Detroit Tigers: Good Signs For the Rest of 2016

Road Warriors

The Detroit Tigers have opened play in 2016 with a majority of road games. The opening series saw the Tigers in South Beach to do battle with the Marlins. After that, the team returned for four games at home split between the Yankees and Pirates. That four-game set, which should have been five games if a contest against New York was postponed, ended on April 12^th. The Tigers haven’t been back to Detroit since.

An eight-game road trip followed the home stand. It saw the team travel to Pittsburgh, Houston and Kansas City to match up with a trio of playoff teams from a year ago. Detroit swept the Pirates at PNC Park before dropping two of three against both the Astros and Royals.

Despite that, only the Chicago Cubs, Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago White Sox have more road wins in all of Major League Baseball than the Tigers this season.

Detroit’s schedule now enters a much more manageable stage of the schedule. The team will finish up April with home series against Cleveland and Oakland before ending the month in Minnesota. All three rank near the bottom of the league in offense. The trio rank 24^th, 25^th and 27^th respectively in runs scored.

The Tigers have also had Cleveland’s number in recent seasons, not to mention the fact that Detroit will be playing at home once again. Oakland is 9-7 on the season, but the team’s putrid offense (just a .283 team on-base percentage) could benefit Ausmus’ pitching staff.

Last on the docket is the Twins, who are tied for the worst record in the American League, and also own the second worst run differential in the junior circuit.