The moment Tigers fans have been dreaming about for years has arrived. They are in 1st place in the AL Central, commandingly, led by Spencer Torkelson, Casey Mize, Riley Greene and Tarik Skubal. I don't exactly think the plan was for it to take this long, but it's clicking.
I think the Tigers have at least proven that even if you build enough of a team from a great farm system, it's not going to click immediately. There'll be years where Tork won't hit, or years where Mize will be hurt, or years where you accidentally give away Isaac Paredes because he just hasn't blossomed yet. But then, out of nowhere, everything can come together for a 2024 ALDS run, even without many of those tricky pieces, and when they do bloom they'll just supplant everything that was working. It is odd that Parker Meadows, one of the impetuses of the 2024 run, is still hurt, and yet this team is still soaring. Maybe he just needed to be the one to light the match.
Casey Mize is having his best season to date, and it's in a role where he doesn't need to head up the rotation. I think that was the mistake, pitching him as THE ace, when in reality it was somebody like Tarik Skubal or Jack Flaherty. Mize only has 23 strikeouts through 5 starts, but he does have 4 wins and a 2.12 ERA. He's not a flamethrower like Skubal, but he's accurate, consistent and reliable. Finally. And having him in great shape has strengthened the rotation, which, aside from Keider Montero, has been spotless. Skubal is 3-2 with a 2.34 ERA and 40 Ks, which is not a bad response to Cy Young success at all. Jack Flaherty has a 2.63 ERA and 29 Ks, and I'm really glad he decided to come back to Detroit after winning the ring. Even Reese Olson and Jackson Jobe have been consistent, with sub-3 ERAs and positive W/L ratios. After years of the Tigers' rotation essentially being 'whoever could show up', this is a positive, well-organized unit, and they can lead this team far.
The production, by the way, coming from Spencer Torkelson and Javier Baez, two guys holding down previous iterations of this team, is astounding. Torkelson is hitting .255 [cold recently], but he has 8 home runs, 24 RBIs and a 1.3 WAR. Baez has finally reclaimed his contact glory, hitting .301 with 26 hits and 7 RBIs. Baez was signed to be the centerpiece of this lineup, and I think he's a lot better off as just one of many contributors, alongside Kerry Carpenter, Zach McKinstry, Trey Sweeney and Gleyber Torres. It's not really a 'one man leads the team' kind of squad right now, especially with Riley Greene hitting around .202. The collaborative mentality is winning games for this team, and I'm happy to see it.
The Tigers winning the division, and outlasting the competition by a wide margin, would be a really cool outcome, especially after a decade of ineptitude. They're on the road to this, they just need to keep on it.
Coming Tomorrow- Paul Skenes may be the real headline guy in Pittsburgh, but this guy's not exactly throwing badly either.
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