Detroit Tigers' bats in epic cold slumber in first 12 games

The Detroit Tigers’ bats have been almost as cold as the April weather, with the Tigers managing just 43 runs in their first 12 games of the season. Even worse, those runs have been mostly confined to a handful of games; the Tigers already have six games in which they’ve scored one or zero runs. Granted, it’s a small sample size — extremely small — but that puts them on pace for 81 games scoring fewer than two runs. That … is not good. But where does that rank in the league this year? Is this the worst Tigers offense ever? Let’s take a look at how the Tigers stack up:

Around the league

The Tigers are one of two teams this season to score one or fewer runs in six of 12 games. The other? The San Francisco Giants. The Tigers’ offensive struggles aren’t that surprising, with a rebuilding roster. But the Giants revamped their offense in the offseason, adding third baseman Evan Longoria and outfielders Andrew McCutchen and Austin Jackson to a lineup that already featured Buster Posey, Hunter Pence and Brandon Crawford. The schedule might have had something to do with the Giants’ struggles, though. Of the six games in which they couldn’t muster two runs, five came against the Dodgers, with two coming against perennial Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw. The Tigers’ gamescame against the Pirates (1), Royals (1), White Sox (1) and Indians (3). In other words, their entire schedule. The Tigers come out looking worse on this one.

The recent past?

The last team to fail to score two runs in half of its first 12 games? The 2016 San Diego Padres. That team finished 72-90 while scoring 686 runs, for an average of 4.2 runs a game. The Tigers, at 43 runs in 12 games, are averaging 3.6 a game. Those Padres also had an odd distribution of shutouts and 1-0 losses; they failed to score a run in their first three games of the season, against the Dodgers, then thumped the Rockies in Denver for 13 and 16 runs. A few games later, in Philadelphia, they scored zero, one and zero runs before snapping the streak — with TWO runs. Still, the offense eventually came around. The Padres finished 10th out of 15 National League teams in runs per game — exactly where the Tigers stand in the American League this season.

The worst of the worst?

Since 1908, 34 teams have scored one or fewer runs in half of their first dozen games. A full 13 teams have done it seven times in 12 games. And three franchises did it eight times in the first 12 games, with the most recent being the 1946 Athletics (then located in Philadelphia). That squad had some hitting woes, too, averaging just 3.4 runs a game en route to a 49-105 finish. That team featured a notable name (to Tigers fans, at least) on the roster: George Kell. The 23-year-old hit .299 in 26 games for the A’s before getting traded to the Tigers for Barney McCoskey, who posted a .354 batting average but hit just one home run for the A’s. Kell went on to play seven seasons with the Tigers, make the Baseball Hall of Fame and spend decades broadcasting Tigers baseball.

Against Tigers teams of the past?

This is the first time since 1974 the Tigers scored one or fewer runs in six of their first 12 games. That 1974 team went 72-90 and finished 11th in runs scored (3.8 per game) in a 12-team American League. The lineup was packed with familiar names — Al Kaline (in his final season), Willie Horton and Bill Freehan, for starters — but struggled to get on base. The 1974 Tigers hit 131 home runs, just four back of the AL-leading White Sox, but had an on-base percentage of just .303, worst in the league. To put that .303 OBP in perspective, the 2003 Tigers, who lost an AL-record 119 games and scored 3.6 runs a game, posted a .300 team OBP. (Those ’03 Tigers, by the way, were held to one run or fewer just five times in their first 12 games, despite going 1-11 in that stretch.)

But who was the worst-hitting Tigers club?

This season’s Tigers have been awful at getting on base, putting up a .291 OBP. That mark, if it holds up over the season, would be the lowest by a Tigers team since 1904, when the Tigers had a .282 OBP. That team, led by Wahoo Sam Crawford, had a .292 slugging percentage over the season (albeit in a time when homers were extremely rare). This year’s Tigers’ slugging percentage through 12 games? .306. So they’ve got that going for them, at least. There’s plenty of time for the Tigers’ bats to heat up as the weather does, but if they keep this pace up, they’ll not only be one of the worst-hitting Tigers teams, they’ll be one of the worst of all-time: Just two teams since World War II — the 1963 Colt .45’s and the 1972 Rangers — have finished a season with an OBP below .300 and a slugging percentage below .310.