A.J. Hinch is still asking Tigers fans to stay with this team, but the patience has worn thin after another ugly stretch.
Detroit has dropped 10 of its last 12 and now sits nine games under .500, with the latest blow coming Wednesday in a 3-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. The offense was almost nonexistent, producing just two hits and marking the fourth time in eight days the Tigers have been held to one run or fewer. At this point, it’s been a season full of disappointment for a club that entered the year with far bigger expectations.
The Tigers are also five games out of a wild-card spot, and the recent slide has made the path back look even steeper.
Still, Hinch hasn’t given up on the possibility of a turnaround. Speaking to 97.1 The Ticket, he tried to keep the message alive for a frustrated fan base.
"We're not really built to concede anything yet, we need to go on an incredibely good run to make this interesting," Hinch said. "We just want our fans to hang in there with us.
We are grinding and working to be better... I don't want our fans to check out..."
It’s a tough sell right now, and understandably so. This was supposed to be a Tigers team near the top of the AL Central after pushing the Seattle Mariners to five games in the ALDS last season. Instead, a brutal May left Detroit climbing uphill, and even after the club made some ground in July and early August, this latest slump has all but buried any realistic playoff push.
After the series loss to the Kansas City Royals, Hinch didn’t hide from how poor the trip was.
"We've got to pick ourselves up. I mean, this was a miserable road trip, Hinch said, per Jackson Stone of mlb.com.
"Results are pretty obvious. We haven't executed perfectly.
We don't have to be perfect to win games, but at the end of the day, you either take a step forward or you take a step backwards--and we took a couple of steps backwards this trip and we're wearing it."
Wednesday’s loss to Tampa Bay fit the season far too well. The chances have been there, but Detroit hasn’t cashed in often enough. The Tigers have spent too much time talking about what they can still do and not enough time proving it on the field.
The front office didn’t help matters by trading Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize, but that only adds another layer to a season that has felt stuck between promise and frustration. For all the talent and all the talk, the Tigers keep missing the moment.
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McGonigles case is especially interesting because his production has forced him into the center of a bigger conversation about how quickly he has arrived. He has separated himself as one of the most polished young hitters in the rookie class, and if he stays in that lane, he could put himself in position to do something the organization has not seen from a first-year player in a long time. For a club trying to stack real offensive building blocks, that makes his season worth watching even before the awards are handed out. [Read more 🡒]