ARLINGTON, Texas — The Texas Rangers are dusting off the Old Bay and traveling north to kick off a Memorial Day-highlighted series with the Detroit Tigers that will conclude their current road trip as well as their slate in May.
Believe it or not, but this will be a second matchup against a second-place team in as many series, having just come off of a series win against the AL East-trailing Baltimore Orioles. The circumstances are a little different, of course. This time, the second-place team is unlike any second-place team in baseball because they do things a little bit differently (in this case, worse) in the AL Central.
Going into Monday’s series, the Tigers are one game below .500, at 25-26, but they are sitting just one game behind the 27-26 Minnesota Twins in baseball’s worst division.
The Rangers, meanwhile, are still sitting pretty atop the AL West, with a record of 33-19, usurped in the finale in Baltimore for the second best in the majors, but two games ahead of Houston.
Where Detroit is coming from
After a rocky first month of the season in which they went 10-17, Detroit has been playing decent ball against some relatively bad teams. This stretch for the Tigers includes a series sweep against the New York Mets to start the month, however, and they’ve taken a series from the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals as well. Most recently, they’re coming off winning three of four against the Chicago White Sox.
This series versus the Rangers will be the tail end of a string of 13 games in a row played between the road and home for the Tigers. During this stretch, where they played against the Nationals in Washington, the Royals in Kansas City and the White Sox at home, they are 6-4 and have scored as many runs as they’ve allowed – 52. Most of the runs they gave up came in a blowout loss on Friday night against Chicago, however.
For the month, the Tigers are hitting slightly better than they were in April, but are still in the bottom five of the league offensively.
Pitching-wise, Detroit is sitting towards the lower side of the middle of the pack in ERA, but the team is in the top ten teams in terms of surrendering home runs.
The Detroit pitchers don’t walk a lot of hitters and they don’t give up many hits – opponents are hitting just .244 off of them – and they have one of the best strikeout-to-walk ratios in the league. However, when they get hit, they get hit hard. Opponents are slugging .411 against the Tigers.
Against the prolific offense of the Rangers, this could be a fairly lopsided series.
Things to watch for
- Game 53: 12:10 PM CT - RHP Nathan Eovaldi (6-2, 2.60 ERA) vs. LHP Matthew Boyd (3-3, 5.74 ERA)
- Game 54: 5:40 PM CT - LHP Martin Perez (6-1, 3.83 ERA) vs. RHP Alex Faedo (1-2, 4.15 ERA)
- Game 55: 12:10 PM CT - RHP Dane Dunning (4-0, 1.67 ERA) vs. TBD
Detroit draws a tough pitcher for the opener. Nathan Eovaldi has been the best starting pitcher for the Rangers. In the month of May, he’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball. Eovaldi is coming off of his second complete game in five starts, an effort against the Pirates in which he gave up just one run.
For the month of May, Eovaldi is averaging 8 ⅓ innings per outing with a 1.10 ERA and with opponents slashing just .171/.214/.270 against him.
Even so, a couple of Tigers have a decent record against him. Jonathan Schoop has hit .286 in 14 at-bats against Eovaldi while future Hall-of-Famer Miguel Cabrera has hit .375 in eight at-bats against Eovaldi. Cabrera, though, is not what he once was. The Tigers’ DH is hitting just .169 on the year without a homer.
Opposing Eovaldi in the opener will be lefty Matthew Boyd, who is coming off of a strange but effective outing. Against Kansas City last Wednesday, Boyd managed 4 ⅔ innings but only gave up one run while striking out six and walking two. Upon running into some trouble in the fifth inning, Boyd was pulled at 86 pitches.
For the year, Boyd is averaging just under five innings pitched with a 5.74 ERA. Robbie Grossman has faced the 9-year veteran 28 times and sports a .286 batting average against the lefty.
The second game of the series pits Martin Perez against Alex Faedo. Perez, the Venezuelan lefty, is coming off of a start in Pittsburgh where he went seven innings and allowed two earned runs on the way to his sixth win of the season. Several Tigers have experience against Perez, including Cabrera (.429 in 14 ABs), Schoop (.263 in 19 ABs) and shortstop Javier Baez, who is hitting .230 on the season but has a .333 batting average against Perez in six ABs.
Faedo, meanwhile, is coming off of one of the best starts of his career as the 27-year-old righty gave up just two runs in six innings while striking out ten and earning his first win of the year against Chicago on Thursday. Nobody in the Rangers’ lineup has faced Faedo before as he will be making just the 17th start of his career.
Wednesday should see the return of new dad Dane Dunning against a Detroit pitcher to be named. Dunning was supposed to pitch in the series finale against Baltimore on Sunday but was on the paternity list after his son, Mack, was born on Thursday.
Still, Dunning has been brilliant as a starter since taking over for Jacob deGrom; in four starts, Dunning is sporting a 2-0 record with a 1.59 ERA.
The next pitcher in the rotation for Detroit was supposed to be Joey Wentz. Wentz, however, has been having a miserable season without having pitched more than six innings in any start while sporting an ERA of 7.80. His most recent outing, against the White Sox on Friday, lasted just four innings as he allowed five runs in Detroit’s only loss of that series. Wentz is expected to pitch against Texas but Detroit is toying with the idea of using an opener in the finale before turning to the lefty.
Even though this is against another second-place team, and a second-place team that’s been stringing together some wins, the Tigers have been feasting on the spoils of playing in a weaker division, while Texas has been rolling despite the Astros breathing down their necks.
May has been kind to the Rangers but another series win to close out the month would do them good to put any thoughts of a June swoon out of their minds.
Do you think the Rangers will be able to handle their business in Detroit and end May on a good note? Share your predictions with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.