Mikey D

Okay, it's starting to get painful/frustrating.

The Tigers have been pitching pretty well lately. Verlander has been great, and Edwin Jackson has been even better (when will he get some Cy Young love?). Porcello has been steady, and Willis and Galaraga have had their moments and struggles (Bonderman should push those guys and also add stability to the back end of the rotation when he comes back Monday). The bullpen has been fine with Perry, Zumaya, Lyon, and Rodney. No complaints, really.

But the hitting...How many games are we going to go where we struggle offensively??? It feels like every game we play now we are scoring less than 3 runs. Perhaps that's not true, it just feels that way.

Last night was a perfect example. We won the game, which is great, but we won 2-1. The night before we lost 2-1. Such low scoring games!

Yes we've faced some great pitching. Dice-K. Beckett. E-Santana. Escobar. But still...the production is meager. And what kind of pitching do you think they'll be facing in the postseason? Yeah, those kind of pitchers.

So when you look at the line-up, it's not bad, but we have some holes. Can we all move on and say that Curtis Granderson is not a leadoff hitter? He's just not. He's going to be a career .250-.275 hitter with a lot of speed and power. I will take that, but just not out of the leadoff spot. Granderson would be great in the 6 or 7th spot in our line-up. In fact, I think Granderson, Inge, and Laird would make a solid 6-7-8 for our line-up. Throw in Everett or Santiago at short batting 9th, and we're set at the end of our line-up.

The 2-3-4 spots are also all set. Polanco, Ordonez, and Cabrera. That's easy to put out everyday.

But who leads off, and who gives us that pop in the middle? We just don't have it. We don't have that super-speedy leadoff man that gets on base all the time and steals tons of bases. We need a strong table-setter. I'm sorry, but Anderson, Thomas, and whomever else they've had out there just isn't cutting it. We need a guy who can hit for average and frustrate the heck out of pitchers.

As far as the fifth spot is concerned, I know we have Carlos Guillen and Marcus Thames on the DL, but again, the spot just isn't producing much. Larish just isn't on their level. Who knows when Guillen or Thames will get back, but we need them. Not just for their potential hitting ability, but to protect Cabrera. If you were a pitcher, who would you rather face- Cabrera, or the guy after him, Granderson or Larish? You take your chances with one of the latter two.

Now I'm not saying Dombrowski needs to go trade the farm to fill those two holes. In fact, I'm happy that those are the two biggest holes that we have right now, because I think they're easy fixes come trade deadline. I am saying that it does worry me that the offense is struggling the way it is and that the youngsters filling in for the aching veterans aren't quite producing like we hoped. We need some hitting out of those spots though, because we can't keep winning 2-1 all year.

Remember last year when our offense was pretty good (scored 850+ runs) and it was our pitching that was our downfall? Now it's the opposite!

~Mikey D