entering this season about the loss of Prince Fielder and who was going to protect Miguel Cabrera in the order. That worry has not only been put to rest, it’s been squashed to pieces.
7 Game Lead
It’s obviously still very early. The season is only 24% complete. But still, a seven-game lead in the division is pretty eye-catching when it comes before June. The Tigers have given themselves a very nice cushion, and with a couple more weeks of stellar baseball, will have a double-digit lead greeting them in the newspaper every morning.
And really, with the stacked pitching the Tigers have in place, combined with their experienced lineup, it’s hard to see any of the trailing clubs ever taking over the top spot in 2014.
The Royals are in second place, but they’re of little concern. They currently have the longest drought in all of the four major sports in terms of their last playoff appearance (1985). The Twins, White Sox, and Indians all possess a little talent and can make things difficult on certain nights, but none really have the chops to taken down the big, bad Tigers over a 162-game stretch. They’ve been bullying the AL Central for three consecutive years, and it looks like very little will change in 2014.
Two
This number denotes the longest losing streak of the year for Brad Ausmus and his Tigers. If that type of ultra-consistency can be maintained, a 100-win season becomes a very real possibility. And then some real rewards come into play.
The Tigers have won 100 or more games twice in the last 50 years. 1968 was one, and 1984 was the other.
And we all know how those seasons turned out...
