As you can see by the lack of activity around here, I’ve been pretty busy. Between sick kids, a trip to NY, and a bunch of household duties I just haven’t had a lot of time to blog, much less watch the Tigers. So I’m going to cop out and do bullet-style stuff. Hopefully I can get some more in depth analysis up later this week.
-In case you hadn’t looked at the league leaders lately, that’s the Tiger’s Ivan Rodriguez leading the charge for the batting title. True his lead is pretty slim (.00023), but his performance has well exceeded my expectations. I also think Tram has tried to do a decent job of keeping Pudge fresh. He’s caught 48 games so far, and is on pace to catch 125 for the season.
-Rondell White is having a tough month. For June he is hitting .200/.300/.286. Perhaps playing in 46 of the first 48 games has worn him down. The main knock against White has been his durabilty, and he may be getting a little fatigued. With the return of Young to the lineup he is getting more opportunities to rest. On the other hand, he may just be in a little slump, and for the year his numbers are still impressive .294/.372/.480.
-Nate Robertson’s strikeout rate is falling from it’s lofty levels, but he’s still been effective. He has strung together 5 consecutive quality starts. Nate’s K/9 for his last 5 outings is 5.61, which is pretty typical. He’s staying effective because he’s walking fewer hitters as well. In his first 9 apperances, his BB/9 was 5.10 but in his last 5 it’s been 2.14. Because he’s walking fewer guys, he’s been able to stay in games longer without increasing his pitch count. Robertson has gone 6 2/3 or more in each of his last 3 outings. This seems to conform with the Bob Cluck approach of not nibbling too much, and let guys put the ball in play. I don’t mind that approach for some of the softer throwers that don’t have typical strike out stuff. Robertson on the other hand has shown an ability to strike guys out, and I think it would be a mistake to discourage that part of his game.
-While I have been critical of Trammell on several of his coaching decisions, he does deserve to be recognized for his care with the starting pitchers. Here are the maximum pitch counts for his starters this year: Maroth-117, Bonderman-114, Knotts-112, Johnson-111, Robertson-110. Typically Tram’s starters throw between 95 and 110 pitches. Also, in the case of Knotts and Robertson, it took a several apperances before they were allowed a full workload. There first few starts were capped at 75 pitches.
-And school is finally getting out. Attendance for the weekend series with the Marlins was 93,042.