Tiger Troubles

If you’re a sports fan, or if you just root for underdogs, you have to like the start of Major League Baseball.

Only one team has failed to win a game in the first week. That would be the mighty Tigers, who went to the bank and signed some impressive free agents to add to their already strong team. In fact, Detroit has the second-highest payroll in the game, just behind (who else?) the Evil Empire, a.k.a., the New York Yankees.

The Tigers are stacked so deep that they are batting one of their big off-season acquisitions, the talented Edgar Renteria, seventh. He’s good and would hit higher on any other club.

Last night, on a nationally televised game, the Tigers started one of the game’s best pitchers, Justin Verlander. He got shelled. The Tigers lost again, in a blowout, no less, 13-2.

Before the game, analyst Joe Morgan said the Tigers had the best lineup of any 0-5 team he has ever seen. He was right. I guess the same applies to the 0-6 Tigers.

Detroit probably will right the ship and end up in the post-season anyway. Still, for now it’s hard to resist cackling as high-priced jocks stumble about and make excuses.

At the other end of the scale are the two teams with the best records in baseball, the 5-1 Brewers and 5-1 Cardinals. This is also rich in irony.

Both teams play in what has been called the weakest division (the Central) in the weakest league (the National). Yet so far, “Comedy Central” has the hot teams.

Well, except for the last-place 2-5 Astros, whom the Cards face in a three-game series that starts tonight.

The Brewers’ success is not surprising. They had a good team last year and have gotten better.

The Cardinals, the team I have rooted for since growing up in St. Louis, are an entirely different story. Even though they won the World Series two years ago, they have fallen far.

Most of their former stars are either old or gone or injured. In fact, they have the incredible total of nine players on the Disabled List, the most of any team in the game.

Despite all that, they are managing to win somehow with backups and plug-ins. They even had a rainout in their home opener against the league’s best team last year, the Rockies. They were leading 5-1 when the game was called and probably would have won that one too.

As with the Tigers, the pre-season predictions for the Cards probably will pan out.

But for now, it’s nice for your team to have the best record in the game, even if it just after one week in a long, long season.