Garret Craig

The Tigers batted around Kei Igawa last night in their 6-5 victory over New York, and have now won 2 of their last three games. Despite being held to just one run against Josh Beckett on Thursday night, the Tigers have scored 17 runs over the past three games.

Last night, Ivan ‘Pudge’ Rodriguez went 3-4 with 2 RBI’s, Placido Polanco and Magglio Ordonez each went 2-4 with an RBI, Gary Sheffield doubled in a run of his own, going 1-4, and improving his average to .204.

The Tigers are now 4th in the AL (7th in the MLB) in batting average, and 2nd in the AL (6th in the MLB) in total runs scored. The Tigers also find themselves 2nd in the AL (5th in the MLB) in base-on-balls.

But don’t get too excited, the Tigers pitching is still among the worst in the league statistically. They’ve given up the most runs in the MLB with 204, and they have the worst ERA in the MLB with a staggering 5.10.

The Tigers will try to put a streak together as they play the Yankees today (Saturday) at 3:40p. Jeremy Bonderman will duel Darrell Rasner.

They just don’t seem to care any more. The moves by Jim Leyland Monday were supposed to give the Tigers some sort of new energy, but the Tigers batters will have none of it. The Tigers, who scored three runs last night, and were shut out 5-0 tonight, are now averaging 2.2 runs in the past 5 games, and 4.7 runs per game over the first 34 games.

Let me take you to the bottom of the 8th inning, two outs, “All-Star” Ivan ‘Pudge’ Rodriguez at the plate. Pudge lines it down the right field line into the corner. Now most players, not making the money Rodriguez is, would be running hard out of the box, putting some pressure on the opposing team and maybe trying to spark a rally. But Ivan Rodriguez, since he knows he’s just an amazing player, trots around the base paths like he just hit a grand slam. This is just one of the many things I’ve seen over the last month+ that tell me this team doesn’t want to win a World Series.

Why? They have no reason to. Most of these players have guaranteed money for many years to come. And good money too. Just as one example, Miguel Cabrera is locked up for 8 years, and if he never hits the ball again in his career, he will be set for life with $153.3 million. That comes out to $120,000 every game in the next 8 years. What incentive does Miguel have to win?

Gary Sheffield, who will make around 13 million this year, and around $80,000 per game, is currently hitting .176 with 2 home runs. The Tigers have him locked up through next year. That sounds promising doesn’t it?

Until now, I’ve been preaching “We’re only a few games back, we’ll be OK.” All I can say now is that Tigers fans have reason to be scared.

We’ve seen it in the last two games especially, the Colorado Avalanche are taking stupid penalties, and the Red Wings aren’t letting them get away with it. But it isn’t just the PIM’s that have handed the Avalanche a 3-0 deficit in Round 2, they may actually be trying too hard. I noticed this especially in last nights 4-3 Wings win, the Av’s are overplaying the body, sending two or even three men to hit a Red Wing player, leaving goal scorers like Johan Franzen, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg wide open in front of the Av’s goal.

Jose Theodore isn’t doing much to help them out either. Last night’s game was the first against the Red Wings when he played the whole 60 minutes, and he still gave up four goals in the loss.

The Wings will go into game four Thursday night confident and aiming for the sweep. The Wings come in with a 4.3 Goals Per Game Average in this series alone.