This series will go down in Tiger history as 33-1, which of course was the run differential. This will be good for all kinds of trivia, but I’m not sure what Tiger fans can really glean from it. In fact, I’d say we learned more about the Minnesota Twins than we did about the Detroit Tigers. The Twins are struggling, and while things will inevitably get better, there chances don’t look good this season. Their rough start, punctuated by this series even has some speculating about Johan Santana’s future as a Twin.
But on to the Tigers…
| Twins | Tigers | |
| Wins | 0 | 3 |
| Offense | ||
| Runs | 1 | 33 |
| BA | .160 | .402 |
| OBP | .218 | .466 |
| SLG | .191 | .675 |
| HR | 0 | 7 |
| SB/CS | 0/1 | 1/1 |
| Pitching | ||
| BB/9 | 4.1 | 2.0 |
| K/9 | 7.1 | 5.3 |
| ERA | 11.63 | 0.33 |
About the only thing the Tigers didn’t excel at was getting the leadoff guy on. Leading off an inning, the Tigers only hit 240/240/280. They got production throughout the entire lineup. Meanwhile, the Twins did have 38 at bats with runners on base, but only managed six hits and a walk. The Twins also failed to get any production from their cleanup hitters who went 0 for 10 with a walk.
Series Studs
- Ummm, everyone? It’s hard to single out pitchers when they combine to allow a single run. On the offense side, everybody that had more than two at-bats posted at least a .375 OBP or .500 slugging percentage with the exception of Brandon Inge. Inge posted a mere 154/214/231 but made several great defensive plays.
And those who struggled
- Ummm, the Twins? Actually Joe Mauer, Luis Castillo, and Tony Batista were decent.
The Twins are circling the drain, no doubt, but there is no way… read: NO WAY… that Johan is going anywhere. It’s ridiculous to suggest that he would under any circumstance.
I don’t really follow teams other than the Tigers, but I don’t know that I’d be so sure of that, Paul. The Twins seem to have a knack for trading guys at their peak value. They could get a nice return for him, especially this early in the season. What big market team wouldn’t love to have his arm for 20+ starts this year?