Sure, we're just 10 days into the season -- but this isn't how it was expected to start.
Past performance does not necessarily predict future results, as stockbrokers are required to advise -- yet Tigers fans still have reason to pour another cold one after five straight wins, a sweep of the first home stand and a top line in the American League's Central Division rankings.
Sunday afternoon's 3-1 win over the Royals featured pitcher Shane Greene again as the game-closer for the fifth time in six days. He has saved all seven of the Tigers victories -- the first player with that many saves in a club's first 10 games, the Tigers tweet.
Another star is Christin Stewart, who's "slumping no more," as writer Anthony Fenech proclaims at the Freep:
Stewart picked up where he left off on Saturday afternoon, when he hit a game-winning grand slam, by punching a triple into the right-center field gap.
He scored two batters later on a Gordon Beckham double play. Then, with the Tigers clinging to a one-run lead in the sixth, he went the other way for an RBI single.
In a tweet for Motor City Bengals, part of the Manhattan-based FanSided news and opinion sports network, contributor Michael Adzima has a pinch-me reaction:
If you would’ve told me 2 weeks ago this #Tigers team would go 7-3 and be first in the AL Central through the first 10 games, I would’ve called you delusional
— Motor City Bengals (@MCB_Tigers) April 7, 2019
Pinch us too . . . for now, at least.
-- Alan Stamm