Tigers Early Season Update

After 9 games the Tigers are 8-1.  The Royals 8-5 loss in Minnesota today puts them at 7-2, giving the Tigers sole possession of first place for the nonce.

In 9 games the Tigers have pitched 4 shutouts.  To date the opponents have totaled 55 hits and 21 runs, or 2.61 hits per run.

David Price and Shane Greene are two of the 3 AL starters with 0.00 ERA's after 2 starts.

Even with the bats cooling off considerably in Pittsburgh, the Tigers offense has amassed 54 runs on 99 hits for a 6.0 run/game average, and only 1.83 hits/run.

Tigers scoring has been remarkably even across the innings with 18 runs coming in the first 3 innings, 17 in the middle 3, and 19 in the last 3.  Last year, the Tigers were very poor at scoring late in tight games.  So far this year, this has not been the case.

Opponent scoring has come relatively late, with 5 runs in the first 3 innings, 6 in the middle three, and 10 in the final three.  Only 1 of those runs has happened in the 9th inning, though, so the closers have been closing.  And, as lopsided as this distribution looks, it's mainly due to excellent starts rather than poor relief.

It's a bit too early in the season to put much stock in batting averages, but Kinsler, Cabrera, Cespedes, and Iglesias are all over .300, some by huge margins.

And most of the the big guns are producing. Iglesias and Cabrera are nos. 1 and 3 in batting average, J.D. Martinez has 4 HR's, and Miggy has 9 RBI's.

If V-Mart and Castellanos can pick it up, the Tigers batting order will be terrifying.

Tigers take on the White Sox at Comerica tomorrow, 1:08 start.