At The Crossroads

The Royals beat the Tigers, 4-2 today with the help of a Raul Ibanez home run and his three RBI.

The Royals are now 7-0, in first place in the AL Central with their best start ever. The Tigers are 0-8 in last place in the AL Central and are only the second team to start two consecutive seasons with eight straight losses (the 1962-63 Mets being the other). The Tigers went 0-11 to start last season.

Given it's such a topical question, here's an email that I received:

[D]o you know what team has the longest unbeaten streak to start the season?

Mike:

Yes, I do.

20 by the St. Louis Maroons of the 1884 Union Association (4/20 to 5/22).

But you'll never hear about it since it was pre-1900. The "modern" record is held by two teams:

1) Joe Torre's 1982 Braves, 13 games (4-6 to 4/20, and then they lost 5 straight and ended up 89-73 good for 1st in the NL West)

2) Tom Trebelhorn's 1987 Milwaukee Brewers, 13 games (4/6 to 4/20 as well). Milwaukee lost one game and then won four more, and even at 17-1 were only 3.5 games in front of the Yankees. They finished 91-71 in third place in the AL East. That was the year that Detroit took three games from Toronto in the final weekend of the season to claim the division title.

Before them the 1884 NY Giants had 12 straight; Brooklyn (1955), Pittsburgh(1962), and Cleveland (1966) all had 10; and the 1984 Tigers won 9 en route to a World Series win.

But the Tigers' losing streak made me think about the other side of the coin. Here are the teams with the most losses to start a season:

Start	Final	Team
0-21	54-107  	1988 Baltimore Orioles
0-14	68-94	1997 Chicago Cubs
0-13*	38-113	1904 Washington Senators
0-13	61-93	1920 Detroit Tigers
0-11	28-84	1884 Detroit Wolverines(NL)
0-11	55-106	2002 Detroit Tigers
0-10	54-106	1988 Atlanta Braves
0-10	67-95	1968 Chicago White Sox
0-9	57-69	1918 Brooklyn Robins (Dodgers)
0-9	57-82	1919 Boston Braves
0-9	40-120	1962 New York Mets
0-9	85-77	1983 Houston Astros
* plus one tie

Three of those teams represent Detroit. It could soon be four.