Tigers Searching for Answers to Early Season Pitching Woes

With the Tigers sitting at 11-11, there have been flashes of how good this team can be, especially with swinging the bat. In 22 games, the Tigers’ offense has had five or more runs 16 times. On the flip side, the Tigers’ pitching staff has given up five or more runs 15 times.

There are flashes where the pitching comes out and looks great like in their 16-2 win over North Alabama, or in back-to-back games where they gave up only three runs against UT-Martin and Wright State.

Unfortunately, those outing are few and far between. If not for the Tigers offense, it would be a much different story about this year up to this point.

Looking at the statistics compiled so far this season, the struggles of the pitching staff are laid bare.

Of every pitcher that has appeared in more than one game this season, only three pitchers have an ERA under four. Those three are not even starters. They are bullpen guys: Brayden Sanders, Kylan Stepter, and Jake Curtis.

The bullpen has shown moments of stability like in their loss against Ole Miss where the bullpen went almost eight full innings while giving up only one run.

“The encouraging part from tonight was that out of a bullpen, we pitched very well,” coach Matt Riser said after the March 6 loss.

The starting pitching has seemed like an issue all season. The stats back it up in every way with all but one regular starter, David Warren, having an ERA over six.

With all of those stats, the way to really show the struggles in the pitching staff is seeing where they rank nationally in pitching statistics.

Team ERA is one of the best ways to show how good or bad a team’s pitching has been. For the Tigers, a 6.47 team ERA puts them at 183rd nationally out of 295 Division-I teams.

In walks per nine innings, the Tigers are averaging 5.37, good for 189 overall. In strikeout to walk ratio, the Tigers are only 1.68 strikeouts to every walk, which is 169 overall. Hits allowed per nine innings show the Tigers giving up 10.37 for 200^th in the country.

WHIP or walks plus hits per innings pitched is the statistic that most people in baseball use as their barometer to see how good pitching is. It is a statistic that shows how good a pitcher or pitching staff is at keeping opposing teams from getting on base. The Tigers rank 208 in the nation in team WHIP of 1.75.

Obviously, the Tigers are disappointed in being 11-11 at this point, but it could be a lot worse and are still in a place where they can turn the pitching around.