MLB Heat Check, Detroit Tigers 8-2 in Their Last 10

Ten games is not a season, but it is a mood, and moods decide a lot of games. The current mood around MLB: Detroit Tigers keep winning, Colorado Rockies keep losing, and everybody else lives somewhere in the weather between.

Burning up

Start with Detroit Tigers. They have won 8 of their last 10, and they have not been sneaking past anyone: the runs margin over that stretch is +35, which breaks down to about 6.3 scored and 2.8 allowed per game. That is the arithmetic of a team winning on merit, not on bounces.

Right behind them sit Los Angeles Dodgers, 8-2 over the same kind of stretch and +28 on runs margin, quieter, but pointed the same direction.

And do not sleep on Tampa Bay Rays, quietly 8-2 across their last 10.

The whole league is averaging 4.7 runs a game in this stretch, which makes Detroit Tigers outrunning that number by 1.6 per night the loudest stat on the page.

The deep freeze

At the bottom of the temperature map sit Colorado Rockies: 2-8 in their last 10, -23 on runs margin. That is about 2.3 a game in the wrong direction, and no lineup shuffle fixes it overnight.

Cincinnati Reds are not far behind on the misery index at 3-7.

The middle of the table is where the real congestion lives: Texas Rangers (5-5) and Atlanta Braves (5-5) are separated by almost nothing, and one good weekend reshuffles the whole neighborhood.

The board

For the fuller picture, the five best recent records in the league:

Worth remembering

Records fib a little and runs margins fib less. When the two columns disagree about a team, trust the margin, it is the slower liar.

The schedule cooperates, too, Detroit Tigers face Chicago White Sox next, so this story gets its next chapter almost immediately.