In like a lion, out like lamb. That’s what they say about March.
In like a lamb, out like a skewered lamb chop. That’s what we should say about the Detroit Tigers in April.
At least that’s been the best way to describe the past two Aprils under manager A.J. Hinch, whose squad just closed out the cruelest month with a 7-13 record. Last year, it was an even crueler 8-19 record in April.
That’s two Aprils and one abysmal 15-32 record.
According to the math nerds over at Fivethirtyeight, the Tigers are headed for a 70-92 record and then to the street, right out on their keisters during the expanded playoffs. The analytics website gives the Tigers a 6% chance of making the postseason and a 3% chance of winning the American League Central.
So it’s not looking good.
But if the Tigers even have that minute of a chance to make the playoffs, it has to start this month. It has to start tonight, when they kick off a two-game set at home against the Pittsburgh Pirates, one of the few teams that’s even worse.
And that’s saying something, when you consider the Tigers’ 7-14 record was the worst in the AL after Sunday, just a smidge better than the Pirates’ 9-13 record.
Look, I’m not trying to sell false hope here. But the Tigers had the misfortune of playing some really good teams in April like the New York Yankees, the Minnesota Twins and the Colorado Rockies. They also closed out the month with a three-game set on the road against the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers.
I felt bad for the Tigers as they headed to LA riding a five-game losing streak. I feared it was going to be the worst smackdown in LA since Chris Rock’s face got in the way of Will Smith’s hand a few weeks ago.
Incredibly, the Tigers took a game off the Dodgers on a night when Clayton Kershaw was fantastic, turned in a quality start and broke Don Sutton’s franchise strikeout record. The Tigers lost the series, but they only dropped the other two games by scores of 5-1 and 6-3, and they brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning in the finale.
“Nice to kind of escape one, I guess, if you will,” Walker Buehler, the ace on one of baseball’s best teams, admitted to reporters after Sunday’s game.
I know a lot of people hate the idea of moral victories. But they’re real and they matter. If you think all that matters in sports is the final result, and not what you learned along the way, then you’re probably the kind of golfer who skulls a 7-iron, watches it bounce to 3 feet of the cup and then thinks you hit a good shot. The process matters.
“We didn’t play well enough to win,” Hinch told reporters after the Tigers got 10 hits Sunday. “But offensively, at least we’re inching closer.”
Austin Meadows, Tucker Barnhart, Javier Baez and Harold Castro have been wonderful at the plate, though Akil Baddoo, Jonathan Schoop and Eric Haase need to improve significantly. The bullpen has been the best in baseball. Tarik Skubal, Michael Pineda and Beau Brieske have had strong starts while posting ERAs no higher than 3.60.
Now, here comes May and a softer schedule. Only two teams, Minnesota and Tampa Bay, out of the Tigers’ seven opponents had records better than .500 after Sunday.
They still have a long way to go, and the future doesn’t look promising for the postseason. But if they can show improvement this month, maybe we can look forward to a sunnier summer.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.