Two of the greatest right-handed hitters ever will be on display in this three game set starting on Tuesday as Albert Pujols and the Los Angeles Angels travel to Michigan to take on Miguel Cabrera and the Detroit Tigers. Pujols is fresh off his 600th career homer, but home runs aside, it’s Cabrera who is swinging the bat better to this point of the year.
This series will be contested from Tuesday, June 6, 2017 through Thursday, June 8, 2017 at Comerica Park in Detroit. Thursday's clash is being shown live on MLB Network for those outside the local broadcasting region.
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Pitching Matchups
The series opens on Tuesday with Jesse Chavez toeing the rubber for the Angels opposite Daniel Norris of the Tigers.
Chavez has gone 11.2 scoreless frames against the Tigers. He’s also coming off a seven inning, one-run start against the Braves. In that contest, Los Angeles came away the winner in a tight 2-1 games.
The Angels have won three of Chavez’s last four starts. Overall, Chavez has made 11 starts, going 4-16 with a 4.68 ERA and 1.270 WHIP. Chavez is only striking out 6.9 batters per nine innings and he’s allowed 14 home runs.
The home runs have been his biggest weakness and the Tigers have plenty of power bats to take advantage.
Norris is 2-3 with a 4.47 ERA. On the surface, the numbers for both pitchers look very similar.
The Tigers’ southpaw, however, has been far less homer prone, but has a 1.601 WHIP driven by an inflated BABIP by the opposition. When you look at Chavez’s FIP against Norris’, one can see that the peripheral stats suggest Norris has actually been the better pitcher by more than a run per game despite 24 walks in 54.1 innings.
The Angels will look to Alex Meyer to make the start on Wednesday.
Meyer is still more hype than substance after years atop prospect rankings. His luster is gone. He’s 2-2 with a 4.91 ERA and 1.534 WHIP. He walks a ton of batters and while he does have 32 strikeouts in 29.1 innings to help get out of jams, even if the walks don’t always score, they drive the pitch count up and Meyer cannot be counted on to go deep into games.
That said, his deepest outing of the year came against Detroit when he produced 6.1 innings of one-run ball. Not coincidently, that was his most walk efficient game, too.
The Tigers’ starter for this game is still up in the air. They demoted Matt Boyd who has struggled in his last handful of starts and don’t have much depth to play with.
To close out the series, J.C. Ramirez gets the nod on the mound for the Angels. He’s coming off a bad start in which he failed to record five innings and gave up five runs the last time he faced the Tigers, nearly a month ago.
Michael Fulmer should start opposite of Ramirez, though he’s yet to be announced by the Tigers.
Fulmer is the reigning Rookie of the Year and the best start for the Tigers with Justin Verlander’s struggles.
The 24-year old is 6-3 with a 3.00 ERA and 1.107 WHIP in 75 innings. Those numbers are eerily similar to the stats he put up in 159 innings last year.
In a previous start against the Angels earlier this year, Fulmer went seven innings of one-run ball, giving up three hits in a game won by the Tigers. Fulmer went head-to-head against Ramirez in that game, too, having the much better performance.
Who's Hot?
The Tigers team has been a hard one to follow this year. The names on the backs of the uniforms are all proven guys—for the most part. The numbers they’re producing haven’t come close to living up to what is shown on the back of the baseball cards.
That said, there’s been one really big exception to that: J.D. Martinez. The right-fielder has been swinging the bat like a mad man since coming off the DL. His average is down to .292 now, but he’s slugging .792 and has 10 home runs in 22 games.
Martinez has been more than twice as good as the average player. Justin Upton is another streaky player. He’s had a good season so far and has an OPS of .815 in the last month with six bombs. Victor Martinez is also starting to swing better. He’s been rather pedestrian all year, but has a .272 average and .841 OPS in his last 24 games.
For the Angels, Pujols has been a bit better over his last 22 games with a .756 OPS and five homers to help him reach the 600 milestone. That’s certainly not enough to carry a team. Yunel Escobar is the closest to that now, sans-Trout. He’s hitting .319 since coming off the DL.
Who's Not?
With Mike Trout and Cameron Maybin on the disabled list, the Angels have just two players who have had even league-average seasons to this point: Escobar and Martin Maldonado. Neither offers much power or speed.
Several key players have been bad. Danny Espinosa is hitting .154, Luis Valbuena is batting .167. Meanwhile Ben Revere and Kole Calhoun are hitting .220 and .227 respectively. Calhoun has the highest OBP of the four at .311, the next highest is Valbuena at .273.
In the pen, Deolis Guerra and Jose Alvarez have had a few bad outings lately. Guerra is no longer on the roster, but Alvarez is.
Flipping the script over to the Tigers, Alex Avila has cooled after a surprising hot start. He’s 3-for-his-last-15 with five strikeouts.
Nick Castellanos is batting .188 over the last month with 25 strikeouts in 96 at bats. Avila has 23 Ks in his last 58 at bats.
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