Bats Finally as Hot as the Weather

Photo: AP

Perhaps a short post, because I didn’t really see this game (okay, I watched the archived game later, but that doesn’t exactly have the same impact). Justin Verlander was perhaps not as dominating as you’d want him to be, but he did give seven innings. And he did make a nice adjustment that allowed him to go those extra two innings. Meanwhile, the offense (which did not include Verlander, and that means that the pitchers did absolutely nothing at the plate this year) pounded out 17 hits, 16 of which were singles. But there were a lot of hard-hit singles in there (as well as a few bloops and seeing-eyed singles). The only extra-base hit was Brennan Boesch’s two-run homer. I know this kid is going to slow down sometime (probably sooner rather than later), but as I’ve said before, might as well milk him for all he’s worth. And it’s nice to see Cabrera had a few multi-hit games on this road trip. His slumps may not usually last long, but they can be crippling for the rest of the team. And so the Tigers finish Interleague play this year with a 11-7 mark, which is one game better than they did last year.

And now the Tigers are once again a half-game behind Minnesota, and that’s where they are going next, so this could be a huge swing for one of these two teams (they’ll have to worry about the White Sox later). The good news is that the Tigers will miss Carl Pavano. The bad news is that they will still have to face Francisco Liriano. Liriano’s not been as lights-out as he was when the Tigers last saw him, but that hardly seems to matter, since he always looks dominant against Detroit. Magglio’s been bothered by the sore side, but he’s got some of the best numbers on the team against Liriano (.333 with 3 doubles, 2 home runs, and 8 RBIs). Cabrera’s done good work against him as well (.333 with 2 doubles and a home run). The rest of the Tigers have not fared as well against him. They’re all batting lower than .250 against him. Meanwhile, Jeremy Bonderman will get the start for the Tigers. He was decent against the Mets, but ultimately took the loss. The three Twins he needs to watch out for in particular: Michael Cuddyer (.310 with a double and three triples), Joe Mauer (.348 with two doubles and a home run), and Delmon Young (.444 with a double). Justin Morneau’s actually fared quite badly against Bonderman (only .185 with nine strikeouts, but he has homered off him). And I’m excited because I’m going to see nearly all the games this week.

Did Atlanta Move to the West Coast When I Wasn't Looking?

More on crappy strike calls in a moment, but first I gotta talk about the pitching (surprisingly, the game was still going on when I got home, but they were in the ninth inning). From what I hear, Max Scherzer did pretty well, although he had some issues with walks near the end of his outing. Walks victimized Joel Zumaya even more (and again, I point out that wildness has been a warning sign of injury in Zumaya’s past), but all I heard from Jim Price the last two days is that Chipper Jones has no batspeed. If that’s true, how was he able to catch up to 100 MPH and launch it? Talk about lack of offense all you want, but once the setup men come in and you have a one-run lead, they’ve gotta protect it, whether the score is 1-0, 3-2, 5-4, 9-8, or 16-15. There’s no such thing as run support for relievers. If you’re eighth inning guy needs a 3-run cushion to pitch effectively, then he shouldn’t be pitching the eighth inning (and I don’t mean that as a knock on Zumaya at all). The Braves somehow got an insurance run in the eighth, which turned out to be big. The offense finally started to rally in the ninth, starting with a long home run by Cabrera. Then the walkathon followed. Everyone keeps complaining that those were gifts and that the Tigers should’ve hit more, but at least give Brandon Inge some credit. That was an epic at-bat, one of the best I’ve ever seen from him. He earned that walk. The walks to Worth and Laird were probably gifts, but the called third strike to Johnny Damon was a gift from the umpire to the Braves. I know it’s probably because I’m a Tigers fan and I watch all their games, but it seems like the Tigers get victimized by blatantly bad calls more than any other team (and I’m not talking about borderline strike/ball calls or bang-bang plays where it could’ve gone either way, but the replay shows that the guy was technically out/safe, and no, the Jim Joyce call is NOT included in that category). They say it all evens out, but I’ve yet to see a blatantly bad call go in the Tigers’ favor. Maybe that Denard Span call, but as I said at the time, Span had his back turned to the umpire, so I’m not sure there was a good way to see that he had caught it.

And so it is time to turn to Justin Verlander to avoid the sweep. He didn’t have it in his last start against the Mets. He’s faced the Braves once before and beat them, with their only run coming on a Chipper Jones solo shot. The Braves will counter with hard-thrower Tommy Hanson, who was lit up even worse than Verlander in his last start, giving up nine earned runs in 3 and two-thirds innings. However, Hanson, like Verlander, is a much better pitcher than that. The only Tiger he’s faced before is Max Scherzer, which isn’t a big help. Maggs is supposed to get the day off today as well, so things get a little tougher for the offense. And I’ll be at work, with no chance of seeing any of this game. Boo again.

Overshadowed

Short post today (again). There are minor league experts out there who could probably tell you what Andy Oliver eats for breakfast any given morning. I’m not one of them, but I thought he did a decent job last night. He definitely could use a bit more polishing, and I didn’t “sense something” like I did with Jair Jurrjens and Armando Galarraga (and only those two), but he looked good. He’ll be in the rotation for at least one more start (that being against the Twins, which’ll be a real test for him), so we should get a good picture of him then. At least it’ll be nice to have a lefty in the rotation for a little while. Speaking of pitching, congratulations to former Tiger Edwin Jackson for throwing a no-hitter (and in the process throwing 149 pitches, walking eight, and ending his former teammate’s fifteen minutes of fame). Meanwhile, the Rays are regarded as one of the best (if not THE best) team in baseball, but now they’ve been no-hit three times in the past calendar year. How weird is that?

This series continues with Max Scherzer going for the Tigers. He was very good in his last start, even considering a rough beginning where he threw a lot of pitches and gave up a run. He did get rewarded for his efforts because the Tigers rallied late. He has faced the Braves before. Yunel Escobar is 5-11 with 3 doubles and Chipper Jones is 4-8 with a home run. Those look to be his two trouble spots. Meanwhile, the Tigers will get their first look at Kenshin Kawakami, who will probably lose his rotation spot once Jair Jurrjens comes back because he’s 0-9. Those guys always scare you a little, especially since Kawakami’s not THAT bad. Johnny Damon’s the only Tiger hitter who has seen him, and he is 0-1 (Max Scherzer is 0-2, but who cares?). And I’d like to complain that this should be a 7:00 game because I would be able to watch that, but instead it starts at 4:00, so I’ll miss it. Boo.

The Great Escape

Photo: AP

Going into this series, I said that the Mets were kind of a middle-of-the-road offense, but the Tigers’ pitching staff had almost as much trouble getting them out as they do the Twins. I saw very little of Armando Galarraga (it was the bottom of the sixth when I got home), but it looks as though he did a good job for most of the game (Leyland’s comments indicate as much), even though Pitch f/x indicates a rather tight strike zone. He ran into trouble in the sixth, but his issues mostly centered around the first three batters he faced. The other two runs scored on a very weak ground ball to short and a bloop single. The bullpen had a very trying time with holding the Mets down and it seemed like every single pitch was a pressure pitch. Phil Coke came up big in the seventh against two dangerous hitters in Wright and Davis. And then in the ninth inning, after all the stress that everyone else on the staff has been pitching in during the last three days, Jose Valverde came in, set down Reyes, Feliciano, and Wright in order, and made it look easy. I’m not going to devote a paragraph to the offense because all the scoring happened before I got home, so I really have no insight to give on that.

And so we have come to the final Interleague series of the year, and it comes against the Atlanta Braves. They just got swept by the White Sox, and so it is my hope that they will be just as accommodating to the Tigers. However, they have the best home record in the major leagues (they’ve only lost seven games at home all year). They will start Kris Medlen tonight, who took Jair Jurrjens’s spot in the rotation when Jurrjens went down with an injury. Jurrjens is slated to return soon, but Medlen has pitched pretty well in his stead. He gave up four runs in his last start but the Braves won that game. Johnny Damon is the only Tiger hitter who has faced him. He’s 1-2 (Yes, Max Scherzer has also faced him, but he’s not a hitter). And for the Tigers, lefty Andy Oliver will make his major league debut tonight, having been called up from Erie. You can find more detailed scouting reports elsewhere, but he throws pretty hard for a lefty (usually 92-93, but can get as high as 96). His secondary pitches are still kind of a work in progress, and some fear that promoting him now will cause him to go the way of Andrew Miller, but I feel that would only happen if they let him linger in the rotation too long. Two or three starts probably wouldn’t break him, so to speak. And Rick Porcello pitched very well for Toledo last night, so hopefully he’ll be back soon.

The Dancing Knuckler

Somewhat short post today (again), because I didn’t see a lot of this game and I’ve got an exam and work coming up today. I suppose Jeremy Bonderman pitched all right, but he could not get Jose Reyes out. It was a rare night where I did have internet access at work, but Yahoo messed up and never indicated that Joel Zumaya was in the game (It also got stuck after the wild pitch, which it said was on the exact same play as the preceding single, and at that point the pharmacy closed so I just went home). When I got to the car, the first thing I heard was “3-2 pitch way out of the strike zone, and you’ve got to believe that’ll be the end of his night,” and I still believed Bonderman was in there. Zumaya had not had a real rough outing up to this point, so the only concern I have is that in years past, control problems have been an indication that he was hiding an injury. And I swear Dan Dickerson later said something about someone (Ike Davis, I think), getting a bunt single on an 0-2 pitch, but I have not been able to verify this. Meanwhile, as I said yesterday, if the knuckleball is working, the hitters are in for a rough night. And with what is now a 6-0 record and an ERA in the low twos, R.A. Dickey’s had it working for a while now. The Tigers are far from his only victim. And this random thought has occurred to me: It’s been a full two weeks since the batting order’s been “normal.” The last time the Tigers had their top four hitters in their typical spots was the final game in Kansas City. Magglio then missed the next six games, and after he came back, Austin Jackson was out. Now Austin Jackson is back, but they’re in National League ballparks and therefore someone gets squeezed out of the outfield every night. And Miguel Cabrera has not hit well in that span. Still, association does not imply causality, but I’m going to have to wait until the lineup is intact before I can figure out if that’s a coincidence or not.

And so the Tigers are in the position where they are trying to not get swept. And so far the only pitcher on their staff who has been capable of getting Mets hitters out without hemorrhaging runs is Enrique Gonzalez. This all adds up to quite a bit of pressure on Armando Galarraga. He had a rough outing in his last start, which was blamed on a combination of tentativeness and fatigue from the heat. Last I checked, it was supposed to be pretty warm in New York today. Galarraga has gotten a lot of attention from the New York media, which seems to have surprised him (It didn’t surprise me; he’s probably going to get extra attention just about every time the Tigers go somewhere they haven’t been this year, so he better get used to it). At any rate, he’s going to have to figure out how to shut down the Mets, because he is in need of a bounceback start and his next opponent will be much tougher. I’m not sure what he’s gonna do against Reyes, who is hitting just about everyone right now, but if he doesn’t have any better luck than his teammates, then it’ll be imperative for him to shut down the right-handed hitters in the lineup (namely, David Wright). Obviously, he’s never faced the Mets before, but he has a brief history with two of their hitters. Jason Bay is 0-2, and Rod Barajas is 1-2, with that one hit being a home run (that I don’t remember). The Tiger hitters (and Galarraga, for that matter), will face lefty Hisanori Takahashi (Wow, there are a lot of syllables in the starting pitcher matchup). He started the year in the bullpen, struggled, was moved to the rotation once John Maine was injured (I think), and has excelled ever since. Obviously, since this is his first year stateside, none of the Tigers have faced him before. And I’ll give you some Mood Music to rally around tonight (I stupidly thought this was a day game and switched shifts with someone, only to find out this was a night game).

Hopefully, THAT'S Out of Your System Now

Well, that was a huge pile of lost cause (and this’ll be a short post because I have to go to work soon). I only got to see Verlander for what seemed like a brief cameo (which sucks, because I’ll miss his next start entirely). Then the rain came, and when that was over, a parade of relievers who couldn’t get Mets batters out started. Jay Sborz let nerves get the better of him in his big league debut. I know people like to rag on Brad Thomas, but I don’t think he was given enough time to warm up properly. Fu Te Ni wasn’t hit as hard in terms of contact, with the exception of one or two hits, but they got enough bloops off him to make his line worse than Thomas’s. The offense did come close to making this thing at least a proper slugfest, and they did deny Niese what should have been an easy win. I do wish people would stop complaining about Gerald Laird hitting second. It probably wasn’t the greatest idea in the world (although he did come up with an RBI single), but it’s done, it probably won’t happen again (or rarely will, if it does), and it is certainly not the reason why they lost last night.

Tonight, it’s Jeremy Bonderman’s turn to try his luck against the Mets (and hopefully last night gave both him and Armando Galarraga some insight into how NOT to pitch to the Mets). He pitched very well against the Nationals in his last start, especially in the later innings. He hasn’t seen the Mets since 2007, but he did beat them then. Five of the Mets have seen him before, and the only two with significant plate appearances against him (Alex Cora and Rod Barajas) haven’t done that well (though Cora has hit a triple against him). The Tigers, in turn, will face the knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, who has been really good for the Mets this year. He’s 5-0 and his ERA is under three. And he’s only walked 12 batters, which is an amazingly low total for a knuckleballer. The Tigers have put up good numbers against him in their past meetings. Four different Tigers have homered off him (Maggs, Inge, Guillen, and Cabrera). It’ll be interesting to see if the switch-hitters in tonight’s lineup (Guillen and Santiago) opt to bat right-handed against Dickey (since a lot of switch-hitters like to bat on the same side of the plate that the knuckleballer is throwing from to help them stay back on the ball, and I know I’ve seen Guillen employ this tactic before). However, I’ve also heard that with knuckleballers, that pitch is either dancing or it’s not. If it’s going good, hitters don’t stand a chance. If it isn’t, the pitcher’s gonna get knocked around.

Homestand O'Plenty

Photo: Getty Images

So far, Interleague play has reaped huge rewards for the Tigers in terms of a hot streak. Max Scherzer started off the day by throwing a ton of pitches in the first few innings. Then after that, he found his groove, gave up only the one run, and somehow went seven innings (including striking out the side in order in the seventh). And then the bullpen came in and did nice work. And yes, there was a lot of talk about the war of words between Jose Valverde and Miguel Montero (who didn’t particularly like each other when they were teammates). Just watch the FS Arizona feed of the last couple innings. Darron Sutton and Mark Grace were almost fully expecting Valverde to plunk Montero in the ribs with a 97 MPH fastball and the benches to clear. But Valverde took the high road, made his pitches, and Montero uneventfully grounded out to first (yeah, Valverde did kind of make a show of bowing and tipping his hat to Cabrera on what was a very routine play, but that’s about it). And so that should be the end of that, since the Tigers and Diamondbacks don’t play each other anymore this year.

For the longest time, it looked as though Scherzer would be the tough-luck loser. It looked as though Ian Kennedy had a very effective mix of pitches working. And despite providing the heroics last Sunday, Miguel Cabrera doesn’t seem to have quite busted out yet (This time he’s going to have to do it on his own. I won’t be back to Comerica Park until July 3^rd). After noticing that he struck out to end the game Saturday night on a changeup (though I’ve heard from just about every analyst that it was a very good changeup), I paid more attention to his at-bats yesterday. He got a lot of offspeed pitches. I’ll have to see if this trend continues. I took a look at some of his Pitch f/x charts, and the only thing that jumped out at me was that he has been swinging and missing at cut fastballs a lot more than he had last month (30.8% as opposed to 2.9%; he also has swung and missed at changeups about 20% of the time they get thrown to him, but that was consistent over the last month and a half). I’m not sure I have the time to analyze it beyond these few observations (school/exams/work), and hopefully he goes on a tear this week so I don’t have to. At any rate, he did single to lead off the seventh, which turned out to be key, because the next batter was Brennan Boesch, and he absolutely crushed a hanging slider into the right field seats. And Guillen followed him up with a solo shot of his own for good measure. And so like last Sunday, the Tigers provided some late-inning heroics via the long ball.

And now, after a very successful homestand, the Tigers hit the road again, and this road trip is a doozy. No more last-place NL teams to feast on. These next nine games are against three teams who are definite contenders and who play very well at home (and they’ll have to say goodbye to the DH for the next six games). And I’m not happy about the timing of yesterday’s announcement of Rick Porcello’s demotion, which happened about five minutes before yesterday’s post went up, but I didn’t bother to check Twitter beforehand. At any rate, the Tigers will need another starter Saturday at the latest, but the pitching matchup for this upcoming series with the Mets should remain unaltered barring something strange. At any rate, the Tigers will get their first look ever at Citi Field. And I don’t think most baseball people expected the Mets to be doing this well right now. They have been a really streaky team this season. They’ll rattle off eight wins in a row, then lose five in a row on the way to losing 10 of 12 or whatever, and then have another long winning streak. They just had an eight-game winning streak snapped on Saturday, and they lost yesterday, so hopefully that means they’re due for a low point. Their offense hasn’t put up numbers that’ll pop up at you (except for the fact that they lead the NL in stolen bases). Jose Reyes is hot right now, and David Wright is among the league leaders in RBIs. Their pitching has been pretty good, though, especially since they don’t have John Maine and Oliver Perez in their rotation right now. All their current starters have been pitching very well. The Tigers will not get Santana or Pelfrey, but the other three have been no picnic. The first one they’ll see is lefty Jon Niese (who I thought was a righty until I checked the game preview, so it’s a good thing I checked). He struggled in May but has had a very good June so far. In three starts this month he has only given up four runs in twenty-three innings. Two starts ago he threw a complete game one-hitter against San Diego. His last start was against Cleveland, where he gave up three runs in seven innings on his way to a win. Now, without really delving into numbers, I’d say that while the Tigers don’t have the most spectacular offense in the world, they are better than the Indians or Padres (Niese’s other win was against Florida where he gave up one run in seven innings; the Tigers have a better team batting average but the Marlins have scored more runs, so I’d say those two offenses are fairly comparable). Other than that, I’ve never seen Niese pitch, so I can’t tell you what he features or anything like that. He’s never faced the Tigers before, and none of the Tiger hitters have seen him before. Meanwhile, Justin Verlander had himself a really good game against the Nationals and got his strikeout groove back (He attributes it to finally throwing his curveball the way he wanted to). He’s never faced the Mets before but he has seen five of their hitters (who were previously with other teams) before. It’s a small sample, but Jeff Francoeur is 2-3 against him, while Jason Bay is 0-3 with a walk and three strikeouts. Now, I’m looking forward to seeing Justin Verlander pitch. I’m not really looking forward to the humiliation of watching him bat. He’s just so bad at it (It might help if he stopped looking like he’s trying not to laugh whenever he’s in the batter’s box). He insists he can hit, and some footage I’ve seen of him taking batting practice has shown me why he thinks that way. He hit a home run in this batting practice footage, and looked really good doing it (He also got a base hit in a spring training game this year). However, in the game, I’m just hoping he comes up in bunting situations and doesn’t hurt himself.

Oh, Those Damn Inherited Runners

The streak had to end sometime, I guess. Rick Porcello seemed better than he had been before having his start skipped, but not quite there yet. He says the problem pitch for him was the four-seam fastball and not the sinker. It’s hard for me to agree or disagree with him because I haven’t yet figured out the exact speed differential for him (other than knowing the 4-seamer is harder). His final line probably looked worse than he actually pitched. The Miguel Montrero home run was wind-aided, but the big backbreaker was the two extra runs that Fu Te Ni allowed to score by giving up the triple to Gerardo Parra. He’s had issues lately with allowing inherited runners to score, after being pretty good at stranding them before then. Of course, that essentially was the difference in the game. However, for purely selfish reasons, I don’t want Porcello sent down (or skipped again) just yet (because essentially, if he got sent down, they would take advantage of the off-day and just bump everyone else up until they absolutely needed another starter, and I don’t want that because Verlander is currently on track to start the July 3^rd game). Give him one more start, and then go from there. Enrique Gonzalez pitched a few quite effective innings before tiring a little in the ninth, but got bailed out by Brennan Boesch.

As I said yesterday, Tigers fans know how good Edwin Jackson can be, and he looked on top of his game yesterday. And yet they still managed to score four runs off him. They mention that bases-loaded, none out situation in which the Tigers did not score (a run had already come in at that point), but again, Jackson can certainly get strikeouts, and he showed a knack last year for getting double plays when he needed it, so it was not like it was anything out of the ordinary. Probably the big mistake of the game was letting Jackson hang around too long, because it didn’t give them enough at-bats against the Arizona bullpen, and they ran out of outs before making the full comeback. You had the situation you wanted there in the ninth inning: Tying run at second with Miguel Cabrera at the plate, but Cabrera struck out on a changeup. He also did that in Chicago (that time, the bases were loaded with two out and he swung and missed at a 3-2 changeup). I’ll have to see looking forward if changeups from right-handed pitchers continue to give him problems.

The homestand concludes today, Father’s Day. And after two days of awkwardness for the Tigers, it’s time for the Diamondbacks to feel awkward because Max Scherzer will face his old team for the first time. He did okay against the Washington Nationals in his last start, but he can do better. Obviously, he’s never faced the Diamondbacks before, but he has seen two of their hitters who were on other teams last year. Kelly Johnson is 3-10 with two doubles, and Adam LaRoche is 2-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs. Meanwhile, the Tigers will face former Yankee Ian Kennedy. He was also involved in that trade, and he’s done a decent job for the Diamondbacks, putting up a respectable earned run average in the process. The Tigers have seen him once. It was back in 2008 and they beat him en route to a 3-game sweep of the Yankees at Yankee Stadium (and forgive me, but I don’t remember if it was the first game or the last game in that series; I know it was not the middle game). Only five guys from that game remain with the Tigers. Who had good swings in that game? Well, Magglio went 2-3 with a double, Cabrera was 1-1 with a triple, and Ramon Santiago was 1-2 with a double.

The Force is With You, Brandon Inge

Photo: AP

I completely forgot it was 80s Night at Comerica Park, otherwise I would have played something 80s for the Mood Music last night for you. At any rate, I got home during the sixth inning, and by then both starters had departed, so I was able to sidestep that little bit of awkwardness (Unfortunately, I apparently also missed something funny that involved Rod Allen and Chewbacca). Shame about Galarraga, though. Obviously, I did not see him, but Leyland says he was too tentative with the lefties (and there were a lot of them). Galarraga says the heat sapped him of his energy (I’m inclined to believe him, because it looks as though he started out okay). I don’t see why both explanations can’t be true, and that he was tentative because he was too tired to make his pitches. Heat sure has been a big problem for the Tigers. In fact, at some point or another it has gotten the better of three out of the four Venezuelans on the team (You’d think they’d be used to hot weather). And for most of the game last night we thought all four were included in that, but it turns out Miguel Cabrera’s dizziness was due to a different problem. But Eddie Bonine, Phil Coke, and Jose Valverde did a terrific job out of the bullpen.

As I said, I did not see Dontrelle Willis, so I can’t comment on the Tigers’ approach against him, although considering they got five runs off him, I’d say it was a good one. I know Magglio hit a two-run homer off him, and that was the first time he’d ever faced Dontrelle as an opponent. But once it became a battle of the bullpens, the numbers clearly favored the Tigers. And with two out in the bottom of the eighth, Arizona’s bullpen finally got that memo. Brandon Inge has been hot recently, and last night he finished a home run shy of the cycle. And of course, the big blow was the RBI triple. Others who had good games included Danny Worth and Alex Avila, who wasn’t even supposed to be in the lineup in the first place (so much for all my ponderings on how Armando Galarraga and Gerald Laird would work together).

The series of awkwardness continues tonight, and we get to see another former Tiger on the mound in the person of Edwin Jackson. Jackson has not really delivered for the Diamondbacks, although he has been better recently (I know that simply because at one point his earned run average was over eight and now it’s 5.18). However, every Tigers fan knows what he is capable of, and there have been a couple starts this year where he’s shown that brilliance, one being a complete-game, three-hit shutout against the Dodgers, another being a very strong game against the Marlins where he eclipsed his career high in strikeouts (the previous career high was actually set against the Tigers). It’s been quite a while since any of the Tigers have faced him, but Maggs is 5-8 with a home run. Cabrera (who is back in the lineup tonight) is only 1-6. The Tiger who has faced Jackson the most times is Johnny Damon, but he’s only 3-22. For the Tigers, Rick Porcello will get his first start in a while. He had his last start skipped so that they could work on some things in the bullpen, and now they’ll see if that paid off. He needs to get his sinker sinking again, basically. He’s never faced the Diamondbacks before, and the only Diamondback who has seen him is Adam LaRoche, who saw him last year when he was with the Pirates and he went 1-2 off him.

Sweep Times Two

Photo: Getty Images

I couldn’t find a really funny picture for this one, so I’ll just give you the postgame high fives. Apparently Jeremy Bonderman’s day began with some really loud outs, although at the time I did not know this, since Gameday’s description of “Ryan Zimmerman flies out to center fielder Don Kelly” doesn’t tell you a whole lot beyond that. Luckily, class ended early and I was able to listen to or watch most of this game, and by then Bonderman had made an adjustment and settled in. Tigers pitching sure did rack up a lot of strikeouts in this series. And Valverde got a bit of a break, so I’m guessing he should be fresh and ready to go tonight if he’s needed.

It was a good day for just about everyone in the Tigers lineup. Every starter except Don Kelly got multiple hits. For the first time on the homestand, no one hit a home run, but they didn’t really need to. Two Tigers hit doubles right to the wall. One was Alex Avila who drove in two, and the other was Miguel Cabrera, who added to his league-leading RBI total with three on the day (which is good, because Vladimir Guerrero was starting to catch up again). And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Ramon Santiago, who had himself a 4-hit game.

And so this has been a very good homestand so far. Next up: The last-place Diamondbacks with a slew of former Tigers. This has the makings of one very awkward series, especially considering that tonight’s matchup essentially features the guy the Tigers cut loose against the man who replaced him. You didn’t think we’d see Dontrelle Willis again so soon, did you? Since departing for Arizona, he’s made two starts for them. In the first, he pitched quite well, throwing six shutout innings. In the second, he gave up two runs in four innings and walked six (also had two wild pitches and two balks). Do I even need to tell you what the game plan should be? A word of caution, though: Those of you who have watched all season know that Dontrelle has been quite good at getting himself out of trouble, usually in the form of a key double play. There’s no reason to think that won’t continue (It has to stop sometime because allowing that many baserunners will catch up to you eventually, but it hasn’t yet). And there actually are a few Tigers with history against him (Johnny Damon, Carlos Guillen, and Brandon Inge), but it’s been several years. Meanwhile, since replacing Willis in the rotation, Armando Galarraga has pitched three really good games, but has only come away with one win (no points for guessing which one that was). The Tigers have won all three of those games, but for the most part they have taken the lead very late in those games (This is a very plausible scenario for tonight because the Diamondbacks’ bullpen has been awful this year). He faced the D’Backs once before, back in 2008. He got the win and gave up only one hit, but he walked five in that game (That was a very strange game for all sorts of different reasons. That was the infamous sock rally game, Galarraga drew a walk when he was at the plate and actually scored the first run for the Tigers, Pudge made one of the most heads-up defensive plays I have ever seen late in the game, and the starting pitcher for Arizona that night was Max Scherzer). The only current Diamondback with a hit against him is Adam LaRoche, who is 2-2, but as I said, several of the others have at least one walk. One thing to watch for is that with the lefty starting for Arizona, Gerald Laird will likely be behind the plate tonight. He has only caught Galarraga once this year, and it was the one bad start against the Dodgers. Now, I’m a firm believer that both catchers should be able to catch all the pitchers, but Galarraga and Avila have had a nice rhythm going during these past three starts (and even last year, Avila seemed slightly better at keeping Armando focused and not overthinking). Still, I don’t mean that as a knock on Laird, and I would hope the two work just as well together. It’s just something to look out for. But you’ll have to do the looking out because I’ll be at work.

The Cure for What Ails You?

Photo: Detroit News

Yeah, I had a nice, AP photo all set to go, but this one was too funny not to use. I missed most of this game due to work, so forgive the really superficial analysis. Justin Verlander continued his dominance of the National League, and finally got himself a double-digit strikeout game in the process. He also gave up a couple of very long home runs (although I’d like to point out that Alex Avila’s home run on Sunday went into the shrubbery and stayed there, while Adam Dunn’s merely bounced off the shrubbery). But Verlander settled in and he says his curveball was working real well. I won’t argue with that. He also gave up an RBI single to Pudge (which would’ve caused more internal conflict if I had seen it; and as an aside, I’ll spare you the fashion police rant), though I don’t appreciate FS Detroit repeatedly showing footage of him striking out (Seriously, Verlander had 11 strikeouts and Pudge only struck out once. Show someone else). And the Tigers honored my wish of scoring enough runs to give Valverde a night off, so Enrique Gonzalez wrapped things up for the Tigers. I can’t give much of an assessment of him, but he did retire the side in order.

It’s a testament to the kind of year you’ve been having when you give up eight earned runs and your ERA only goes up to 2.95. Maybe Livan Hernandez was simply wild, or maybe he had a game plan that blew up in his face. Having Gerald Laird in the lineup against the righty paid off, because he hit a two-run single that gave the Tigers the lead for good. Brennan Boesch was the big contributor of the night. I was in the car when he hit his home run, so I settled for the replay, but that was a bomb. And I have no idea why Livan Hernandez was left out there long enough to give up eight earned runs, but that’s not my problem.

If you have some spare time (and I know you do), I’d recommend checking out the transcript from Armando Galarraga’s online chat yesterday. There’s some real interesting tidbits in there (as well as Galarraga flashing his sense of humor). Some of the questions/answers were in Spanish during the live chat and have since been translated (If you want to view the original Spanish, click here). And oh, by the way, I make a brief cameo in that transcript.

The Tigers will go for the sweep in today’s day game. Jeremy Bonderman pitched well in his last start but came away with a no-decision as it took until the tenth inning for the Tigers to win that game. He has faced the Nationals before, back in 2007 in what was eventually an 8-4 Tigers victory. The two current Nationals who have hit him well are Adam Kennedy (.364) and Cristian Guzman (.385). And because I’ve highlighted him in my other two game previews in this series, I will mention that Pudge has never faced Bonderman (although with it being a day game after a night game, I doubt Pudge will be in the lineup). The Nationals will start rookie Luis Atilano. I don’t really know that much about him. His starts have all been either really good or really bad with not a whole lot in between. In his last start, he gave up six runs to the Indians, but only three were earned. Being a rookie, he has never faced the Tigers before, and none of the Tigers have ever seen him. Leyland has already said that Austin Jackson will not be in the lineup today, so I’d imagine we’ll see either Don Kelly or Ryan Raburn in the leadoff slot. Johnny Damon will also get the day off, supposedly. And I’d imagine that Alex Avila will catch (although in his limited sampling, Atilano has been better against lefties than righties).  

Hello Again, Old Friend

Photo: AP

Here we have conclusive evidence that Pudge Rodriguez should NOT stand next to Miguel Cabrera. Seriously, that looks Photoshopped. Could there be a bigger contrast in height? (I have been told by those who have met Cabrera that you don’t realize just how huge he is until you stand next to him). At any rate, it was real nice to see Pudge again (and I was thrilled that the public address announcer still calls him “Pudge” even though he’s now a visiting player), and he got a real nice reception from the crowd. And I can’t say I’m really that disappointed that he got a single. Perhaps it’s not so great that it drove in a run, but that’s only because Adam Dunn was standing on third. At any rate, Max Scherzer pitched a decent game. It looked to me like he was fighting the command of his fastball (both in terms of not throwing it for strikes and giving up 0-2 hits), but his slider and changeup were working really well, as he got several swings and misses on those pitches, plus they allowed him to throw fastballs for called third strikes in areas where he normally might not get away with them. The bullpen did a terrific job, although Jose Valverde made things a little nervous in the ninth with a hit batter and a walk. I wonder if he might be tired, because he’s now pitched in the last four games (with an off-day mixed in). It’d be nice for him if the Tigers could score lots of runs tonight, enough to make it a non-save situation.

As expected, there was a lot of complaining about having Ryan Raburn in the leadoff slot, but it paid off, because he had two hits and four RBIs. Basically, he was the difference in the game. It was also good to see Magglio back in the lineup, and he responded by getting four hits (important since the Nationals have decided that Miguel Cabrera is getting nothing to hit in this series). The other offensive leader of the day? Gerald Laird, who finally shook off his bad luck for at least his first three at-bats and got three hits. He could easily have had four, but had to settle for a lineout to center instead. As an aside, I’d like to mention that the production truck was one big pile of fail last night. There were at least two shots where the camera was out of focus, there was an unnecessary lingering shot of the Nationals’ dugout, and several lower thirds and graphics were displayed at the wrong time.

The series continues tonight with Justin Verlander on the mound. Verlander beat the Pirates in his last start despite the fact that his fastball was “horrible” (his words, not mine). He’s never faced the Nationals before, but he does have some history against a few of their hitters, one of whom is Pudge (1-4 with a double). The Tigers will face Livan Hernandez, who you could describe as a crafty righty. Jim Leyland says he one of the smartest pitchers in baseball, and I’ve already said how to defeat smart guys. The Tigers last saw him in 2008, where they got a lot of baserunners against him but not much in the way of runs, and you got the sense that Hernandez was firmly in control the entire time. Miguel Cabrera has a whopping FIFTY-SEVEN plate appearances against him (I didn’t even know that many were possible). He’s 14-53 with 5 doubles, a home run, 10 RBIs, and 12 strikeouts, so it’s not like he owns him. Some of the other Tigers have faced him before as well, but Johnny Damon is the only other one with significant history against him (but he’s only 2-13). Gerald Laird is 2-4, and maybe that is why he is in tonight’s lineup (plus the three hits last night couldn’t hurt matters).

I am Miguel Cabrera's Slumpbuster

Photo: ME!

Not bad for my first day game. I was kindly invited by Detroitchik from Bless You Boys and we had a blast, heat and all. Armando Galarraga got a big reception when his name was announced, just as I predicted (although the video graphic they have of him when they show the lineups on the scoreboard has his name spelled wrong). And he turned in a very good outing. It was probably the best outing by any starting pitcher that I’ve been present to watch (including Galarraga himself, because I’ve been to one of his games before). He said after the game that his slider wasn’t working all that well, but his changeup was, although I know I saw at least a few good sliders that he got swings and misses on (No, I’m not that good at pitch recognition, especially in person; I mostly determined what he was throwing by the miles per hour on the radar gun). However, he was very effective with throwing strikes and getting quick outs, only walking one. He didn’t strike anybody out, which is a bit odd, even for someone (like him) who isn’t a strikeout pitcher, but he certainly pitched well enough to win (as a matter of fact, none of the Tiger pitchers struck anyone out in this game). It’s a shame he didn’t get the win, but a no-decision is better than a loss, and if he continues pitching the way he’s done in his last three starts, he’ll win plenty of games. As for the bullpen, well, I had said the night before that I wanted to see Jose Valverde pitch, and I got my wish. Unfortunately, I also saw the end of his scoreless appearances streak, but it would have been impossible for him to go the entire season giving up only one run, and it’s not like he got lit up.

It was frustrating to watch the offense for most of the game because they were getting handcuffed by Jeff Karstens. It wasn’t like Saturday when they kept stranding runners. This time, they didn’t really have many threats. And for some reason, when I’m at the game, it’s usually home run derby. That’s how the Tigers scored all their runs in this game. Alex Avila opened the door by homering to dead center, the first one of those that I’ve been present for (and it should be noted that my streaks of having a different starting pitcher, catcher, and shortstop in every game all came to an end). The real fun was in the eighth inning. After a pinch-hit single from Carlos Guillen, Raburn tried to bunt, couldn’t do it, and flied out to the warning track. Guillen did get to second on a wild pitch, but Santiago struck out (I know it looked very borderline on TV, but from where we were sitting down the first base line, it looked like he went too far). Now, the key to this whole sequence was the walk to Johnny Damon (who reached all four times in this game), because they brought in the lefty to get him out, and the lefty failed to do his job. And that brought up Miguel Cabrera in just the situation you want to see him in. Cabrera had been struggling throughout the series (and didn’t have that great a road trip, either) to the tune of a 1-11 when he came to bat (though he had been robbed earlier in this game). I don’t know why, but it seems like Cabrera saves some of his best work for when I’m there. In the two previous games I’d been to since he became a Tiger, he was a combined 6-9 with three home runs and 7 RBIs. And he didn’t let me down this time, homering to the deepest part of right center field. Not surprisingly, everyone went nuts when that happened. It was a sight to behold. By the way, the above picture is NOT of the at-bat in which he homered, and if you’d like to see more of my pictures of this game, my Facebook album is here (I’d like to do a Flickr album as well, but the total file size of pictures is over the monthly upload limit, so I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do).

So after a very productive sweep of the Pirates, it’s time to welcome in the Tigers’ next Interleague opponent: the Washington Nationals. They are also a last-place team, but they are a lot better than they were last year, and I daresay they are better than the Pirates. Their offense is actually pretty good. They rank fourth in the NL in team batting average, although they’re only tenth in runs scored. Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn, and Josh Willingham make for quite a decent 3-4-5 combo. Their pitching isn’t quite there yet, although Livan Hernandez has given them quite a lift, and Scott Olsen’s been decent for them as well. And then there’s Steven Strasburg, who is not pitching in this series and I’m really not that disappointed (I do want the Tigers to win, after all). Of course, the thing that’s most important to me is that Pudge will be there and I will be thrilled to see him (I really have come a long way since not being able to bear to watch that makeup game against the Yankees). I’m not sure how much he’s going to play, since I think he rushed himself back from the DL in order to catch Strasburg’s debut. They have been taking it easy on him (I think they’ve been alternating him and Will Nieves, their other catcher, although I expect them to slowly increase Pudge’s playing time), but they will have the DH at their disposal in this series should they want to use him there. He’s been hot since coming off the DL, and he’s been hot pretty much all season (he has the highest batting average of any of the Nationals). At any rate, Max Scherzer will be the one to face him tonight. He had his start bumped up when they announced Rick Porcello would have his start skipped. He pitched well enough to win in his last start against Chicago, but the Tigers were shut out. He doesn’t have much history against any of the Nationals (4 plate appearances at most), but Adam Dunn is 3-3 with two home runs (in case you’re wondering, Pudge is 0-2 with a strikeout, and I know for a fact that those at-bats came when Pudge was still with the Tigers). The Nationals counter with lefty John Lannan. He has an earned run average over five, but he’s never faced the Tigers before. In fact, the only Tiger who has faced him before is Johnny Damon, who is 2-4 with a double and a home run. And I’d appreciate a win because this is the last full game I’ll be able to watch until Saturday at least.

No Matter the Name...

Photo: AP

It was an exciting game as the Stars downed the Crawfords in extra innings. I thought Jeremy Bonderman did a real nice job in his seven innings of work. Joel Zumaya got hung with the blown save, though that was more a direct result of getting outhustled by Jose Tabata, who showed a lot of guts in that inning. The rest of the bullpen was pretty much smooth sailing, with Jose Valverde especially looking impressive by striking out the side.

For most of the night the offense had issues getting runs home. Some of it was due to inconvenient strikeouts. Some of it was not their fault. With the bases loaded and nobody out, Gerald Laird crushed a ball to deep right center that got run down by Ryan Church. It scored a run, but Guillen got thrown out at third. So after kind of killing that rally (and hitting into a double play with the bases loaded later), Guillen ended up the hero with his walk-off shot (good timing, because I had just mentioned the walk-off home run he hit against the Yankees at 3:30 in the morning).

Back to being the Tigers and Pirates, the boys in the home whites will try to go for the sweep this afternoon. Armando Galarraga makes his first home start since his perfect game, and I’d imagine he’ll get a really warm reception. He certainly pitched well enough to win his last start. He came away with a no-decision, but it was a Tigers victory. He also provided the most entertaining moment of last night’s game, after the Tigers scored the two runs on the error (jumping up and down and pounding Jeremy Bonderman on the head). He faced the Pirates last year, and it wasn’t pretty. He gave up four runs on eight hits in just two innings of work. It looks as though most of the guys that did the damage in the game are now gone, because there aren’t many current Pirates with hits against him (The most anyone’s seen him is six times, though). But, as usual, I’m nervous for him, because again, I want him to do well. The Pirates counter with righty Jeff Karstens, who had the dubious distinction of going up against Steven Strasburg in his debut. Karstens actually was in line for the win until he gave up some late runs to the Nationals. I don’t know much about what he features, but I do know that he’s just about a complete unknown to Tiger hitters. The only Tiger he’s faced? Max Scherzer. And I’m pretty sure we will not be seeing Scherzer in this game. There’s a very good chance that Magglio will not be in the lineup again, as the current plan is to rest him until Tuesday. I would imagine Alex Avila would be back in there (which isn’t all bad, since he and Galarraga have worked very well together). Oh, and by the way, I AM GOING TO THIS GAME! Your Mood Music for today: Well, I can’t have the Pirates come to town and not play this. Enjoy!

Outsmarting the Smart Guy

Photo: AP

While most of you were stuck in a soccer hangover, I was enjoying a Tigers win. I’ll believe Justin Verlander when he said his fastball command was all over the place. He walked quite a few and there were some loud outs, but combine the fact that he has some of the best raw stuff in baseball with the fact that the Tigers have been playing defense the way I know they’re capable of playing and it only added up to giving up two runs, one of which came after Phil Coke gave up a base hit. Austin Jackson made a spectacular catch in deep right center, and Don Kelly made a nice catch in the seats against Neil Walker (His brother-in-law later returned the favor).

The Tigers couldn’t do much against Ross Ohlendorf early, and then a solo shot by Brennan Boesch that went a really long way kind of opened the flood gates. I knew very little about the stuff that Ohlendorf features, but I do know that he’s smart, and the way you defeat smart people is to get them to overthink the situation (I think this is what got Galarraga in trouble a lot last year; you could tell that’s what he was doing whenever he got really slow on the mound). I know this because I myself am prone to this weakness. Just about every smart person has this weakness. At any rate, the Tigers were able to do that in the sixth inning. They had him making multiple throws over to first and taking a long time on the mound, and he finally made a mistake to Santiago and paid for it. All the Tigers runs scored with two outs and there was a lot of contribution from the bottom of the order. Miguel Cabrera went 0-4 again, which wasn’t real pleasant to watch, but his slumps usually don’t last too long. I think he misses having Magglio in the lineup, though.

Tonight is the Negro Leagues Tribute game, and so it’ll be the Detroit Stars against the Pittsburgh Crawfords (or, if you’re Ryan Field, the Pittsburgh Keystones). It’s been a really long time since Jeremy Bonderman pitched with the throwback uniform. I’m pretty sure he had it in 2005, then Justin Verlander had it for three straight seasons, and then last year it was Armando Galarraga (and I’d like to point out the irony of having a white guy be the starting pitcher for the Negro Leagues game in at least 5 of the last 6 seasons). Bonderman got lit up in his last start, which was against the Royals. He last pitched against the Pirates in 2006, but he’s only seen four of the current crop. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh sends their ace to the mound in lefty Paul Maholm. And he is a very good pitcher. The Tigers probably won’t have such an easy time of it tonight. The only two who have seen him before are Miguel Cabrera and Johnny Damon.  

Inge to the Rescue Again

Photo: AP

Maybe the Tigers left Weekend Mojo back in Detroit by accident, and Fu Te Ni kindly brought it with him when he made the trip to Houston (I’d make a joke about losing it like you lose your luggage at the airport, but the Tigers have their own plane so that joke wouldn’t really work). At any rate, it took until the ninth inning, but Brandon Inge came up with the big hit. And the Tigers had been down to their final strike when the strikeout-prone Marcus Thames managed to work a walk, and Inge made Valverde pay for that walk, hobbled as he was (Hopefully, it’s nothing that’ll keep him out of the lineup, cuz right now he’s too valuable both with the glove and with the bat). At any rate, I really didn’t see this game (other than watching a couple of innings on the MLB.tv archives). It was over with before I got home from work. I lucked out and DID have an Internet connection, but it was on a computer that didn’t have any sort of Flash player, so I ended up on the auto-refreshing boxscore/play-by-play on Yahoo Sports (I was also able to listen to an inning and a half on the radio while I was at lunch). In some ways, though, I’m kind of glad I did not get to watch this game, because happy as I am about the Tigers’ win, it would’ve killed me to see Pudge be the last out (I did hear that it was a hard groundball, though, so at least he gave Brandon Inge somewhat of a challenge). And hey, at least with this series over, I can be rid of the mixed feelings I was battling all weekend (Well, Friday and yesterday, at least; I don’t really care about Humberto Quintero). By the way, I said I had more thoughts related to my slideshow, but they’re kinda long, so I’m going to save those for Friday’s post, since Thursday is an off-day.

Yesterday also featured a bunch of roster moves. First up, Nate Robertson was placed on the DL and Fu Te Ni was called up to replace him. Apparently, Nate’s got a mass or cyst in his elbow that is pressing up against his ulnar nerve, causing numbness and tingling in his pitching hand. So why did he wait so long? You’d think that after, oh, his second or third ineffective outing he’d go to the trainers and say that his fingers were numb and tingling. Apparently he learned nothing over the last two years from such struggles as those of Kenny Rogers, Jeremy Bonderman (twice), Joel Zumaya, Fernando Rodney, and Todd Jones: Don’t pitch hurt. You’re not effective if you pitch hurt. Also, they decided to make a change in the rotation and swap out Alfredo Figaro and Luke French. French will start on Friday in Minnesota, but he will apparently be available out of the bullpen for the next day or two.

Well, Interleague play in 2009 has come to a close for the Tigers, at least (I know there are still one or two makeup games to be played elsewhere), and though the boys didn’t fare as well as they have in years past, I still say that it beats having to play the Red Sox and Yankees more. Anyways, it’s back to the realm of the DH and onto what has been the Tigers’ favorite division so far this year: the AL West. The Oakland Athletics are last in their division (by a good margin), and they got swept by the Tigers back in May. However, the Tigers have generally not played well in Oakland over the past couple years. At any rate, it’s a late-night affair, and Rick Porcello gets the ball tonight. He ended up with a no-decision his last time out. He hasn’t lost since that game against the Red Sox, but he maybe hasn’t been quite as sharp as he was in May. He’s been throwing more pitches in fewer innings, but so far, he’s been able to limit the damage. The A’s HAVE seen him before, so there is the question of whether or not adjustments will be made, either by Porcello or by the Oakland hitters. He’ll be opposed by Brett Anderson, whom the Tigers beat back in that series in May. He probably pitched better than the numbers would indicate, though, because the A’s infield made four errors behind him (That was that wacky game where the Tigers hit two grand slams and Edwin Jackson pitched three more innings after a rain delay that lasted over an hour). Hope you’ve got the caffeine ready. Your Mood Music for tonight: Oh, how ‘bout some good old-fashioned headbanging? Let’s go back to the early ‘90s and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Totally Different Issues This Time

It seems that whenever the Tigers lose a game in which they leave a lot of men on base, it almost inevitably gets followed by a game in which they get dominated and end up with very few guys to strand. If I were superstitious, I’d say it was karma biting them in the ass. All in all, it was a strange night for Alfredo Figaro, and an even worse night for the offense. Figaro had a disastrous third inning in which he gave up a bunch of hits and a bunch of runs (Rod Allen mentioned that all the hits came on offspeed pitches, so make of that what you will). The other five innings he was in there, well…he wasn’t great, but he was okay, I guess. Leyland said that Figaro got aggressive “only after the horse was out of the barn.” Freddy Dolsi finished things up and yes, I know he didn’t give up a run, but he still scares the hell out of me. Besides, between him and Figaro, it looked like the Tigers had a couple of 12-year-olds pitching for them. At any rate, the two of them combined to only give up three walks, which is certainly more acceptable than 7. In terms of the offense, I may as well not give them their own paragraph, because there’s not a lot to talk about. Santiago homered, and Cabrera and Thames each had a single. That was it. I listened to the radio post-game show and watched the post-game show on television as well (hey, I am nothing if not thorough). Jim Price seemed to think that the hitters helped out Paulino immensely, but Jim Leyland’s attitude would seem to suggest that he thought the Tigers were genuinely overmatched. I’m inclined to believe the manager over the radio color analyst, but I will say this: Brandon Inge was taking some really funky swings all night. He also scraped up his arm, likely on that Michael Bourn rundown that took way too long to complete (cue the Benny Hill music).

Well, at last we’ve come to the end of Interleague play, which this year was not as bountiful a harvest for the Tigers. That’s kind of disappointing to me, because I enjoy Interleague play and this year I can’t really use my #1 argument for it (although I could adapt it by saying that if the Tigers are gonna suck against the AL East, which they’ve done so far, .500 against the National League ain’t so bad in comparison). At any rate, Edwin Jackson will be charged with nipping this little mini-skid in the bud. The Cubs made him work to get his outs last time, but he navigated his way out of trouble with minimal damage and it was only Micah Hoffpauir’s home run off Zumaya which denied him the victory. He’ll be up against Russ Ortiz, who I guess is kind of a middle-of-the-road-type pitcher. His earned run average is pretty good, but he’s not overpowering. However, those “crafty” type pitchers have been known to give the Tigers fits in the past. I’ll be at work from 10 to 5, so it’s quite possible (in fact, likely) that I will miss the vast bulk of this game. Your Mood Music for today: I started this slideshow last year shortly after Pudge was traded to the Yankees, and I never finished it. Given that the Tigers were facing him once again, I decided to go ahead and complete it. I would much rather have made a music video than a slideshow, but the video capture software I have leaves the image really grainy (either that, or I have a crappy VCR hooked up to the computer), and I wouldn’t be able to share it for very long, because YouTube would have it taken down within an hour. At any rate, it is not my best work by any means (I am planning another, more complicated slideshow that I will hopefully have done in time for the Minnesota series, but if I don’t get it done, it’ll have to wait until the next time the Tigers go to Minneapolis), and it is perhaps a bit more emotionally charged than it would be if I had started it today instead of a year ago. No, I am not a teenage girl who has to make slideshows of all her favorite people. I’m a filmmaker at heart, so this is my way of creative expression. At any rate, YouTube kinda screwed up the video when it got uploaded, and the transitions are slower than they should be. By the way, I do NOT have a repository of Pudge Rodriguez photos. I have a massive repository of Tigers photos in general from 2007 and 2008 (and a tiny bit of 2006), of which I ended up using nearly every picture of Pudge that I had. I do have an addendum that I came up with while making this slideshow, but as this post is already too long, I’ll save it for the next blog. At any rate, if you’re not a fan of Pudge, you don’t have to watch it. The song is Ozzy Osbourne’s “See You on the Other Side.”

Wild Zumaya + Hello, Old Friend

Photo: AP

I’ll tell you right up from that I was antsy and restless during this whole game. I thought I knew the reason for that (and that reason was behind the plate for half the game), but maybe I could sense the same thing that Leyland felt. Things started out really good, but then the offense kinda went quiet, at least when there were men on base. Now, is it that the old bugaboo about no clutch hitting back, or is it simply a matter of Wandy Rodriguez (who HAS pitched well this year) making a pitch when he needed to? I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. A lot of heat is gonna fall on Magglio for stranding seven runners, but it didn’t really seem to matter who was at the plate. Cabrera was the only guy in the lineup that did not strand anyone (He also hit a very long home run that I missed). Meanwhile, Justin Verlander had to work very, very hard for most of his outs, so much so that he gave up three runs and threw 118 pitches in only five and a third innings (Could it have been the climate? I know the roof was closed, but from all appearances, it was really humid inside the ballpark. They interviewed Pudge after the game and he was absolutely soaked in sweat, which was kind of nasty, actually). The bullpen was able to hold things down until Zumaya, who was clocked at 105 (my guess is that Houston has a hot gun), but couldn’t find the strike zone, leading to one of the strangest comments ever from Rod Allen: “This is where the Tigers miss Carlos Guillen.” I know he meant that a veteran like Guillen would try to calm Zumaya down, but Zoom’s still gotta throw strikes (and it’s also besides the point, since if Guillen were healthy, he’d be in left field and therefore unable to talk to Zumaya). However, this follows a stretch in which Zumaya hasn’t been that wild. He threw plenty of strikes on the homestand. The only issue he had was the two-run homer by Micah Hoffpauir, but that was due to an error in judgement, not because he was walking people. At any rate, after walking in the tying run, Zumaya had to be pulled and Freddy Dolsi was brought in. I was never particularly crazy about Freddy Dolsi last year, even when he started off the season pitching well, but it’s too early to tell if he’s made any adjustments yet, as he only faced two batters. Still, I know sometimes there’s not much you can do to prevent sacrifice flies, especially when you’re a flyball pitcher, but he could have at least gotten a lazy fly ball off the bat of Tejada, not a bullet that chased Don Kelly to the warning track, for crying out loud.

This game, regardless of the outcome, has been the source of some consternation for me for some time now because I didn’t know how I would react to seeing Pudge against his former team. As it turns out, I paid more attention to the game than I thought I would. And mostly it just felt nice seeing him again, even if he was wearing the “wrong” uniform. By the way, for all you Pudge fans still hanging around the Tigers blogosphere, Jason Beck has a nice blog post in which Pudge discusses Leyland, his future, and what he thinks of the Tigers now. I included one of the photos from it, even though I normally do not post photos following Tiger losses (Pudge is worth an exception). The only part of the game I could not bring myself to watch was any of his at-bats (I also couldn’t bring myself to watch any of Verlander’s at-bats, but that’s because he’s such a bad hitter that it’s downright painful, although I will give him kudos for laying down two sacrifice bunts). I’m sorry I keep being such a wuss about this. I did learn one thing, though: I can’t root against him. I just can’t. The Tigers and Astros could be tied in extra innings tonight and the Astros could have the bases loaded with Pudge at the plate and I STILL wouldn’t be able to root against him (The only similar situations I’ve found myself in were instances last year where Sean Casey and Craig Monroe batted against the Tigers. In those situations, I WAS able to root against them, but I felt bad about it. Pudge is different, though…and I imagine Verlander would fall into the same category as Pudge should it ever come to that someday, though I hope it never does). He struck out his first two times against Verlander, then doubled in his third trip. I guess this sums up my feelings about that: I’m happy that he got a double, but I’m not happy that he scored a run. I think that’s fair enough.

Tonight, it’s Game 2 of this series (and the Tigers have already been granted a bit of a reprieve, because the Cardinals beat the Twins earlier today), featuring Alfredo Figaro against Felipe Paulino. Figaro got the win in his Major League debut and only gave up two runs while striking out seven in five innings, but he had to pitch around a LOT of baserunners. Meanwhile, Paulino is coming off the DL, but he’s got a losing record and his ERA is pretty high. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect from this game, either from a pitching or offensive standpoint by the Tigers. I do know that tonight’s lineup is very similar to last night’s lineup, except that Ramon Santiago is at shortstop and Don Kelly is in right field (According to Jason Beck, Magglio is not starting tonight “because of the pitching matchup,” whatever that means). I know I promised that I would have my slideshow for the Mood Music tonight, but as it turns out, Pudge is not in the lineup for Houston, so I’m going to wait until tomorrow (I assume he WILL start tomorrow’s game).

Homemade Perfection

Photo: AP

Man, I think the Tigers escaped every single one of these games on the homestand by the skin of their teeth (hell, that statement could even apply to the entire winning streak), but the important thing is that they were able to do just that. Armando Galarraga got off to a rough start, and as a result, eventually got saddled with four earned runs in six innings, but I was encouraged by his pitching after the first inning. In some respects, he looked better than he did in the three quality starts he put up during his winless stretch. He made some mistakes in the strikezone that got hit hard, but he also threw a lot of pitches that looked like they belonged in the arsenal of the Galarraga of old. I saw quite a few good sliders in there. Perhaps there are three things about his final line that are especially encouraging. First, he only gave up six hits, which is not excessive for the time he was in there by any means. Second, he only walked one batter. Third, he struck out five batters, which is the highest number he’s gotten since the last time he won. And though I’m not real big on sabremetrics, he DID get quite a few swings and misses. So all told, he’s not quite back to being El Prestidigitador, but I think this start was a step in the right direction.

Once the Cubs got the three-run homer in the first inning, I was concerned because Ted Lilly had been pitching extremely well and I wasn’t sure he’d give up more than three runs. As it turns out, the Tigers’ history of punishing lefties won out. Ramon Santiago got the Tigers on the board first with a two-run homer (He’s got five now this year; at what point does he cease to be a “surprising” source of power?). And then a day after breaking the heart of nearly every woman in Tigerdom, Magglio Ordoñez DID homer. I still stand by what I said previously, although I will add that the placebo effect is an amazing phenomenon. If you’re gonna be superstitious about it, you could just as easily argue that Maggs homered because I ate macaroni and cheese for lunch yesterday, or because one of the cats decided to climb up the window shade and broke the frame. That has a nice ring to it: “Every time a cat breaks a window shade frame, Magglio hits a home run.” Yes, I’m sure by now you’ve realized that while I can take major problems like bases-loaded walks in stride, I get mad at really stupid things that are largely inconsequential. By the way, Magglio is selling his hair on eBay. I know it’s for a good cause, but it’s still CREEPY. Anyways, back to the offense. Miguel Cabrera continued his hot streak (though he’s got a long way to go if he wants to catch Ichiro), as did Ryan Raburn. And thanks to all of them, here’s your broom:


Interleague play winds down this weekend as the Tigers head to Houston for one more taste of National League-style baseball. The Astros have been near the bottom of the NL Central for most of the season, which doesn’t make a lot of sense since they have okay pitching and with some of the hitters they have, you’d think their offense would be better. Still, remember what the Pirates did to us. At any rate, Justin Verlander takes the hill tonight. He bounced back marvelously from that bad start in St. Louis to beat the Milwaukee Brewers. He’s gonna have to give them some innings tonight, because I would think Bobby Seay, Brandon Lyon, and possibly Fernando Rodney are all unavailable tonight. Meanwhile, he’ll be up against Wandy Rodriguez, who has had a weird season, in that he started out pitching well enough to almost rival Zack Greinke, only to then go through a stretch where he got pounded every time out (which led to a mini-soap operaish controversy involving the catchers, the Astros’ GM, and whether or not he was tipping his pitches). Recently, he’s been either really bad or lights-out. Which brings me to the dilemma involving his batterymate. While I have become accustomed to not seeing him around Comerica Park anymore, I am still just as fond of Pudge as I was the day I picked him to be my favorite (and yes, I know he’s only batting around .250 this year, but he IS throwing runners out with a good amount of consistency). July 30th was the low point in the 2008 season for me, and truth be told, I’m not sure how I feel. It’s not that I can’t abide seeing him in another uniform (though seeing him wear a number other than 7 is exceptionally strange). It’s more that I don’t know how I would feel seeing him oppose the Tigers. I did not watch the one game last year where he came back to Comerica Park with the Yankees, marking the only occasion in the last three years that I have deliberately missed a game. It’s quite a conundrum. I don’t have very long to figure things out, though. Still, I’d like to think that Pudge has had a lasting impact on the Tigers that he was teammates with, and that that influence is part of the reason why the Tigers are playing well this season. That’s the beauty of catchers. Those intangibles. I’m not doing Mood Music tonight because I meant to use a slideshow that I myself started after Pudge was traded last year but did not finish. However, it’s still being uploaded to YouTube (literally), so it’ll have to wait until tomorrow or Sunday (unless it gets deleted for copyright issues before then). I would've used something from Michael Jackson, but I can't find one that's appropriate that allows embedding at this late notice. Yikes!

Fireworks and Flirting with Disaster

Photo: AP

We’ll get to the Magglio hair saga in a moment, but first, I do have a game to comment on. Tigers pitching certainly gave up a veritable parade of baserunners all night, but somehow managed to limit the damage. Leyland certainly wasn’t happy about the walks, in particular. However, if you think about it, this has gone on for the entire homestand with the exception of the Verlander game. I suppose I shouldn’t be picky, since they’re making good pitches when they need to and they’ve won all these games, but it’d be nice to have a Tiger pitcher just shut down the opposing offense completely for once.

The Tiger hitters did not have quite as many chances as the Cubs, but for once, the Tigers were receiving bases-loaded walks instead of giving them up (though I wonder how many bases-loaded walks the Tigers have given up if you take Dontrelle Willis and Ryan Perry out of the equation). Miguel Cabrera and Gerald Laird provided some early fireworks before the main event from the International Freedom Festival (which I had never heard of before last night…Hey, I’ve never lived in Michigan, so how was I supposed to know about it?). However, the difference came after the dropped pop-up by Geovanny Soto (whom I actually like, despite the fact that he’s not hitting much this year; he’s throwing out runners, he’s nice-looking, and he’s Puerto Rican). Again, the Tigers took advantage of an error.

Now to tackle the unpleasant task of Magglio’s hair, or lack thereof (By the way, it wasn’t just Magglio. Vladimir Guerrero shaved off his dreadlocks last night as well). First of all, you’re not going to convince me that any homerun that he hits from hereon out is anything but coincidence (or the result of hard work in the batting cage). Second of all, while he does not look awful like Brandon Inge did after he shaved his head last year (nor does he look like Armando Galarraga), I still don’t like it because now he just looks like everyone else. There’s nothing distinguishing about his appearance anymore (and remember, I didn’t watch a lot of the Tigers prior to 2006, so I’ve never really watched a short-haired Magglio before outside of some old photos and video of his White Sox days), and that’s disappointing. This has also, very predictably, caused a gender split on the blogosphere. The guys are ecstatic, while the women are bummed (I maintain that the men were just jealous). There was also some discussion about how it must feel better for him because it was 90 degrees yesterday, which reminded me of what I said last year when the Tigers were in Baltimore and Fernando Rodney and Brandon Inge had both shaved off their hair because of the heat:

Would you guys stop being a bunch of wusses about the heat? I hate being hot,
and yet I’ve had plenty of experience fencing wearing the full equipment (heavy
jacket and helmet) in a hot, sweaty gym and an even hotter, sweatier racquetball
court, and my hair goes down to the middle of my back.

Today, the Tigers go for the sweep (and a perfect homestand). They’re gonna need Armando Galarraga to go deep into this game because the bullpen was taxed last night (every pitcher was used except Freddy Dolsi). Armando needs a good start, because I imagine the leash is very short by now. There’s been speculation that he would’ve been pulled after four innings in his last start even if there hadn’t been a rain delay, but I think they would’ve at least tried to nurse him through the fifth, just so he could get the win. As I’ve said, his pitches have just looked different than they used to, and apparently it’s different in a bad way, given the results. And I have started wondering in earnest whether or not he’s hiding an injury. I haven’t been able to watch a start of his since the start he made in Chicago (work gets in the way of those things sometimes). I want to see the return of El Prestidigitador, not his evil twin (who throws different-looking pitches that aren’t effective). The Cubs will send out lefty Ted Lilly, who is having a good year with a very good earned run average. I’m hoping for a quick Tigers’ victory, because I go to work at 4:00.