PREGAME: Remember when I said not to make too much out of any one game? Well, if I were tempted to make too much out of a game, this would be it. The Tigers are looking to avoid a sweep against the White Sox. If they lose it would be their 6th straight to the Sox, and would also slide them out of first place.
At least in this series, the gap between the White Sox and Tigers doesn’t seem insumountable. Two 4-3 losses are tough to take, but they aren’t devastating. The pitching has been solid against a good offensive team in a good offensive park. The offense continues to sputter, but they are having better at-bats. They are working deeper into counts and typically restricting their swings to pitches near the strike zone. I’m also not particularly concerned about the 0-12 with runners in scoring position. It isn’t good, but I don’t think there is anything fundamentally different than two weeks ago when the Tigers were performing well in those situations.
All that being said, I would love to see the Tigers pile on Jon Garland early and keep this game from even being interesting.
I’ve done okay picking Tiger stars the last two nights. Tonight I’m going with Magglio Ordonez.
POSTGAME: The Tigers didn’t pile on Garland early, but they put enough seperation to make the game uneventful. And Rodney and Jones did their part in keeping the late innings boring.
For those that wondered by Kenny Rogers, who pitched excellent, was removed it appeared to be that his back was stiffening up. He’s come out of several games around the 7th inning for the same reason. What I though was impressive, and odd, is that inthe 6th innings with a foul ball back behind first base Rogers sprinted over and was right alongside Shelton and Polanco.
As for the hitting in scoring position, the Tigers got hits tonight. They didn’t hit the ball hard, but the hits dropped in. Also, the bigger factor was that while the team was 0 for 12 the first two night, I believe they had 11 ABs with RISP last night alone. The previous games were a general offensive funk, not just a problem of clutch hitting.
In any case, that whole “they can’t beat the White Sox” thing is off their backs.
And yes – Hawk Harrelson is awful – but please no swearing in the comments. Thanks guys!
John Manuel from BBA on the Tiger draft:
John Manuel: Ron, I’m gonna throw this out at you, if you don’t like it, you can throw it right back at me . . . Detroit had an amazing first day of the draft. Miller at 6, once again a Top 25 type of Top 100 player fell to them,as happened last year with Cam Maybin. Kudos to David Chadd and ownership there for having the chutzpah to take Miller. Ron bourquin, Boesch, Ryan Strieby, Jordan Newton and Scott Sizemore are interesting college bats, and I’m a Jonah Nickerson fan. Another solid effort by Chadd, who turned in a great draft last year.
How about that 6th inning. I question the White Sox skipper’s patience with Garland this late in the game.
As if I needed a reason to despise these piles of shit anymore, but these announcers are even more unbearable (somehow) when they are losing. They have taken to riffing on Shelton for throwing 2 balls to Rogers that he could’ve taken himself. What a couple of hacks.
well, we got the 1 out of 3 I hoped for….what I gotta question (again!) is why he took Rogers out. He was pitching wonderfully. I don’t care if he had 98 pitches. He got 17 outs in a row. It didn’t hurt us this time, but Rodney did manage to walk a batter (sigh)….and even Jones in the 9th didn’t hurt us. But I’d have waited ’til Rogers started to tire before making the move. Pretty tough to argue with 17 outs in a row. Great move by Pudge to advance on the fly to deep center. And we got the hit(s) when we needed ’em. Ok, on to Toronto!
OK, Jones didnt bring out the gas tonight AND I am going to see two games in Toronto this weekend. 200 levels with my son and wife. Bondo on Friday night. I hope we pound out 11 runs.
Steve
Player IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Sanchez, H (W, 1-0) 5.2 6 1 1 2 5 0 1.59
Humberto had a nice first start in Toledo. Nook Logan is back. Maybin was supposedly going to play tonight and didn’t.
Marcus Thames is the best hitter the Tigers have at the moment. He REALLY ought to be higher in the order.
One more thing, Here are our numbers from exactly one year ago:
Detroit 27(W) 30(L) 12.0 games behind.
While we could all make an argument that we have played poorly as of late, we are in most every game and challanging ever night. This my friends is exciting. Last year at this time we were just hoping for .500. Now I would absolutly love a division and AL pennent.
See you next week……….
Steve
(PS Billfer how about a spell checker, these 11:00 posts are tough on the eyes)
He gone!
Toronto…YES!
Chi-Sox announcers are insufferable! Once the Sox clinched the title last year, I swore I’d watch the Tigs-Sox games they announce on Extra Innings this season while catching up on MP3s friends gave me.
Hawk and the other guy are pretty easy to take without the sound.
I’ll second that. A preview button would also be nice. I’ve mangled the HTML on more than a couple occasions.
A couple of things:
First… the one game I’ve been to all season (game 59) is the only one I’ve seen with no postgame comments from Billfer. Must have been my stellar report so we didn’t need one!
Second… I don’t agree with Tim (above) on Thames quite yet. My judgment might be biased by game 59; but Thames had multiple guys on base every time he came up and left them all stranded (7 LOB, which was higher than anyone else). I was frustrated that Carlos Guillen got on all 4 times, and Thames looked really bad against Contreras. Of course, I just haven’t seen the Marcus Thames who hits frequent homers…
Third… glad Rodney and Jones got good games in yest; Jones might need the confidence booster. I still don’t think Jones should be the closer any more. But… he needs some good outings to make sure he’s on track.
Finally…. glad the Tigers got a win out of the series. Hey, they outscored the White Sox 12-10 in the series!
If we win the Central this year, we can look at Pudge tagging up in the 6th inning as a turning point.
How good is Pudge. What great baseball instincts. What a great leader. I wonder if they take 2 of 3 if he is in the limeup every game.
He makes the other players around him better.
-Sam
Pudge’s tag up while injured was pure leadership. Last year, with his personal situation (and on-field difficulties) his leadership was missing.
If the Hall of Famer risks injury to take an extra base, the whole team knows how you have to play to beat good teams.
By the way, Guillen’s instincts were excellent also.
For everyone who watches the White Sox on WGN in Chicago, I recommend doing the old tv-sound-off-radio-on trick to listen to Ed Farmer and Chris Singleton. At least compared to Hawk and DJ’s execrable home/homer call, Farmer shows actual knowledge of the game (beyond DJ asking Hawk, “So how did you get ready for games when you played?”) and a degree of evenhandedness. He–shock!–gives credit to quality play of opponents, acknowledges when he is wrong, and, in doing so, gives credit to the intelligence of his audience.
Farmer seems to be trying the Steve “Nostradamus” Stone trick of anticipating strategy (though he seems to call for hit-and-run more often than any coach ever) and is often right.
Also, he’s got a wry, world-weary inflection that sounds like Chicago to me. As a Tigers fan in Chicago, I really enjoyed listening to him this past week.
For everyone who’s watching the Superstation WGN out of town, I don’t know what to say. Hawk and DJ are the pits, and maybe you should just watch the game in silence.
–Fritz
I’ve been listening to Harrelson since 1975 when he used to do Red Sox games. 32 years of the Hawk. He is awful.
My “favorite” part of Hawk’s calls last night. He kept claiming that Machoviak’s failure to hit the cut off man cost 3 or 4 runs. But, let’s review. Hitting the cut off man would not have prevented the third run. Hitting the cut off man would not have gotten Guillen out, it only would have kept Guillen at first. Now, it’s true that on the next play, Guillen would not have scored from first, but there still would have been no outs recorded on that play. In this hyptothecial world, Thames’s homer would have still scored Guillen. So, Machoviak’s lapse of judgment actually cost the White Sox zero runs, not 3 or 4 as suggested by Hawk.