PREGAME: The Twins come to town and have been struggling. Nate Robertson will be taking on Brad Radke. Radke is sporting an uncharacteristic 7.50 ERA. As has been the case several times this year, I hope that a struggling pitcher doesn’t find his groove against the Tigers (see Paul Byrd).
Carlos Guillen, Pudge Rodriguez, Magglio Ordonez, and Craig Monroe have all had success in the past against Radke. Going the other way, Twins hitters haven’t had a lot of experience against Robertson. Lew Ford has 7 hits in 21 at-bats and Torii Hunter is hitting .222 against Nate. Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer are still looking for their first hits.
In any case, the Tigers and Twins will be seeing a lot of each other. Nine of Detroit’s next 19 games are agaisnt the Twins.
POSTGAME: The Tigers blank the Twins 9-0 behind Nate Robertson.
There are two things I’d like to point out:
1. While it hasn’t happened on this site, either from me or in the comments, Robertson has received a good deal of grief. There have been calls for him to head to the bullpen to make room for Jordan Tata/Jason Grilli/Joel Zumaya/etc. Robertson has had one bad outing this year, and two spectacular ones. Now he won’t continue to be as dominant as he was the last two outings, but I’d hope he has at least earned the benefit of the doubt.
2. I guess I needn’t have worried about Brad Radke correcting himself. It just seems that too many times in the last several/dozen years we’ve seen struggling pitcher against struggling offense, and which ever role the Tigers are assuming, their counterpart seems to self-correct. I have to say it was nice to be on the good side.
A. Well I guess I had a third thing, but it really wasn’t that important. With Pudge catching the whole game, it appears that Vance Wilson will once again be catching Justin Verlander. I know last year it was by design. This year I don’t know if it has been a concious effort to have Wilson catching Verlander, or if it’s just working out that way.
I think WYSIWYG with Robertson. He has just enough stuff to dazzle you on a good day, but not enough to do it on a regular basis. I’m ok with that though. Every team needs a couple decent arms to round out the rotation.
I liked the 7 walks tonight.
Robertson and Maroth have both been much more consistent. You have to wonder if Rogers has had something to do with that.
14-9. I am very pleased thus far, even with the two miserable shutouts I got to see in Anaheim.
I saw Toledo play four times last week in North Carolina. Unfortunately I did not see Miner pitch. I did see Ledezma against Durham and he looked excellent. Good velocity and control. Woodyard threw one pitch to BJ Upton, a game-ending grand slam. Durbin looked good and Lewis did ok. He does not, however, have 92-93 stuff back yet. The hitting looks pretty bad. No power to speak of apart from Phelps and he was whiffing like mad. Hessman generates a lot of wind as well. Ludwick can hit a little. Hannahan got a bunch of hits and played 3b, 2b, 1b and LF. Making him a utility guy? Hessman played 3b most games; but Hannahan is a lot better defender. Kelly looked good but then got hurt. All in all I’d say they are a .500 team, maybe less. Certainly the top talent is in the lower minors.
I agree Robertson has been criticized too much. There are certain players who seem to get ripped a lot for no obvious reason and he has been one of them. I’m very pleased that he has pitched two great games in a row. I agree with Jeff’s asessment of Robertson.
Lee