Applying Sparky Anderson’s 40-game test to this year’s Tigers

The Tigers’ 4-2 victory Sunday over the … Guardians … (sorry, still getting used to typing that out) was notable for a few reasons.

First of all, no Tigers were harmed in the making of it — a claim that has been all too rare this season. Just last week, Will Vest tested positive for COVID-19, Andrew Chafin was bitten by a possum and Austin Meadows went on the injured list with vertigo. (OK, one of those is fictional. But can you guess which one?)

Second, the Tigers scored four runs — also a rare claim, as it was just the 10th time they’ve gotten past three this season. That, by the way, is an epic low total. Only one big-league team over the past 50 seasons — dating to the start of the 1973 season and the adoption of the DH in the American League — had fewer games with at least four runs in its first 40: The 2013 Miami Marlins, with nine. (That Marlins squad went 62-100, so perhaps the less said about them, the better.)

And, yes, as noted, Sunday was the 40th game of the season, as close as we’re getting to the quarter-mark in a 162-game season. By the sacred laws of Detroit sportswriting, that lets us remind you of that oft-quoted saying from Tigers manager Sparky Anderson, “You can’t tell anything about a baseball team until 40 games have been played.”

Of course, that bit of sageness from the Sparkster played a lot better when his 1984 team was starting out 35-5, rather than, say, the 16-24 start five years later, forecasting a plummet to 59-103 and the start of nearly 20 years of cellar-dwelling dismalness. Now, Sparky knew something about not hitting — he posted a .218/.282/.249 slash line for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1959, his lone year in the majors. And he wasn’t wrong about the 40-game mark being a good spot to compare where a team stands to where it expected to stand going into the season.

In so, so, so many ways, this Tigers squad at 40 games hasn’t lived up to its Opening Day potential. Then again, some things we were hoping for then are indeed coming true this week, such as …

E. Rodriguez will be on the field Monday at the same time as the AL Central leaders: OK, OK, the E. Rodriguez in question is Elvin Rodriguez, not Eduardo Rodriguez (who, yes, is finally on the injured list), but it’s hardly the baseball gods’ fault that we weren’t more specific in April, now is it? Likewise, he’ll be facing the Central leaders (the Minnesota Twins, 101⁄2 games up on the Tigers at 25-16), rather than playing with them, but, honestly, we’re just kinda glad the White Sox aren’t involved.

A fast-rising 2019 draft pick will be making his sixth start for the Tigers: Yeah, we were hoping it’d be outfielder Riley Greene making a speedy recovery from a fractured foot. But right-hander Beau Brieske, selected 797 picks after Greene in June 2019, isn’t a bad consolation prize. He was beat up a bit in his most recent start but allowed three runs or fewer in his first four. And, as we noted earlier, the difference between three and four runs for these Tigers appears to be the difference between a win and a loss. He’ll be testing that again Tuesday in Minneapolis.

A 2018 draft pick is looking like a Cy Young candidate: Our money in April was on it being No. 1 overall pick Casey Mize, but while he’s rehabbing in Lakeland, Ol’ No. 255 Overall, Tarik Skubal, has been cranking it up. Even a 100 mph comebacker off his shin on Friday couldn’t snap his scoreless innings streak, now at 19. Skubal ranks second among all MLB pitchers in WAR (by Fangraphs’ calculations) this season. Come to think of it, Sparky had a quote that sure sounds like Skubal: “If I ever find a pitcher who has heat, a good curve, and a slider, I might seriously consider marrying him, or at least proposing.”

And as for the next 40 games? Well, Sparky didn’t have any sayings about 80 games —at least, we don’t think he did — but he did have this: “The great thing about baseball is when you’re done, you’ll only tell your grandchildren the good things. If they ask me about 1989, I’ll tell them I had amnesia.”

We’ll know if A.J. Hinch is making the same plans by early July.