Tigers just scored in two of the last 27 innings.
My question to you, Chad, is how concerned are
you? Well, I'm a little concerned. I'm concerned
for the fact that we are six games into the season
and we're seeing some old habits pick back up.
You're listening to The Litterbox, a Detroit
Tigers podcast with your hosts, Chet West and
Bill Patterson. Welcome to the Detroit Tigers
litter box. And I'm your host Billy P with Chet
West. And we are going to talk all things Tigers
after a interesting but somewhat deflating trip
out West to Arizona. Tigers come back, Chet.
They were swept by the Diamondbacks. They are
now two and four, which is the same as last season.
But boy Chet, we've got a few things that are
just not clicking at this point. Number one,
the Tigers really are struggling to hit. Number
two, they can't really hit for power. And then
the game they did hit, and they had a commanding
lead because they have had good starting pitching,
the bullpen couldn't pull it out. Chet, what
do you say about our Tigers thus far? Well, if
you had... Pulled me after the first two games.
I would have said everything was going perfect.
I think in our previous pod we said it was We
were glowing about our bullpen. We were glowing
about our starting staff We were very happy about
some of the guys that were hitting Kevin McGonagall
was on top of the world now Our starting staff
is about the only thing glowing anymore other
than a one Justin Berlander the bullpen Came
up out of nowhere blew a game in, Arizona And
our hitters are back to their old tricks again
Have you seen hobby bias swinging at pitches
four feet off the plate as he did two seasons
ago and beyond? Yes, I have and He is very concerning
Is I think we thought he would be even more concerning
though is the Tigers right now have a league
-leading 60 strikeouts of which 12 of those are
contributed to one player and that is Kerry Carpenter
I don't know if he was thrown off and I'm asking
you this by Being the leadoff hitter. I don't
know why that would throw him off so much But
Chet he is flailing at the plate as his hobby
and then Riley Green's not much better. So They
need a lot of help at this point From within
I'm not saying bad green bad Carry bad. Javi,
I'm starting to wonder if you made a comment
earlier on, is this his last season in baseball?
If he keeps swinging pitches like this, this
is his last season in baseball. I have no clue
how you can watch this guy take pitches down
the pipe. I watched a sequence, somebody had
posted it to Twitter. I watched a sequence where
two strikes went right down the pipe and he swung
at two balls that were two feet off the outside
corner of the plate. What is he seeing in one
pitch? That he's not seeing in the other pitch.
He's just not picking it up. And I wish I knew.
I think we all wish we knew. He might be the
guy I pick on this season. Who? Javi. Bayes or
whatever. We're not calling him Bayes anymore.
He doesn't get that name anymore. Because you
didn't pick on him last season. He's gonna get
picked on more if he's gonna be in the starting
lineup as often as he is. We have options for
shortstop now. I mean we don't have to play him
there. Wouldn't be interesting though if they
flipped him back to center field and he started
hitting again That would be the greatest. I mean
that that would be the greatest social experiment
of all time What did you like from the pitching
side of things? Can we talk about one or two
positive things from this past? Yeah, I mean
three games. Okay scoops was great for two stars.
Yeah, and to be expected I feel like the Tigers
are almost wasting him and that I would never
side with his agent Scott Boris. But I would
say if Scott Boris needed exhibit, you know,
a on what the Tigers aren't doing to utilize
the best abilities of his client, it would be
scoring zero runs yesterday, you know, in Arizona.
The other thing that I think was great is Casey
Mize pitched an absolute gem. And the bullpen
gave that one up. And, you know, it was interesting.
Our text chain of Tigers fans was talking about,
wouldn't it be great if Casey Mize could like
pitch like a number two? And he came out and
did it. He came out and pitched like a number
two. And unfortunately, you know, it's a team
game. There's multiple phases in this. You know,
you need to hit, you need to hit for power. You
need to play defense. You need to have a starting
pitcher. You need to have a bullpen. And that
was the bullpen just just letting us down. And
the other thing that's alarming this year chat
is how excellent the starting pitching has been,
but just how unusual the transition has been
to middle relief and the fact that it has not
been very seamless. I, I know you wanted me to
bring up positive. So those are my positives.
If you want me to glow more about Kevin McGonagall
and you want me to glow more about Dylan Dingler
and Colt Keith, I can. I unfortunately, I think
we need to talk about the fact that Drew Anderson
was signed. Drew Anderson has had two really
bad outings at this point with a third appearance.
If he just left him for the inning, if he just
let him do the one inning in the game against
the Diamondbacks, bringing him back out there
in the eighth was not a good idea. I would love
to ask AJ Hinch what the thinking was. Was he
saving his pen after Verlander only went three
and two thirds? The night before, maybe that
was the idea. Drew's rolling. He did great in
the seventh. I'll throw him back out there. He
got lit up. Walked guys. He looked like the Drew
Anderson in the previous game. So I wonder. And
our guy, any day, any time, any day, any day,
Jesus, he lost that nickname. He got blown up
too in his outing against the Diamondbacks. So
since we're not on Twitch, shut. Chet was shaking
his head. I was shaking my head. I was emphatically
shaking my head. No, I do believe that it's six
games and I don't want to go crazy. My fear,
my fear in these six games is we saw a lot of
old habits that have not died. We saw a lot of
things happening. We saw a lot of Spencer Torkelson
not hitting with runners in scoring position.
He has an incredible batting average with runners
in scoring position. Have you seen this stat?
Now Spencer Tockelson has about a 100 batting
average with runners in scoring position over
his career He's something like 6 for 65 Craziest
thing I've ever seen from one from a first overall
draft pick. Let's talk about the positive though.
He's hit 30 home runs You know, he does have
that pop You're asking me of all people who can't
stand Spencer Torkelson to defend him. I'm usually
his benefactor over here. I'm against him now.
Like I'm the public defender that was assigned
the case, you know, going up against. It was
more about hope. I was hoping for something to
come out of him. Yeah, I mean, you're really
pouring it. You're not an awful first baseman.
He's a he's a good serviceable first baseman.
He's made some pretty good picks over there.
And he has had his games where his, and his times
where his hitting has shown potential, but we
now have a large sample size on Spencer Torkelson.
And I think we have what we're going to have,
which is a guy who doesn't hit in the clutch
bats about two 40 to two 35 and hits maybe 20
homers. So you asked me to talk about the positive
basement. Let's focus a little bit on what the
opportunity is. I think the bullpen will, will
have its ups. So it'll have its downs. You know,
it's a new bullpen. It doesn't really need to
be clicking now. It needs to be clicking later
in the season. So we've got time to work that
out. That would be something I'd put, you know,
kick the can down the line. Do you want a rose
colored approach to this? Well, no, no, hold
on. They're getting all the bad out now. Well,
yeah, that's good too. Here's what concerns me
though. You cannot have two thirds of your starting
lineup be gaps. And what I'm talking about is
easy outs. And right now, outside of Dingler,
McGonagall, and Keith, Torres, if he decides
to keep the bat his shoulder, you're not getting
a whole lot from anybody else. And to your point
with Torque, if he's not hitting for power with
runners in scoring position, his value to this
team is basically nowhere. And you put in our
notes here for the show. No power. Where's the
power? I mean, Keith got robbed a couple of times.
Oh, on some hits that came up just, just short.
Can we talk about Colt Keith never probably wanting
to play home games ever again or away? He may
never play in Arizona. Oh my gosh. He got robbed
twice. That was like so unfortunate. So, you
know, some of the power might be there, but the
fact is you can't chat to your point. You can't
have three guys providing everything in your
lineup. You need to have that be six or seven.
Yeah, we have one home run in six games. That's
not good. We would have had five or four if the
two Keiths went out and the one McGonagall one
that Jackson Merrill robbed him on in San Diego
went out. And that would have been out in probably
any other park. But I get where you're going
with this. You got to have power coming from
like four spots, three spots at least. Right.
Yeah. And so we still don't know about Parker
Meadows. We still haven't seen enough there.
He's been on base more, though, than I would
have expected at this point. He's not a Javi
or Lebar Torres. He's not going to get my Carrie
Carpenter problem at this point. And so I'm going
to transition with this. And this is a question.
I think this is a huge series for the Tigers
at home. It's supposed to be above 70 degrees
tomorrow. Against st. Louis Cardinals home opener
tickets are ridiculously expensive for Detroit
check. I know I saw this Yeah, Stanley robbery
standing room only is going for like a hundred
and forty five dollars People are you know, very
very enthusiastic and excited and I love it You
know, it's it's everything we could want for
April and the D and the Tigers You're getting
what should be a weaker Cardinals team, too.
With that, I would ask every Detroit listener,
please leave a Coney Island out for an opening
day eve for Santa baseball. I don't know who
it is. Just I'm picturing him just walking house
to house, eating Coney's, you know, with that,
let's talk about the Cardinals. They're not a
great squad and, you know, rebuilding. And here's
the key thing. I love the signing, you know,
of Framber and the fact that we've got him going
tomorrow against Michael McGreevey. I think that
favors the Tigers just from a starting pitching
standpoint. We'll see. I mean, McGreevey, he's
pitched six innings. He doesn't have an earned
run and his whips 0 .33. So he could be You know,
very formidable going forward on that. They have
a very young team. This is the ultimate rebuilding
job. I mean, you're looking at, I don't know
that they have guys even close to any guys close
to 30 at this point. Maybe Alec Burleson. I don't
even think Burleson is, for crying out loud.
So tomorrow opening day is going to be 1210 Central
Standard Time, 110 for those in the Eastern Standard
Time Zone. Saturday, same time, 1210, 110. You've
got May going up against our guy, Blackjack Flaherty.
And this one's kind of encouraging because May's
ERA currently is 13 .5. He got blown up. Yeah.
Over only four innings. So Flaherty's 4 .15 ERA
looks fantastic. And then I think really the
key to this series is just going to be a lot
of fun, which is and this is really weird for
me to say, Chet, Sunday Night Baseball is now
on Peacock not ESPN where it's been for the last
I don't know 30 years Got a special streaming
service for that. It's on Peacock everybody and
we've got Leahy going up against JV JV's era
is absolutely bloated after his last outing Let's
not talk about that. I like to see a bounce back
I need to see something that resembles a starting
pitcher in Major League Baseball check Nobody
needs this more than JV. Nobody needs it more
than the fans and JV that I will say this Casey
Mize in his outing Did a lot to take the salt
out of the wounds from the previous night with
JV All right. So as we transition off this I
have a wager for you. Okay, Kate Upton photo
shots or camera pan ins Sunday night Peacock.
I'm assuming she'll be in a box somewhere, not
down by the rail there on the first row, right?
She usually shows up in a box these days. I don't
know. She's Grand Rapids Kate. She could just
be meandering with the people. I don't know.
I'm going to bet we get at least two shots of
Kate throughout the game. If he's pitching well.
Give me the over on that. What if he's pitching
poorly? Well, I show her as often. Well, if he
only makes it, you know, one and two thirds and
in the note, find out a lot about the peacock
broadcasts here. All right. Thank you for listening
to the Detroit Tigers litter box. We do have
a sister podcast, Detroit Lions litter box. I'm
your host, Bill, with your co -host chat. And
we are signing off. Go Tigers. Go Tigers. All
right. That's going to do it for this episode
of the Litterbox, a Detroit Tigers podcast. Thanks
for hanging out with us. We're Bill and Chet.
We'll be back soon with more Tigers Talk. If
you're enjoying the show, be sure to follow or
subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. And hey, if you got a
minute, leave us a quick review. Until next time,
go Tigers.