Tigers All-Star Slugger Will Be Feeling the Pressure After Dreadful July

Despite some struggles of late, the Detroit Tigers were able to have a strong weekend series against the Los Angeles Angels.

With things going a bit south for the Tigers, it was great to see them be able to pick up a series win against the Angels over the weekend. This was the first series win for Detroit since the end of July against the Arizona Diamondbacks, and it was much needed.

The Cleveland Guardians have been making quite the push in the American League Central of late, and Detroit getting a series win will help slow that down.

Even though the gap in the division has shrunk, a lot of it is because Detroit is not playing nearly as well as they did in the first half of the year. The Tigers were the best team in the AL for quite some time but started to show some flaws around the All-Star break.

While the bullpen has taken a lot of the blame for their struggles, the lineup also hasn’t been nearly as good as it was early on. Detroit was fortunate to have some surprise players excelling early on, but that has since cooled off.

Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report recently wrote about the pressure starting to mount for Tigers slugger Javier Baez after a dreadful stretch.

“The fact that Báez hit .180/.180/.246 in July kind of flew under the national radar, but the expensive free-swinger could come under a lot of scrutiny if the Tigers—already an MLB-worst 7-16 from July 9 through August 7—keep sputtering.”

Easily one of the biggest surprises in baseball this campaign was the bounce-back year from Baez. In 2024, the slugger underwent hip surgery after struggling a lot with Detroit since signing a massive deal.

Will Baez Bounce Back?