It’s a Tuesday evening at Comerica Park in downtown Detroit and there seems to be a sense of optimism in the air, mixed hesitation.

Last night’s match that opened this series against the Miami Marlins brought some late-game heroics from Spencer Torkelson as he notched his 2nd home run of the campaign, putting the Tigers up 6-5 going into the ninth. This is the type of clutch hitting Tigers fans have been looking for.

Tuesday night, different story (queue the angst) as the Tigers finally got their first hit of the night against southpaw Ryan Weathers (2-4 – 4.54 ERA) only to follow it with a routine double play by Javier Baez. At what point do you look at the Baez situation and act on it? Just over 40 games into the season, he’s slashing .168 with an OPS of .430 with showing no signs of improving.

Same goes for the Toronto Blue Jays, except they’re sliding a bit more and in the tougher division by far. At least Detroit is in the mix only being 3 games out of a Wild Card spot. The Twins and the Royals are both division foes and currently hold 2 of the 3 Wild Card spots along with the Yankees. The Jays are at the bottom of the AL East standings and all signs point to that staying the same.

In both cases with these two teams, it’s consistency with their bats, which we’ve been banging our heads against the wall all year about. The Tigers have seen slight improvements with runs and batting average, while the Jays still find themselves amongst the league’s worst in runs and hits.

You have to feel a bit better about the Tigers situation as they’ll have a lot more divisional matchups against beatable teams. They’re pitching has been phenomenal and is what has kept them in games. The Jays on the other hand are slipping fast and can’t find their groove on both sides of the plate. It’s been widely speculated that there will be some sort of a shake up, personnel wise, and if their subpar play continues for much longer, changes will come sooner rather than later.

As for the upcoming schedules, the Tigers hit the road with series against the Diamondbacks and Royals and the Jays open up two home series against the Rays and White Sox. Again, very winnable series for both squads with those divisional matchups we were talking about.

The Jays and the Tigers will then square off in Detroit for a 4 game series starting Thursday, May 23rd and the Down By Two crew will be there. Be sure to follow along for all of the live coverage, interviews and analysis coming from Comerica Park.