| Curtis A. Clark. 15th May, 2006 - 9:57 pm
 The Detroit Tigers have had limited success during the past few seasons. The success they did have came on the back of an occasionally explosive offense. The team has spent most of its free agent money putting together enough bats to help their young developing pitching staff. The hope has been that when they did develop the combination would be lethal from both the plate and the mound.
It appears that time is now.
These Tigers have their bite back. The Tigers pitching staff is, statistically at least, the best in the majors. The rotation of Kenny Rogers, Jeremy Bonderman, Mike Maroth, Nate Robertson, and Justin Verlander represent the best cumulative ERA and most wins out of any starting-five in the majors. They have done this while throwing the fewest average amount of pitches in the league and not having a single starter with an ERA higher than 3.77, in fact the starters have won 22 decisions of the teams 37 games.
This is all astounding when you consider that in 2003 Bonderman and Maroth lost a combines 39 games between them, Robertson wasn’t in the rotation, and the team almost broke the all time MLB record for loses in a season.
Since then, the Tigers made Robertson a starter, changed coaching staffs, added veteran leadership in the rotation with Kenny Rogers, and called up rookie sensations Justin Verlander. The bullpen has also been remade with rookie mid reliever Joel Zumaya, setup man and future closer Fernando Rodney, and veteran closer Todd Jones. If the Tigers starters can get out of the 6th inning, which they have with regularity, the teams feels confident with their 7th, 8th, and 9th inning arms.
Pitching coach Chuck Hernandez and skipper Jim Leyland have to be credited with getting their staff to produce outs using a low pitch total. Leyland’s straight forward philosophy and no nonsense traditions have the pitching staff working fast and efficient and Hernandez has them confident in their stuff without overcomplicating things. Staff veteran Kenny Rogers, a groundball pitcher, has also set a great example as to how to be successful without an overpowering arm. Rogers has possibly the lowest velocity on the team, but gets it done with veteran guile and keeping the ball in play, a great lesson to teach the Tigers’ young talent in Verlander, Zumaya, and Bonderman.
If the Tigers’ young flamethrowers, all under 24 years of age, can learn how to paint the corners and induce the groundball to go along with their upper 90’s to 100 MPH fast balls, they will be deadly and ahead of the learning curve.
As it is this season, the staff has been better than advertised and exactly what the team has needed. Tigers’ bats have heated up and cooled off in different parts of the order all season, but the pitching has been there consistently all year. The Tigers, a game back in the central, do not appear to be fading as they have stayed with the red hot White Sox through almost a quarter of the season. If their success is going to last it will be on the arms of their starting rotation.
At seasons start the Central’s best pitching staff was most certainly going to be in Chicago or maybe Minnesota, now that it resides in Detroit the division has been turned on its head. Detroit has a very good shot at the post season this year, health providing they could be looking at the second or third best record in the American League, a welcome surprise to a town years removed from any baseball success.
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