Comerica Park was a lonely, hostile place for the Tigers in 2003. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The 2003 Detroit Tigers, the team that quite possibly turned around the fortunes of the franchise, actually rode into the seventh week of the season on a high note. The prior week they finished with a winning record for the first time.

So would this be the turning point where the Tigers would morph from one of the worst teams in baseball history to just one of the lousy teams we had experienced on so many occasions since 1989?

Not so much…

May 12 to 18 (Weekly record 1-5)(Season record 9-32)

A six-game homestand brought in Oakland and Seattle. Detroit split the first two games with the A’s before losing the series finale on May 15. They would go on to drop all three games to the Mariners and experienced an epic fail of a homestand. Detroit finished 1-5, and was outscored 34 to 12.

The 2003 Tigers were back!

Painful Game of the Week: May 15-Athletics at Tigers

In 2003, the Oakland Athletics were a pretty good team. This was one year removed from the 2002 team that was featured in Moneyball, and won 20 straight games. The A’s would go on to win the AL West that season and came into the mid-May series nine games over the .500 mark. The first game featured decent pitching from Mike Maroth and Steve Sparks, but the bats were quiet as the A’s earned a 3-1 win. The bats stayed quiet, but a strong pitching performance from four Tigers’ pitchers (including Steve Avery–bet you didn’t remember he was on this team) helped the two Tigers runs stand up (the second run scored on a Brandon Inge sacrifice fly which scored Craig Monroe for a rare walk-off win).

On May 15, the Tigers were hoping that they could win a series at home for the first time and, with a 6-3 record in their last nine games, they actually had hope. The first inning ended all of that. The A’s scored six runs to start the game off Adam Bernero and, with the Tigers usual anemic offense, that was pretty much a death sentence. Oakland would cruise to victory and the loss would start yet another lengthy Detroit losing streak.

Final: Oakland 11, Detroit 2

(Lousy) Player of the Week: Craig Monroe

Former Tiger Craig Monroe. http://images.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/_photos/2006-09-24-monroe.jpg

Craig Monroe came to the Tigers in 2002 off waivers from the Texas Rangers, the team that drafted him in the 8th round of the 1995 draft. He’d play just 27 games for the Rangers (all in 2001), making his major league debut on July 28, 2001, going hitless in three at-bats with a strikeout.

He became a full-time player in 2003 and had a breakout year. After just three homers in his career, Craig was second on the team, behind Dmitri Young, with 23 home runs. He was one of the catalysts in the club’s 2006 rebirth, hitting a career high 28 homers. He also hit five home runs in the postseason.

One favorite memory of Craig may have come in a July 2006 game with the Chicago White Sox. That season Chicago had dominated Detroit and were closing in on them in the AL Central. The Tigers trailed 2-0 into the sixth inning when Monroe hit a grand slam that gave the Tigers a lead they wouldn’t relinquish, putting the defending World Champions in the rear view mirror (of course those pesky Twins didn’t go so quietly). When Monroe touched home plate and celebrated with his teammates, A.J. Pierzynski refused to back up from the plate, as catchers often do after homers, nearly causing a fight to break out when the two players collided. That was when the Tiger fans’ hatred of Pierzynski began.

After that magical 2006 season, it was hard to believe he didn’t make it through the 2007 season with the team. He struggled that year, hitting 10 homers with a .222 average. The Tigers traded him to the Cubs in August, and he bounced to Minnesota in 2008, and Pittsburgh in 2009, before being released on July 1 of that year.

Monroe is now back in Detroit, serving as the in-studio analyst for Tiger games on Fox Sports Detroit.

April 28, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland (10) takes the ball to relieve relief pitcher Al Alburquerque (62) against the Atlanta Braves at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

Yesterday the Detroit Tigers announced that they had optioned reliever Al Alburquerque to Toledo. Today it was announced that they’ve recalled Evan Reed to take his spot on the roster.

Alburquerque was sent down for command reasons. Here’s a quote from Jim Leyland from the above linked MLive article:

“He was too wild today,” Leyland said. “Just too wild. He was bouncing balls to the guy he struck out. If the guy takes that pitch, we might have been in trouble there.”

If you didn’t know that this quote was taken after a specific game you might mistake it for an Al Al scouting report. He’s never been a command strike-thrower, but he’s been incredibly effective in his 71 inning major league career nonetheless. He owns a 1.90 career ERA, and a closely matching 2.15 FIP. He’s walked a ton, sure (6.3 BB/9), but he’s fanned a bunch too (14.1 K/9). We’ve seen those rates jump to an extreme level this season – 8.2 and 16.3 respectively – but his overall line is still more than adequate. The fact that his ERA is above 3.00 is probably more due to his BABIP being nearly .450 than his walk rate being over eight per nine innings.

Alburquerque isn’t going to Toledo to learn command – that would be a foolish request – but he is going to go and try to put a few less-wild innings together before coming back up. He’s an unusual pitcher in that he can be incredibly effective – one of the better relievers in the game – while walking 6+ batters per nine innings. His strikeout stuff is so devestating that batters can’t lay off. I think the Tigers recognize that and will look to get him back to the big leagues, so I won’t call this a dumb move just yet, but I don’t really see the point in the minor league tour. Reed isn’t going to out-perform Alburquerque in the big leagues, and Alburquerque isn’t likely to discover his inner Adam Wilk.

What’s going to happen is that Al Al’s walk rate will come down a bit – owing to regression and the fact that it’s AAA – the organization will say he’s “fixed” and bring him back up. It all would have happened just the same had he remainined in Detroit, but oh well. Evan Reed is now a thing.

May 13, 2013; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers right fielder Torii Hunter (48) signs autographs before the game against the Houston Astros at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

I didn’t happen to notice that ESPN.com was hosting a baseball version of “Battle of the Unis” until today, but I was happy to discover that the Detroit Tigers are alive and kicking in the quarterfinal round.

That isn’t the only matchup of teams with old-school classic looks, though. The No. 1-seeded Tigers, who still are dressed roughly the way they were when Al Kaline was in right field, take on the Cinderellas of the bracket, the No. 13-seeded Orioles, who handily beat the Royals.

The Winner of the Tigers-Orioles (54%-46% in favor of Detroit at time of post) vote will square off against either the Yankees or Red Sox (50-50 at time of post) in the American League championship round, as it were. Still alive in the National League are the Pirates, Cardinals, Cubs, and Dodgers. With Detroit, New York, and Boston still alive, the AL clearly has the more iconic threads of the two leagues.

I think we all know that Detroit’s home whites (baseball’s tuxedo’s, they’ve been called) are the best single uniform in the game, but their completely mediocre road uniforms may not allow them to take the overall crown. I’ll be voting for them, anyway.

Click here to go vote.