Detroit Tigers first half, mercifully, comes to close with game vs. Guardians postponed
When it rains it pours for the Detroit Tigers, literally.
On Sunday, mercifully, the first half of the Tigers' disappointing season ended with the final contest of four-game set against the Cleveland Guardians officially postponed.
The club announced it will be moved to Monday, August 15 as part of a traditional doubleheader starting at 3:10 p.m.
BREAKING: Tigers send 2020 No. 1 overall pick Spencer Torkelson to Triple-A Toledo
The Tigers (37-55) end the first half of the season 12.5 games back of the Minnesota Twins in the division and just half-a-game ahead of the Kansas City Royal in the AL Central cellar, though the Royals are in action Sunday.
After a slow start to the season, falling to 24-40 on June 17, the Tigers made a push over the next three weeks, going 12-7 in the first 19 games of the Riley Greene era.
A STEP TOWARD STARDOM: What Tigers' Riley Greene showed over 2 games in Cleveland
NEED MORE RESULTS: A decade of Tigers' MLB drafts haven't resulted in many stars at big-league level
However the club was not able to build on that stretch, which included a six-game winning streak — the longest of the year — and lost eight of their final nine games to limp into the All-Star break.
Detroit ended the first half on a 12-game road trip, going 3-8 (with one rain out) to fall to an MLB worst 14-31 away from home.
Sunday night may bring some hope for the future, with the MLB draft beginning at 7 p.m. and Detroit scheduled to have the No. 12 pick, though that will do little to console fans.
The Tigers first half included injuries to nearly the entire starting pitching staff with youngsters Casey Mize (Tommy John surgery) and Matt Manning (shoulder soreness and biceps tendinitis) combining for just four starts and 18 total innings.
Michael Pineda (broken finger) and Tyler Alexander (elbow sprain) both missed multiple weeks with injuries while Eduardo Rodriguez was placed on the 15-day IL with a left ribcage sprain at the end of May.
He was slated to comeback in mid-June, and all signs pointed to him returning to the rotation after a dominant start in Toledo, but he did not report back to the Tigers. Instead, he was placed on the restricted list — with reported marital issues — and the club has not heard from their $77 million pitcher since.
That's not to mention Jose Cisnero, who suffered multiple setbacks as he rehabbed to get back onto the team and earlier this week, the day he was added back to the 40-man roster, had to be placed on the bereavement list with a death in his family.
With so many injuries, the Tigers have had to rely on a youth movement of pitchers to keep the line moving. Beau Brieske and Alex Faedo both made their MLB debuts this season and have combined for 27 starts with varying degrees of success.
Brieske (3-6) has a 4.19 ERA with a 1.20 WHIP while Faedo (1-5) has a 5.53 ERA and 1.64 WHIP. Garrett Hill, Angel De Jesus and Elvin Rodriguez have all made MLB debuts as well on the mound, but the most notable new players to wear the Olde English D are in the field.
Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene, two of the team's top five overall picks since 2019 had very different starts to their career. Kody Clemens also spent more than a month in the big leagues, playing in 25 games, before he was optioned to Toledo last week.
Torkelson made the big league roster straight out of spring training and after starting 0-for-10 in his career was never able to get going. The No. 1 overall pick in 2020 from Arizona State is hitting .197 with five home runs, 21 RBIs, .287 OBP and .577 OPS.
After Sunday's postponement, the Tigers announced Torkelson was being optioned to Triple-A Toledo.
Greene would have made the big league team out of camp, but fractured his foot in the final week of spring training and missed the first two months of the year. From the time he arrived, he was arguably the team's best player, reaching base in 24 of 27 games, hitting .252 with a .702 OPS.
As a team, the Tigers' offense has been the MLB's worst in the first half, ranking last in runs scored (288 runs, only one other team has scored fewer than 332) , second-to-last in on-base percentage (.286) and slugging percentage (.333) and fourth from the bottom in batting average (.227).
It's because in large part the major additions, like Javier Baez, haven't lived up to their billing. Baez is hitting just .213 with nine home runs, 35 RBIs and a .251 OBP — all on pace for the worst marks of his career outside of the shortened 2020 season.
This doesn't even mention the offensive struggles of Jonathan Schoop (.246 OBP), Jeimer Candelario (.259 OBP), Robbie Grossman (.311 OBP) and Tucker Barnhart (.268 OBP) who are all simultaneously in the midst off the worst offensive seasons of their careers.
Outside of Greene — and perhaps Miguel Cabrera, who recorded his 3,000th hit back in April and is hitting a team-best .287 in the first half — the bullpen has been the lone bright spot of the team.
The Tigers relievers have a combined ERA of 3.08, the third best in all of baseball with a 1.19 WHIP.
Michael Fulmer, Alex Lange and Joe Jimenez are all in the midst of what may be the best year's of their career, while Gregory Soto was named to the All-Star game.
Contact Tony Garcia at apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him on twitter at @realtonygarcia.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers first half ends with game postponed vs. Cleveland
