May 19, 2013; Arlington, TX, USA; Detroit Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera (24) heads to the dugout after hitting a home run in the fifth inning of the game against the Texas Rangers at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sport

A New Low For Miguel Cabrera – Fangraphs

And Cabrera didn’t just club three ordinary dingers. According to the ESPN Home Run Tracker, there were 22 homers on Sunday. The longest was hit by Miguel Cabrera. The second-longest was hit by Miguel Cabrera. The third-longest was hit by Miguel Cabrera. The fourth-longest wasn’t hit by Miguel Cabrera, but now you’re being greedy. All of the homers were similar, and all of the homers were significantly different.

Some stats reveal ominous signs for Tigers closer Jose Valverde – The Detroit News

A lot of fans were probably aghast when the Tigers made the decision to sign Jose Valverde to a speculative contract earlier this year. With the way his time in Detroit seemingly ended last October — blown saves and playoff implosions — it was easy to see their point.

A glance at early returns in this season gives the appearance the decision has turned out fine so far, yet a deeper look shows there may be storm clouds on the horizon.

4 Things We Learned About Detroit Tigers Through the First Quarter of the Season – Bleacher Report

Whether or not Peralta will continue to hit like this remains to be seen, but the Tigers will take his bat as long as he helps the team out.

Personally, I see Peralta’s average tailing off to around .280. However, it would be a huge improvement over last season (where he only hit .239) and would allow the Tigers not to use a valuable trade chip on a short-term shortstop.

Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera has work to do to become one of Detroit’s all-time greats – Detroit Free Press

The fact that we’re even having the conversation about Cabrera in just his sixth season in Detroit is absurd. But everything that Cabrera has been doing lately is absurd. He won the Triple Crown last season, which some baseball experts claimed was impossible given the depth of talent in the game. He’s leading in two of the three Crown categories this year, which has fueled talk that he could become the first man to ever repeat the feat. He’s trying to become the first right-handed hitter since Rogers Hornsby to win three consecutive batting titles. He’s hitting .387, which automatically makes you wonder if .400 is a possibility.

Tigers Pitching Through The First Quarter – Bless You Boys

The Tigers allow 4.2 runs per game, barely better than the average of 4.3 runs per game. This clearly has room to improve. Let’s look at the pitching, in the order of innings pitched.

Surprisingly Anibal Sanchez is leading the team, though the top four starters are all within an inning and a third. Sanchez is striking out nearly 30% of batters faced and walking only 6%, both career bests. He likely can’t maintain this pace, but should be able to win at least as often, and that is more important than gaudy stats.

May 19, 2013; Arlington, TX, USA; Detroit Tigers pitcher Jose Ortega (56) reacts after giving up a home run to Texas Rangers left fielder David Murphy (not pictured) in the sixth inning at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sport

The Detroit Tigers, after losing to the Texas Rangers on Sunday despite a three homer day by Miguel Cabrera, stand at 23-19 on the season. That’s 89-win pace which would (should) be just fine for postseason inclusion. But if we only include games against the subset of baseball teams that aren’t the Houston Astros, their record is 17-18. That’s decidedly less than 89 win pace.

Some might look at that non-Astros record and decide to hit the panic button – especially since the Tigers have lost eight of their last twelve games – but it’s really a meaning less fact. I mean, it’s funny to look at because the Astros are so bad they shouldn’t count (LOLz), but the Astros aren’t really so bad they shouldn’t count. Detroit should (and will) perform better against some of the (other) good teams in the American League, but beating the really bad teams (and beating them soundly) does also count. It counts for both (a) their overall W-L record and (b) learning something about their true talent level.

The Detroit Tigers haven’t always played great baseball this season, but they’ve mostly played good baseball, and they’re pretty much right on track record-wise. With a 23-19 actual record (89-win pace) and a 26-16 pythagorean record (100-win pace), it’s hard to say they’re underperforming as a team. They’ve happened to lose a few games recently,* they’ll happen to win a few games in the future, and they’ll end the season right where we thought they would.

*One of the Google search terms that landed someone on this site today was something like: “what’s going wrong with the Detroit Tigers?”.The answer, my friend, is nothing.

May 18, 2013; Arlington, TX, USA; Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Anibal Sanchez (19) reacts during the first inning against the Texas Rangers at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Of course, the Texas series wasn’t a 3-gamer and the Tigers didn’t get swept. NOR did Ace #2 Max Scherzer step up to stop the bleeding. The only good start and the only win the Tigers got in the series was thanks to fan whipping-boy Rick Porcello. In 5 2/3 innings on Friday night, Porcello allowed only one run on a solo homer by Geovany Soto. He struck out six and walked only 1. Being Rick Porcello, he didn’t make it through the 6th, but the Tigers DID get the win despite having to scrabble for 3 runs on only 6 hits. We’ve already established: the Texas Rangers are a good offensive team, especially at home. That’s why we can excuse those (highly) uncharacteristic starts from Verlander & Sanchex, and to a lesser extent Fister. But how on earth did Rick Porcello manage to get these guys out??? His ERA, even after that good start, just barely dropped below SIX.

One thing, clearly, is that Rick Porcello is a better pitcher than his godawful 2 out start against the Angels. If you only count his other appearances, his ERA is close to 4.00 and his WHIP is close to 1.10. Those aren’t bad numbers. Rick Porcello is probably the Tigers 5th best starter (and maybe the 6th) mostly because the other guys are so good. The second thing is that Porcello is throwing the ball pretty hard right now and getting some swinging strikeouts. Five of those six strikeouts by Porcello were swinging, only one looking. That’s despite the fact that Rangers batters missed very few pitches from Kid Rick with fewer than two strikes. On Friday ngiht, Porcello was able to do the thing that has eluded him for most of his young career – he was able to finish guys off. As was explained in September by Michael Barr at Fangraphs – Rick Porcello’s slider is not able to do that any more than his fastball is (though that fastball was up a tick Friday at about an average of 93). According to Brooksbaseball.net, Porcello threw 10 sliders and didn’t get a single swing and miss on them. Perhaps because 8 of them missed the zone. The pitches that did generate swings and misses, at least when Porcello needed them to, were his curveball and his changeup – though he did actually get one whiff on a sinker. Porcello also did a lot of what he has tended to do so well – generated weak and pointless contact. Of Porcello’s 106 pitches thrown on Friday, he had 58 SNIPs (strikes not in play) with only 6 whiffs. That means they took a lot of strikes and it means they fouled off a lot of pitches.

Porcello remains a work in progress – he has a lot of plus attributes and never really seems to be THAT far from excellence (except when he’s getting knocked around in the first). And baseball is a funny game – it’s hard to say what’s going to happen on any given night. If you had to pick ONE GAME in that series to watch, would you have picked Friday’s game?? If you had picked, for example, the Verlander-Darvish Thursday duel you would have been sorely disappointed. But Porcello came through… go figure.