The Detroit Tigers were able to salvage a game of the doubleheader in Baltimore on Sunday as Drew Anderson shut the Orioles over the two innings in relief and Troy Melton gave Detroit a strong first start of the season off the IL.
Now they take on an Angles team that are trending worse that the Tigers are, winners of seven out of their last 23 games. They are ranked second to last in batting average at .225 and striking out at 25.2% clip. Oddly enough, they come in 10th ranked in home runs hit as a team with 63. But don’t let those numbers fool you. For some reason, no matter what the record is, the Angels play the Tigers tough.
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Since 2000, the Tigers have won the season series against the Angels just three times (2025, 2010, 2009) and have finished .500 aka split the series against them, five times. No matter if the Angels are bad, they somehow find a way to spoil things for Detroit.
That matters even more with the Tigers’ offense still stuck in one of the worst stretches in franchise history.
Detroit enters the series having recorded seven hits or fewer in 11 straight games, the longest such streak in club history. The previous single-season franchise record was nine straight games, set by the 1968 Tigers. The last major league team to go 11 or more consecutive games with seven hits or fewer was, fittingly, the Angels, who did it from Aug. 20-Sept. 1, 2025. The last team to reach 12 or more was the Cincinnati Reds, who had a 13-game stretch from Sept. 22-Oct. 5, 2022.
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The month of May has been just as ugly. The Tigers have hit .207 as a team, going 151-for-728, with a .592 OPS. That is the third-lowest batting average in the majors this month and the lowest OPS in baseball. Detroit has reached double digits in hits just once in its last 20 games and has scored four runs or fewer in 13 straight games and 18 of its last 19.
The Tigers are in danger of posting their lowest team batting average in a calendar month since hitting .199 in April 2021. They are also flirting with their lowest team OPS in a month since April 2003, when they finished with a .520 OPS. Their 5-17 record in May is the worst winning percentage in the majors this month, and they are in danger of posting their weakest May since 1996, when they went 4-23.
The struggles have been especially pronounced at night. Detroit enters the series with a 10-25 record in night games, the lowest winning percentage in the majors. It is also the Tigers’ roughest start through 35 night games since 2003, when they also opened 10-25.
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Sunday’s win at least ended a brutal stretch of 13 games in 13 days, but the damage was clear. Detroit went 2-11 during that run and scored four runs or fewer in all 13 games. That active streak is the Tigers’ second-longest run of scoring four or fewer in the last 50 years, trailing only a 17-game stretch from Aug. 28-Sept. 15, 2002. It is also the longest such streak by any major league team since the Miami Marlins went 23 straight games with four runs or fewer from July 29-Aug. 22, 2022.
The Tigers do not need a perfect week. They do need something that resembles a functional offense.
The series opens Tuesday night with right-hander Keider Montero facing Angels right-hander Jack Kochanowicz. Montero enters at 2-3 with a 3.83 ERA, while Kochanowicz comes in at 2-3 with a 4.55 ERA. Wednesday’s matchup is the best on paper, with Casey Mize, who has a 2.47 ERA, facing José Soriano, who enters at 6-3 with a 2.44 ERA. The finale Thursday afternoon has Jack Flaherty, still searching for his first win at 0-6 with a 5.94 ERA, against right-hander Grayson Rodriguez.
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For a Tigers team that has spent most of May waiting for the offense to show any kind of pulse, this series is less about the opponent and more about themselves. The Angels have their flaws. The Tigers have had plenty of their own. But after a 13-game grind, a historically quiet offense and a month that has pulled them toward the bottom of the standings, Detroit needs to turn a salvage win in Baltimore into something more as they head to the south side of Chicago to take on the White Sox, who have been playing much better to start the season.
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