Give Credit Where Credit is Due

Photo: AP

It was nice to finally see one of these close pitching duels go the Tigers’ way. Justin Verlander had some command problems early, but this time he managed to make the adjustment before it was too late. His pitch count got to him about an inning before you’d want it to, and he got bailed out right at the end by Brennan Boesch to get a double play (otherwise the Rays would have taken the lead), but the strikeout machine he turned into during the middle innings was very impressive.

The Tigers dispatched of any plans Matt Garza had to no-hit them again rather quickly with Miguel Cabrera’s double in the second inning. Unfortunately for Cabrera, that’s the only hit he would get on the day, but the other Tigers were able to step up, albeit just barely. The big blow came from Ryan Raburn (hence the title), and I’ve said that his at-bats have been better recently. Brandon Inge had the other big hit in the game, and he had quietly been struggling recently (but with so many of the hitters struggling, it’s hard to single anyone out there).

After an off-day, it’s time to make what may be a last-ditch effort to get back in the race (then again, we’ve heard that before) and take on the White Sox. They just lost two of three to the Twins. Anyways, Jeremy Bonderman was the only pitcher to beat them last time they faced off. He had some control problems in his last start, which came on short rest. He’ll be up against Mark Buehrle, who beat the Tigers when last he saw them, but lost to the Orioles in his last start (Holy crap, the Orioles are playing well all of a sudden). And it’s going to be an uphill battle for Miguel Cabrera if he wants to break out of his slump. After going hitless back in their last matchup, he is now 0-for-15 against Buehrle.

That Was Downright 2008-esque

This is going to be a short post, because I have some errands to run before today’s game starts. It’s somewhat reassuring to know that I haven’t had to use the “too many walks” meme since the 2008 season, but that’s not the case in last night’s came. There were WAY too many walks. Max Scherzer pitched well enough to win, but the fact that he was mysteriously unable to throw a strike to Dan Johnson came back to haunt him. The ninth inning was just plain ugly, because neither Robbie Weinhardt nor Enrique Gonzalez could throw strikes (all of the runs ended up on Weinhardt’s ledger, though). Meanwhile, the papers and the other bloggers have finally figured out what I knew several days ago: Miguel Cabrera is in a slump. And he didn’t show any signs of breaking out of it last night. He was at the plate during the Tigers’ only real scoring opportunity. Even the pitcher Jeremy Hellickson admitted that all he did was through a fastball down the middle, and all Cabrera could do with it was hit into an inning-ending double play.

The Tigers wrap up the season series with the Rays today, and with Justin Verlander on the mound, it’s their best chance of winning (mostly because he’s the starter most capable of throwing a shutout). He lost his last time out after wobbling early but finishing strong. He just didn’t make the adjustment fast enough. He pitched a complete game loss against the Rays a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Tigers have an opportunity to exact revenge against the guy who no-hit them, Matt Garza. Again, the strange thing about that game was that he threw about 85% fastballs. That’s not how you’re supposed to no-hit a team. Still, his career ERA against the Tigers is not all that good, and Jhonny Peralta (who hadn’t been traded to the team yet when that happened) has the best numbers of any Tiger against Garza (9-for-19 with a double). Unfortunately for Miguel Cabrera, he’s only 1-for-9 against him (that one hit was a home run, though).

It's All in Your Head

I wish I knew more about psychology and that sort of thing, because then I might be able to give a little more insight into how to fix Armando Galarraga’s confidence problems (I am currently reading a book called The Psychology of Baseball, but so far it mostly deals with the unconscious processes that allow a player to hit, pitch, or catch a ball). At the very least, I wish I had a way to give him some words of encouragement or knock some sense into him. I talked yesterday about how he hated the fact that he keeps giving up home runs, and I think that played into what happened last night. He was generally around the strike zone and making his pitches up until the Matt Joyce home run. I think that got him all out of whack and he had control problems for almost the rest of the evening (though his pitches looked a bit better in the fifth, different sleeves or not). He’s generally a person who is not very emotional on the mound, and yet last night there were a couple of instances where he looked very frustrated, yelling a bit and punching his glove, which is uncharacteristic. I think he let his frustration get the better of him and he’s got to figure out a way to get that under control, because sooner or later he’s going to run out of chances, and I don’t want that to happen. Leyland didn’t sound too pleased with him. He also didn’t sound too pleased with Ryan Perry, who allowed two add-on runs right after the offense had cut the deficit to one run. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the good work done by Brad Thomas and Phil Coke, however. By the way, I did see the new Dr. Rahmani commercial featuring Armando Galarraga. I didn’t realize what it was at first, and when I did, it made me laugh probably more than it should have (It could have been worse. My mom saw the commercial and thought that he was one of Dr. Rahmani’s associates).

The Tiger hitters actually had a good approach against David Price, who had his own issues with throwing strikes. The difference with Price is that he has the luxury of being able to reach back and blow 98 MPH fastballs by people. After some hopeful signs on Sunday, Miguel Cabrera remained firmly stuck in his slump. And Jhonny Peralta seems to have inherited the curse of hitting the ball hard right at people. Still, Ryan Raburn has quietly been having some good at-bats recently (give credit where credit is due). Gerald Laird was 2-for-2 with a walk (same here). And Brennan Boesch is giving little signs of maybe breaking out of it a little bit, this time with an opposite field home run.

After feeling like something bad was going to happen last night (and it did), I don’t really get any strong senses about tonight’s game. Max Scherzer pitches against the Rays since his no-hit bid was so rudely interrupted by Matt Joyce’s grand slam. He did a nice job against the White Sox but came away with a no-decision. Meanwhile, the Rays were supposed to start the somewhat struggling Wade Davis, but he returned to St. Petersburg to have his shoulder examined, so the Rays are calling up Jeremy Hellickson to make the spot start. Personally, I would rather they take their chances with Davis, because Hellickson was very impressive against the Twins. Being a rookie, obviously none of the Tigers have seen him.    

Rick Porcello to the Rescue

Photo: AP

After so many close games, followed by Saturday’s ugliness, it was nice to have a relatively laidback win. Rick Porcello did a very good job. It looked like he had a very good slider yesterday. His outing was a nice bounceback from being lit up by the White Sox (and by the way, they are his next scheduled opponent). Meanwhile, it was nice to see the offense score a bunch of runs for a change (By the way, Trevor Bell is the grandson of the original Bozo the Clown. How much did he get teased about that?). There still wasn’t a whole lot of extra-base power, but they managed to string together enough singles together to make it not matter. They also manage to work around a couple of bad baserunning mistakes (Avila getting picked off, Kelly trying to take second on an airmailed throw, etc). It was a big day for Alex Avila and Johnny Damon in particular.

It’s now time to face the Rays again. They are currently on a five game losing streak that has seen their pitching staff give up eight home runs on Saturday and striking out seventeen times while coming to within an out of getting no-hit again yesterday. Still, I don’t really have a good feeling about tonight’s game. I really like Armando Galarraga, but I know full well that he can’t outpitch David Price, and therefore he should not try to (Granted, I get really paranoid that every start that Galarraga makes will be his last start, so perhaps this is clouding my judgment). My baseball guru actually gave me a little bit of a catcher’s insight on Galarraga the other night. He likes the movement on Galarraga’s pitches, but says that he’s seemed distracted in his last couple starts (he phrased it as “not quite there”). His theory was that Galarraga was still upset about having been sent to Toledo last month, but I don’t really think that’s the case. I told him my theory about Galarraga’s primary weakness (He’s a very smart person, and smart people have a tendency to overthink things when they’re in trouble; the subsequent advice was that his catcher needs to get him back on track and make him throw whatever sign gets put down). Another thing is that from the quotes I’ve read from him in recent starts, Galarraga is getting increasingly frustrated at giving up home runs. The thing is, he’s always been prone to giving up home runs (which I don’t have a problem with so long as they are solo shots or, at worst, two-run homers). I’m worried that the frustration will cause him to come unfocused should he give up another home run. He’s made three starts in his career against the Rays. One was a good start, one was a decent start in which he got charged with five earned runs after giving up a three-run homer to straightaway center field with two outs in the eighth inning, and the last start (which came late last year) was an unmitigated disaster after trying to rush himself back from an elbow injury. Meanwhile, David Price has not given the Tigers a whole lot. The only Tiger in the lineup with decent numbers against him is Ramon Santiago (he also possesses the only extra-base hit in the group). Both Miguel Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta are 0-for-7 against him. Still, it would be nice to see Cabrera at least get an RBI in this game. He’s gone seven games without one (and in a slump update, he did hit two loud outs in his last two at-bats yesterday).

I'm Glad I Didn't Go to THAT Game

After I spent yesterday’s blog discussing the specific problems I’ve seen and how it really didn’t feature the starting pitching or the defense, this game was just plain ugly. Jim Leyland may have liked Bonderman’s stuff, but as he said, the command was not there. The command was not there with any of the relievers, either. And apparently Brad Thomas thought he could pitch through an ankle injury, which turned out to be a bad move (Again, don’t pitch hurt). I’m not sure what Eddie Bonine’s problem was. On the flipside, it looked as though the Tigers were trying to be patient against Scott Kazmir, but he was unusually proficient and throwing first-pitch strikes and he only walked one batter. I think their approach against Jered Weaver was better, though.

The Tigers will try to avoid the sweep as they send Rick Porcello to the mound. Porcello was lit up by the White Sox in his first real bad start since his return. He has not pitched particularly well against the Angels in his career, but he’s done better against them than he has against the White Sox. Meanwhile, the Angels will start Trevor Bell, who has an elevated ERA, but he’s not made that many starts yet. His minor league numbers were pretty good. The only Tiger who has seen him is Jhonny Peralta. He’s 1-for-3 with an RBI. Your Mood Music for today: Breaking Benjamin.

An Attempt at a Diagnosis

I don’t have a lot of time, but I’m going to try do discuss some of the things I’ve observed recently during this slide. First of all, it really isn’t the fault of the starting pitching. Justin Verlander got off to a rocky start (He said that attempting to back off on his fastball like he had in Boston ended up adversely affecting his secondary pitches), but he righted the ship, although the damage was already done. And in the last two weeks, there has only been one starter who has gotten lit up, and that was Porcello against the White Sox. The defense has actually been better than it has been all year. That turns our attention toward the offense. Now, in this game, I think guys had much better at-bats against Jered Weaver than you might think. Peralta and Raburn both had really good battles with him and went largely unrewarded. Still, one thing I have observed is a power outage. There have been very few extra-base hits. It would be easy to proclaim Miguel Cabrera as the only power threat in the lineup, but in fact, there are plenty other guys in there who have at least doubles power with the occasional home run. Brennan Boesch looked more on-track than he has recently. Maybe that’s a good sign. Second, Cabrera is in a slump. People might not have realized it, because he’s getting walked a lot, but he only has two hits on this homestand, one of which was an infield single, and he has come up in big RBI situations where he hasn’t been walked, and he hasn’t done anything. His last RBI came in Boston. His slumps generally don’t last very long, but they sure are excruciating. And short of him being injured, it’s the last thing the Tigers can afford right now. Third, the other teams’ defenses continue to be sparkling. I don’t know how to solve that particular problem.

Tonight is a game I was considering going to, but I made the decision to go in two weeks instead. Anyways, Jeremy Bonderman will be starting on short rest. He was very good against the White Sox, and is the proud owner of the Tigers’ last victory. I don’t know how he’ll fare against the Angels, but I do know that they’re gonna want to run on him. Hideki Matsui has some wicked good numbers against him (.448 with three home runs). The Tigers will face Scott Kazmir as he makes a return from the DL. Kazmir has not pitched well this year, but is one of those pitchers that you would label as “underachieving” rather than “bad.” Johnny Damon and Brennan Boesch both get the night off tonight. The only lefty in the lineup is Will Rhymes. Jhonny Peralta owns Kazmir: 7-for-14 with two doubles and two home runs. Cabrera’s numbers are decent (.313 with a home run). Everyone else’s numbers aren’t all that impressive. And don’t be missing Magglio too much in this game. He’s only 2-for-16 against Kazmir (thought I’d throw that in there since I tortured you with his good numbers against Mark Buehrle).

From Hero to Disappointment

I don’t really have a lot to say about this game. I’m not mad or anything. It’s just that I had to go to work after the top of the tenth inning so I really can’t weigh in on the resolution. I do know Max Scherzer was decent. But our guys seem to be in one of those phases where they can’t get away with any bad pitches. Scherzer got done in by two bad pitches, and Weinhardt and Valverde were victimized the same way in what were otherwise solid outings. Offensively, they stranded a lot of runners early but most of their threats came with two outs and there were two instances where they ran into bad luck double plays. Ryan Raburn finally got the clutch knock with a three-run homer with two outs in the ninth, but it was a feat he was unable to duplicate in the eleventh.

And so now hope is fading fast and they are running out of time to turn things around. There’s plenty of fight, but so far it hasn’t translated into wins. The Angels are kind of in the same position, although I don’t know if they have fight or not because I don’t follow them that closely. They just got swept by the Orioles and their record has fallen under .500. However, they will be sending out a very good pitcher tonight in Jered Weaver. It seems like whenever Weaver faces the Tigers he’s either on his game or he gives up a bunch of runs. The Tigers have beaten him a couple times this year, although he hasn’t really gotten beat up on by them. And several of the guys in the lineup (notably Jackson, Peralta, and Cabrera) have good numbers against him. Damon does not have good numbers against him, on the other hand. Meanwhile, it feels like it’s been a month and a half since I’ve seen Justin Verlander pitch. He got a no-decision in his start against the Red Sox. He’s had his fair share of troubles against the Angels, although he’s won his last three starts against them. There are six Angels who hit at least .300 against him. Meanwhile, the Tigers’ lineup was posted unusually early today, and it’s had a bit of a shuffle. Boesch has been moved to second in the lineup (which removes the pressure of having to protect Cabrera somewhat), with Peralta batting fifth and Damon sixth. Your Mood Music for tonight: I had never heard of this song before yesterday, but I heard it on Gameday Audio before the Tigers’ pregame show. Once I figured out what it was, I thought it was fairly appropriate because I’m betting about 90% of you feel this way.