PREGAME: Baseball Reference continues to develop really cool stuff. My game thread prep was usually drawn in large part from that site. Now they’ve made it even easier – by compiling game preview. Here’s tonight’s for the Tigers/Nats match-up.

Looks like my work here is done. Off to play a quick game of pickle with the family before the game starts.

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: So that’s what a real blow out feels like…

• Sean Casey finally goes yard. I didn’t call it tonight (cuz I didn’t expect it) so I won’t take credit for being a couple days off. The silent treatment in the dugout was great.
• And Neifi doubles. You know things are going right.
• Rod and Mario seemed very loose in the booth tonight. Favorite moment came early on when Rod lamented not going to Montreal. He said it was a great city, clean. Mario asked him his favorite part – pregnant pause – Rod “umm..the restaurants?” – Mario – “I see”
• All 3 pitchers made cases to keep their current roles tonight. Durbin was very solid again – 5K’s, no walks and a 4.37 ERA for the season. Wil Ledezma fanned 3 in 2 innings and Frankie DLC looked very good for the second consecutive night.
• With a 3 for 3 and another double, things keep going well for Magglio. Baseball Musings notes that even if he returns to his normal double pace here on out, he still threatens the record of 67. Never mind. Bad math. But still visit Baseball Musings on a regular basis. Nice catch Kyle

PREGAME: One NL series down, 2 to go. This time the Tigers head to Washington D.C. to take on the Nationals. The Nats are chuck full of former Tigers including Nook Logan, Dmitri Young (who is really doing well, sobriety – who knew?), and Robert Fick. Each made their mark on the Tigers in their own special way with Logan being the only member of the trio not to be a Tiger All Star representative.

The Tigers will send out Mike Maroth who may be auditioning for several teams tonight with Kenny Rogers definitely returning to the rotation on Friday. Maroth wiggled out of jams in his last start and handed a 1 run lead to Fernando Rodney and well, we know how that worked out.

The Tigers will take on Matt Chico. His peripherals are pretty unimpressive with him fanning only 5 per 9 and walking almost 4. But he’s been much better in his last 4 starts with a 2.74 ERA.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: Well the bullpen looked good for awhile. Bobby Seay allowed a couple inherited runners to score, but also got a couple outs which were more important at the time. Jason Grilli went an 1 1/3 pretty easily. Eulogio De La Cruz looked very good in his debut, attacking the strike zone and showing a good fastball, a sharp curve and a change that subtracted 12mph. And then Jones happened.

It’s questionable whether Jones should be in the game, and in Leyland’s presser he says that 4 runs is a save situation for them this year. It’s hard to argue with that given the collective struggles and inconsistency this season. So Jones comes in and it’s basically batting practice. It took 5 hits before Leyland bothered to get anybody up in the bullpen, because you don’t want to mess with your closer’s confidence. Funny thing is, is that once Tim Byrdak started warming up, Todd Jones got the next 3 outs. Ugly.

• Maroth was cruising in this game. He’d even racked up 4 K’s in the first 5 innings. And then his defense collapsed behind him. He could have been out of that inning with nothing scoring. Instead after a single Gary Sheffield really misplayed a flyball into a double. Curtis Granderson threw a bullet to third, right on the bag in plenty of time but Brandon Inge misses the ball. Worst case is it should have been one out and none on and one run in. Next Carlos Guillen boots a ball, so instead of none on, 2 out another run scores and an a runner is on first. That’s what shortened Maroth’s outing.
• Curtis Granderson continues to hit the ball well, with a couple more hard hit balls off a lefty. He’s got to see more time in the lineup and less platooning.
• Carlos Guillen saw his batting average dip below .300. He’s now hit in 7 straight and has pushed his average to .317, and he’s crushing the ball.

PREGAME: So today will be Justin Verlander’s turn to flail hopelessly at the plate. Of course, no one really cares about Verlander’s lack of hits at the plate, but they do want to see how long he can keep this no hitter thing going on the mound.

The Tigers will hope for better success against Adam Eaton than they had with Jamie Moyer. Craig Monroe has yet to play in this series, so we’ll see if Leyland works him into the lineup today against the right hander.

Oh yeah, and I think Sean Casey homers today.

Game Time 1:05

POSTGAME: Happy Father’s Day by the way. I kind of forgot about that this morning. On to the game.

Great win for the Tigers. Solid starting pitching, timely late inning hitting, and a relatively stress free outing from the bullpen. But let’s focus on the 7th inning and Jim Leyland for a few minutes. This was the inning when all the managing took place, and it’s an example of why I have a hard time blaming managers for losses. I’ll walk you through my thoughts as the action transpired.

Brandon Inge doubles with one out and Jim Leyland pinch hits Carlos Guillen for Neifi Perez
Me: Finally this offense starts to resemble something. Let’s hope it’s not too late – but good move Jim.
Carlos Guillen singles to put runners on the corners and Gary Sheffield steps to the plate
Me: It’s all or nothing this inning, but of course Sheffield can stay in the game and go to left field. Monroe’s almost as bad today with 3 straight pop outs. I guess it depends on how deep this inning goes, but if Monroe makes the last out the pitcher can take his spot. And why didn’t Inge score on that play, Rings and EZ are going to come on here in the comments and bash him and I’ll another Inge war on my hands.
Sheffield hits a rocket to score Inge and put runners on first and second. Charlie Manuel brings in the lefty and Leyland pinch hits Infante for Granderson.
Me: Nice job Sheff, but what is Leyland doing? Granderson has been hitting rockets all series, off of both lefties and righties. This is exactly what Manuel wanted to happen and Leyland played right into it. Not to mention weakening the outfield defensively. This game is still in doubt either way, and why do you want Grandy out?
Omar taps the ball to the pitcher advancing the runners, Polanco gets intentionally walked to pitch to Monroe.
Me: Nice job with the lineup today Leyland. How many teams will give a free pass to the number 2 hitter to face the number 3 hitter? Then again how many teams have their out making-est regular hitting in front of their best run producer? So much for this rally. Oh man Craig, please do something. For everyone’s sake.
Craig singles in two, and Magglio knocks in two with a double before Casey ends the inning.
Me: Now what should Jim do? He could put the new pitcher in Casey’s spot since he made the last out, and bring in Thames. Trouble is he’s the last position player. Well, I guess he’ll just put Sheffield in left and the pitcher can take Craig’s spot in the lineup, it won’t come up for 7 more batters.
The new pitcher Bobby Seay takes Sheffield’s spot
Me: What the heck is going on? You burned through Sheff for one at-bat, and now the pitcher is scheduled to bat 4th in the next inning as well? Why do that? This better not come back to haunt us.

My point in this exercise is that there were a couple moves that I really questioned – starting with the lineup – and yet the Tigers won going away. Sometimes the decisions, even the ones that don’t make sense, work out. That doesn’t make them the right decisions, but they ended up with the Tigers picking up a W. I also wanted to show that I’ll even second guess decisions that pan out and I’m not just slamming things after the fact. Thanks for joining me in my head.

Other notes:

• Very nice outing today by Fernando Rodney. He came in a high pressure situation and got the strike out. He then followed it up with a strong 8th inning allowing only a double, and ground ball right through Carlos Guillen’s legs to score the run. Inexplicably that was ruled a hit and an earned run. Just as curious a scoring decision as Pudge’s double in game 1 that Rowand dropped.
• Rodney threw 39 pitches meaning that he probably won’t be available tomorrow at least, and possibly not until Wednesday.
• Todd Jones kept it simple allowing just a single. It’s almost like the bullpen of last year reappeared for an afternoon.
• A couple of awesome defensive plays in this one with Granderson showing his ups, and Casey showing his moxie. I can’t believe that Dobbs, the runner on 3rd didn’t score on the Casey play, but it was a nice job regardless.
• Granderson picked up his 8th steal and is closing in on a quadruple double – double digits in homers, triples, doubles, and steals. I just made that up, but considering he’s one homer and 2 steals away and it’s mid June, that seems impressive.
• The strike zones the last 2 games were ridiculous. Guillen got hosed on Saturday night, and then Bill Welke’s zone was all over the place today. And the Phillies were right to be pissed on that Marcus Thames pitch. Whether or not he swung (which he did) shouldn’t have mattered. That pitch was a strike regardless. And to not appeal is just foolish on the part of the home plate ump.

Tigers 7 Phillies 4

PREGAME: Andrew Miller is pitching for the Tigers so the opposing starter must be an ancient 40 year old – ah look, it’s Jamie Moyer. Okay, so it’s only the second time it happened (with Braden Looper being the other starter Miller has faced), but the only possible way to move up the old crafty left hander ladder from Tom Glavine is to go to Jamie Moyer right?

In any case, Miller has limited opponents to a .622 OPS in his 2 starts. A key may be taking care of the leadoff hitter who has reached base in 5 of the 12 innings Miller has started. Of course it hasn’t bothered Miller to pitch from the stretch because over 27 PA’s with men on, he’s held the opposition to a 130/231/261 line.

As for Moyer, he made his major league debut when Andrew Miller was 13 months old. Moyer has been pitching like a guy who is older than dirt over his last 6 starts with a 6.69 ERA and 55 baserunners allowed in 35 innings. Ivan Rodriguez is hitting 369/423/615 against Moyer in his career and that spans 65 at-bats.

Game Time 7:05 – This game is on FSN + so check here for the channel on your cable/satellite system

PREGAME: The Tigers make their first journey to a National League park this season. So here we are, real baseball. Pitchers hitting. Double switches. There’s nothing like seeing a sacrifice bunt with 1 out. Or the excitement of seeing a pitcher who’s having a great game lifted for a pinch hitter. Maybe it’s because I’m from an American League city, and I’m at an age where the DH has always existed, but I just don’t get the appeal of the NL. I’m pro DH all the way.

But on to tonight’s contest. The Phillies are currently residing in second place in the NL East. They lead the NL in scoring, walks, and on base percentage. They’re 2nd in slugging percentage and 3rd in home runs. So it’s probably a good thing that Bonderman-Miller-Verlander (aka The Future) are set to throw in this series.

Tonight it’s Jeremy Bonderman’s turn. In his last start, he seemed to pitch pretty well but his final line was an unimpressive 6 runs allowed in 6+ innings with 4 K’s.

The Tigers will be facing Jon Lieber. Lieber’s last start was a complete game 11 K shut out of the Kansas City Royals. He’s been much better on the road with a 651 OPS allowed on the road and 824 at home. Sean Casey is 17 for 38 lifetime off Lieber and Neifi Perez has 2 homers in 21 at-bats against him.

And as a final note, Jose Mesa made his first appearance for the Phillies and allowed 2 runs in 1 1/3 innings with 2 wild pitches.

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME Ergh the bullpen. Again. Is there any other team that can really use every bit of an 8 run cushion like the Tigers?

• Bonderman had allowed 5 homers all season, and then 4 solo shots tonight. He wasn’t nearly as sharp as his last outing against the Mets, yet the result was the same.
• Great game once again by the offense, and everybody contributed in one way or another. Casey had 4 hits, but Pudge gets the nod for blowing the game apart with 5 two-out RBI.
• I really think Casey will get his first homer this series, and really thought he had it tonight.
• Brandon Inge drew 2 intentional walks. That was the good. After having a great couple of weeks, he went back to looking tentative with a couple half/check swing strikeouts.
• The one good thing about pitchers batting is watching all the other pitchers laugh at the sacrificial lamb from the dugout. And with Bondo going station to station tonight, there was quite a bit to take in.
• Technically, Fernando Rodney’s string of 5 straight appearances allowing a run was snapped. Yes he only recorded one out, and yes an inherited runner scored, but the streak is broken.

Detroit 12 Philadelphia 8