Tuesday Preview: Tigers vs. Rangers

The Tigers will face off against the Texas Rangers at Comerica Park tonight. Both teams come in with a 7-13 record. Texas, however, was not expected to be good. The Tigers, by contrast, have been incredibly disappointing so far.

Our ace, Justin Verlander, takes the mound tonight. But are we going to see the real Verlander, or the guy that has shown up so far this season? He comes into this game with a record of 0-3 and a meteoric ERA of 7.03. He has shown a few brief flashes of his usual dominance, but overall he has not been good.

It's hard to figure out just what is wrong with Justin, but that has pretty much been the case with this entire team. He has 14 strikeouts in 24.1 innings, which is a much lower rate than you would expect to see from someone with his type of stuff. He's also had a hard time controlling his pitches, with 12 walks already. Command has been a staff-wide issue this season.

But he still hasn't been hit particularly hard. He has given up just 22 hits, for an opponent batting average of .234. So his stuff still seems to be there. Apparently he just has to remember where the strike zone is.

Another trend that the Tigers will hopefully break tonight is their woeful home record, where they are just 2-6 so far this season. They have won their last two there, though, after sweeping the Twins in a short two game series last week.

The Tigers will face Vicente Padilla, who has been quite effective so far in 2008. After posting an atrocious ERA of almost 6 last year, he has kept it down to 3.12 this season.