Detroit Tigers: Constant success, Anibal Sanchez issues, wacky Tigers’ logo

Though some of us (cough, cough–yours truly) predicted doom and gloom for your 2015 Detroit Tigers, that hasn’t been the case at least for the season’s first two weeks.

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The national media is started to take notice of the Tigers, a team that is winning many different ways and in an all-around team effort for the first time in a long time. Ahead of the four-game series with the New York Yankees beginning Monday night, the New York Times profiled the Tigers.

It’s been a bit alarming the degree that Anibal Sanchez has been allowing home runs this season. Four have gone out on Sanchez’s watch which matched his total for 20 starts in 2014. He was also hit fairly hard in Spring Training. Jeff Jones is going to work and is confident that it can be rectified in short order.

Finally, that crazy Tigers’ uh, logo, that went viral largely in part to a post on Deadspin.com has been released on t-shirts. That logo is about as scary as Max Scherzer bobblehead. And we thought the terror had moved on to Washington….

As Detroit Tigers Evolve, Success Is a Constant – Tyler Kepner, NY Times

"The Tigers ranked last of the 30 teams in Baseball America’s organizational talent rankings this spring. Yet in the last 12 months, they used seven of their top 10 prospects to retool the major league roster, adding three new starters (David Price, Shane Greene, Alfredo Simon) and Joakim Soria, who is their closer because Joe Nathan is dealing with an elbow injury.They also traded a homegrown starter, Rick Porcello, to Boston for left fielder Yoenis Cespedes, and shipped their No. 2 prospect from last year, second baseman Devon Travis, to Toronto for center fielder Anthony Gose.With Gose, shortstop Jose Iglesias and second baseman Ian Kinsler, the Tigers have dynamic, athletic up-the-middle defense, all acquired through trades. Another speedy center fielder, Rajai Davis, shares time with Gose.“We still have some guys with thump in the middle of the lineup,” Dombrowski said. “But we do have a different type of club because we play much better defense and have better speed.”The Tigers, who ranked fourth in the A.L. in steals last season, ranked first through their first nine games this season, with 13 stolen bases. In 2013 they ranked last, with only 35 all season. They lost in the A.L.C.S. that fall to Boston, then engineered a franchise-shifting deal by shipping first baseman Prince Fielder to Texas for Kinsler."

Jones: Sanchez’s problem is mechanical, not pitch sequencing – Chris McCosky, Detroit News

"“I’ll come tomorrow and figure out what’s going on, figure out what happened, figure out if I was having trouble with my sequence, trouble with my mechanics, trouble with my location,” he said. “Something happened and for sure I want to work on that.”Sanchez, catcher James McCann and pitching coach Jeff Jones have gone over the nine-run, nine-hit drubbing against the White Sox Saturday. Of all the possible concerns Sanchez talked about post-game, the pitch sequencing seems to be last on the priority list.“I don’t think it was sequencing,” Jones said.At the top of the list, at least as Jones sees it, is a mechanical flaw.“We are working on some things mechanically,” he said. “It was kind of in and out. We are trying to get him to use his legs a little more. He was a little bit upright on some pitches, then he’d start to use his legs a little bit better and then he’d go back to being upright.”"

You can now buy ‘definitely not authentic’ shirts with that wacky Detroit Tigers logo on them – Lee DeVito, Metro Times

"It was only a matter of time before some entrepreneurial spirit cashed in and started selling shirts. And now you can pick up a blue and white baseball T emblazoned with a logo based on the painting, rendered “Dertroit Beisbolcats” no doubt for legal purposes. The entrepreneurial spirit is Jeff Arcel, better known for his graphic work for Urinal Cake and Western Where Records."

Next: Tigers-Verlander situation getting ridiculous