PREGAME: The series shifts to St. Louis and the new Busch stadium. Busch has played as slightly more of a pitchers park than Comerica Park has. The pitching match-up will be Nate Robertson against Chris Carpenter.
The Tigers faced Carpenter once this year and jumped on him for 9 hits, 6 for extra bases, and scored 7 runs over 7 innings. It was an interesting line for Carpenter in that he also fanned 9 Tigers hitters and walked none.
In terms of individual match-ups, most of the Tigers have decent career numbers against Carpenter. Pudge Rodriguez has a 970 OPS over 26 at-bats against Carpenter. Given that Pudge is 0-fer a long time, this help get him on track.
Carpenter has been much better at home this year with a 1.82 ERA and only 7 homers allowed over 124 innings. He is brutal on right handers with a 571 OPS against. Left handers do substantially better, but still not good, with a 727 OPS but that’s kind of what makes Carpenter the staff ace.
Nate Robertson has limited experience against the Cardinals lineup. Ronnie Belliard has a pretty good track record and is 8 for 25. Preston Wilson though has 5 at-bats, and 5 hits off of Robertson. And with Wilson slotted right in front of Albert Pujols, there’s not pitching around him.
Detroit Lineup
CF- Granderson
LF – Monroe
2B – Polanco
RF – Ordonez
SS – Guillen
C – Rodriguez
1B- Casey
3B – Inge
P- Robertson
Carlos Guillen’s efforts are largely going to waste with Rodriguez failing to generate any offense. If he doesn’t do something this game, against a pitcher he’s had success against, he’s got to be moved down in the order.
St. Louis Lineup
SS- Eckstein
LF – Wilson
1B- Pujols
3B- Rolen
2B- Belliard
CF- Edmonds
C- Molina
RF – Taguchi
P – Carpenter
I give credit to La Russa for sandwiching Pujols with the 2 hitters who have had a solid track record against Robertson.
Game Time 8:30ish, or about 10 minutes after you think you can’t possibly take any more Zelasko.
Wow. I thought Girardi was gonna walk out after the third time she asked him if he’d gotten a phone call.
I’m having a wave of euphoric disbelief right now. They come in waves. I can’t believe I’m watching Tigers/Cards game 3 WS. Go Tigers!!!!!
Boy Carpenter is throwing hot stuff. Let’s hope this is a pitcher’s duel and Nate can hold up.
Doesn’t help that the Tigers are swinging away like mad. I don’t mind Maggs’ first-pitch swing, that was a good pitch to hit. But what was Pudge doing?
It’s been pretty painful watching FOX broadcast these games, but I have to admit that the piece on left-handed pitchers who wear glasses was pretty funny.
Nate looks very good so far, the fortnight off has made him sharp.
Nate got screwed on the 1-2 pitch to Edmonds. That was right down the middle and yet called a ball. It turned a 12 pitch inning into a 24 pitch inning
Nice, an Inge single.
Granderson~~~~ Swinging on two balls, no strikes…at least take one…
How about some hits this inning….
Why are Tiger fans obsessed with umpiring? Any time there is a borderline pitch called against the Tigers it always seems to merit a mention.
When the Tigers lost game 1 to the Yankees there were literally a dozen rants against pitch calls against Jeter. Even in games the Tigers WIN there are rants against umpiring.
Yet, strangely, when the Tigers get the benefit of borderline calls (and, yes, there have been) not a peep is heard.
I realize I’m nitpicking, but it’s my biggest pet peeve: only losers blame bad umpiring.
Darrin –
I haven’t blamed a loss on bad umpiring. I also don’t tend to make a big deal about borderline calls. That pitch was dead center.
And all fans complain about umpiring.
This is a big inning coming up(Bottom 4th): The heart of the order and the second time Robertson has faced them.
This inning isn’t looking good…
This is a very frustrating inning. Nate’s so tough normally, hopefully he can get out of this.
Lucky to escape that with just 2 on the board…
OK this could have been a forest fire but ended up being a campfire, lets get these runs right back.
Darrin, Love the fact that your a Yankee fan in Mich. I am a Tiger fan in Upstate NY in the land of Yankee, and yes we Tiger fans call’m like we see them, he was hosed and it was properly pointed as a hose job. As far as being losers I think thats kinda of harsh MR.
It is a Tiger site so we will remain biased to our team. Your team is golfing and we did not call them losers. If you keep this up we will trade you Neifi Perez for A-Rod
We Need Runs
OK, our hitters look lost in the wilderness…
By the way the Nippon Ham Fighters are up 2-1 in the series against the Chuunichi Dragons in Japan’s Championship series…the Ham Fighters have an American coach (Trey Hillman), which makes it a little interesting.
Granderson is back in Mr. Strikeout mode…
Zumaya’s breaking ball on Taguchi was wicked. I’m not sure I’ve seen a ball break that much from him all season. If that’s a taste of his future, I’m excited.
How about a run or two. We look like we just saw the Boogie man, Lets go
Time to get something started…lucky 7!
This sucks especially that we are only down two…
Darrin, there’s some great Cards sites out there if you want to post. Check out vivaelbirdos.
Darrin got OWNED
POWNED
Well, no matter what happens in the series, our young guys can take a lot from this experience…
Man, that Zumaya throw felt like a kick in the gut.
The only thing worse than Zumaya’s throw is McCarver, who won’t shut up about how he should have thrown to second. The ball was hit so hard, I think it was actually a pretty smart idea to go 1-5-3. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea in retrospect, but it certainly wasn’t a stupid idea. I’m tuning into WXYT and muting the television. I can’t handle it anymore.
Guys – easy on Darrin. He’s been around throughout the playoffs. It’s all good.
No fun at all.
Well, the nice thing about the double play is that Leyland doesn’t have to bring in Rodney now.
Mark: Phenomenal idea. McCarver is a rough listen.
Good start by Nate. Poor relief by Zumaya. Dead bats. Carpenter on his game. = tough loss.
Hate to say it, but the week off looks to have killed Granderson and Pudge, who have been hot sine mid-September but can be streaky. Polanco is solid so I’m not sure what his problem is, maybe hoisting the ALCS MVP trophy a little too much.
We got to relax and let the wood fly. Right now, we’re looking at fastballs down the heart and swinging at crap 10 inches off the plate.
Bonderman tomorrow!
Nope.
And Neifi’s back!
Ummm, why is Rodney in? It’s a low leverage situation and Zumaya is already burned out for tomorrow night.
Alright, McCarver is on my list. The guy’s got to let it go. Maybe he needs to recall ’68 a bit more. What a jacka**!!!
Sorry Bilfer, but geez! Guess I need to take my own advice, the volume’s off!
“Last time a guy colored a game with such useless info was 2005 when I called the World Series between the Houston Astros and the White Sox.”
Agreed on Mccarver. The fact that he went to third was not a problem. Even if they don’t turn two, he still gets the lead runner. And no, Polanco was no closer to the bag than Inge was. The only problem with the play was that he threw it behind Inge. If If he goes to second and throws it behind Polanco, the runners still get atleast one extra base.
Besides, maybe he was going for the triple play? 🙂
Billfer, atleast we can take solace in the fact that Rodney didn’t use up any of his good pitches.
Rodney’s still available tomorrow nite. I think Joel would be too.
Tim McCarver, the Younger.
Had to do it.
http://www.shutuptimmccarver.com/gems.htm
More walks and Carpenter keeps getting a breather…
Prior to Miner entering the game, Tigers relievers had thrown 62 pitches. Only 27 were strikes. This has been very painful to watch.
There’s no way that was Neifi over there at 3rd on that play. Jim Leyland must’ve called up Brooks Robinson or something. What a play!
I’m kind of surprised that they have had such embarrassing at-bats, given that they’ve been really good in the playoffs. This looks like the Tigers of September. How on earth can you have that kind of gameplan at the plate in a World Series game?
I don’t think the Cardinals are winning this series, the Tigs are losing it. If the Tigers from the A’s series showed up, this would be 3-0.
The Bad Tigers have returned…How can they be hitting so poorly? Is this August/September again?
Oh my, how depressing. It’s been a great run, but man, if they don’t really turn things around with the bats, it’s going to be hard to get this thing back to Detroit.
I still believe they can, but my confidence sure is wavering.
not gonna win a lot of games when your 1-6 hitters go 0-20. embarassing.
Well Anthony while I would liek to agree with you, We stunk tonight NOBODY showed up.
We need to turn it on quick, need the next 3 out of 4 I hope we can pull this off
same old tigers. it sometimes seems as if theplayers think they’ll get fined or something if they have an at bat longer than 3 pitches.
Quite a bit of pressure to win the next two games now. If St. Louis wins one of the two, LaRussa could save Carpenter for game 7, pitching on normal rest. Hard to believe the Tigers would have much of a chance after their performance against him tonight. Better to make LaRussa pitch Carpenter and Suppan on short rest in games 6 and 7.
Here’s hoping Bonderman can put the team on his back tomorrow night . . .
The way this club is hitting right now, our pitchers need to be perfect. And the defensive lapses are killers.
It’s ok. Bondo tomorrow. He’ll get em.
Our hitters seemed like they all had that deer-in-the-headlights look tonight. You’d think they’d be feeling good coming off the game 2 win? Man, they just looked confused. We need a little fire tomorrow!
You can almost look at this as the Yankees series. Before tonight it was essentially a best of five series. Nate Robertson loses game one, like he did at Yankee Stadium. Here, we get to see Bonderman, Verlander, and Rogers again if we do indeed win one of the next two games.
Bonderman has been excellent, so I look for him against Suppan tomorrow to win. The Verlander game is versus Reyes again, and I think we’ll do plenty better against him this time around. Then, you have the Rogers game. And you can almost automatically say that’s a win…except you can’t. However, if we lose any of those games, God help us. If it comes to game 7, um. We’re done.
All right – just want to tell you guys. I don’t see us winning this series. I hope we do, I just don’t think we will.
Bondo. Verlander. Rogers. Would you bet against those three in a row? I don’t think so. Suppan. Veres. Weaver. Would you bet against them? I hope so. They’ll be fine.
Ok Carpenter ate us alive, hats off to him. We need to bring Suppan back to earth and have a seat next to Weaver. Joel your huge error didn’t really matter, forget it, shake it off, get em next time. Someone please wake up Polly and Pudge (and Grandy while youre at it)
Never thought I’d say this, great play by Neifi.