Detroit Tigers: The Curse of a Faulty Bullpen
Believe it or not, the Detroit Tigers have another bullpen that cannot be trusted.
The Detroit Tigers have a bad case of the Bullpen Blues.
In Thursday’s contest with the Baltimore Orioles, the Tigers had an early lead, thanks to a Victor Martinez single to left field. They tacked on two more runs in the fourth and sixth innings, extending their lead to 5-0.
For the first time this season, Mike Pelfrey actually gave his team a chance to win. He was pulled with one out in the sixth inning after giving up two runs, five hits and walking two batters.
Kyle Ryan recorded one out, Drew VerHagen recorded the other. End of the sixth, 5-2 lead.
And that’s where everything begins to go downhill.
Alex Wilson then came on to pitch for the seventh, hanging on to a somewhat-comfortable three-run lead. With the Tigers, however, no lead is safe when it’s in the hands of a faulty bullpen.
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Three hits turned into three runs , and the Orioles quickly made it a ballgame. Wilson was chased after recording just one out. 5-5 now.
Next up was the other Wilson. It was Justin Wilson‘s turn to blow the lead and ruin the chance for a Tigers pitcher to get the win. He did just that, yielding two runs in just 2/3 innings of work. 7-5, Orioles lead.
With a two-run advantage, the Orioles turned the game over to the lethal back-end of their bullpen. Darren O’Day and Zach Britton shut down the Tigers, hanging on to a 7-5 win.
Wait, so if your bullpen is strong, you tend to win more games? It’s odd, isn’t it?
Monday night against the Washington Nationals, the Tigers found themselves in a similar situation.
They were off to another hot start, scoring on a Nick Castellanos two-run bomb in the first. The Nats cut the deficit to one with an RBI single from Daniel Murphy in the fourth inning. The Tigers answered the following inning with J.D. Martinez launching a ball into the bullpen in left.
Anibal Sanchez pitched into the sixth inning, but was yanked after allowing two runs in the sixth. The lead was now at a slim 4-3, and the bullpen had their work cut out for them.
The Nationals had the bases juiced in the seventh with Ben Revere at the plate. Revere flied out to Martinez in right, bringing in Michael Taylor from third base. The game was now tied, 4-4.
The Tigers couldn’t get anything going after that, and found themselves in a tie game heading into the bottom of the ninth inning. (Do you see what’s happening here?)
Mark Lowe was given the task of handling the ninth inning with Clint Robinson pinch hitting for the pitcher.
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With a 1-0 count and one out in the ninth, Lowe grooved a 92 MPH fastball down the heart of the plate. Robinson got all of it, Lowe watched it sail into the right field stands, and the Tigers lost 5-4.
In the last 10 contests, the Tigers have been practically giving games away. The bullpen ERA has skyrocketed to a 10.90 ERA, and the opponent is hitting and overwhelming .389, as it was reported on Fox Sports Detroit.
Not to mention, they’re 1-9 over this stretch.
Mark Lowe and Justin Wilson have been responsible for the late-inning meltdowns. Lowe has been shaky all season thus far. Allowing 10 runs to score in 12 innings of work is not an ideal line of numbers from your eighth inning man.
Wilson was dominant all of April. In his eleven appearances, he threw 10 innings without letting in a run. His month of May has been horrendous, as he’s given up an earned run in four of his last five games.
It’s no surprise that the best teams in all of baseball have the best bullpens, and it goes to show that strong, trusted arms in the later innings actually pay off. Shocking, right?
Next: Nick Castellanos may be Detroit's next Matthew Stafford
A good outing from a Tigers starter should not go unnoticed, as it has lately. If you want to win, the bullpen has to be able to maintain and protect the lead given to them. How hard is this to understand?