The Detroit Tigers are off to their best start after 70 games — slightly more than 40 percent of the season — since 2006. That was the year the Tigers returned to the World Series after a 21-year absence.
Despite losing to the St. Louis Cardinals 4-1 in the Fall Classic, the Tigers won 95 games that season. After 70 they stood at 46-24.
This year, the Tigers are just one game behind that 2006 pace, one of two teams with a 45-25 record, the best in MLB. That’s also 11 games ahead of where the Tigers were last year, at 34-36.
The only other 45-25 team after 70 games is the New York Mets. But there is one big difference between the two teams. The Mets are paying heavily for their 45 wins, with a payroll of $324.2 million — second highest in MLB, roughly $12.6 million behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Tigers payroll? At $144.1 million, Detroit ranks 18th of all big league clubs and pays out just 44 percent of what the Mets are spending.
What accounts for the Tigers’ surprising success? Any number of factors, of course, but the most important has to be pitching. At 3.22 Detroit boasts the fourth-best ERA in MLB and second-lowest in the American League.
Led by 28-year-old lefty Tarik Skubal, last season’s AL Cy Young Award winner with a 1.99 ERA in a league-leading 90 1/3 innings pitched, Tigers starters have the second-best ERA in the majors, at 3.03, behind only the Mets (2.79).
And while their overall bullpen ERA is an 11th-ranked 3.54, the Tigers have three relievers who have thrown at least 30 innings with an ERA under 2.00. They are Will Vest (1.83), Tommy Kahnle (1.50), and Brant Hurter (1.75).
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The Tigers’ success extends beyond the baseball field, according to an announcement by the team on Friday. The red-hot club is drawing big TV numbers.
“Tigers games on FanDuel Sports Network Detroit rank as some of the most-watched programming across baseball this year,” the team said in the announcement. “Through June 9, average household impressions on our linear television broadcasts have jumped 82 percent compared to the same point last season, the largest such increase for any MLB team (excluding Toronto).”
The Tigers’ local TV ratings, an average of 4.46 per game, rank second among all MLB teams.
Streaming numbers are also up — way up — according to the Tigers’ announcement, with a jump of 93 percent compared to last season.
The Tigers open a three-game inter-league series against the Cincinnati Reds on Friday at Comerica Park. Hurter will get the start, only his third of the season, in what is slated as a bullpen game for Detroit.
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