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· Detroit Tigers · Four Numbers

Four Numbers, Monday Aug 31: 27, 134-155, 60 and 41

This runs Monday mornings. One number for each of the Tigers, Lions, Pistons and Red Wings, whichever one is worth knowing that week, with the arithmetic shown so you can check it.

Tigers: 27

27 saves. 28 blown. 55 chances, and they've converted fewer than half of them.

Three clubs in baseball have blown more saves than they've converted this season, and Detroit is one of them. Here are the 5 worst conversion rates in the league; the top 3 rows are those 3 clubs.

SavesChancesBlownConverted
Los Angeles Angels21462546 percent
Washington33683549 percent
Detroit27552849 percent
San Francisco25462154 percent
Chicago Cubs29522356 percent

The part that makes it strange is the company Detroit isn't keeping. The Angels have a bad pitching staff. Washington has a bad pitching staff. Detroit has the 5th best team ERA in baseball at 3.58, behind the Yankees, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Boston and ahead of 25 other clubs.

That's the whole season in 2 rows. 596 runs scored, 531 allowed, a plus 65 that should be worth something, and a 63-73 record that isn't. Sunday was a version of it in miniature: Framber Valdez left down 3-1 and Tanner Rainey turned it into 6-1 in a third of an inning.

Good pitching. Handed back after the 7th.

Lions: 134-155

That's the 2025 record of the 17 teams on Detroit's 2026 schedule, added up. A .464 winning percentage. Only 3 teams in the league drew a softer one: Cleveland at .429, New Orleans at .433 and Cincinnati at .450. Detroit is level with Atlanta and Indianapolis at .464, so call it 4th easiest of 32 in a 3 way tie.

DateOpponent2025
Sep 13New OrleansH6-11
Sep 18BuffaloA12-5
Sep 27NY JetsH3-14
Oct 5CarolinaA8-9
Oct 11ArizonaA3-14
Oct 25Green BayH9-8
Nov 1MinnesotaH9-8
Nov 8MiamiA7-10
Nov 15New EnglandH14-3
Nov 22Tampa BayH8-9
Nov 26ChicagoH11-6
Dec 6AtlantaA8-9
Dec 13TennesseeH3-14
Dec 21MinnesotaA9-8
Dec 29NY GiantsH4-13
Jan 3ChicagoA11-6
Jan 10Green BayA9-8

5 of the 17 are against clubs that won 6 games or fewer last year. Three of them went 3-14. On the other side there are only 4 games against teams that won 11 or more, and 2 of those are the Chicago games.

Now the honest part, because last year's record is a weak instrument. It's the same lesson the preseason numbers teach: teams turn over, and what a club did in January tells you less about September than the confidence with which people quote it. Six of these games are against Green Bay, Minnesota and Chicago, and nobody needs a 2025 record to know those are hard.

What the number does say is that the soft part of this schedule is real and it is front loaded. The Jets, Carolina and Arizona in weeks 3, 4 and 5, with the bye in week 6. If Detroit is not comfortably over .500 by Halloween, the schedule will not have been the reason.

Pistons: 60

60-22. The most games the Pistons have won in a season since 2005-06, when they won 64.

Two years before that, they won 14.

Red Wings: 41

41 wins in 82 games. They also won 41 in 2024, and 41 in 2016.

Since 2015 the Red Wings have never won more than 41 games in a season. Three times they've landed on exactly 41, which is the kind of consistency nobody wants.

Detroit Pistons and Detroit Red Wings wins per 82 games, season by season, 2015 through 2026 Two rebuilds, same city, same twelve years Wins per 82 games. A dot marks a shortened season converted to an 82 game pace. Seasons are labelled by the year they finished. Pistons Red Wings 2015 Pistons 2015: 32 wins in 82 games, a pace of 32 per 82 32 Red Wings 2015: 43 wins in 82 games, a pace of 43 per 82 43 2016 Pistons 2016: 44 wins in 82 games, a pace of 44 per 82 44 Red Wings 2016: 41 wins in 82 games, a pace of 41 per 82 41 2017 Pistons 2017: 37 wins in 82 games, a pace of 37 per 82 37 Red Wings 2017: 33 wins in 82 games, a pace of 33 per 82 33 2018 Pistons 2018: 39 wins in 82 games, a pace of 39 per 82 39 Red Wings 2018: 30 wins in 82 games, a pace of 30 per 82 30 2019 Pistons 2019: 41 wins in 82 games, a pace of 41 per 82 41 Red Wings 2019: 32 wins in 82 games, a pace of 32 per 82 32 2020 Pistons 2020: 20 wins in 66 games, a pace of 25 per 82 25* 2020: only 66 games played, shown as a per 82 pace Red Wings 2020: 17 wins in 71 games, a pace of 20 per 82 20* 2020: only 71 games played, shown as a per 82 pace 2021 Pistons 2021: 20 wins in 72 games, a pace of 23 per 82 23* 2021: only 72 games played, shown as a per 82 pace Red Wings 2021: 19 wins in 56 games, a pace of 28 per 82 28* 2021: only 56 games played, shown as a per 82 pace 2022 Pistons 2022: 23 wins in 82 games, a pace of 23 per 82 23 Red Wings 2022: 32 wins in 82 games, a pace of 32 per 82 32 2023 Pistons 2023: 17 wins in 82 games, a pace of 17 per 82 17 Red Wings 2023: 35 wins in 82 games, a pace of 35 per 82 35 2024 Pistons 2024: 14 wins in 82 games, a pace of 14 per 82 14 Red Wings 2024: 41 wins in 82 games, a pace of 41 per 82 41 2025 Pistons 2025: 44 wins in 82 games, a pace of 44 per 82 44 Red Wings 2025: 39 wins in 82 games, a pace of 39 per 82 39 2026 Pistons 2026: 60 wins in 82 games, a pace of 60 per 82 60 Red Wings 2026: 41 wins in 82 games, a pace of 41 per 82 41 41 The dashed line is 41 wins. The Red Wings have not cleared it since 2015.
SeasonPistonsRed Wings
201532-5043-39
201644-3841-41
201737-4533-49
201839-4330-52
201941-4132-50
202020-46 *17-54 *
202120-52 *19-37 *
202223-5932-50
202317-6535-47
202414-6841-41
202544-3839-43
202660-2241-41

\* Shortened season. The chart converts those to an 82 game pace; the table leaves them as played.

Two rebuilds, one city, the same 12 years. One of them bottomed out at 14 wins and came out the other side. The other one has spent a decade arriving at the same answer.

The hockey caveat matters here: an overtime loss is a loss in that win column but it's a point in the standings, so 41-41 understates a Red Wings season a little. It understates all 3 of them by about the same amount, which is why they still line up.

Both seasons start in October. This is the last quiet Monday either of them gets.

Next week

Same 4 clubs, 4 different numbers, next Monday. If there's one you want run down, the address is at the bottom of the page.

Not betting advice.

Got a Detroit number you want looked at? Email projectunmuted@proton.me and it gets looked at properly. A stat somebody quoted that smells wrong, a thing you have always assumed about one of these 4 teams and have never seen checked. Every question that arrives is listed with its answer, including the ones where the answer is no.

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