Going into tonight’s game the Tigers were leading Major League Baseball in number of wild pitches with 28. Tonight Justin Verlander has added two more wild pitches to the Tigers total and putting his personal total at 7 for this year. For the entire 2006 season Justin Verlander was charged with 5 wild pitches (Tigers team total was 44 in 2006.)

This isn’t only wild pitches but also the Tigers passed ball count is on course to be considerably higher than last year. These are obviously closely related and separated only by the judgment of the official scorer on whether the catcher should have ordinarily made the catch. If the scorer believes the catcher should have ordinarily made the play then it is scored as a passed ball otherwise it is a wild pitch.

The Tigers have a combined total of 35 passed balls & wild pitches.

These have had a large impact on the team this year. In tonight’s game, one wild pitch allowed runners to move from first & second to second & third eventually scoring both on an outfield single. This would have scored only one runner without the wild pitch. In the Tampa Bay Devil Rays series, Jeremy Bonderman allowed a runner to go to third-base on a balk and subsequently score on a wild pitch.

What is the reason for the change?

Well, I doubt that Tigers pitchers are that considerably more wild than last year though some extra wildness might be contributing. We all know that the Detroit bullpen isn’t up to what it was in 2006 so far this year. But really most of the wild pitches have come from the Detroit starters with only 12 of the 28 coming from the bullpen, which might be a bit high with the bullpen handling only 35+% of the innings.

This change has more to do with Detroit catching than it does with pitching. Regardless of how either of these stats are scored, the catcher has a major impact. If you have a great catcher behind the dish, as the Tigers have had with Pudge Rodriguez the last few years, they make plays that keep wild pitches from ever getting called. This year that isn’t seeming to be the case, as we’ve enjoyed in past years, and Pudge is the culprit.

Last year Pudge had 4 passed balls, this year 3. Last year Pudge had 2 errors, this year 2. We’re only in May (soon to be June.)

Unfortunately there is no solution right now. This isn’t near enough to make a case for pulling a player like Pudge but at this rate the Tigers need to take note. Detroit is not deep at catcher and this will need to be straightened out. The club option is available for Pudge next year but beyond that the future isn’t so bright.