There aren't many words to describe this anymore. The only thing to discuss is that the Tigers now have to battle against baseball history if they want to live up to all their pre-season expectations. Here ate the two most sobering stats I came across while preparing for my sportscast today:
1. No team in Major League Baseball history has ever started a season 0-6 and played in a World Series.
2. Only two teams in Major League Baseball history - the '74 Pirates and the '95 Reds - have ever recovered from an 0-6 start to make the playoffs.
Somebody in Detroit needs to get angry. Somebody in that clubhouse needs to kick a water cooler or grab a sack of rosin bags and slam it up against a wall. I have seen no life in this team for a week, and the scary thing is that they may not have hit rock-bottom yet. I think apathy has started to settle in with this ball club already. If you looked at the Tigers' players faces, as ESPN did a camera-pan in the dugout Sunday night, you can see they're starting to feel numb. I'm not saying they don't care, because there's no doubt they do, but this losing skid has now taken on a life of its own. It's rattling around in their heads.
Clete Thomas leads the team in hittin (.467) and backup Brandon Inge leads the team in home runs (2) and RBI (4). The irony in that is neither player should be in the everyday lineup. Inge is playing 3rd base because Miguel Cabrera has a sore quad and Clete Thomas is playing in center because Curtis Granderson is still on the DL with a broken hand.
Now it's on to Boston. The 0-6 Tigers seeking their first win against the defending world champion Red Sox. Detroit now begins a stretch where it will play 12 of their next 14 games on the road. This losing streak cannot continue. It must end tomorrow night in Boston.