My tax season hangover is about over and as usual, I had the Tigers to keep me company through some of my work.  After dropping that first series to the Twins, the Tigers have looked pretty sharp and sit in sole possession of first place in the Central.  Everything seems to be working except for the pen, and this shows in the Tigers +24 run differential this year.

For a while, the Tigers were at the top in batting average but closer to the middle bottom in slugging but they’ve turned that around as well.  Only the Athletics have scored more runs in the AL than the Tigers and they’re one of the teams we took care of earlier in the week.

Even the bullpen has gotten their stuff together.  While the Tigers didn’t address much of what happened when they got beat down by the San Francisco Giants, this team is made for the regular season.  Good starting pitching and some mashing at the top of the lineup means this team should, as people expect, run away with the division.

One of the guys I was worried about was Torii Hunter.  He could still come back down to earth (his BABIP is currently .481) but whatever he was doing last year to get hits is also working this year.  Throw in some slightly better than average defense and you have quite an upgrade over Delmon Young from last year.

As I thought, I’m going to miss the Kentucky Derby again this year.  So it stays on my bucket list for one more year.  I don’t usually bet on the Kentucky Derby either but always enjoy watching it.

Next up for the Tigers are the Angels.  Just one more day of late baseball because the other two games in the series are this afternoon.  Hopefully this isn’t the time the Angels get their stuff together and we can get out of this west coast swing with three series wins.

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