We’re 40-something games into the season now, and if you’ve been following my content since opening day, you know that I’ve been pretty even-keeled about this entire experience. I’m not happy with the way things have gone. Still, I’ve acknowledged the injuries and, given the extremely non-competitive outlook of this division, I've found myself more optimistic than some other people. I’ve mainly been on the “they’re going to turn it around“ bandwagon. Tonight was the first time I entertained the possibility that this team might actually be bad.
We’re a quarter of the way into the season, yet I feel like we’ve seen this game 1 million times. What went wrong for the Tigers tonight? Pretty much all the same stuff that’s gone wrong from up to this point this season. You had a team that got some runs on the board early and wasn’t able to attack on. You had a starting pitcher who couldn’t find the zone. Jack was utterly abysmal, failing to complete four innings and forcing A.J. Hinch to go to the bullpen early, and then you had a pettented defensive breakdown, which is probably what this team‘s greatest strength is at this point. If there’s one thing that they’ve been consistent with, it’s consistently boofing the ball in the infield. It’s amateur-hour nonsense, and I think every fan is tired of it.
I continue to believe that once this team gets healthier, things will continue to improve, and that may very well be the case, but right now they’re borderline unwatchable. And the issues with this team are going to persist for a while. They might get healthier. They’re not going to get better defensively, and they’re not going to somehow fall into a better bullpen or pitching staff. I can empathize with A.J. Hinch in the sense that no one expected the starting staff to be this level of depleted, but the pitching chaos that you’re trying to rely on to get you through this point in the season isn’t working. You don’t have any dogs in this bullpen.
I’m a little bit tired of preaching how much this team needs to play clean baseball. Right now, I’m really starting to wonder if they have any clean baseball in them. Tomorrow, they will look to bounce back, as will their starting pitcher, Framber Valdez, who will be looking to avoid one of his bimonthly tantrums. He’ll be taking the ball at Citi Field, going up against Mets youngster Christian Scott.