After yet another scoreless outing Wednesday afternoon in Cleveland, his fourth in his past five starts, Eduardo Rodriguez is third in the majors in ERA. And after their third series win in a row, the Tigers are two games out of first in the AL Central. What a difference a month can make.
The Tigers won two of their first 11 games, and seven of their first 20. They looked doomed for another long season. Rodriguez allowed seven runs in his first 10 innings. He looked nothing like an ace. The Tigers are 10-6 since getting swept in Baltimore last month, 7-2 beginning with last week's sweep of the Mets. Rodriguez has allowed two runs in his last 41 innings, one run in his last 35.
At this rate, Scott Harris is going to have a Cy Young candidate on his hands at the trade deadline, assuming he's still of the mind to sell.
"Eduardo's off to a great start," the Tigers' new president of baseball ops said Wednesday on MLB Network before Rodriguez sailed through seven in a 5-0 win over the Guardians. "When I watch him pitch, seems like he's ahead in the count to every hitter he faces. He's so good at mixing his pitches, at using all of his shapes on the edges of the zone, at finding a way to go deep into games and inducing a ton of soft contact.
"It's exactly what we want our pitches to do, and it's a credit to all the hard work he put in this offseason to put himself in a position to get off to a fast start here. We're really enthusiastic about the positive influence he's had on our young starters throughout the organization."
That's something to keep in mind as trade talks inevitably heat up. The Tigers may have no choice but to deal Rodriguez if he's inclined to exercise the opt-out in his five-year, $77 million contract after this season -- and why wouldn't he be if he keeps shoving to the tune of a 1.57 ERA? But there's at least a case to be made for keeping Rodriguez as the anchor of a young rotation if he'd just as soon stick around.
Even more so if the Tigers look up in, say, two months and see that they're still alive in what looks like the worst division in baseball. They're 17-19 with a minus-34 run differential at the moment, and better than everyone but the 19-17 Twins. Asked how he views the Tigers' chances in the AL Central moving forward, Harris smiled and said, "We're really not looking at the division at all."
"I think the best thing we can do is worry about ourselves," he said. "The best thing we can do is focus on pounding the zone on the mound and getting in better counts at the plate and catching the baseball. ... If we can continue to get strong pitching, really good defense and some better at-bats at the plate, anything can happen in this division. So we're going to focus on ourselves and see how it all shakes out at the end."
The Tigers have won series in the last three weeks against the Brewers, Mets, Cardinals and Guardians, all of whom looked like playoff-worthy teams at the start of the season. (The Cardinals have inexplicably cratered out of the gate.) They're 14-5 this season against anyone not in the AL East, more coincidence than anything but still a tribute to their improved play across the board. They lost eight of nine to the Rays, Red Sox and Blue Jays in their season-opening swoon.
Most encouragingly for the health of the Tigers' future, Riley Greene and Spencer Torkelson have heated up at the plate. And most refreshingly for the mood of this team, Javier Baez has pulled himself together since getting benched by A.J. Hinch for a base-running blunder last month in Toronto. Detroit's $140 million shortstop had an OPS of .328 before the benching, almost identical to his .321 average after it. He collected two more hits and scored two more runs on Wednesday, and has played strong defense all season. The Tigers have played terrific defense as a team, first in the majors in Outs Above Average according to FanGraphs. promisingly
Harris was in Chicago working under Theo Epstein when Baez was helping the Cubs end a 108-year World Series drought. He's seen the two-time All-Star, up close, at his Silver-Slugging, Gold Glove-winning best. What the Tigers have seen recently is close to the same player, perhaps an even better player in regard to his approach at the plate. Baez has significantly shaved his chase rate and strikeout rate while embracing the Tigers' new mantra to control the strike zone, which Harris said has "set the tone for the rest of our hitters," including Torkelson and Greene. Right now, this is a team in lockstep.
"Our young players in the big leagues are starting to learn how to compete at this level every night and starting to play with a little more energy, a little more confidence and a little bit more belief that we're really in it every night," Harris said. "And I think you've seen that over the last three-plus weeks."
The Tigers aren't suddenly destined for the playoffs, even in their up-for-grabs division. The Twins and their plus-21 run differential figure to pull away, the Guardians will find their footing and the White Sox can't possibly be this bad all season long. (The Royals might actually stink.) And Rodriguez is likely still destined to be traded, with Detroit's rebuild still short on premium bats. But the Tigers have made like Baez and put an embarrassing start behind them, which at least makes you wonder what might lie ahead.
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