Tigers 0-4 and Braves 1-3

Well this is avery very bad start for both of these VERY talented teams. I guess I'll tackle the Braves first.

The Braves had a very good first 4 games losing all 3 games by 1 and winning a game by 7 lol.

First off Jair Jurrjens was just great. The Tigers traded him and Gorkys for Renteria this off season. And boy with his spring and his first start he is looking just awesome. His 5 Ks in 5.2 IP was a very nice start. The Braves bullpen has been sketchy at best, Bennett Moylan and Soriano have been pretty stellar except for Moylan's walk off homerun to the Nationals on opening night. But Others in the bullpen such as Acosta, Ohman, and Resop have been pretty bad. Acosta's bad first night and mediocre second and third nights doesn't help his cause. The rookie Resop is for some strange reason being used a lot and has 2 of the Braves 3 loses.

Going to the Braves offense a slow start has disappeared. Scoring 11,10 and then 3 runs a piece in games 1 and 4 aren't too bad. Texiera has been on a slow start with a Homer and only a couple of hits. Escobar, Diaz, Chipper have been carrying the offense these first 4 games. Diaz is 5-for-17 with a HR and 4 RBIs. That is outstanding considering he was supposed to platoon this year with Brandon Jones. Escobar is 6-for-16 with a HR and 6 RBIs. Yunel is filling in Renteria's shoes just fine as he has added some pop to his offense. Chipper is 8-for-18 and a HR and 6 RBIs as well. Chipper will be close to the MVP for the NL if he keeps this up. And he will be a great asset if he stays healthy.

Hampton being scratched from the start is also not surprising but it hurt. With Hampton out the Braves loss one of their strong veterans. With James being activated for Hampton with Mike going on 15-day DL the Braves rotation becomes weaker. Glavine did great with a 5 IP, 3Ks, and only 2ER. Along with Hudson pitching 7 IP, 3Ks, 2ER. Both of these pitchers did great. Hudson pitched like a CY Young award winner. Glavine pitched just smoothly. And proved he still has some fuel in his tank.

Now on to the winless Tigers. Several sites have picked the Tigers to win it all. Well with a $100 million lineup the Tigers very VERY surprisingly have started out with being swept by the Royals and losing today to the White Sox to open up at 0-4 record. There are many reasons why this has happened.

The Offense and their $100 million lineup is really starting to scare us. In the first four games the Tigers have scored only 10 runs. Most of the heart of the lineup is only 4 for 28 with 7 walks.
The rest of the Tigers are not very good. The leadoff position shared between Clete Thomas and Edgar Renteria, have gone 8-for-17 with 2 RBIs. And Brandon Inge has gone 4-for-12, which has been a great surprise. While Carlos Guillen has gone 5-for-13 with 3 walks and a HR.

The Rotation has arguably been the best part of the team excluding Nate's performance today. Bondo, Verlander, and Rogers have combined for 8 runs total from all of them. All of them have gone a total of 18.2 IP and have at least 3Ks except for Bondo who only has struckout 1 batter.

The Bullpen is the worst thing next to last years bullpen. It was and still is ablaze. Grilli let the lead go in the first game with 1ER and on three day rest, gave up 3 runs today. Seay, Lopez and Bautista along with Jones have been great. The have combined for 1ER. Miner has allowed 2 runs but still is throwing pretty nicely.

Things really need to shape and start up for both of these teams. There still a ton of games left in teh season but right now the Tigers need all the luck in the world otherwise we might be waiting for the 2009 season sooner rather then after October. As for the Braves they are in better shape besides going 1-3. The bullpen and rotation look pretty good and the offense should click almost every game for at least 4-5 runs.

2008 Standings through 4/4

0-4 Detroit Tigers- 5th place AL Central
1-3 Atlanta Braves- 5th place NL East


(Pictures credited to MLB.com)