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Desperately looking for something to like in the 2003 Detroit Tigers
BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG
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Two teams in the midst of three-game winning streaks meet this weekend in the Motor City. And that, my friends, is about all the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers have in common. Heading into the All-Star break, these two teams are heading in vastly different directions, with the Sox sending three players to Chicago for the midsummer classic as they surge closer to the Yankees in the AL East, while the Tigers look to maintain some semblance of dignity and respect as they look back on their dismal first-half performance. While Boston, by virtue of its three-game sweep in Toronto, has moved to within a pair of the Bronx Bombers, Detroit is already 24 games behind the Central Division–leading Royals (!), and has won just 24 games out of 89. The Tigers are on pace to lose the most games and post the lowest winning percentage in the once-proud franchise’s 103-year history. After 89 games, only four other teams in baseball history remotely compare to the flailing ’03 Tigers: the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics (19-70), the 1962 expansion Mets (24-65), the ’96 Tigers (27-62), and the ’52 Tigers (29-60). At its current pace, this year’s Tigers team will finish at 44-118, with only the 40-120 1962 Mets providing a greater example of baseball futility. Boston fans can complain all they want about the highs and lows that their team provides, but Tiger fans without question have it much, much worse. Granted, the franchise won World Series titles in 1968 and 1984, and moved into a sparkling new ballpark three years ago, but the team has not had a winning season since 1993, when it went 85-77 and finished in third place, 10 behind the pennant-winning Blue Jays. Since then, the team has been truly awful: 53-62, 60-84, 53-109, 79-83, 65-97, 69-92, 79-83, 66-96, and 55-106. Even worse, three-year-old Comerica Park (capacity: 40,000) is only drawing an average of 16,639 fans, and the total of 698,000 through the turnstiles this year is down 67,000 from the same date last season. How did things get this bad? A combination of factors is at work here. Most significant is the fact that owner Mike Ilitch, of the Domino’s Pizza empire, has chosen to funnel most of his dough into his other franchise, hockey’s Detroit Red Wings, rather than into the Tigers, whose $49,168,000 total payroll is ranked 24th in the majors. The team’s median salary is just $320,000 — down from $1 million for last year’s roster — which shows that the team is bestowing what little cash it deigns to part with on youngsters. This is confirmed by the fact that three of the Tigers’ five starters this season had not pitched above the Double-A level of minor-league ball prior to this season. How bad is it in Motown? Are there rays of hope on the horizon? Well, heading into this weekend’s three-game series with Boston, it would appear that there is no greater statistical mismatch in the American League than these two teams. To wit: • While Detroit has won its last two home series, it dropped its first 13 at Comerica before this month. The Tigers’ recently completed three-game sweep of the struggling White Sox was Detroit’s first home sweep since last July. The team got off to a dismal start this season, hitting just .182 as a team in April while losing its first nine games en route to a 1-17 start. Meow. • The Tigers are just 11-33 at home, and 13-32 on the road. Versus the East, they’re 8-14; versus their division mates, they’re 9-28; against the West they’re 3-9; and in interleague play, they finished 4-14. • Detroit is 10-12 in one-run games, which isn’t too bad. But in games decided by two runs, the Tigers are a putrid 6-21. That means that fully half of their remaining losses (32) have been by three runs or more, and 18 of those have been by five runs or more. Perhaps the stats mislead? Is there some bad luck at work here? Nah. • The team batting average is .229, which is the lowest total seen in God knows how long. At least they’re consistent, though: the snaggletooths are batting .229 both at home and on the road. • The team is last in the league in the following offensive categories: runs (289; #1 Boston has 564); hits (682; #1 Boston has 964); doubles (106; #1 Boston has 238); RBIs (272; #1 Boston has 542); total bases (1051; #1 Boston has 1625); on-base percentage (.292; #1 Boston is at .362); slugging percentage (.354; #1 Boston’s at .498); average versus lefties (.231) and righties (.229); average in day games (.239) and night games (.223); average with the bases loaded (.140); average when behind in the count (.179); average in late innings of close games (.178); and average in extra innings (.162). I imagine the team is also last in average in twilight games against ambidextrous pitchers with a pinch-runner leading off third in games played on turf and which Enrico Pallazzo sang the national anthem. • The team avoided last place in both of the following categories, but still finished next-to-last: total home runs (73; #1 Texas has 134) and walks (232; #1 NYY have 404). Although the hitting is so bad, perhaps the pitching offers up a silver lining? Sorry. • While the Tigers can boast the seventh-best team ERA (4.63) in the league, they are last in strikeouts (418; #1 Boston has rung up 641 opposing batters), and three members of their starting rotation have lost 12 games or more already. Defensively, there must be hope. Please? Dreamer. • The Tigers are last in team fielding percentage, at .977 (Seattle leads the league at .990), and they lead the AL with 78 errors. So, who are these guys, anyway? Well, outfielder Bobby Higginson is the runaway salary leader in the clubhouse at $11.85 million (part of a four-year, $35.4 million deal that runs two more years), but he was batting just .235 with five homers before hitting the DL with a hamstring problem two weeks ago. Third baseman Dean Palmer, the team’s biggest free-agent signing in the last five years, has been on the DL since mid-May with a neck problem, but was only batting .140 before landing there, so he’s hardly missed. In fact, in the past two and a half seasons, Palmer’s played just 87 games while collecting the bulk of his five-year, $36 million contract. Other high-priced busts on the Tigers roster include knuckleballer Steve Sparks ($4.5 million, 0-4, 3.92 ERA as a set-up man), reliever Matt Anderson ($3.2 mil, 0-1, 6.17 in 12 games), outfielder Craig Paquette ($2.625 mil, .152 BA in 11 games), pitcher Danny Patterson ($2.5 mil, recovering for the past year from Tommy John surgery), and shortstop Shane Halter ($2.15 mil, .228 BA, six HRs in 58 games). Even worse, Detroit severed ties with second baseman Damion Easley in training camp, opting to eat the remaining two years and $14.3 million rather than include him on the roster. How remarkably bad could he have been that he got cut from this team? After all, 14 of the Tiggers’ position players are batting .230 or worse, and only one is even close to .300 (second baseman Warren Morris — yes, that Warren Morris — at .302). The only bright spot on this year’s team is Dmitri Young, who will travel to Chicago for next Tuesday’s All-Star game as the team’s sole (surprise!) representative. He’s batting .287 with 17 home runs and 48 RBIs, and while those are not necessarily All-Star-caliber stats, the Tigers needed somebody to go, and Young is the only Tiger even remotely sponge-worthy of participating in the festivities. This weekend, the hard-hitting Red Sox will be matched up against lefty Mike Maroth, who is 4-12 (after starting the season 0-9) with a 4.81 ERA, rookie righty Matt Roney (1-3, 3.58), and 22-year-old Venezuelan Wilfredo Ledezma (2-2, 3.60), who will be making only his second major-league start. Boston will miss 20-year-old Jeremy Bonderman, who at 3-13 had lost nine straight before beating the White Sox earlier this week. Remarkably, the Tigers have actually won four of their last five games, and they did give the pinstripers a tough series when the New Yorkers came to town last month (Detroit actually won one of the games, 4-2, and lost a 17-inning, 10-9 heartbreaker), so who’s to say that the team can’t give the Red Sox a hard time? Nobody, but the numbers and common sense dictate that the Red Sox should cruise into Comerica this weekend and hammer the woeful Tigers, just as Boston did when it took four straight at Fenway just two weeks ago. It could get downright ugly for the Michigan nine, but they’ve definitely got one thing going for them. The Red Sox haven’t had an excruciating loss in four whole days, so they’re overdue. Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com
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