Lakeland Day 4: Tigers vs. Phillies (Again)

Well, it was another loss, which I hope isn't the start of a new trend, and I didn't have an epic win like I did yesterday, but I think I came away with a decent haul, getting autographs from Jake Wood (the first African-American to ever play for the Tigers), Will Rhymes, and Ryan Perry. For analysis of the game, head on over to No Run Support. For more pictures, head on over to Facebook. For random observations, stay right here:

• Even though I really don't care for the Phillies (and the fact that there were a TON of Phillies fans at the game was annoying), it was nice to see Placido Polanco again. He even signed autographs for some of the Tigers fans (I didn't get in on that, though, because he didn't sign very many and I was in the wrong spot). 
• Jimmy Rollins is TINY. He might be shorter than Will Rhymes.
• I know I have a tendency to knock Victor Martinez's defense, but I'll give credit where credit is due. He made a real nice play fielding a slow roller up the first base line while Jose Valverde was on the mound. He practically did a somersault in throwing the ball to first, just nabbing the runner. Very nice.
• The other entertaining point of the game came a little bit later. Andy Dirks hit a hot smash back to the mound that got caught in the webbing of the pitcher's glove. Dirks got a base hit out of the deal.
• There's a feature at Joker Marchant Stadium called Tiger Trivia wherein they ask a member of the crowd a trivia question and if they get it right, they win...something (I think it's a hotel stay or free food or something). And the questions are usually super easy. Today's was "Who was the last Tiger to throw a no-hitter?" The general sentiment of the crowd was to ask "Officially or unofficially?" This was followed by a lot of people agreeing with each other that "yeah, it was a perfect game."
• While waiting out by the player exits (which wasn't as great as yesterday because there were a ton of people, so players didn't stop, and I understand why), I met a woman who was a huge fan of Armando Galarraga, so we were able to commiserate (and she is flat-out convinced that he's going to have a huge year and the Tigers will regret trading him; yes, there's a part of me that hopes she's right). I also met a woman who was a huge Pudge fan, so we were able to gleefully reminisce and talk about what a marvelous player he is.
• I don't know where Miguel Cabrera gets the idea that Ryan Perry is quiet. He was chatting up a storm with the fans in the parking lot. Someone asked him if he was a sweetheart, to which he replied "Sometimes." For some reason I overcame my shyness at that point and added, "Not when he's on the mound," which got a smile out of him. I also told him I liked his hair long like it is now.
• And with that, my Lakeland trip has come to a close. It's been an absolute blast, totally worth the expense. Of course, the highlight was meeting Miguel Cabrera. That alone made the entire trip worth it. My next post will probably be from back home in Ohio, so until then, happy baseball!

Lakeland Day 3: Tigers vs. Marlins (Wherein the Tigers Lose But I Still Win)

My good track record with the Tigers evidently isn't enough to save them in a spring training game where the pitchers just won't throw strikes. Max Scherzer just didn't have it, and apparently neither did anyone else on the pitching staff (for a more detailed analysis, see my No Run Support post and to see it in gory detail, here's my Facebook album). All the control problems made for a very long game (though not as long as the Nationals game yesterday). In addition, all the guy next to me did for the entire game was bitch and moan about, well, everything (topics of complaint included, but were not limited to, the stadium design, the screen behind home plate, Scherzer's drop in velocity, Miguel Cabrera's alcohol problem, and Austin Jackson striking out too much). I began wondering why he was even at the game, since there didn't seem to be a single player on the team that he liked. The guy finally left in the sixth inning when a swarm of small black bugs descended upon us. I have no idea what they were, but they were annoying as hell. After the game ended, I found myself waiting in the parking lot near the player exit for over an hour, but the game, the whiny guy, the bugs, and the wait were all worth it, because I met Miguel Cabrera and got his autograph. And he was really nice to all the fans who had waited around the exit, too. He even struck that awesomely goofy pose when he saw I was taking his picture. That has to be the highlight of my entire trip to Florida. Other notes:

• Andy Dirks does a pretty funny imitation of Chris Berman. 
• Before the game, Justin Verlander was giving an interview for a Boston TV crew when in the middle of the interview, he suddenly realized his pants were unzipped and unbuttoned. That got a huge laugh from the fans near the clubhouse.
• Apparently on days when Magglio Ordoñez is the DH, he never takes his shin guard off. He was even warming up with it on. 
• In the third inning, some guy behind me randomly yelled out (very loudly), "Armando! Where's Armando?" Um, okay (Look, I love Armando Galarraga and I wish very much that he was still with this team, but even I admit that Max Scherzer is a better pitcher).
• In the same inning, once Scherzer gave up the three-run homer to Matt Dominguez, the same guy yelled out "Toledo!"
• I had never seen Charlie Furbush pitch before. He has a very slingly delivery. Hopefully he's usually not as slow as he was today.
• There was a guy behind me cheering on Cabrera in Spanish (It might have actually been the same guy yelling for Armando, because one of his cheers was "Viva Venezuela"). Then he started yelling "Thank you Magglio!" as Maggs was standing in the on-deck circle.
• I also got autographs from Rob Brantly, Ben Guez, Tom Brookens, and Rafael Belliard.
• Tomorrow will be my final game here in Lakeland. The Tigers take on the Phillies again. And this time my new camera will have a better lens than it did today.

One Last Good-Bye

I’m going to try to keep this keep this short, as my last two posts have essentially been eulogies of Armando Galarraga already, but I can’t promise anything. I’m also not going to analyze the return, because frankly, I don’t care. I love Armando Galarraga to bits but I harbor no illusions about his trade value, or anyone else’s, for that matter (It’s been that way ever since someone decided that Pudge Rodriguez was “only” worth Kyle Farnsworth). Those two pitchers probably won’t amount to much, and either way, they’re not going to mean much to me.

Most of you have heard the expression “live and die with your team.” I’m definitely one of those types of fans, but I think the saying can be applied to players, too. There are some players that I love more, but I don’t think I’ve lived and died with any of them quite as much as I have with Galarraga. I’ve liked him from the first start he ever made with the Tigers, which was an absolute beauty of a performance. I’ve seen plenty of pitchers make their first starts with the Tigers, both good and bad, and I’m normally fairly skeptical of them, even when it was a good start (Andrew Miller, Luke French, Alfredo Figaro, and Yorman Bazardo come to mind). But for some reason, something about Galarraga’s performance just stuck with me. The only other pitcher to whom I’ve reacted that way after his first start was Jair Jurrjens. I may well have developed the same sort of enthusiasm had he not been traded so soon after I first saw him. With Galarraga, I quickly realized that this was someone who maybe didn’t have the most awesome stuff, but was very smart and was certainly capable and I just liked the air he projected when he pitched well. The fact that he had such a pleasant personality didn’t hurt matters, either. And as wonderful as he was to watch in 2008, 2009 was rather gut-wrenching at times. I don’t know what precisely happened to make him lose his confidence (although I do think injury played a large role in why his pitches weren’t moving the way they should), but I really felt for him. And the more his detractors and critics got on his case, the more I felt sorry for him and the more I wanted to stand up for him (so in a sense, you naysayers kind of made me this way).

And of course, we all know how 2010 was a long, strange trip for him. Did it really boil down to three bad starts near the end of September? That would be tragic if it did. I badly wanted things to work out for him in Detroit, and now that’s never going to happen. I said in my last post that he always seemed to be the victim of something, and I guess he kind of feels the same way. He showed up on a Venezuelan radio program today, which I knew nothing about, but the show’s Twitter page had a bunch of quotes (Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Most of it is standard “I’m excited to join my new team” type stuff that every traded player says. He does talk about how he thinks Detroit is a good team (I’m guessing he means in terms of the organization), but he always felt like he had to fight for his job all the time and was never secure. Now, whether that’s a byproduct of the Tigers’ opinion of him or his own confidence issues, I’m not sure. He did tell Jason Beck that he doesn’t hold anything against the Tigers, and I hope he’s being honest about that, because with the way Detroit badly handled his situation, it would be very easy to hold a grudge. At the same time, I hope his legacy in Detroit will be a positive one, and the Tigers fans will remember him with the same respect and fondness that they have for guys like Pudge and Granderson and Polanco. I can’t be the only one who feels that way.

And so now the time comes to say good-bye for good. Right now, I can’t bear to watch his old Tigers games, and I can’t bear to watch him in any other uniform. Someday I will be able to. The wounds will heal, just as they did with Pudge. This season will always be bittersweet, but it is still baseball, and baseball is a beautiful thing. And so I say adios, Armando. May you find the success you deserve, wherever that may be.

There Will Be No Happy Ending

Something told me not to comment too early on the news of the day, and unfortunately I was right. By now you know all about the Tigers first signing and then designating Armando Galarraga, so I won’t rehash it. There’s virtually no chance of him making it through waivers to Toledo. The Tigers are going to try to trade him, but even if they don’t find anyone, someone will claim him. With that in mind, I might as well post this now as opposed to when the true end comes (though I will probably mark the occasion with a brief farewell). Even if I look at this situation from a completely detached, objective perspective, the timing of this move makes little sense. This leaves the Tigers with no backup plan for their rotation. What happens if they get into spring training and one of the five starters gets hurt or royally sucks? Is Andy Oliver as a fallback option really that good an idea? Is Clete Thomas really that important to the team that you can’t DFA him instead? The only thing I can think of is that it increases his chances of landing a starting job on another team, so am I supposed to take it as the Tigers doing him a favor? That might benefit him, but I don’t see how that benefits the Tigers.

However, as you are well aware, where Armando Galarraga is concerned, I am not detached and unemotional. There are only two guys on this team that I like more, and one of the things I was most looking forward to was seeing him pitch in the Olde English D for one more season. Any more than that would have been too much to hope for, but as I’ve frequently pointed out, falling for an underdog leaves the door wide open for being burned, and it finally happened. I have gone through the baseball grieving process before with Pudge Rodriguez. Most of you didn’t know me back then, as my blog was at a different site and I had a much smaller audience, but believe me, the enthusiasm I’ve displayed for Armando is nothing compared to what I felt (and still feel) for Pudge. I accurately predicted that 2008 would be his final year with the Tigers, but even so, when he was traded away, I was devastated. I was infuriated, grief-stricken, and heartbroken, and I still miss him very much. It was one of the two occasions where baseball actually made me cry (losing Game 163 was the other). But I got through it, and now I can watch old games from his Tigers days and enjoy watching them without the heartbreaking pain I used to feel. Just as I got through losing Pudge, I will get through losing Armando. But knowing that isn’t going to make it any easier.

From a personal standpoint, this particular player-fan relationship is always going to be tinged with regret. I was lucky enough to see two of his starts in person (both good ones), but I never met Armando, and I wish I had, particularly before the perfect game. The frustrating thing is that I had plenty of opportunity to do so. After all, he was in Toledo for almost two months last year. Fifth Third Field is only about a ten minute drive from my house. Yet I didn’t go to a single Mud Hens game in April or May last year, and now I really wish I had. I wish I had gone to Tigerfest last year. This year I had been planning a trip to spring training in March. I had hoped to make that announcement on more exciting terms, but a big reason why I was planning to go this year and not wait until after I had graduated (when it would make more sense financially) was that I knew Armando wouldn’t be with the Tigers that much longer and I wanted one last chance. Now I’m not sure if I’ll go or not. I’ve already bought game tickets, but I haven’t made flight or hotel reservations yet. You guys are welcome to talk me into or out of the trip if you want to. But what’s more, I still feel this nagging voice in my head telling me that I personally could have prevented this recent course of events, but I never figured out exactly how I could do that. And for all these things, I am truly sorry and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.

Another thing that will haunt me is the uncertainty over what might have been. Back in my offseason preview, I made the prediction that Armando would be traded. However, I thought it would happen a LOT earlier in the offseason. The fact that we made it so close to spring training before he lost his starter role is extremely frustrating. And it hurts because now we’ll never know what would have happened if he’d been allowed to compete in spring training. If he had gone through spring training and not been effective or had more confidence issues and the Tigers had designated him then, I wouldn’t have liked it, but I could have rationalized it. There would have been no sensible argument I could make in favor of keeping him beyond my own psychological quirks and eccentricities. But he could have just as easily outpitched Brad Penny and/or Phil Coke. He has brilliance in him. We’ve seen it before, when he’s not getting in his own way. But it seems like Armando is always being victimized by something, whether it’s blown calls, lack of run support, roster crunches, or his own insecurity. Still, I would give anything to know what would have happened had be been given one last chance. We’ll never know.

I’ve been immersed in baseball for almost four years now, so I’ve seen plenty of pitchers come and go, and I’ve liked most of them well enough, but there are only two pitchers that I passionately enjoyed watching pitch: Verlander and Galarraga. And I liked watching them for different reasons. Watching Verlander is watching an awesome display of power. You feel extremely pumped up when it’s over. Armando provided a different sensation. Yes, it was painful to watch him nibble around the strikezone, but when he believed in himself, he projected such an air of calmness and intelligence, and watching the way he attacked hitters was so beautiful that it made enduring all the struggles totally worth it. That’s what intrigued me so much about him when I first saw him pitch. I doubt I’ll get the same thrill from watching Brad Penny. Pitching just became a little less exciting. Still, Armando managed to defy all his critics and detractors for at least one night, and he has a permanent place in Tigers’ history. He will be noted in almost every book about the Tigers from here on out. He’ll be in Ken Burns’s next baseball documentary, thanks to his actions both on the field and off. I just wish the story could have gone on a little bit longer. And I hope he can find it in his heart to forgive the Tigers for any slight they may have given. I don't want them to part on bad terms.

Again, I don’t need anyone to rationalize the situation to me. I can do that myself. And I don’t need mere sympathy. If anything, I need you to understand how I feel. And yes, baseball will go on, and so will the Tigers Amateur Analysis. I’m not putting it on hiatus like I did when Pudge was gone. I don’t know what I’ll talk about next week (or whenever more news comes, but I do know that the blog will miss Armando too, because posts about him got twice as many pageviews as posts about anyone else). For now, I’ll conclude with a song. I don’t usually do Mood Music for players, but if any of you have seen the musical Chess, that’s where this song is from, and if you think about it, there are at least four songs from that musical that could be used to describe various points in the history of Armando Galarraga. So let this be my swan song to him, I suppose. I guess I’ll be saying good-bye for the last time at some point in the next few days.

Starters and Lies

Now I know just how far wishing and hoping alone can take you. It takes you to January 11^th, and no further. Seventy-nine days short of the goal. I told you January was a dangerous month. Back when I did my offseason preview, I said I would be willing to take on starting pitchers if and only if they were a clear upgrade to what was already in place. One of the types of pitchers that I specified as NOT being a clear upgrade was an aging veteran. Another was an injury reclamation project. Brad Penny fits both these descriptions. I’m not saying that he wouldn’t be an upgrade (The 2006/2007 Brad Penny would be. I can’t argue with that). He’s just not a clear one (though I still don’t like his numbers against AL teams, and I’m not talking about his stint in Boston; I’m talking about his entire career). Things might work out and they might not. Even if they work out, however, I’m just not sure he’d be enough to get the Tigers over the top (if there is one). And I don’t feel like he’s worth the turmoil that’s happening now. We won’t know the full fallout until tomorrow at the earliest, but it stands to reason that Armando Galarraga gets the short end AGAIN. Precisely what will happen is yet unclear, but it’s obvious that at the very least, he’s going to have to pitch like a Hall of Famer if he even wants a chance at a rotation spot, which I think is asking too much of anyone. Now, I know there is actually a rather sizeable population on the blogosphere that think Phil Coke won’t pan out as a starter, but Dave Dombrowski and Jim Leyland are so married to the idea that Coke would probably have to have an ERA of seven in July before they’d even consider removing him from the rotation.

Beyond that, opinions as to Galarraga’s fate are all over the place (I hate the fact that he’s out of minor league options because it’s making it so frustrating and complicated). Some writers are just ignoring him. Some think he will compete but someone would have to pitch horribly or be injured in order for him to take a spot. Several people on Twitter are making jokes about it, which I find distasteful. Most of the people at Bless You Boys think he’ll be shifted to the vacant long relief slot in the bullpen (This is undignified, but it does keep him with the team. At the same time, long relief seems to be the kiss of death for Tigers starters. Usually when a starter goes down with injury or ineffectiveness, they bypass the long reliever and just call someone up from the minors), with a few here and there believing he’ll be traded. Jason Beck doesn’t seem to be subscribing to either of these theories, though he does list them as options for what the Tigers can do with him. He says that Galarraga has no trade value right now, and he’s skeptical of the long relief idea because the arbitration raise he’s due to get would be that of a starter’s salary and therefore it would not be cost effective to have him pitching out of the bullpen (This really doesn’t make sense; I can’t imagine he’d get that much more than a million, which is what Brad Thomas is being paid, and it’s not as if the Tigers don’t have payroll flexibility). Beck doesn’t say it outright, but he strongly hints that he thinks Galarraga will be released sometime during spring training because his contract is not guaranteed. That would be devastating to me. One scenario that isn’t addressed by anyone (except very briefly by John Wagner, who covers the Mud Hens for the Toledo Blade) is trying to sneak him through waivers and outright him to Toledo. Since it would be the first time he was outrighted, he’d have to accept the assignment. Now, I say that, and yet I don’t think that would work. I just don’t think he’d make it through waivers without someone claiming him, unless he was injured or his spring training was terrible. Anyways, I don’t know who to believe. I know not to believe Dave Dombrowski. Remember, last Monday he proclaimed that the rotation was “pretty well set.” I was skeptical of that comment, and I was right to be skeptical about it because the Brad Penny rumors started up the very next day, which means he flat-out lied about the rotation, and I don’t appreciate that. I’m not asking him to be completely transparent and honest, but there’s a difference between lying and being non-committal. What he should have said was something along the lines of, “We’d be comfortable with the rotation we have now, but we’re exploring our options.” I wouldn’t have liked hearing that, but at least it would have been closer to the truth. Right now I’m just hoping for some sort of miracle to happen and for Galarraga to find himself back in Detroit’s rotation. As bad as I feel right now, he’s got to be feeling ten times worse. I know you all think I’m silly for empathizing with him, but when you’ve fought so hard for so long and put so much energy into supporting someone who’s constantly on the bubble and being torn down by critics and naysayers that when he doesn’t get a fair chance at redemption, it’s like your goddamn heart’s been ripped out. The only time I’ve felt worse than this was when Pudge got traded away (and to this day, that experience has left me extremely skeptical of guys who “replace” players I like, though I will admit that Austin Jackson worked out well; however, I like Galarraga better than I liked Granderson, and that’s saying something because I was very fond of Granderson). Whether I feel better or worse tomorrow depends on what happens once this signing is official.

Overanalyze Much?

As stress-inducing and boring as the offseason is, January is probably the worst month to get through. I mean, you’ve at least got holidays to distract you in November and December (not to mention the GM and Winter Meetings), and February’s a short wait because spring training starts about two weeks in. January’s just a vast expanse of dullness. And this year comes the added element of worrying that since the Tigers pretty much don’t have any glaring needs left, they’ll resort to picking at stuff that doesn’t need to be picked at. Since my entry into the baseball world (2007), I have yet to experience an offseason where a player I like isn’t under constant threat of getting traded or axed. Anyways, since it’s January, there isn’t a whole lot of big news for me to analyze (which is good and bad). However, as I can’t drop off the face of the earth until spring training starts (because that’s bad form), I’ve got to comment on something, which leads me to discuss a couple stories I wouldn’t really mention under ordinary circumstances.

Yesterday we got a fresh batch of quotes from Dave Dombrowski in an article about how the Tigers’ long relief will be different this year now that Eddie Bonine and Zach Miner have signed elsewhere. The story isn’t anything we haven’t already heard, but the final line intrigued me. In reference to the possibility that the Tigers could covert a starter into long relief (which was dismissed as remote), Dombrowski was quoted as saying, “We feel our five guys are pretty well set.” Now, I think that would be wonderful if it were true, but this front office is so enigmatic and tight-lipped that I’m not sure whether to believe him or not. Jason Beck makes it even more confusing in his blog, where he repeats the quote and immediately contradicts it by saying “That doesn’t mean the rotation is set going into the season,” in the very next sentence. He points out that at this time last year, Jose Valverde and Johnny Damon were far from entering the picture. He also repeats that they’re going to let Andy Oliver and maybe some non-roster invitees compete for a spot, and he mentions Brad Penny again. I normally like Jason Beck, but I’m not sure what he’s trying to do here. I can’t figure out if he’s trying to subtly hint at his own opinion or if he’s gotten so much negative feedback about the rotation that he assumes that everyone disapproves of the rotation and he’s trying to…reassure them or something (Does this mean I have to start sending him emails approving of the rotation to balance things out?). Either way, I don’t really appreciate whatever it is he’s trying to do. I’m having an extremely tough time getting a feel for how the Tigers stack up against the other teams in the AL Central, and I think that’s because the White Sox and Twins have had quite a bit of turnover, especially in their bullpens. The White Sox rotation can be good, but went through some bipolar phases last year and it’s largely the same guys, while the Twins’ rotation just doesn’t seem that intimidating, with or without Carl Pavano (but they never seem intimidating and yet somehow they magically win games all the time). What I feel is that either the Tigers are good enough to win the division the way they are right now, or they are so far behind that a marginal one or two game improvement (which is pretty much all the remaining free agents have to offer) isn’t going to make much difference. Also, most of the Tigers’ core group are set to be around for at least a few more years. With those two things in mind, I don’t think it makes much sense to gamble on an injury case/aging vet or rush a prospect who might not be ready. I think it would be much more productive for them to pour their time and energy into figuring out how to get the most out of the starters they already have. But I feel as though my arguments might be falling on deaf ears (or blind eyes, since I’m actually writing them).

Shortly after Christmas, Tigers.com had yet another article about Armando Galarraga’s perfect game. It’s nothing you haven’t already read before (although it does have some new quotes form Galarraga and Leyland), and I actually wouldn’t be bringing it up if not for the fact that the MLB At Bat app on the iPod makes a rather strange choice of accompanying photo. It’s not even a picture from the game, but rather another start that Galarraga made at Fenway Park against the Red Sox. Specifically, it’s a picture of him reacting to having been hit in the ankle with a line drive (Remember that?). What does that have to do with the perfect game? I realize that the photos are probably automatically generated by some computer program, but they should still have a human look at it and fix it when stuff like that happens. As a side note, what is it with Venezuelans and ankles? Galarraga had the line drive off his ankle, Miguel Cabrera sprained an ankle, and Magglio Ordoñez fractured his ankle (Carlos Guillen bucked the trend and had surgery on his knee).

Finally, file another one under “Things You Learn From Venezuelan Tweets.” A few nights ago, Enrique Gonzalez (who I believe is the only Tigers-connected player still playing winter ball, at least in Venezuela) was pitching in one of their playoff games and the writers on Twitter kept referring to him as “Fresita.” “Fresita” is Spanish for “Little Strawberry,” and apparently it’s Enrique Gonzalez’s nickname. So between him and “Big Potato,” the Tigers’ bullpen is starting to sound like the produce section.

Catching Up

I’ve got a couple of bits of old news (as in, from just before Christmas) to catch up on. Unfortunately, it’s been so long that I don’t have proper links anymore, so you’ll have to bear with me, but let’s get to it:

First up is news out of Venezuela that Miguel Cabrera will not be playing winter ball because he is still rehabbing the ankle he sprained during the last week of the season (I verified this story myself with Venezuelan sportscaster Marfa Mata on Twitter; she works with the Tigres de Aragua and is therefore a good source of information on Cabrera). The fact that he won’t be playing winter ball is a bit disappointing, but I wasn’t really expecting him to. The fact that he’s still rehabbing his ankle is a bit odd, considering the injury happened three months ago. However, because the injury happened right before the end of the season, we really weren’t given a clear picture as to the extent of the damage, so to speak (and the Tigers’ front office seems to be very stealthy and quiet about almost everything, be it player moves or injuries, which is both good and bad, I suppose). As I said at the time, high ankle sprains cover a very wide range of severity, so if all you have to go on is the fact that it is a high ankle sprain, you don’t have much to base your assessment on (although they do tend to be more severe than regular ankle sprains). I’ve seen guys miss anywhere from a month to the entire season with high ankle sprains. However, as I am not a physical therapist, I will not speculate as to his readiness for spring training (which is, after all, still about six weeks away).

The second piece of information is that they announced the winners of the This Year in Baseball Awards (which seem to have been rechristened as “GIBBYs”) on MLB Network. If you’ll recall, the Tigers had nominees in three categories: Miguel Cabrera for Player of the Year, Austin Jackson for Rookie of the Year, and Armando Galarraga for Performance of the Year (Yes, Joaquin Benoit was nominated for, and won, Setup Man of the Year, but since he did that with the Rays, I’m not counting it). Now, Player of the Year ended up going to Josh Hamilton and Rookie of the Year went to Buster Posey, and I really don’t have a problem with that because both of them are worthy candidates. What I don’t like is that Cabrera and Jackson weren’t even in the top three in their respective results. However, the Tigers did get a top spot out of the awards, because Galarraga won Performance of the Year by a rather large margin over Roy Halladay and Dallas Braden (Don’t feel too sorry for them; Braden won Moment of the Year and Halladay won Pitcher of the Year), so congratulations goes out to him.

Feliz Navidad from Tigers Amateur Analysis

I’d like to wish you all Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Feliz Navidad. Hope everything is going well. Enjoy this video, courtesy of Jib Jab. What better way to celebrate the holiday than with dancing Venezuelans? 

Latin Links: December 3

I am going to try to do a post previewing the Winter Meetings sometime over the weekend, but no promises. In the meantime, there has been a little bit of Tiger-related news out of Latin America to share (most links are in Spanish):

• This morning, Carlos V. Rodriguez of the Venezuelan newspaper Lider posted a tweet regarding Magglio Ordoñez that basically translates to “A source close to the player confirms that all signs point to Magglio returning to Detroit.” I don’t know what that means in terms of actual contract negotiations, and this is the first time I’ve read anything from Rodriguez, so I am unsure of his track record, but his Twitter site is followed by other Venezuelan writers that I’ve found to be reliable, and his tweet was retweeted by Jason Beck (along with my translation of it), so take that for what you will. At any rate, this story has gained traction and has appeared over at The Hardball Times (again, along with my translation; big thank you to Craig Calcaterra for that) and other sites.
• On a related note, I came across some winter ball news, thanks to my discovery of Lider. In addition to his tweet heard ‘round the blogosphere, Carlos V. Rodriguez reports that Magglio will not be playing winter ball this year, instead choosing to focus on his next contract. Additionally, Cesar Augusto Marquez (also at Lider) reports that the president of the Leones del Caracas has asked permission to have Armando Galarraga pitch for them later in the year, but he probably will not (Galarraga could not be reached for comment, according to this article).
• I also found this video from some point during the season where Armando Galarraga talks about soccer. I haven’t had the chance to listen to it myself yet, but I figured I’d share the link in case any of you had interest.

Arbitration Matters and Latin Links

It took them a while, but the Tigers finally announced the corresponding move to make room for Victor Martinez on the roster by designating Zach Miner for assignment. Miner is recovering from Tommy John surgery, and the DFA automatically makes him a free agent, but the Tigers are interested in bringing him back on a minor league deal (though I think the assertion that he’d compete for a bullpen spot or perhaps try to crack the starting rotation is a bit optimistic, considering that it usually takes about a year to recover from Tommy John surgery and he just had his in late May). I don’t really dislike Miner (though Jim Leyland’s plans to use him out of the bullpen to get double plays never really seemed to work out the way they were supposed to), but right now I’ve gotten myself into “think of the alternative” mode, so at this point, the DFA doesn’t really bother me. Besides, he was a prime non-tender candidate anyways. Speaking of which, that deadline is Thursday, and by my count, there are three other Tigers who are arbitration-eligible. Since Ryan Raburn is essentially the left fielder right now, I expect that to be uneventful, and as I said before, they’d be foolish to not tender a contract to Armando Galarraga. That leaves Joel Zumaya as a possible non-tender candidate because of the injuries, but Jason Beck has said that the Tigers will probably offer him a contract, and they should, because when he’s healthy, Zumaya can be very effective, and he won’t be that expensive. There’s certainly room in the payroll for him.

And now I have some links for you concerning a few Latin American players:

• Thanks to some internet browsing, I have found a couple websites that stream live television broadcasts of Venezuelan baseball. I was watching one such game a couple days ago and it just so happened that Carlos Guillen was a guest in the broadcast booth and they held about a 10-minute interview with him. I was able to make an audio recording of part of the interview, so you can have at it. The sound quality’s not great (especially since this was happening during a game, so you hear cheering in the background as one team was in the middle of scoring a bunch of runs), and it’s entirely in Spanish. Unfortunately, I can’t translate much of it (He gets asked about Victor Martinez, the high number of Venezuelans on the Tigers, and the perfect game, among other things).
• The presentation of the Luis Aparicio Award took place last Thursday (The article is in Spanish, but at least I could understand most of it). The award went to Carlos Gonzalez of the Colorado Rockies, but Armando Galarraga received an honorable mention for the perfect game and his actions following it. He was unable to attend the award ceremony because he’s in Texas right now (or at least he was as of Thursday), but someone managed to get an interview with him (which I can provide a translation for, if you guys want me to).
• Galarraga was also a runner-up for Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year for 2010 (which was given to Drew Brees). Joe Posnanski wrote the nomination article about him and Pat Forde also tweeted his support.
• Via former Mud Hen Scot Drucker, we’ve learned that 2006 ALCS Game 2 hero Alexis Gomez was injured in a car accident in the Dominican Republic. We in the Tigers community all hope for the best. 
• And finally, happy 39^th birthday to former Tiger Pudge Rodriguez. And to no one’s surprise, he’s got no plans to retire any time soon (link in Spanish).

Peralta's Staying + More Venezuelan Uneasiness

First off, a belated congratulations to the San Francisco Giants and their fans for the World Series win. They simply outpitched the Rangers and totally shut their big bats down. And they beat Cliff Lee twice. Meanwhile, the Rangers kind of looked like they had the yips, kind of like the Tigers did in 2006 and the Rays in 2008. And now, onto Tiger news...

Over the weekend, it became apparent that the Tigers have found themselves a shortstop for the time being. Jhonny Peralta has agreed to a deal that is for two years with a third-year option. Actually, the deal looks remarkably similar to the one Brandon Inge got a couple weeks ago (I’m not sure if the fact that they have the same agent has anything to do with that). The announcement has been met with a bunch of grumbling about how Peralta is Edgar Renteria Redux. I actually said as much when the Tigers first acquired him, but that never really manifested, and his defense wasn’t all that bad. Still, I would rather they had just picked up the option on his prior contract and try to upgrade the shortstop position next offseason. At the same time, there has to be a reason why Dave Dombrowski didn’t want to pick up that option, and he hasn’t said what that was. Therefore, there is currently not enough information available to make an educated opinion on this deal. But I do know that there was not a very good selection of shortstops on the free agent market this year, and right now I’m so gun-shy when it comes to trades that part of me doesn’t even want to fathom that as an option. Besides, I’m more concerned with other players, so I really don’t feel strongly towards this deal either way (positive or negative).

Speaking of which, a couple of articles appeared on Tigers.com that dealt with a couple guys I have concern for. As I pretty much expected, Armando Galarraga has been granted Super Two status for his arbitration years. Before I go on, I would like to point out that I know perfectly well what Super Two is, and I do not need to have it explained to me. What puzzles me is Jason Beck’s reaction to the whole thing. His tone in the article seemed to suggest that it changes everything in regards to how the Tigers would deal with Galarraga this year. I’m not sure why it would. After all, I fully expected him to be arbitration eligible this year (that stemmed from the fact that I overestimated his service time, not that I expected Super Two status). Beck even mentions in his own article that the Tigers fully expected him to be arbitration-eligible, so I’m not sure what the issue is. I find it hard to believe that having four arbitration years instead of three has any effect on the outcome of the first arbitration year. It’s not like all of a sudden they have to pay him ten million dollars next year just because he’s a Super Two. And as I said before, non-tendering him would be a foolish move, and Jason Beck seems to be the only one entertaining that as a serious possibility. Still, the article does nothing to instill confidence that he’ll remain with this team much longer.

While we’re on the subject of pessimistic news, we have another article telling us that it’s going to be very difficult to re-sign Magglio Ordoñez. Scott Boras is up to his old tricks, to no one’s surprise, telling everyone who stands still long enough that “lots of teams” have contacted him about Magglio. Boras is going to do what he does with all of his clients: get teams in a bidding war, get teams to bid against themselves, and make every team’s fans sick of the process. I am going out on a limb here, but I have noticed that one of Boras’s favorite tricks seems to be getting a player’s old team involved in the bidding process. He did it a couple years ago, trying to get the Texas Rangers involved while the Tigers were trying to negotiate re-signing Kenny Rogers (Rogers, to his credit, proceeded to fire Boras and represented himself). Therefore, it would not surprise me to see Boras trying to court the White Sox. I know there’s some bad blood between Maggs and Ozzie Guillen, but I’ll hearken back to my previous example and point out that Kenny Rogers was not on good terms with the Rangers when Boras tried to bring them into it. Plus, the White Sox are in need of an upgrade at DH, no matter what Ozzie says. But whatever he does, Boras is going to make sure this becomes a knockdown, dragged-out fight and we’re all going to hate it. Missing from this analysis is what Magglio thinks of all this. Near the end of the season, Miguel Cabrera told reporters that Magglio told him he wanted to return. Maggs himself echoed that sentiment to a Venezuelan reporter about a month ago, but it remains to be seen who is more in control in this player-agent relationship. It also remains to be seen just how long Dave Dombrowski will put up with Scott Boras’s antics. The Tigers have been pretty good at dealing with Boras in the past (re: Pudge, Maggs, Rogers, and most recently Johnny Damon), which is probably the only good sign in this saga, but with a big bat being their most pressing need, if they tango with Boras too long and lose out on Maggs, the alternatives may already be gone. And people wonder why I’m developing a serious distaste for the offseason.

Random Thoughts

Sorry for not blogging much recently, but I’ve had a ton of exams and I don’t have much to say anyways. There’s no point in discussing Hot Stove stuff unless something happens, because all you need to do to guess my opinion of a particular rumor is to read my offseason preview. I believe I was thorough enough in that regard. However, there are a few odds and ends I can discuss.

First of all, Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity featured a Tiger sighting (although I did not find out about this until later and luckily my mom recorded it on her DVR so I was able to watch it eventually; what’s funny is that the segment immediately preceding this featured a shot of a guy wearing a Tigers hat). Armando Galarraga was presented with a “Medal of Reasonableness” for his actions following the blown call in his perfect game. He wasn’t actually at the rally because he’s apparently gone back home to Venezuela, but they did show a taped acceptance speech from him (which looked like it was filmed in his kitchen, because there was a refrigerator in the background). Unfortunately, there is no video clip of this either on Comedy Central’s website or on Youtube, so if you missed it, you’re kind of stuck. Live or taped, though, it was nice seeing him again, even if my mom kept making fun of the way he said “umpire.”

Secondly, the “big” awards from the BBWAA are still yet to come, but some others have been streaming in. Austin Jackson has been duly recognized as Rookie of the Year by The Sporting News and by the MLB player voting. Miguel Cabrera hasn’t been as fortunate. In fact, he’s yet to win anything. The Sporting News gave their Outstanding Player award to Josh Hamilton, and the player vote (which does not give an award for each league) went to Carlos Gonzalez (who is one of my absolute favorite non-Tigers and I would love to see him in the Olde English D, but still). Carlos Gonzalez also won the Luis Aparicio Award, which is given to the top Venezuelan player in the majors each year (It’s voted on by Venezuelan baseball writers, it does not separate the leagues, and it can go to a pitcher). I’m starting to get the feeling that Venezuelans might not be all that enamored of Cabrera. I visited a website for a Venezuelan sports radio station (I’ve been listening to a little bit of winter ball via online streaming radio, although I’m not all that good at understanding spoken Spanish; I’ll understand words but not entire sentences; I am pretty good at reading Spanish, though). There was a poll on the homepage asking (in Spanish) who would win the Luis Aparicio Award, with three choices: Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Gonzalez, and Felix Hernandez. Carlos Gonzalez had about 60% of the vote, with King Felix second and Cabrera a very distant third. Then last night they announced the winners of the Hank Aaron Award, and the American League recipient was Jose Bautista. Now, I don’t expect Cabrera to come away from this season empty-handed. If he doesn’t win the Silver Slugger, there’s something really strange going on because no other first baseman put up anywhere close to the numbers he did. Joe Buck seems ready to hand the MVP award to Josh Hamilton, and that will probably happen, but I’d like to point out that Hamilton had a terrible April and he missed almost all of September. Therefore, the Rangers only got four good months out of him and they would have made the playoffs with or without Hamilton because the other three teams in their division really weren’t all that good. Robinson Cano is the only other candidate from a playoff team. The criteria that the BBWAA voters look for is something I haven’t figured out yet (likely because there are different voters each year). It seems like some years they prioritize raw numbers, others it’s how valuable he is to his team. I do wonder my MVP has playoffs as an important factor and yet Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young Award do not (Manager of the Year also has playoffs as a big factor, but that I understand). I wonder what would happen if someone put up absolutely monster numbers or even won the Triple Crown yet played for a team that was in last place for the entire season (it’s unlikely to happen, but it could if this hypothetical player’s team had really bad pitching or something).

As far as the World Series goes, the Texas Rangers seem to have gotten a case of first-time nerves like the Rays did a couple years ago. They are now on the brink and have to find a way to bounce back and get this series to a Game 7, partly because I want them to win and partly because the World Series is all that separates us from the big, scary offseason starting. There was some argument about how they should’ve started Cliff Lee on short rest last night, but really, that argument is pretty pointless when the offense doesn’t score any runs. I kept having flashbacks to Anthony Reyes in Game 1 of the 2006 World Series last night (although Madison Bumgardner appears to have far more upside than Reyes). They do have Cliff Lee going tonight, although he got lit up in his last start. Tim Lincecum wasn’t lights-out, either. I can’t imagine that both of them are going to give up as many runs as they did for two starts in a row, but who knows? As a side note, I missed where Pudge caught Nolan Ryan's first pitch the other night, but I did see a picture of him later. I wasn't expecting him to be there, because technically he is still a Washington National (though it would not surprise me to see him get traded in the offseason), but I guess he's so beloved by Rangers fans that it seemed right for him to be there. And I'm certainly not going to question it.

Welcome Back Brandon and Postseason Thoughts

The big news coming out of Detroit yesterday was that the Tigers have re-signed Brandon Inge to a two-year, $11.5 million deal with an option for 2013. You guys should know me well enough by now to know that I am thrilled that I’ll be able to see Brandon Inge in the Olde English D for at least two more years. With the payroll flexibility that the Tigers have right now, it’s a reasonable contract. During the press conference, Dave Dombrowski really didn’t drop any new hints regarding offseason moves. He talked about the infield as a whole, and he seemed to imply that their next step is reaching an agreement with Jhonny Peralta. He also reiterated that at this point they are committed to having either Will Rhymes or Scott Sizemore (or possibly Carlos Guillen) at second base. And so I now know that three of my Top Five are safe. Now it’s time to continue fretting about the remaining two.

I’ve been keeping myself busy by watching the postseason. Currently, both the ALCS and the NLCS see the teams I’m rooting for up three games to two. However, I keep thinking of 2007, when a bunch of Indians fans in my Spanish class were bragging that their parents were buying them World Series tickets. A few days later, I walked into class to find them all sitting there looking shell-shocked. Of course, that was the Boston Red Sox, a team that can bring itself back from the brink like no other (they came back from a 3-1 deficit in 1986 and 2007, almost did that again in 2008, and came back from a 3-0 deficit in 2004). They’re annoying like that. I still feel like the Rangers have a good chance of advancing to the World Series, although it may take a Game 7 for them to do it. Cliff Lee is a pretty good equalizer. The Giants, on the other hand, may well have blown their chance when they didn’t seal the deal last night. They are stuck going back to Philadelphia, which is, in the words of Rod Allen, “a very hostile environment.” There are some ballparks where the fans just seem to be in attack mode moreso than others. Citizens Bank Park is one of those ballparks. Other examples are Fenway Park, U.S. Cellular Field, and Target Field to some extent (Of course, these are all just observations I have made watching them on TV; I have never been to any of these ballparks). I don’t sense this as much at Comerica Park. Tiger fans seem content with cheering for their own team (I have been told that Yankee Stadium is largely the same). Anyways, the Giants certainly have the starting pitching to pull it off, but their bullpen has been shaky and their offense isn’t very potent. Cody Ross has been red-hot and a good story. However, I watched a lot of him with the Marlins and I like him, but he is a streaky hitter. He could go cold at any time and if he does, someone else is going to have to heat up or the Giants won’t stand a chance. But in that series, I really think that the momentum has completely shifted to the Phillies and I can’t see how they won’t manage to pull off the comeback, which is unfortunate because I am tired of the Phillies winning all the time. Also, I am so glad that Carlos Ruiz does not play in the American League, because if he did, I guarantee you that he would be a Tiger killer extraordinaire.

Last Saturday, I had the opportunity to talk to the Baseball Guru about several things (to review, he’s a former catcher, he’s a Yankees fan, he’s very old school, and he’s totally computer illiterate or I would definitely get him his own blog). This was during Game 2 of the ALCS and at the time, he seemed to honestly believe that the Rangers were the better team. We discussed the Rangers’ Game 1 bullpen meltdown, and he maintained that you’re never going to see something like that again. He agreed with every move that Ron Washington made in that inning (in terms of them being what he would do if he managed the Rangers, not in terms of them giving the Yankees an advantage). I get the feeling that he thinks Sabathia is overrated, but at the same time he thinks he’s a strong Cy Young candidate because of his win total (I know that’s gonna annoy some of you, but as I said, he’s old school; he keeps bringing up the fact that the one year that Nolan Ryan led the league in ERA, he had a losing record, and he still thinks that Felix Hernandez or Justin Verlander should have won the Cy Young last year and not Zack Greinke; with that in mind, I didn’t even bother bringing up King Felix as a candidate this year). He’s torn between Miguel Cabrera and Robinson Cano as his preference for MVP (because he honestly believes the Yankees would not have made the postseason without Cano because many of their other key hitters had down years), but his prediction is that Cano will win it because voters won’t like that Cabrera was not on a playoff team and Josh Hamilton missed the final month of the season. However, his pick for Rookie of the Year is Austin Jackson because he’s an everyday player and Neftali Feliz is a relief pitcher. On the NLCS, he picks the Phillies because of their pitching and their offense is built like an American League team (actually, with the Rays having been eliminated, I think he’s picking the Phillies to win it all).

One final note: This is nothing more than a glorified popularity contest, but if you’re interested, MLB.com has posted the nominees for the 2010 This Year in Baseball Awards. Three Tigers are up for awards. Miguel Cabrera is up for Hitter of the Year, Austin Jackson is up for Rookie of the Year, and Armando Galarraga is up for Performance of the Year. Go vote, if you have a chance.

A Blast From the Past

I'm still working on the offseason preview, but in the meantime, a few posts ago, I made some offhand comment about finding a tape with Armando Galarraga doing the Tigers lineup before a game. Someone expressed a desire to see it, so I encoded and uploaded it. I don't have the greatest VCR/encoding software ever. The video quality starts out not-so-great and gets progressively worse, and the sound goes out of sync right at the end, but the sound quality itself is good enough. Also, I don't know how long I'll be able to keep this video up before MLB gets wind of it and pulls it, so get your viewing in quickly. 

 

The 2010 Season Review

And so the prognosticators got it right, but only the end result. The Tigers finished their season at .500 exactly, but I don’t think those people who predicted that would have expected the long and winding road that got them there (so basically, they were right for the wrong reasons). This was one roller coaster of a season. There were magical moments of euphoria, and there were times we were thrown into the ultimate depths of despair. And at the same time, it felt like this season absolutely flew by. All this brings about a real random jumbling of thoughts, but I will attempt to organize them here.

In my season preview, I wrote that the theme of the season could be “Redemption.” In some ways, that was fulfilled, and in other ways it wasn’t. The Tigers as a team certainly didn’t make up for being passed by the Twins at the wire last year. But on a personal level, Miguel Cabrera certainly more than redeemed himself to the fanbase. He did not have a good ending to his 2009 season, to say the least, and I know for a fact that there was a lot of lashing out at him by the fans. But whether it was the bad press or the loss in game 163, Miguel realized he had a problem and he got help for it. And with those demons seemingly behind him, he had himself one hell of a year, one which unfortunately ended six games too soon. With the exception of a few trolls on MLive and Facebook, he’s earned the respect and love of Tiger fans everywhere (and thank goodness Facebook changed their display so that I no longer have to read those moronic comments). Now it’s up to the voters to acknowledge that. Obviously Cabrera’s big hurdle is that the Tigers fell out of the playoff picture by late August (although I’d like to point out that Josh Hamilton had a horrible April and missed almost all of September and the Rangers still made the postseason easily). I really don’t think that the postseason should play a factor in MVP, just as I think offense should not be a factor in Gold Glove selections, but such is the case with subjective voting. The last time a player in a non-playoff team won the AL MVP was in 2003. It’s happened more recently in the NL. Albert Pujols won MVP in 2008, a year the Cardinals finished in third place, so there is historic precedent, just not a lot of it. But MVP or no, it was a lot of fun to watch Cabrera this season. There were a couple games in which he came to bat in the ninth inning when the Tigers were trailing, and I just knew he’d tie the game. The two specific instances I remember were a game against the Angels and another one against the Orioles. Obviously, those instances dwindled once injuries claimed the other big hitters in the lineup, and he had somewhat of a slow September, but it was still a great season for him.

It’s a pity that injuries took out so many of the key Tigers all at once. You can extrapolate and spit out all the numbers you want, but the reality of the situation is that you don’t know what would have happened. Still, the trouble started right out of the All-Star Break, when they were swept in a four-game series in Cleveland, and this was before anyone major got hurt. Whether they would have been able to turn things around with Magglio and Guillen will forever remain unknown (plus, you don’t know if Dave Dombrowski would have been more aggressive in a Trade Deadline deal if those two were healthy). Obviously, July 24^th was a real low point in the season (and a really bizarre point for me, because I subliminally predicted that something bad would happen in that game). Getting no-hit a couple days later was even less fun. Throughout that whole bad stretch, I sensed a lot of fight in the team. There were a lot of close games and one-run losses, but they just kept coming up short. Maybe they were overachieving in the first half, but I don’t think they were as bad as they sometimes looked in the second half. Sure enough, things did finally even out and they did play pretty well in September up until the last road trip.

You can’t discuss 2010 without mentioning what at times seemed like a thousand different rookies playing for the Tigers. I’ve spent the past several days sorting through what seems like hundreds of unlabeled videotapes, many of which are games from the 2008 season (It may have sucked as a season, but damn, there were a lot of guys on that team I liked; by the way, I will probably have a post later on some of the more amusing moments I saw on those tapes). Watching those tapes, the thought crossed my mind that it’s amazing how quickly the Tigers have gone from being one of the oldest teams in baseball to being one of the youngest. However, they have a strong Rookie of the Year candidate in Austin Jackson, who unfortunately couldn’t quite finish his season over .300, but was impressive nonetheless. And as good as his offense was, his defense was even better. Brennan Boesch had a good first half and then just fell off the map in the second half. I knew he would have to regress a little bit, but I don’t think he was supposed to drop THAT much. And then there was the parade of rookies including Casper Wells, Robbie Weinhardt, and Will Rhymes, all of whom have become fan favorites (I don’t suppose the fact that they’re all on Twitter hurts the matter).

On a personal level, it was quite a season for me. I got to go to Comerica Park three times, and saw three really good games. I also went to three Mud Hens games (though none of those went as well; the Hens lost all three of those games). Between the Tigers and Mud Hens, I saw four out of the five pitchers in the Tigers’ starting rotation (the only one I did not see was Bonderman, which I’m not too sad about). And thanks to those Mud Hens games, I got to meet several players, including Robbie Weinhardt, Casper Wells, and Rick Porcello. I had a question answered by Armando Galarraga in an online chat. My Venezuelan Mafia picture was seen by Magglio Ordoñez. Perhaps my biggest nerd moment of the season was when Miguel Cabrera came down with a kidney infection. I knew with about 95% certainty what his treatment regimen would be. One thing I do regret (a lot, actually) is that I didn’t go to any Mud Hens games in April or early May (the reason for why I regret that should be obvious).

But of course, the moment that will resonate the longest will be Armando Galarraga’s 28-out perfect game and the blown call heard ‘round the world. So many facets of that make it an incredible story. This is a pitcher that very few fans believed in, so the feat in and of itself is quite an accomplishment. And I hope one day it will be counted officially as a perfect game. But he created such a moment of class and sportsmanship out of it, a moment that took him above perfect games and blown calls and all that sort of thing. There was such a huge outpouring of love for him in the following days. It was incredible to watch. I know things didn’t go the way he wanted to after that. He spent most of the rest of the season frustrated, for a variety of reasons. First he had some problems with thinking too much on the mound, then he rattled off about six really good starts in a row but only won one of them due to lack of run support or bullpen meltdowns, and then he had three terrible starts in a row (one of which I would consider to be my personal low point of the season, just because of the way I reacted to it). I think that final start was very important for him from an individual perspective. He may have taken the loss, but he was tremendous, and his postgame interview would seem to suggest he finally found peace with himself. We’ll probably never see him again in the Olde English D, but he’s given us a story that will not soon be forgotten (unless you’re the MLB ad person in charge of “Year of the Pitcher” commercials).

That just about does it for the season review. Coming soon: The offseason preview, although if you’ve been paying even the slightest bit of attention, you’ll know most of what I’m going to say.

I Just Hope This Isn't Goodbye

Obviously, neither of these options is anywhere near ideal, but if I had a choice of only these two (both difficult) outcomes, I’d rather Armando Galarraga’s final Tigers appearance be a tough-luck loss than a game in which they had to nurse him through five innings to get him the win (unless, of course, there was a playoff spot on the line or something, but there isn’t, so that caveat is moot). I mentioned all the ways in which the odds were stacked against him for this start, and just about none of that mattered. Galarraga was absolutely brilliant. He looked like the Galarraga of 2008, pitching-wise. He showed the type of pitcher he can be if he trusts his stuff. And his stuff was excellent. He was throwing strikes and pitching efficiently, enough to give him another complete game. Unfortunately, it was a complete game loss and he deserved better (as Jason Beck has pointed out, that could be the theme of his season), and he got bitten by the home run-friendly nature of Camden Yards (I didn’t get the distance on Nick Markakis’s home run, so I’m not sure if that’s out at Comerica Park or not). Still, only giving up two runs on three hits and one walk with seven strikeouts in a complete game is nothing to be ashamed of at all. I was worried he’d be hung up over the fact that he couldn’t get a win out of it, but he seemed to be taking a positive spin on things in his postgame interview. But was it his last postgame interview as a Tiger? I am still very much inclined to say yes (and even the Baseball Guru now thinks he’s going to be traded). This brilliant outing probably increased his trade value more than his rotation chances (and don’t worry, I’ll save the sappy eulogy for when the end actually comes). I dearly hope I’m wrong, because I’m not ready for the end just yet.

I’m not sure why I’m devoting a paragraph to offense, because there wasn’t much. Brandon Inge homered (and my sentiments about Galarraga can parallel with Inge; I hope that wasn’t his last postgame interview as a Tiger, either). That was pretty much it. Ryan Raburn had the other two hits in the game. The Orioles made a couple of highlight-reel defensive plays to snuff out a potential rally in the eighth. And that’s all I can say about the offense, cuz they just struck out the rest of the time. It’s a shame Max St. Pierre didn’t get more chances with his call-up, but I think he did a terrific job handling Galarraga last night. I have to give him thumbs up on that (He caught Galarraga while both of them were in Toledo at the beginning of the season, and Galarraga put up good numbers there, so maybe there’s something to that).

The Tigers need to win today to have a .500 season. This season has totally flown by. It seems like only yesterday that we were watching with wide-eyed optimism as Austin Jackson stepped in against Zack Greinke for the first pitch of the season. And it’s going to end with a bullpen day. Phil Coke will officially get the start, and fans are trying to read all sorts of things into that. I’m not sure why there’s this big obsession over him possibly starting next year. For right now, Leyland says not to read anything into it and that Coke will only go about three innings at most. There’s no point in me previewing the Tigers’ pitching beyond that because it’s just going to look like a spring training game. The Orioles will start Brad Bergesen, who pitched very well in September before finally getting knocked around in his last start against the Rays. The Tigers beat him back in July, but that was with help from hitters they don’t have anymore. This game may be the final time we see Brandon Inge and who knows how many others in a Tigers uniform. So I find it fitting to use this song as the final Mood Music of the season.

And Then There Was One

For a great deal of the season, the Tigers were a veritable powerhouse of Venezuelans, so much so that they earned their own nickname of the Venezuelan Mafia (And I can say with certainty that at least one of them knows about the nickname and the picture, thanks to JerseyTigerFan of Bless You Boys). At one point, the Tigers had five Venezuelans on their roster. While Enrique Gonzalez was not particularly prominent (he never even made it into the picture), the other four possessed some strong credentials: several All-Star appearances, a batting title, MVP candidacy, and a perfect game with a whole lotta class. But once the second half began, they started dropping like flies. Magglio’s season ended with a fractured ankle while sliding into home plate on July 24^th. Carlos Guillen was lost for good about a month later when Brett Gardner slid into his knee. Enrique Gonzalez was designated for assignment and quietly faded away in Toledo. And now we have an answer to the question we hoped would never have one: Armando Galarraga is the last Venezuelan standing. My mention of high ankle sprains yesterday turned out to be prophetic, as that’s what has knocked Miguel Cabrera out of action for the remaining six games (I also woke up with a killer cramp in my right ankle, and I’ve never had ankle cramps before. I didn’t even know you could have ankle cramps). All I’ve seen as far as a timetable for recovery is that the Tigers.com article mentioned that the MRI revealed no major structural damage, which would seem to indicate a quicker recovery, just not fast enough with so little of the season remaining. Still, it’s not the way I wanted his season to end. As I said, I was excited at the prospect of him hitting forty home runs, and his RBI totals (and he was two away from establishing a career high in that category) might get passed by either A-Rod or Jose Bautista (or both). And these last six games just won’t be as much fun without him.

Okay, there is other business to attend to. Because of the rainout last night, the Tigers and Indians will play a “traditional” (i.e. you see two games for the price of one ticket, so it’s not done as often cuz ballparks don’t make as much money that way) doubleheader starting at 4:00 today. The pitching matchup for the first game is the same as it was last night, so no need to rehash that one. The second game features Josh Tomlin against Justin Verlander (in his last start of 2010, unless he wins tonight and can somehow talk Leyland into letting him start on Sunday). Both of them are coming off complete-game wins. Verlander was brilliant in his last start, and would have shut out the Twins if not for some untimely errors in the ninth that led to an unearned run. That was his second complete game in a row. Tomlin was beaten by the Tigers back on August 21^st (I was at that game), but he has pitched decently in September. He has given up exactly three earned runs in every start he’s had this month except one, where he gave up six to the Royals. And so Tigers fans have a big block of baseball in store for them tonight. I do not know how I'm going to do this. I may do a brief post between games or I might do one big post tomorrow on both games.

Not a Good Night For Venezuelans

I know, I know. I’m too compassionate for my own good. Strangely enough, I’m not nearly as depressed as I was after Armando Galarraga’s last loss. Still, I said he needed it. He didn’t get it, and as maddening as his struggles can be to some people, I’m sure he feels a hundred times more frustrated about it. Part of the problem (I think) is that it hasn’t been the same problem each time. It’s more like he’s alternated problems in these last three starts. In Texas, his stuff wasn’t there. Against Kansas City, his stuff looked good but he lost his nerve and didn’t trust himself. Last night was more like how things went in Texas. I noticed early on that his pitches just didn’t seem to be moving right (or, to paraphrase Leyland, they weren’t moving much at all). The Indians were hitting a LOT of pop-ups for the first four innings, and I didn’t think he was going to go the whole game without giving up a hit/run, because he normally has a much more equal distribution of ground ball to fly ball outs (maybe a little skewed towards fly balls, but not dramatically so). Once Matt LaPorta broke the seal with a home run, Galarraga was unable to stop the bleeding, which is also unusual, because while he is prone to giving up home runs, he generally doesn’t give up three in one inning. An outing like that makes me suspect a little bit that he’s not being honest about the elbow again. But regardless of the reason, the fact remains that the fifth inning bit him again. At least this time he was willing to talk to the media about it. There wasn’t a lot to be happy about, but it was nice to see him interviewed again. I hadn’t seen one with him in almost three weeks (I hadn’t seen so much as a quote from him in three weeks and I was starting to get concerned; up until then, he’d almost always been willing to talk about his starts, good or bad). He basically rehashed the fifth inning and said he wasn’t sure what went wrong because things went downhill so quickly. He also said he had to figure it out because he’s got one more start to get things right. I just hope he can, and that it’s not too late for him.

Things weren’t any better on the other side of the ball for the Tigers. They stranded a lot of runners early and then didn’t mount a comeback against the Indians’ bullpen. There were a couple of untimely double plays as well as a botched hit and run. I’m not sure how much stock you put into the analysis of Rod Allen, but his assessment was that the Tigers had some nice, patient at-bats when the bases were empty, but once there were runners in scoring position, they swung at bad pitches. Of course, all that pales in comparison to the loss of Miguel Cabrera, who sprained his ankle while trying to make it back to first base on a pickoff attempt from Luke Carlin (between that and the home run he hit off Galarraga, I wasn’t feeling too friendly toward Carlin by the end of the evening). I am unsure of his status other than the fact that x-rays were negative and he is not in tonight’s lineup, but I’m guessing it depends on the severity of the sprain (As an aside, how is it that Progressive Field doesn’t have an x-ray machine? I thought all ballparks had them on-site). Again, my schooling fails me, because we aren’t really taught orthopedics in pharmacy school, but I know of instances where guys suffered high ankle sprains in spring training and then missed the whole season. I suppose this is why it’s taking me so long to write this post, because I’m waiting for further word on whether this is the case for Cabrera, but if he has to miss the remaining six games, that can’t bode well for his MVP chances (let alone my near-certainty that he’d make it to forty home runs), because the Tigers’ most compelling argument was that Cabrera has stayed healthy while Josh Hamilton has missed almost the entire month of September. I suppose, if anything, this’ll help Robinson Cano’s case (that and the fact that the Yankees and Rays have yet to sort out who gets the division and who gets the wild card).

The series continues tonight, Venezuelan-less. Max Scherzer is coming off a strong start against Kansas City, where he shut them out. He beat the Indians the last time he faced them (I was there). That was at Comerica Park. He has not pitched well at Progressive Field so far. Mitch Talbot, on the other hand, has pitched strongly against the Tigers in two of his three starts against them this year (and the one in which he was somewhat roughed up happened all the way back in April). Two starts ago, he left the game without retiring a batter after suffering an injury. In his last start, he gave up three runs in five innings to the Royals and took the loss.

Sometimes I Hate Blogging

There are times when I wish I didn’t care so much. Contrary to popular belief, I am generally not a very emotional person. Sure, I live and die with my team, but I’m usually able to stay level-headed and calmly assess what is going right or wrong. But perhaps because I’m not an emotional person, when I do emotionally invest in a player (as I do with about five guys currently on the team), it’s incredibly strong and I don’t know how to control it (What really scares me is that if I feel this strongly for guys I have never met, what are my actual personal relationships, platonic or otherwise, going to be like in the future?). As a reference point, the five guys I’m referring to are (in order of preference) Justin Verlander, Magglio Ordoñez, Armando Galarraga, Brandon Inge, and Miguel Cabrera. Emotionally investing in players like Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera comes with a reasonable amount of security because they’re both established as very good players, they’re locked up for the next several years, and the Tigers are not in danger of being in salary dump mode. If Justin Verlander has a bad start (and he does have those), I don’t have to worry about him losing a rotation spot because he’s the ace and everyone expects him to bounce back. If Miguel Cabrera goes into a slump, again, he’s not in danger of getting benched and he’ll get himself out of it. I don’t have to fret over those two. Armando Galarraga is an entirely different matter. He’s an underdog, and there are no guarantees as to his place on this team going forward. In all likelihood, I have set myself up to get hurt very deeply, probably sooner rather than later (Brandon Inge is also kind of an underdog, but his situation is different because there’s a great many Tigers fans who have the same sentiments toward him that I do, if not stronger; with Galarraga, I feel as if I am largely standing alone). I know all these things, but I can’t make myself not like somebody just because the end result is likely to be unpleasant.

However, there are two misconceptions that I have grown extremely tired of. First, I am sick of people thinking that because I am female, my fondness toward these players come in the form of crushes. I am NOT a teenage girl. The only one that I might have some crush feelings toward is Justin Verlander. The other four are more like how I would feel for a friend or a brother (though I’m an only child). The other thing I am sick of specifically relates to Galarraga. I am tired of not being taken seriously because I am the only blogger who seems to like him. I routinely give objective analyses of his pitching performances every time he starts. Last night, he was given a 3-0 and he let it get away. No excuse for that happening, and he’s well aware of that. The wheels came off with two outs in the fifth inning. Prior to that, he’d been pitching well. I’m not sure what triggered the meltdown (though his body language suggested he was agitated about something from the first batter of the night), but once Jarrod Dyson singled with two out, he lapsed into that bad tendency he has of overthinking things, and when he overthinks the situation, he has problems throwing strikes. Plus, he was timid with certain batters from the get-go, especially Kila Ka’aihue, who saw very few strikes from him (I know he’s got good plate discipline and he’s homered off him before, but beyond that I’m not sure why Galarraga seemed psyched out by him). I could be wrong about this, but I don’t remember him ever issuing a bases-loaded walk before last night. In addition to overthinking, he let his frustrations get to him, and that culminated in the awful throw he made on Yuniesky Betancourt’s swinging bunt (unbelievably, Alfredo Figaro made an even worse throw a few innings later). Plain and simple, he let the game get away from him, and he’s got no one to blame but himself. And again, he knows this. I don’t need to hear him say it to know that.

What was discouraging to me was that when asked about Galarraga’s season after the game, all Jim Leyland would say was “okay.” A remark like that doesn’t really speak well for Galarraga’s chances at a rotation spot next year, and though he’s currently on track to have two more starts this year, I’m not sure there’s much he could do to change Leyland’s assessment in the positive direction (though he certainly can hurt his chances even further if he doesn’t pitch well in those starts). I hope I’m just being paranoid, but I can’t help but feel that Galarraga’s tenure with the Tigers is quickly approaching its end. He’s arbitration-eligible for the first time, but I don’t think they would non-tender him, because he won’t be that expensive. However, there’s a real possibility that he could be traded in the offseason. If that doesn’t happen, he’ll go into spring training fighting desperately for a rotation spot. In his time with the Tigers, he has never pitched well in spring training, and as much as I like him, I won’t be able to give a reasonable argument in his favor if he doesn’t pitch well and someone else does. The complication with this is that he will be out of minor league options next year. Therefore, if he doesn’t make the rotation, the Tigers will be forced to designate him for assignment and take him off the 40-man roster, and I’m just about certain that he’d never make it through waivers without getting claimed by someone. I’m hoping none of these things happen. I badly want him to be in the Tigers’ rotation next year. He’s never going to be an ace, but he has the stuff to be a good middle-of-the-rotation guy. I’ve seen too many good things from him to believe anymore that he’s just a fluke. But he’s got to get his head straightened out, so to speak. Most of his struggles this year have been largely mental in nature. I could write about all the good he COULD do until my fingers hurt, but unless he can maintain his confidence, channel his frustration, and not overthink things (I can speak from experience that the last one is VERY hard to do), all it will ever be is potential and his incredible story will be another tragic ending. I’ve seen some columnists and bloggers asking if Galarraga can be counted on to help the Tigers in 2011. They can’t answer that question. I can’t answer it. His detractors and critics can’t answer it, either. The only one who can answer that question is Armando Galarraga himself.

There were other issues from the bullpen and some (but not many) offensive highlights to speak of (In particular, Miguel Cabrera hit a home run that was absolutely crushed and very enjoyable), but I’ve already taken up enough of your time and there’s still a game to be played tonight. Max Scherzer is coming off a great start against the White Sox in which he went eight innings and only allowed two solo home runs. He hasn’t pitched particularly well against the Royals this year, although a lot of that came early, before his trip to Toledo. He’ll be facing Kyle Davies, who on any given night seems to either completely shut down the Tigers or get completely lit up by them.

I Wish I Could Forget That One

Oh, I hate blogging stuff like this. That was painful to watch. I suppose that after several good starts in a row, Armando Galarraga was due for a bad one, and this one was really bad. I can’t quite nail down the precise reason as to why. I don’t think he talked to reporters after the game (since I can’t find a quote from him anywhere). It was another really strange game, and he was not immune to it (Neither was I; afterwards I had a dream about the perfect game and then that I was trying to break him out of jail, although I know where the last part of that came from because before the game started I was watching a movie where the heroes had to break out of jail). This doesn’t seem like the other times he’s struggled. Those were more of a mental thing. He got too timid with his pitches and ended up falling behind hitters and walking people. That didn’t really happen last night. I didn’t get the sense that he was overthinking, and he threw plenty of strikes, but it just looked like he had nothing to draw on (Leyland, who was really pissed off after the game, but not necessarily about Galarraga, said he “didn’t have anything,” while Rick Knapp didn’t sound too happy). He got victimized a little bit by some ground ball singles, aggressive baserunning, a questionable checked swing call that didn’t go his way, and errors (including his own), but the two home runs he gave up were absolutely crushed (one on a fastball, one on a hanging changeup). I guess it’s quite possible that he just “didn’t have it,” and evidence of that could be that it was only the eighth time in his career that he gave up a three-run homer. He’s normally pretty good at limiting the damage via the long ball. Almost two-thirds of the home runs he’s given up in the majors have been solo shots. At any rate, I hope the fact that he’d pitched well for a month prior to this start will be enough to give him a mulligan, but either way, it’ll be a long wait until next Tuesday.

This game had to be especially painful for Galarraga because his teammates finally scored some runs for him. Colby Lewis wasn’t at his sharpest, but because the Tigers’ pitching staff had a complete meltdown, he didn’t need to be. The bullpen in particular had issues with shutdown innings. Whenever the Tigers scored, the Rangers would score in the bottom half of the same inning (once the bullpen came in, that is; Galarraga was kind of the opposite. He shut down the Rangers 1-2-3 in the inning that the Tigers scored, then gave up in the innings in which they didn’t). Miguel Cabrera had a couple of sacrifice flies but still didn’t seem to be quite centering the ball. Ryan Raburn had a nice night with a couple of doubles and a home run, though.

And so here we are with yet another off day (Is that really necessary?). Tomorrow night begins the final series of the season with the White Sox, who could find themselves out of the race by then if they lose tonight (the Tigers, meanwhile, will probably be mathematically eliminated in the next couple days, possibly as early as tomorrow). Max Scherzer will face Edwin Jackson again. They’re both coming off rough starts, and they pretty much matched each other the last time they squared off against one another. Scherzer was tagged for four runs against the Orioles. He hasn’t pitched particularly well against the White Sox this year, but he’s starting to get better. I’ve rehashed the individual numbers a bunch of times by now so you probably don’t need them.