Tigers - this year's 'Cinderella' team?
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by user Demonboy
Going into today, the Detroit Tigers currently stand in 1st place in the Central (by a 1/2 game) and are the best team in all of the majors (50-25)...
They have 4 AL ROY canidates - Curtis Granderson (1st full year - 1st game last year was 7/22) 50R 11HR 38RBI 5SB .295BA .387OBP .502SLG, Zach Miner 3-1 1.00 WHIP 2.08 ERA, Joel Zumaya 4-1 17HLD 1.04 WHIP 2.45 ERA & Justin Verlander 9-4 10 QS 1.28 WHIP 3.39 ERA... They also have 2 CY Young canidates - Kenny Rogers 10-3 10 QS 1.14 WHIP 3.44 ERA & Verlander...
Nate Robertson, Jeremy Bonderman & even Mike Maroth have all forgotten about their horrid 03', 04' & 05' seasons and are stepping it up very nice! Combined they are 19-9 24 QS 1.31 WHIP 3.59 ERA...
Marcus Thames is stepping it up huge - 36R 15HR 36RBI .309BA .378OBP .661SLG... 2 more HR's & he'll match all of his previous seasons combined!
Thow in a healthy Magglio Ordonez into the mix - 42R 15HR 55RBI (team leader) .315BA (team leader) .363OBP .530 SLG and that's one hell of a team.
Not to mention they finally have a manager in Jim Leyland that gets on them when they're loosing or do stupid things on the field and praises them when they're winning. Personally, I think that he deserves the AL Manager of the Year award.
Here it is June 25th and Tigers baseball actually matters in this town! I work for a major drug store chain doing tech support so I drive all around Michigan going from store to store fixing problems. It doesn't matter where I go, I see at least 1 person in EVERY store (either customer or employee) wearing some type of Tigers apparrel (spell check please) and virutally everyone is talking Tiger ball. Detroit may be known as "hockey town" but this year it's "Tiger town".
If someone would have told me during spring training that after 75 games the Tigers would be the best team in the majors - I would have asked them if I could have whatever they were smoking.
Sure they only have a 7-12 combined record against the Yankees, Red Sox, White Sox, Blue Jays & St. Louis Cardinals... but if you look at the scores on all of thier losses, 4 out of 5 were 1 run games & the 5th was an extra inning disaster. When it comes to the Tigers, that's an improvement. In years past, including last year, those 1 run games would have been blow outs... they would have laid down & died with the perverbial "Sh** we're loosing" remarks, crawled under the benches and let their opponent just crush them leaving the Tigers with a 4 or 5 run loss instead of the 1.
This is a different team, different feeling. Almost every night is a sellout! They are finally beating the teams that they should (under .500) and are in contention almost every game against the above .500 teams.
Every year you can count on a few things in the MLB standings - The Yanks & Bos will be 1-2 in the AL East, the west teams (both AL & NL) are always going to be in the perverbial dog-fight - just above .500 wins either division, Stl or Hou is on top on the NL Central, Atl on top of the NL East - but this year the Mets are on top - honestly, I kind of saw this one coming & so did almost everyone else so no suprise there - what is the suprise is Atl at the bottom... but the Tigers, the flipping Tigers on top of the AL Central??? Who saw this one coming? Certainly not me!
I thought they were going to improve - sure... maybe come in 2nd with 82-84 wins way out of a wild card spot... but as of right now, they're on a 108-54 pace!! I don't think they'll finish that high but 90 is achievable and I don't think 92-94 is out of the question. If they go .500 the rest of the way that's still 93 flipping wins! A 22 game improvement over last year!!
Tigers this years Cinderella team - ABSOLUTELY!!!
Date
Sun 06/25/06, 4:30 am EST
