The St. Louis Cardinals (10-22) will take on the Detroit Tigers (13-17) Saturday in the second game of a three game series. This article was written before these teams faced each other on Friday night.
The once-proud Detroit Tigers franchise came into this season following six consecutive losing seasons. The Tigers are coming off a strong home three-game sweep over the New York Mets, where they got wins over former Tigers Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. Detroit is now four games below .500 but third in the AL Central and three games out of first place. The Tigers are also the ninth-best team in MLB when it comes to money profit this season at +332 according to covers.com. Only the Washington Nationals have been profitable this season with a worse record than the Tigers.
Detroit's offense has struggled. The Tigers are dead last in OPS (.643), 29th in scoring (3.5 rpg), 28th with a .225 team batting average, and 26th with 0.9 home runs per game. Nick Maton and Kerry Carpenter lead the team with four home runs a piece. Although home run power has not been Detroit's specialty, it was on Thursday when Riley Greene and Jav ier Baez hit back-to-back first-inning home runs off of Justin Verlander to help lead Detroit to a 2-0 win.
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— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) May 5, 2023
Right-hander Spencer Turnbull goes for the Tigers on Saturday He's 1-4 with a 6.84 ERA and a 1.67 WHIP. Turnbull was 4-2 with a 2.88 ERA, which included throwing a no-hitter in 2021. Unfortunately, Turnbull's season was cut short in 2021 due to an injury, and he also missed the entire 2022 season. The Detroit bullpen is 21st with a 4.16 ERA. The biggest strength for Detroit has been in the field, where defensively, they rank second in all of ML with +22 runs saved.
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