How the Detroit Tigers become a contending team

The Tigers record right now is 43-37 and are in first place.  They have the Cleveland Indians only a game behind them, and the Chicago White Sox are only 5 games behind.  Since about a month into the season I have been debating with people what the Tigers should try and get at the trade deadline.  It started with me thinking that they needed a bat because I didn't think that their lineup would get the job done.  After watching the lineup continue to produce with great contributions from Alex Avila and Jhonny Peralta I saw a bullpen that was getting hammered every night and decided that the Tigers needed to get some relief help to make a good run into October.  Now I am seeing the bullpen turn it around thanks to an unknown rookie named Al Albuquerque and Joaquin Benoit finally starting to pitch well again.  This brings me to what I now consider to be the Tigers main hole to fill if they want to make a series run at a championship this season.  I believe that the tigers need to go after a starting pitcher.

JV has been carrying the Tigers rotation lately

With the exception of Justin Verlander who has a 2.38 ERA no other starting pitcher has an ERA under 4 which is horrendous.
Max Scherzer has nine wins because he is getting a tremendous amount of run support.  Max cannot expect all this run support all season and needs to pick up his game and start pitching better.  In his last few starts Max has shown better command with his pitches and is striking out more hitters.  I believe Max will turn it around this season and go back to pitching like he did at the beginning of the year, but he better do it soon because this team really needs him.
In Rick Porcello's last four starts he has given up 21 earned runs in only 18 1/3 innings.  In his last start versus the Giants he pitched a lot better but was wild hitting 3 batters and throwing 3 wild pitches.  This needs to change because there is a huge difference for a team to have three good starting pitchers compared to just two.  Dating back to last season Rick hasn't been pitching well.  He has shown some signs of returning his form to that of his rookie season but just seems to take two steps forwards and then one step back.  Rick is a sinker ball pitcher and when sinker ballers get the ball up they get crushed.  During the good starts for Rick this season he has gotten the ball down well, but lately I have noticed a lot of pitches up in the zone.  If Rick can fix this I believe that he can be a good starting pitcher for the Tigers for the rest of the season.
Brad Penny has had an up and down season but I really didn't expect anything from him.  Now the Tigers just took Phil Coke out of the rotation and gave his spot to Charlie Furbush.  I like this move because Coke wasn't cutting it in the rotation and I believe that Furbush has looked good coming out of the bullpen so far.  I also believe that having Coke in the bullpen will help this team because he is the best lefty in the pen now.  If Furbush struggles in the rotation there are some other people I think the Tigers might give a chance.  The first person to get a chance would probably be Andy Oliver who is considered on of the Tigers top prospects.  He hasn't had a great year so far in Toledo but he has already gotten the call for one start against the Red Sox and looked pretty good.   So he will probably be the first person to get a chance after Furbush.  The second player who I think might get the call is a lefty in Toledo named Duane Below.  He has pitched the most innings in Toledo this year and has pretty good numbers so far.  He is sporting a 9-4 record and a nice ERA OF 3.06.  Those are some other pitchers who might get a shot at the fifth spot in the Tigers rotation if Furbush struggles.
To get back to what I was talking about at the beginning of this blog I think the Tigers need to go after a starting pitcher at or before the trade deadline this season.  I think we need to forget about Jose Reyes or any other position player.  If the Tigers can get a fourth or fifth starting pitcher from someone I believe it would help the team greatly because our fourth and fifth starters are not getting the job done on a consistent basis.  Also who knows there always seems to be some big name pitcher that suddenly becomes available around the trade deadline.  If a big name pitcher was to suddenly become available around the deadline then I would consider giving up some prospects to get him because I think that would really help the team get some more wins.  I don't know if adding another bat would really help the team get more wins because they score a lot of runs now but their pitching has let them down throughout the season.  Hopefully the Tigers can keep themselves close enough to the top of the division until they can get some pitching help because once they do, they could really become a dangerous team in the American League.