Being A Tigers Fan Is Now About Faith

By: Eric Thomas

It's beginning to feel a lot like the movie Groundhog Day. We keep asking the same question and the only answer is an echo from yawning cavern we shout it into. We keep watching the Tigers and they just keep performing poorly.

Of course, the pair of games with the Minnesota Twins was like a bucket of cold water splashed on our faces. We are still a little scared to blink. The Twins were brought in like a bunch of sacrificial lambs so the Tigers could feast and improve their confidence. The Twins were supposed to be a sparring partner that you could try new moves out on. Instead the Twins swept the pair of home games, collecting both wins 11 and 12, leaving town with the Tigers only able to hang their heads and wonder what was the number on the truck that had just mowed them down.

So here we are, approaching that all important game #40. Brandon Inge was banished to Oakland, Daniel Schlereth was shipped away, and we eying a spot for Ryan Raburn and Rick Porcello on the train out of town. We are all pitched into hyper drive, wrapping our arms and legs around denial. When the hammer of 40 drops, the landscape will look barren and salted. What are we going to do?

We have come the juncture where the analogy of the Emperor's new clothes works. We have all signed on to a polite fiction because it would be rude to suggest otherwise. It seems like people are fine when you state the obvious. "This team is not good" and so forth. Manager Jim Leyland has not shied away from those criticisms and has even tossed a few smoke grenades of his own.

Being a Tigers fan is becoming an act of faith. There has been no evidence to suggest that the Tigers will definitely turn this cruise ship around. The Tigers have shown flashes at times, putting up 11 and 12 runs, but heck even the Twins put up 11 runs and they are widely considered the worst team in baseball. Saying that the Tigers have had success once doesn't mean they are a good team.

So like the Emperor's new clothes Tigers fans have to cheer anyway, their eyes wide with worry. We have to pray that there is something that we have missed. We have to hope that the Tigers are holding back the penultimate card that will be the magic trick this season. We have to operate on the blind faith that the numbers don't lie (like they often do) and this team will be contenders in the end of the season and stop this horrible slide backwards.

That's the problem. We are getting to that 40 game mark. Yes, I understand that "IT'S EARLY" and "THEY WERE BELOW .500 AT THIS TIME LAST YEAR." I hear it from people all the time. But when you watch this team, you feel like you have seen this movie before. It smells a lot like 2008, right now. The Tigers had sky high hopes going into the season only to watch them clatter on the ground for a while.

This team boasts an impressive roster but a not impressive resume. They have underachieved. As it turns out the problem was exactly the same as it was in the 2011 ALCS, but now it seems a little worse. They can't keep a lead, and they can't consistently score runs. For all the money that was shaken in the off season, that remains to be the case. Also, the Tigers have developed an error problem as of late, and let's hope that doesn't continue.

But this is becoming an act of faith. I still believe the Tigers are going to turn it around. I only believe that because this line up can't be this bad. I guess that I am not prepared to struggle through the rest of this season like a death march, when in the spring it seemed like it was going to be so fun. I still have faith in Leyland (I know the loneliness that potion entails) but more than that I a lot of faith in these players. But I am developing doubt in both.

We have to hope that, like the subjects in the Emperor's new clothes, the guy we are betting on isn't just some idiot walking naked down the street.