St. Petersburg, Florida. This April, the Detroit Tigers will try something new that they haven’t done in a decade. This year, they fly into your town, stay in a hotel, then come to your ballpark and beat the crap out of you.
This happened again. The Tigers’ series opener against the Tampa Bay Rays takes place Monday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. Detroit starter Tarik Skubal delivered six innings of three-hit ball, his third shutout game in five starts, and their normally docile lineup exploded for 11 hits in a 7-1 victory that couldn’t have been easier.
This season, the Tigers are now 9-3 on the road, trailing only the Boston Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers, both of whom are 10-3. That’s a quick departure for the Tigers, who haven’t made the playoffs in ten years and have only won once since 2014. That was in 2016, when they won 86 games but finished eight games behind.
They’ve been a horrible road team for a long time, but they’re turning things around after starting their reconstruction a year ago. They were a 41-40 road club last year in their 78-win season, which was 10 victories more than expected.
Prior to that, it had been six years of extremely terrible baseball away from home. (Full disclosure: it wasn’t very pretty at home either.) Check out these road figures from 2017 to 2022:
