Leading Off: Detroit Tigers
The Tigers will have a tough assignment on Friday night when facing the Yankees ace (Getty Images)
After an up and down series in Baltimore, the Yankees head back to the Bronx for some home cooking against the Detroit Tigers. This will be the first time the Yankees play a non Eastern division team that isn’t the Indians since the 2019 ALCS. Yes, it’s been a while! Let’s map out where things stand and what we can expect to see this weekend as Gerrit Cole prepares to take the mound for tonight’s matchup.
The 2021 Tigers: It’s Been Rough
When the Yankees take the field tonight, they’ll be facing the worst team in baseball. The Tigers have gotten off to a rough start, going 8-18, a record that somehow includes a three game sweep of the Astros. Take out those wins and the Tigers have all of five wins to their name. They are deep into their rebuilding process, picking first overall in last year’s draft and being slated to pick third this year. The Tigers have an interesting group of prospects on their way, particularly on the pitching side, but the current team looks on their way to another high draft pick.
On the offensive side, young phenom Akil Badoo has been the story of the Tigers season, hitting a grand slam and walk off home run in his first few games and carrying an OPS of .883 so far. He also has an 80 grade name tool, which obviously counts for something. Catcher Wilson Ramos is the only other Tiger with an OPS above .700, hitting six home runs on the young season (although who are we to criticize another team’s offense?). Yankees fans will be familiar with the corpse of Miguel Cabrera stationed at DH and batting under .200. Cabrera has usually been a Yankee killer, but now is just trying to get to 500 home runs and 3,000 hits before he retires (although he did hit two home runs off of Gerrit Cole in a Spring Training game I went to last year, apropos of nothing). The Tigers starting staff has been solid, particularly Matthew Boyd, Jose Urena and Spencer Turnbull. Unfortunately, the young prospects that the Tigers would like to see succeed have not, as Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal both have ERAs above 5.00. Such is life for a struggling rebuilding team.
Pitching Matchups: Marlins and Tigers and Bulls, Oh My
Friday: Gerrit Cole vs. Tarik Skubal
Skubal is one of the vaunted Tigers pitching prospects who is ranked as the #24 overall prospect according to MLB.com. He pitched to a 5.63 ERA last season in limited time and has posted a 5.21 ERA thus far this season. This year, Skubal has featured diminished fastball velocity and a lower spin rate on his fastball that has rendered the pitch less effective than he displayed last year. He has piggybacked outings with Michael Fulmer, pitching in no more than four innings per start, but will reportedly get to handle tonight’s outing solo. In his last outing, Skubal took the loss against the Royals, giving up 2 runs in 2.2 innings. Skubal has walked 12 batters in 19 innings this season, so he will also need to improve his command against a Yankee lineup that sports an above average walk rate.
Opposing Skubal will be Gerrit Cole, who is coming off a dominant performance against the Indians last Saturday. He is 3-1 with a 1.71 ERA, striking out 50 guys in 31 innings while only walking 3. In each game he’s pitched, he has singlehandedly kept the Yankees in the game despite their lack of run scoring. Cole will look to shut down one of the weaker offenses in baseball under the Friday night lights in the Bronx. The Yankees will look to give Cole more run support than they have, as they currently are scoring 3.2 runs per game in his outings.
Saturday: Jameson Taillon vs. Spencer Turnbull
As opposed to Skubal, who has the new prospect shine on him, Turnbull has risen from relative obscurity to become a workhorse in the Tigers rotation. Since being called up at the end of 2018, Turnbull has pitched to a 4.49 ERA in about 232 innings - roughly the equivalent of a full season for a regular starter. Turnbull started the 2021 season late because of a case of COVID-19, but has fully recovered from the virus. He has struggled with command in the past, but has only walked two batters in his first two starts, looking to improve upon a walk rate that was near 5 batters per 9 innings last season. In his last outing, Turnbull gave up three runs in six innings but took the loss as the Tigers only gave him two runs of support. In his brief career, Turnbull faced the Yankees once in 2019, giving up 4 runs in 5 innings and taking the loss. Aaron Judge homered off of him, which doesn’t mean anything for their matchup this weekend, but is just fun to watch. Let’s watch it now.
Grasping the bull by the horns will be Jameson Taillon, who got rocked by the Indians last weekend, giving up four runs in four innings. Taillon needs to lead to pitch deeper into games and harness the electric stuff he has shown thus far into tangible results. His previous Stadium outing against the Braves was encouraging and he will hope for something closer to that than his start in Cleveland. Putting batters away with two strikes will be paramount for Taillon to accomplish these goals.
Sunday: Corey Kluber vs. Jose Urena
Urena was one of the new additions to the Tigers this winter, signing a one year deal with them after the Marlins non-tendered him. He once was the Marlins Opening Day starter, but injuries knocked him out of the rotation and led to him posting a 5.25 ERA from 2019-2020 after posting a 3.90 ERA from 2017-2018. Urena has always overperformed his underlying statistics - he doesn’t strike many guys out, doesn’t limit contact all that well, and hasn’t shown an impressive walk rate. His career 4.69 FIP suggests that 2017-2018 might have been the mirage rather than his more recent struggles. Thus far, Urena has gone 1-3, but with a 3.77 ERA that was boosted by his most recent start against the White Sox, a 7 inning, 2 run outing. Against the Yankees, this Marlin turned Tiger has started twice and pitched to a 2.16 ERA.
For the Yankees, Klubot will take the mound, coming off his best start of the season in Baltimore. If Kluber can continue showing command to go with his offspeed pitches, which had great movement on Tuesday, the Yankees may have a legitimate number 2 starter on their hands. He will face the weak hitting Tigers, which should allow him to further build up the arm strength necessary before he starts taking on some of the better offenses in the league.
Bullpen Breakdown
The Tigers bullpen has been...not great . Closer Gregory Soto holds down a pen composed of household names that do not pitch up to their monikers. Daniel Norris, Derek Holland, and Michael Fulmer are all holding down relief spots to varying degrees of success. This group has contributed to the Tigers pitching staff being third worst in the American League in ERA thus far. To add insult to injury, the bullpen had to support a one inning outing by Matthew Boyd in the second half of yesterday’s doubleheader loss against the White Sox, so they are relatively taxed.
The Yankees bullpen is not in bad shape, as they benefited from long outings by Kluber and German in Baltimore despite yesterday’s extra innings loss. Green, O’Day, Chapman and Loisaga all pitched Thursday, but none of them pitched Wednesday, so everyone should be moderately rested. Plus, with Cole on the bump on Friday, there won’t be much of a worry of needing innings out of the pen (Please don’t let this be a jinx, baseball gods).
Yankees vs. Tigers History
The Yankees have not played the Tigers since 2019, where they dropped the second series of the season to them as part of a 6-9 start and a similar amount of hand wringing to what has occurred this season. The Yankees went 3-3 against the Tigers throughout the 2019 season. It’s been a while since the Yankees-Tigers rivalry was in full swing, but from 2006-2012, Detroit beat New York in two ALDS matchups and one ALCS matchup in 2012, which the Tigers thoroughly dominated in a sweep. A notable Yankees-Tigers matchup from recent memory occurred in 2017, where Austin Romine and Miguel Cabrera sparked a benches clearing brawl that got very ugly with multiple punches thrown. Romine went on to play for the Tigers last year, proving that money heals all wounds.
Thoughts Before the Series
Winning this series isn’t complicated. The Tigers are a terrible baseball team, even worse than the Orioles, and the Yankees should at a minimum, win the series. At this point, they really should be looking for a sweep, but baby steps here. The Tigers offense is very limited and outside of of Badoo, Ramos, and occasionally Cabrera - I’m not counting out the fact that he pops one into the Yankee Stadium bleachers. The Yankees will face some decent pitching, but their staff should have no trouble putting down the Tigers lineup. Therefore, there is one paramount goal for the Yankees this weekend - score runs. Winning 2-1 games would be disappointing against this team; the Yankees will need to score early and often to quickly bury the Tigers, who can be easily demoralized based on their past performance. They are capable of sweeping the Astros, but that seems like an outlier based on their rest of season performance.
2. The Yankees offense will be the big story heading into the weekend. They had a much better road trip than their previous homestand, but it still left us wanting. The team gave up more than 4 runs only once, but went 4-3, dropping two winnable games against Baltimore. We’ve seen signs of life from Stanton, LeMahieu, Torres, Frazier and Urshela, but the Yankees need them all to put it together at the same time. Consider this tweet.
The Yankees have been hitting, but not all at the same time, and have not scored as much as they are capable of. This weekend should be an opportunity to change that, if the hitters step up and start stringing hits and home runs together in the same inning.
3. Lastly, let’s pour one out for Mike Tauchman, the Yankee Sock Man. Tauchman was traded to San Francisco for Wandy Peralta, a left handed reliever who can provide bullpen depth and be optioned to the minors. Tauchman wasn’t playing behind Brett Gardner and the starting outfield, so this move makes sense from a depth perspective. Still, it’s sad to see the Sock Man move on, even if he hasn’t been good for a few years. Tauchman was key to the 2019 Yankees, providing outfield depth amongst numerous injuries and hitting .387/.452/.712 in the second half of 2019. Since then, he has failed to live up to that hot streak, hitting 217/.318/.289. Tauchman has always been a solid defender and more importantly, someone you can always rely on to give 110% whenever he’s on the field. So long Tauch, your contributions have been appreciated. Please enjoy the last great Tauchman memory we have - the sprint around the bases to tie up the game in the eighth inning against Baltimore a few weeks ago. Get your tissues ready, folks.
Game time is 7:05 tonight and when Cole takes the mound, the Yankees will be back on their home turf looking for redemption from their last pitiful appearance there. Let’s hope there aren’t any balls thrown at players tonight and for a Yankees win!
