WTF Tigers?? 0-7 worst since '03

BOSTON -- It's difficult to believe any parallel could exist between the youth-stocked, 119-loss Tigers of 2003 and this season's high-cost, established Tigers. And yet one such parallel already has festered into being. These current Tigers have become the first team to start 0-7 since those 2003 Tigers. Following an 0-6 home stand, the Tigers made their road debut Tuesday. Their bats stayed somnolent in a 5-0 loss amid the Red Sox's home-opener celebration of last year's World Series title. Starting pitcher Kenny Rogers (4 2/3 innings, two earned runs) blamed himself for the loss, then said: "There isn't one phase of the game we've done even adequately." The Tigers have been outscored, 44-15. They have scored the fewest runs of any American League team, and entering Tuesday night, they had allowed the most of any AL team. Manager Jim Leyland continues to see the shutdown as a classic team-wide hitting slump -- not as some sign that the lineup somehow isn't nearly as strong as everyone thought. "When something like this happens, you do what every team in baseball does: You look at film. You hit a little extra. You prepare for the pitchers," Leyland said. Leyland said some hitters -- including Magglio Ordoñez and Miguel Cabrera -- will take extra batting practice today. On Tuesday, as in so many games already, the sixth inning played a noticeable part. The Tigers haven't scored in the sixth inning this season. But they've given up 17 runs in the sixth. To put that another way: They've allowed two more runs in the sixth inning than they have scored all season. The Tigers trailed, 3-0, in the sixth when they loaded the bases with two out for Carlos Guillen. He flied to center against starter Daisuke Matsuzaka. Reliever Jason Grilli allowed two runs in the Boston sixth. In 2 1/3 innings this season, Grilli has allowed five earned runs. The right-handed Matsuzaka made the best of his three career starts against the Tigers, Leyland said. He fanned seven and allowed four singles. Matsuzaka allowed only four hits combined in his first two starts (both against Oakland), so he's not someone a pack of struggling hitters would want to face. Before the game, several Tigers watched from the dugout as the Red Sox hoisted their championship banner on the centerfield flagpole. Many folks picked the Tigers to win this year's World Series. But Tuesday, even as the banner was in the Tigers' midst, it seemed far from their current reach.