Tigers Ugly Finish Before All-Star Break Display Critical Trade Deadline Needs

The Detroit Tigers head into the All-Star break with the best record in Major League Baseball during what has been an incredible campaign over the first half of the year.

If you told fans before the year that is where things would stand over halfway into the campaign, they would embrace it with joy. In reality though, the way things finished over the last week or so leaves a sour taste.

For the first time all season, Detroit has lost four straight, including a three-game sweep against the Seattle Mariners, despite getting star ace and now All-Star game starter Tarik Skubal on the mound for the first game.

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In this sport, bad stretches are going to happen. It's inevitable. The season is simply too much of a marathon for even the best teams in history to cruise along without hiccups.

Falling just shy of 60 wins in the first half of the year is a remarkable achievement and should not be discounted; however, it would be naive to think it means this is a team without any flaws.

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A few days off may be extremely beneficial, however as the trade deadline nears closer and closer, the biggest issues with the team were highlighted in a way that cannot be ignored.

In the four losses, Detroit's bullpen allowed a combined 26 runs, a figure that is going to get you beat very quickly when October rolls around and the going gets tough late in games.

An elite bullpen is nearly always a hallmark of a championship team, and right now the Tigers just do not have one.

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Once the team is through the MLB draft and the week in Atlanta that sees six players from the remarkable first half represent the Tigers on one of the biggest stages in baseball, better baseball must be played than in the last week.

Nearly as important though should be the urgency to add reinforcements with it being put on full display exactly what this team needs.

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Scott Harris is surely working the phones diligently and trying to make upgrades, however the last week has only made it all the more critical.

For now though regardless of who will or will not be on the roster a month from now, this team needs to hit the reset button, enjoy the time off, and return to the diamond ready to turn things up once again.

If they don't do that, who they add at the deadline won't matter a whole lot.

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