The View From Here: A Prediction Gone Way, Way Wrong

A hopeful spring goes south for the Tigers
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By Ken De Laat

“A good friend of mine used to say, 'This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.' Think about that for a while.”- Nuke Laloosh, Bull Durham

“I see you haven’t written anything about the Tigers lately?”
The question didn’t seem to be an inquiry based on wanting to see more of my perpetually optimistic  assessments of the team and was tinged with that sprig of sarcasm friends delight in delivering to each other when previous predictions go south.
And mine certainly did.
From my Opening Day column:
"But hey, I’m a Tiger fan. I think the pitching staff will most certainly live up to its billing and those young guys are going to feed off each other sharing some hot batting streaks up and down the order. Carpenter and Torkelson will be our first pair of 30 dinger guys since Miggy and J.D. did it in 2015 and Colt Keith turns out to not just be the real deal but puts together a rookie of the year season. The bullpen is chock filled with lively arms and A.J. Hinch has finally got the talent that allows him some room for creative managerial moves."

And my hopes for a magical season that began with a 5-0 start (thanks to schedulers giving us the White Sox and Mets) now has the Bengals languishing 15 games behind the smoking hot Guardians and 61/2 games out of a wild card spot with 5 teams in front of them.

Nope, no playoffs. The duo of Torkeleson and Carpenter I hoped would be combining to rock the house with homers were derailed by Tork’s puzzling inability to hit that bought him a ticket to Toledo and Carpenter’s injury. Greene has been prone to slumps, Keith at second has improved after a brutal start and speaking of brutal starts Parker Meadows was mercifully sent down when he was unable to squeak his average into triple figures. Then there’s Baez, turning out to be the worst long term signing since Jordan Zimmerman floundered on the mound for 5 years back in the teens. The shuffle of players from the Mud Hens hasn’t helped much yet and I am struggling to recall when Baddoo actually had a decent bat.
Pitching-wise Skubal is the real deal and Olson, though roughed up a couple times, has generally  pitched great with zero run support. Almost uncannily poor run support  The bullpen began well but has become a mess.
This is just not a very good baseball team right now.

Though guilty as charged for the preposterous predictions, truth is, I wasn’t quite as rosy about the season as my column may have indicated. While it was fun to see them get hot early  I wrote this to my brother and fellow lifetime Tiger fan after the previous column:
“The team is, of course, destined to fail. To go through what young teams do as the Tigers did in the early 80’s. Learning how to win when you shouldn’t and carrying a swagger that as Dizzy said so eloquently, ‘It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up.”
They won’t hit with any consistency unless they can channel the ghost of Charley Lau but on occasion they’ll look awesome.
In 2015 they started 6-0 after sweeping the Twins and Cleveland. Even got to 11-2.
Ended up 74-87 and Dombrowski left in August replaced by Avila aka the Ned Harkness/Matt Millen of the Tigers. It’s been a long decade since.”

Ok, again, no playoffs this year. Likely a trade or two dangling Flaherty and/or someone from the bullpen since few other players would yield much in return.
But we are going to see a lot of players over the second half of the season in an effort to get the right mix and maybe there will be a few winning streaks to get excited about or a previously unsung player who gets on a hot run.

As for me? They have always been my team and always will. I’ve followed them when they were good and when they were really, really good.
I’ve also been with them through a multitude of mediocre seasons, some bad seasons and some really, really bad seasons.
And while the good ones are way more fun?
I’ll be tuning in right through that last home series against the White Sox ( a team playing like the Pistons of baseball). 
After all, it’s the Tigers.

Note: R.I.P Mr. Mays. Circa 1960 I was at a Braves/Giants game with my family at old County Stadium. On the field were Hank Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal  and you, the best ballplayer I ever saw play the game.

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