Should Detroit Tigers fans be fretting?

Kurt Mensching of the Detroit Newsdoesn’t think so, but the staff of DJC seems to think a little fretting is a very appropriate response to the play we have seen from the 2012 Tigers on the Field. Mensching uses a lot of really fancy numbers (and baseball has a never ending supply of them) to support his argument. For once DJC is going to write a response to that column without using any numbers (or using them in very general ways) because we can blow up his argument based merely on what we have seen, and what all other Tigers fans have seen so far this year.

First and foremost this team (billed as a superior offensive club much like the 2008 version) leaves way to may people on base. Again I could go find the exact number but how many do all you Tigers fans out there see them strand per game? The answer is a lot, a whole heck of a lot and despite how could the pitching staff becomes at some point they have got to score some runs. Tonight they are struggling against the lowly Chicago Cubs and have five singles (when this column was written). Five singles in that park by this lineup is unacceptable. They also hit into way to many double plays and some of that is the top heavy nature of the lineup, and the over all lack of team speed. Why, even in a National League park, QuintonBerryis not in the lineup simply frustrates and confuses us.

In good Tigers years, and in season where they did something the supporting cast was no less than outstanding. This year the supporting cast is way below average, and that doesn’t seem likely to change anytime soon. General Manger Dave Dombrowski will not be able to find that many role players to really get this group to be just anything more than average. Moves are coming of that DJC has little doubt but how effective they will be?

On top of that once those plates get here we will see them led on the field by what has so far been a pretty ineffective group of managers and coaches. Sure they got Brennan Boesch out of a slump, but anyone can get out of a slump eventually. Give a guy enough at bats, who isn’t Brandon Inge or Ryan Raburn and sooner or later they will get themselves out of the funk.

Any good sports writer can make the numbers of this game say anything they want too. Mensching says the pitching is a lot better than what Tigers fans seem to think it is. He is pulling the wool over your eyes. I ask Tigers fans to watch a Tigers game and tell me that the pitching performances are good. The simple fact is they have not been. Can anyone out there say that Max Scherzer’s performance tonight was good? Forgot about the numbers, the score, and everything else does anyone on this staff past Justin Verlander inspire confidence in you?

Traditional media likes to tell you what to think. They like to tell you what you saw on the field isn’t the story, isn’t what is really happening. The staff of DJC knows better. We know the people that read this site are the ones watching the games on TV and the ones sitting in the stands of Comerica Park, and I will take your assessment of this team over the one offered by a guy who is trying to make this team out to be something it is not. Right not that is simply below average, and so not what we expected. It is the middle of June and the Tigers sit five games out of first place, and every game gets tougher and tougher to watch.

The only positives we have seen of late is an improving bullpen, and a series win over the first place Cincinnati Reds (there are a few more but those are the main ones). While those are positives they have not lifted our cynicism toward this team. Long time Tigers’ fans have seen and read all of this before.