2006 was an amazing year for the Tigers and not just because of the eventual outcome. The regular season was filled with late inning heroics, come from behind victories and the Tigers bullpen racking up holds and saves in 1 run games. While watching last evenings loss to the Oakland Athletics, these late-inning rallys from 2006 just seemed very far out of reach for this years team. As opposed to 2006, I have nearly zero confidence that the team has what it takes to come from behind and win and this is a skill that will be needed if they wish to stay in the race in September.

With the Detroit starters leaking runs in the second half so far, the team will need to look to take advantage of some of the weak bullpens around the American League Central. Last nights game was a great case in point where Detroit takes advantage of some early runs making it appear as if they will run Joe Blanton from the game early. That didn’t quite happen and Blanton lasted out 7 innings and kept the Tigers in check.

Looking at the data, the trend of low-scoring late innings this year comes out rather well. While in 2006 the team runs scored dipped slightly in late innings, the 2007 Tigers have a major drop from the 5th inning down to the 8th inning.

Much of this has a bit to do with the lack of power the Tigers have in late innings. In the eighth inning the Tigers team slugging percentage sites at a meager .347 with a total of 5 home runs the entire year. Below is a look of the home runs hit per plate appearance for each inning of 2006/2007.

As you can see, there is a drastic change in late innings for home runs. Last year’s team mantra “Play 9 Innings” is in need of a sudden and quick resurrection.