Right. As for this series, it's hard to expect them to win the series or anything, but I would accept just any evidence that they are moving in the right direction offensively... maybe steal a game, but just show something on offense.
For as bad as the Tigers have been, this has been a pretty brutal opening schedule. It doesn't absolve them of their poor play, especially given that they've frittered away at least a couple of winnable games (two that come to mind are the Barnhart drop game against NYY and Tuesday's game against MIN) but they've played some teams that are pretty difficult and, in the case of Colorado, may have caught them at the wrong time.
Looking ahead on the schedule, May could tell the tale on which way this team goes, ie. whether they can overperform expectations or whether they struggle just to get close to .500.... they have more favorable draws (2 against Pittsburgh, 5 against Oakland, 3 against Baltimore ), some draws with good teams who are underperforming expectations (4 against Houston, 3 against Tampa), and a whole slug of games against divisional opponents Cleveland and Minnesota. It's a slate of games where they, theoretically, should be able to make up some ground. But, like you say, they need to get their act together.