St. Petersburg, Fla. — You’ve flung to the floor a Tigers cap owned since 2013, deciding in its old age it no longer deserves to be tossed out. It must be stomped into tiny threads by two very angry feet.
You’ve just bounded downstairs and into the basement to re-hang a dart board you had packed away because of dis-use. It’s being called into action, and hey, that’s not very nice overlaying the board with a photo of Al Avila. (He got fired last year — geez, you’re really mad).
You just called the Tigers season-ticket office and demanded your 2023 money back, even though you never ordered tickets for ’23. (Careful — you’ve become irrationally angry).
We understand the rage. Best to talk it through, not bottle it up after the Tigers got walloped again Sunday, 5-1, by the Rays at Tropicana Field, which meant in their first three games of the 2023 season they were outscored, 21-3, by the Rays.
And now an 0-3 team from Detroit has the distinct privilege and high honor of invading Houston for three games against the world champion Astros.
Nice having baseball season back, folks.
Question, and this requires honest reflection:
What did you think the Tigers were going to do in their opening series, on the road, against a Rays team that is every bit the playoff-grade club that for the past five years has been a consistent winner and four times has been an October tournament club and once a World Series runner-up?
What was/is your forecast for that next three-game set against the Astros?
And you’re surprised by an 0-3 start?
True anecdote:
Last week I cornered a Tigers-covering colleague (OK, Cody Stavenhagen, your cover is blown) and discussed possibilities the Tigers might win one game in Tampa Bay and one in Houston, which we both agreed, from a Detroit perspective, would be darn near magical.
But a head shook (mine) as I thought they would be lucky to avoid 0-6 diving into Opening Day in Detroit, which is Thursday.
So, where is the surprise?
Just to retrace some steps from last week:
I wrote the Tigers could, probably at best, finish 75-87 this year. That would be a nice upgrade and follow forecasts that the team is heading steadily into better health as personnel turns over and as Scott Harris, the new front-office general, does as much as can be done at this stage to keep this club on a slow, steady upward arc.
That, precisely, is what’s seen — even after this first ugly week perhaps leaves manager AJ Hinch’s gang with an 0-6 record and fans ready to count days until the Lions open training camp.
Returning to some words written last week:
The prediction was for this Tigers corps to be pretty lousy in the spring and not bad at all this summer.
That thought remains. Which is why it’s not prudent, in this view, to assume 2023 for the Tigers already is a clinical baseball disaster. Six months of depressing games and infuriating regression causing once-rabid followers to abandon their boys is not in the cards.
Not here.
Give it some time
Seriously, give it a week or two before giving up.
Part of the reasoning behind that awful start envisioned has to do with offense.
The Tigers weren’t likely to hit early in this 2023 schedule — not against Rays and Astros pitching. And not when April never is a boon to a team with this many dynamite-deficient hitters.
But here’s why the Tigers still bear watching as spring evolves and June draws near.
They will pick it up on offense, no question. Riley Greene. Spencer Torkelson. The guys from Philadelphia, Matt Vierling and Nick Maton. Jake Rogers, who homered Sunday. Eric Haase, who will hit his share of homers.
Austin Meadows. Kerry Carpenter. Even a motivated Javier Báez.
The offense will get better.
The starting pitching has a chance to be quite good. You saw it Thursday in Eduardo Rodriguez, and Sunday in Joey Wentz, who will make it incumbent that when and if Matt Manning returns, Manning will need to throw very well to be a better choice than Wentz.
Spencer Turnbull had a rough Saturday in his first start since 2021 Tommy John surgery. Not a shocker there. It takes time to get it all back following a TJ layoff.
But very soon he will be back throwing high-horsepower stuff that could and should make Turnbull this staff’s veritable ace.
Matthew Boyd, Michael Lorenzen — starting pitching will not be this team’s issue in 2023.
The bullpen will be in flux for about as long as it will take Detroit’s hitters to coalesce into something approaching a legitimate offense. There are too many unsettled relievers, temporarily, after Harris necessarily dealt Joe Jimenez and Gregory Soto.
But there are enough arms, and enough arms coming either by way of the bushes or by virtue of some Harris arms-shopping, that pitching will settle and allow the Tigers a chance to win winnable games when the offense inevitably warms.
Are there still issues? You better believe it. And a lot of them can’t be resolved this season.
Issues aplenty
Miguel Cabrera will not offer the Tigers much help in his Farewell Season. I put that one on ownership. The front office would have had a more effective designated hitter were it not for insistence that Cabrera be allowed his long goodbye.
Jonathan Schoop? Never should he have been offered that two-year deal in 2021. He was Exhibit A for the one-year contract. The Tigers are carrying in 2023 an obligation more than a beneficial player.
Has the rebuild gone on so long that fans are justified in throwing a 2023 tantrum that just might extend permanently?
Hey, it’s a free country and no one’s denying the right to cut off a nose to spite a face buffeted by eight years of bad baseball.
But I’d take it easy on the write-offs.
This current rendition of a supposed MLB team from Detroit is, in fact, gaining altitude, not that you’re apt to see it this week, or this month.
But by the time 80 degrees arrives (given Michigan weather, that’s a June bet), a ballclub will have risen from Tropicana Field’s and Minute Maid Park’s ashes to begin something approaching a more appealing product for all those incensed, enraged Tigers rooters now headed for anger management therapy.
Just wait a while. That’s not blue-skying anything. It’s dealing with realities to which teams even as bad as the Tigers ultimately must yield.
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.