Tigers need to find their ace

Any championship team in baseball is built around one area -- pitching. You can score nearly 1,000 runs in a season and still fall short of the playoffs.

Right now, the Tigers are severely lacking in pitching. They have been lucky so far that rookie pitcher Armando Galarraga has stepped up to become the true ace of the staff.

While most national experts will declare Justin Verlander the ace of the staff, however that is just not true. While Verlander's record sits at 5-9 on the year, Armando Galarraga is 7-2. On his 18 starts, Verlander has only gone into the 7th inning in 7 games. When you also include that Verlander leads all MLB starters with an average of around 107 pitches per game, it jumps off the page that Verlander is not effective.

The ace of the staff is a guy that goes deep into games consistently as well as being the stopper -- the guy who steps up and wins a game on his own.

An example of Verlander's inadequacies just happened. Against the Mariners, the Tigers entered the contest coming off 2 losses against the Twins. In the first inning, Verlander allowed a run and loaded the bases. He used 45 pitches in this first inning. Despite the limited damage of one run, the first inning caused Verlander's pitch count to soar and limited how long he could go into the game.

Unfortunately for the Tigers, they have depleted their minor league system of nearly all of their pitching prospects. The only one that remains is young Rick Porcello -- who is only one year removed from high school.

A huge need for the Tigers in the off-season, if they want to really compete in 2009, will be pitching. They'll need to address that before anything else.

To really compete, however, there will need to be a pretty large overhaul of the rotation. For 2009, I think two players have nearly locked in their spots in the rotation if they continue the current season's pace: Justin Verlander and Armando Galarraga. This means that the Tigers will have to fill the places of Nate Robertson, Kenny Rogers, and Eddie Bonine.

While it may be too early to discuss the 2009 off-season, this is a glaring need for the team currently as well.

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In some other Tigers' related opinion, I am really impressed with two of the Tigers young outfielders -- Clete Thomas and Matt Joyce.

Despite the cliche, Thomas "does the little things" to help you win. He plays a really solid outfield with his above average arm and the ability to make diving plays in key situations. He also holds his own with the bat. He has a good eye at the plate and can hit left-handed pitching--something that is rare for a left-handed hitter to do.

Joyce has had big hits in quite a few of the Tigers' recent victories. He has extra-base power and plays an above average outfield. If Joyce can supplement his pull-field power with the ability to go the other way for average he could earn himself a spot on the Tigers for years to come.