The Detroit Tigers winning with this roster is nothing short of crazy

The Detroit Tigers have turned over a quarter of their roster but continue to win

Every team deals with injuries–especially in a year where players are returning from a shortened season or perhaps no season at all. Pitcher injuries, especially, are on the rise and teams like the Detroit Tigers have had to do some scrambling to account for all the innings necessary to get through a game and ultimately a season.

The Detroit Tigers lost Julio Teheran after one start due to injury, have gone without (arguably) their two best starting pitchers for nearly a month, designating their starting catcher and starting centerfielder for assignment, losing their backup catcher to injury, moving Jonathan Schoop and Willi Castro to different positions, and losing their opening day right fielder Victor Reyes.

Yes, this is what good teams do. Good teams win without their best players. But the Detroit Tigers have not been a good team in a long time. Many of these injuries and roster moves would have sunken the ship in past seasons, yet the team has now won 7 of their last 10. Between Ramos, Reyes, and Jones, 33 percent of their lineup has changed to some combination of Rogers, Haase, and Akil Baddoo. It is evident now that these are upgrades, but it would have been a tough argument to make back in April.

Likewise, they are currently without 60 percent of their rotation from opening day and rolling with a shortened Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal, Jose Urena, Wily Peralta, and Matt Manning. It is difficult to imagine, but the club has weathered the storm to this point and continued to scrape together wins, injuries be damned.

Again, using the April exercise–had one told me that Wily Peralta would be such a leaned-on commodity in July, I would have assumed another tank job. Something about this team and this coaching staff is different. There is relentlessness and a willingness to fight with the guys they have with no regard for who is missing.

Take Kyle Funkhouser as a case study. His renaissance has also continued; going from a high velocity/low command arm with limited secondaries to someone who has earned a shot at some leverage situations and has come through when they have needed him. I was skeptical about Funkhouser even after his first couple of successful outings, waiting on his inconsistencies to shine through, but they have not to this point.

I had watched Funkhouser get barreled up consistently at the alternate training site this spring–it was essentially more of the same that we had seen in his limited time before. Fast forward to July 8th and it’s now a 2.59 ERA with a 1.15 WHIP. He’s also in the 99th percentile in barrel percentage, according to Statcast. He’s just not getting hit hard–a sharp contrast to the beatdown that baseballs gave to left field in Toledo this spring.

Joe Jimenez is another name that many weren’t counting on. It wasn’t that no one felt Jimenez wouldn’t be back to the Detroit Tigers bullpen at some point, but there was a question of whether he would ever be an arm that manager AJ Hinch could count on for three outs, let alone get back into his former high-leverage role. Across his last six outings, Jimenez has allowed one earned run and struck out eight batters across those 5 2/3 innings. Soon to suggest he has ‘arrived,’ but when a team is struggling to find innings out of their starters as the Detroit Tigers are, reliable bullpen arms become even more imperative and Jimenez has delivered in his brief stay.

Injuries and under-achievement are all a part of baseball. For the Detroit Tigers, JaCoby Jones falling off and the injuries to Spencer Turnbull and Matthew Boyd would have sent the team into a spiral in the past. We hear often about the ‘next man up’ mentality of teams. For the Detroit Tigers, their depth has proven to be better than initially anticipated. It is tough to imagine this pace sustaining through the end of the season or even into August, but here’s to hoping their fresh cast can ride the wave of wins into the break and beyond.