Rewriting History Against Cleveland
One of the most popular statistics thrown around the AL Central before the Tigers' series against the Indians is Detroit suffering a 17 game winless streak at the hands of Cleveland. The Tigers' last win against the Tribe was on April 10th, 2019.
The numbers don't get any better, with Detroit losing 58 out of 75 games to the Indians over the last six years.
As fascinating as these stats are to the media, the players didn't seem to notice. Tigers own Jacoby Jones, Niko Goodrum, and Grayson Grienier all admitted on zoom interviews; they had no idea the club has lost that many consecutive games to the Tribe.
While this may be mind-boggling to fans, this is an excellent sign of the Tigers' collective mindset of looking towards the future and not dwelling on their losses in 2019. It's an entirely new season, and the addition of Hitting Coach Joe Vavra is pivotal to Detroit's productivity from the batter's box.
We may be seeing more swing and misses, with a new club record of 46 strikeouts in their opening series against the reds, however harder contact is the result of their fresh approach to the plate. This season we've witnessed 26 homers through 16 games, whereas last year, it was only eight homers through 19 games.
Tigers are 4-2 in their last six games and are second place in the AL Central half a game ahead of Cleveland. History seems to not favor the Detroit Tigers, with 2019's record being 47-114.
