By: Trevor Hooth
The Detroit Tigers offense has had a rough time against bottom of the rotation pitchers this year. Remember them being shut out by Kansas City Royals rookie Eric Skoglund on May 30th, when he was making his Major League debut?
In this series’ opener against the Royals, it was the same story. Matt Strahm started on the mound on Tuesday — a pitcher who went into the game with a 2-4 record and a 4.80 ERA. He was doing the opposite of setting the world on fire.
The Tigers were winning 4-3 when Strahm was removed from the game in the fourth inning, but that doesn’t mean they hit him well. Without the strength of a J.D. Martinez solo home run and a Miguel Cabrera three-run bomb, there would be no scoring.
The fact of the matter is, there were two things that were really lacking from the offense against Strahm.
First of all, Tigers hitters were not driving the ball well outside of those two home runs. Walks, errors and weak hits told the story of the offense. Royals pitchers had two wild pitches and one hit by pitch, while Lorenzo Cain dropped a fly ball by Cabrera.
Secondly, they were not stringing hits together off of weak pitching. The Tigers had just two multi-hit innings against pitchers like Strahm, Peter Moylan (1.56 WHIP), and Neftali Feliz (1.38 WHIP). This is a talented offense, and a large part of the frustration this year has been that they cannot put it together against lower-rated arms.
Stringing hits together is what lineups with solid bats are supposed to do, especially against the back-end starters. The Tigers have not done that enough this year, and they showed their vulnerability again against Strahm.
If this team wants to jump back into contention, this is where it needs to start – especially with General Manager Al Avila’s upcoming decision to buy or sell.
They do have two more chances against the Royals, and will be facing two struggling starters. The Tigers will go against Ian Kennedy on Wednesday (1-6 4.95 ERA) and Jake Junis on Thursday (2-1 4.97 ERA) to finish the series. We’ll see in a few days if the offense starts to click.
Trevor Hooth is from Farmington, Connecticut. He is a senior Communication major at Millikin University where also plays baseball.