by Holly Horning The Detroit Tigers just completed their first 2 games in the ALDS, splitting the results with the Seattle Mariners. Unfortunately, the Tigers seemed more like their September selve…
totallytigers.wordpress.com
ALDS PLAYOFF PATTERNS.
Totally Tigers
The Detroit Tigers just completed their first 2 games in the ALDS, splitting the results with the Seattle Mariners.
Unfortunately, the Tigers seemed more like their September selves than they did pre-All Star Game. Getting only 3 hits is not going to win you the game.
How to put all of this in perspective? Here are my top 10 observations and patterns seen from these 2 games.
1. In both games, only 2 players got more than 1 hit – Gleyber Torres and Riley Greene with 2. Neither 1 drove in any runs.
2. The only players to drive in runs were Kerry Carpenter (2), Spencer Torkelson (2) and Zach McKinstry (1).
3. The other players to get only 1 hit were Carpenter, Torkelson, Baez, Keith, McKinstry and Meadows.
4. The Tigers had double-digit strikeouts in both games – 10 in Game #1 and 16 in Game #2.
5. In Game #1, 15 LOB. In Game #2, 8 LOB. Only a total of 5 runs were scored in 20 innings averaging out to scoring 1 run every 4 innings.
6. In Game #1, RISP was 2-for-11 compared with the Mariners 1-for-4.
In Game #2, RISP was 1-for-6 while the Mariners had 2-for-5.
7. #4, #5 and #6 are why the Tigers aren’t hitting and plating runs.
8. The Mariners have 4 players who hit 26 or more HRs this season, including Cal Raleigh with 60. Those 4 hit 145 HRs. Jorge Polanco, who hit 2 of them against Tarik Skubal, ranks 4th on the team in HRs.
The Tigers have only 3 players who reached that benchmark, totalling 93 HRs.
9. Because the Tigers aren’t hitting, the talents of Tarik Skubal are being wasted. He’s merely serving as the force to keep the opponent from scoring in hopes that the Tigers can score more. In reality, a Cy Young Award winner should be getting the W every time he pitches. In his last 4 games against Cleveland and Seattle, he has only 1 win, 1 loss and 2 no-decisions.
10. In Game #1, the Tigers used 8 pitchers in 11 innings. Even more surprising when Troy Melton pitched 4 of those innings, leaving 7 pitchers to cover the other 7 innings. They used every single reliever on the roster for that game.
Which one of these concerns you the most?
