No Luck for Flaherty

[Peter Welch]

Flaherty goes 5 innings with 10 Ks and only allows 3 hits and 1 walk, but still gives up 4 runs, although only 2 earned thanks to a Colt Keith error.  Tigers trail 4-0 in the top of the 7th.  This team seems cursed right now and is spiraling.

One of the elephants in the room this season is the Tigers' defense, which sucks, especially infield defense (Dingler excluded).

As usual, the Tigers couldn't do much against Sonny Gray, who tossed 5 shutout, 4-hit innings with 2 walks and 2 Ks.

By the way, Tork is back to being terrible.  His BA is down to .210.  He really is Rob Deer.

Peter

[Roger King]

The entire AL sucks this year so far except for the Yankees and the Rays.  The A’s are the only other team above .500 and that’s only by 1 game. 

I know there has been a lot of interleague play in the first month and a half, but not sure that fully explains it.

Anyway, it’s early enough that the Tigers can turn it around but given all the news this week, seems a lifetime ago when they beat Texas on Sunday night baseball (as in, 4 days ago!) to take 2 of 3 in the series and claim 1st place. 

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[Peter Welch]

By the way, Tork is batting 8^th tonight.  Our 1-1 pick overall "slugging" 1^st baseman is now a #8 hitter.

Peter

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From: Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 6, 2026 8:41 PM
To: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>
Cc: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: No Luck for Flaherty

 

[Shawn Parker]

Like I have said before. He is going to probably thrive on another team as a reclamation project.

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[Peter Welch]

Tigers' pitchers struck out 15 batters and allowed 4 hits (3 singles and a double) tonight and the Tigers lose 4-0.  They did walk 7 batters.  

What can you do?

Peter

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From: detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Shawn Parker <sdpark...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 6, 2026 8:53 PM
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[Jason Rice]

Most nights that will be good enough. Not on a night when the bats are asleep like tonight.

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[Paul Meloche]

Going into this series the Tigers had the second best run differential in the AL (NYY was first by a lot). That stat blew me away.

 

Safe to say that after getting swept, including a blowout, we're no longer second.

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[Roger King]

Right on cue a friend just emailed this to me a few minutes ago:

“As of Wednesday night, every team in the AL has played 36 games, with every AL team other than the Yankees and Rays at .500 or worse. In the Divisional Era, there have only been two seasons in which one league has had fewer than four teams above .500 through 36 games: the 1990 NL (only the Reds, Pirates and Phillies had winning records) and the 1974 AL (White Sox, Brewers and Athletics). Until this season, neither league had only two teams above .500 through 36 games in the Divisional Era."

https://www.mlb.com/news/explaining-mlb-teams-run-differentials-early-in-2026

[Peter Welch]

Maybe coincidence or not, but the team seems to have gone into an immediate funk since the Skubal news.  

Besides Skubal, the Tigers have been absolutely clobbered with injuries lately (losing Torres has also hurt), but McGonigle, Greene, Keith, Tork, Carp, Dnigler, etc. are healthy and their bats have gone to sleep, especially their power (apart from Dingler occasionally).  When they have gotten hits they are mostly singles.  

I'm a bit disappointed that Keith still isn't developing the power he showed in the minors.  Sure, he's hitting .327, but he only had 6 extra-base hits (all doubles and no homers) on the season.  He's a defensive liability so it's not like his bat is so good it can overcome poor defense.

McGonigle is in a bit of a slump, although he's been getting some crappy luck lately.  He scorched a ball last night that was caught.

I read that McGonigle has hit into the most outs on 100+ mph exit velocity balls in MLB.  He's getting some of that Torkelson bad luck.

Greene's power has dropped off this year, although he's drawing a lot more walks, striking out a bit less, and keeping his batting average near .300 and his OBA near .400.  I like this year's version of Greene better than last year's despite less power.  Maybe he'll hit more homers as the season progresses.  Last night Greene had a chance to get the Tigers back into the game, but he struck out swinging on a cutter that was off the plate with 2 runners on and 1 out.  Greene had gotten 2 hittable fastballs in that AB but fouled them off.

Also disappointed in Carpenter.  He's striking out 35% of the time and hitting only .210.  He's actually improved his walk rate a lot this year (almost 10%), but he's not making a lot of contact. I keep using the Rob Deer analogy, but Carp has sort of become a lefty Rob Deer.  The guy swings from his heels on anything he thinks he can attack, but unfortunately he misses a lot of pitches.  I'd rather see the Carpenter that hit .270-.280 a couple of years ago, but we probably won't see that again. 

Tork is Tork.  A very streaky Rob Deer TTO type hitter who gets a lot of bad luck on balls in play.  Tork has a habit of hitting it to the wrong part of the ballpark when he does make contact.  

Dingler's average has fallen to .248.  He still provides a bit more consistent power than some of the other guys.  Overall he's still an above-average hitting catcher (and great defensive catcher).  

Peter

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From: Paul Meloche <meloc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2026 10:52 AM
To: Roger King <pnag...@pnagency.com>
Cc: Peter Welch <pw...@hotmail.com>; detroit...@googlegroups.com <detroit...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: No Luck for Flaherty