Magglio Ordonez drove in just two runs in his first nine games and he sported a lackluster .229 batting average.  He had yet to find his homerun swing and with just three doubles as his only extra base hits, he had a pretty poor .631 OPS.

Then on Aprils’ Friday the Thirteenth, Ordonez hit his first homerun of the season and since then, he’s been on an absolute tear.  In his last 16 games, he’s driven in at least one run in fourteen of them and at one point during that stretch, he had driven in runs in eight straight games.  He’s now hitting .344 and his OPS is at a healthy 1.056.  He also came close to driving in the most runs in the month or April since 1957 with 26.  The most was by Tony Clark, who drove in 27 in 1997.

Some of his splits are even more amazing.  In 25 plate appearances, he’s hitting .600 against left handed pitching.  He’s getting it done both at home (1.111 OPS) and on the road (1.012) and he’s also getting it done in the clutch.  With runners in scoring position, he’s hitting .407 and with runners on, he’s hitting .435.  He also seems to be partcularly good against power pitchers, whom he hits .514 against so far this year.

So basically, he’s getting it done and his April was about as good as one can expect.  He probably would have been a contender for player of the month had it not been for a truly historic April by Alex Rodriguez.  And I know you can’t expect Ordonez to keep up this place, but it looks like he’s well on his way to yet another 100 RBI season.

For baseball fans, May is probably the least exciting month in season.  The excitement of opening day is long gone, the All Star break isn’t even on the horizon, and the highlights of a pennant race are about four months away.  So to liven things up, in a couple of weeks, I’m going to have a Tiger trivia contest.  I’m still thinking about how I’m going to handle it but it’ll be a multi-day thing with some prizes.  As a teaser, I’ll let you guys take a stab at this one.  Ordonez’s eight game streak with at least one RBI is tied for the third best amongst Tigers since 1957.  Which Tiger has the longest streak of games with at least one RBI in a game since 1957.  you get bonus points if you can name the year because while the name might not surprise you, the year might.

***UPDATE***

Alright, I’m behind on things.  Ordonez was recognized for his great week and he was named AL Player of the Week for last week.  Congrats to him.

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