Roger DeWitt, Lakeland area photographer and member of Motown Sports snapped this photo of Rick Porcello in the Instructional League this afternoon. You can find more photos from today at in Roger’s Flickr stream. In there is a picture of Porcello playing catch with Joel Zumaya’s little brother, Richard.
Monthly Archives: September 2007
links for 2007-09-20
-
The guy in charge of the Tiger Stadium auction is answering questions about the auction, items up for sale, and other things. His contribution starts on page 3 of the thread.
-
Save the date: March 31 the season kicks off in KC. The home opener is April 4th.
-
This time it’s a best dressed MLB’er award from SI.
How I’m coping – or – it’s hard to be a fan
One thing I’ve learned doing this blog is that being a fan of any team is a very personal thing. Fans approach their love for their teams in a myriad of ways, and this is manifested when the teams are at their lowest point. After all, when the team is winning that is when all types of fans band together and celebrate. High fives are exchanged and wins are cherished, but when things go south the reactions are so varied.
For some being a fan is all about the payoff. It’s all about seeing the team win. There’s the portion of fans who are happy to have a good team, and there are others who aren’t satisfied unless the team wins a championship.
There are others where fandom is about the process, the journey. It’s about enjoying the beauty of the sport and hanging on each moment throughout a long season.
Some want to have players they like and respect and who represent the team well. Guys that you want to pull for, who you want to see succeed. Others don’t give a damn about character. It’s just win baby.
And when a season ends without that championship, the responses are very different. There are emotional responses, analytical responses, silver linings to search for, and blame to assign. Most fans seem to do all of the above to some extent.
With a very long preamble now out of the way, I in no way expect others to deal with this the way I am. This is just one moderately humble bloggers take.
On Monday night when Casey Blake jumped around the bases, it was a punch in the gut. Much like Curtis Granderson slipping in game 4 of the World Series I pretty much knew at that moment that playoff hopes were lost. It hurt going to bed, and it didn’t get any better when I woke up the next morning. But as I felt when game 5 of the series got underway, when the first pitch was thrown Tuesday night I was quite calm. Sure I still had a little bit of hope, but I also knew that barring something extraordinary the season was done. As the Indians launched an aerial assault on their own fans, it just became clearer. So instead of supreme frustration last night, it was merely a sigh.
I know that in time I’ll do a deep dive analysis. In the meantime I’m going to enjoy the last week of the Tigers season. I know that the games don’t have larger implications. It will just be enjoying baseball for the sake of baseball and spending a couple nights more nights at the ballpark soaking up those summertime sounds and smells. It’ll be a couple more nights laying in bed with my son while the Tigers and I tuck him in at night.
There’s a part of me that says, who cares, shut it off. But then there is the other part of me that knows there will be nights in January where I’m craving baseball. And I know in February I’ll be so excited to see a bunch of grown men laying in the outfield stretching as newspaper headlines say “Pitchers and Catchers Report.” And I’ll tune in at work when the Tigers play their first exhibition game against Florida Southern and I’ll be dreading the end of spring training where all I want are games that count. And then we’ll do the dance again.
And I can go into this last week knowing that despite the fact my team won’t be playing for anything, I had nightly entertainment for the last 6 months. I still have a team that went from being a joke for a decade to posting a 178-138 record over the last 2 years. I had a team where a young centerfielder made history. I saw a veteran who is past his prime put together the best offensive season I’ve experienced from a member of the hometown 9 and I want to see him hang on to his batting title for one more week.
Yeah, I’m more of an optimist. And yeah, the team broke my heart. But they also gave me so much more, and I’m going to keep taking from these last 9 games as I did from the 153 before. The good, the bad, the frustrating, the thrilling – I’ll take it all.
links for 2007-09-19
-
He’s willing to move to first, but only if that shortstop is of a Renteria/Cabrera (and presumably Alex Rodriguez) type player. Not for a Jack Wilson type player.
-
Morosi frames the same story somewhat differently, and I disagree with his assessment. It’s not just about Guillen’s defense at shortstop. It’s that combined with Casey’s lack of offense at first that has Santiago in the lineup.
-
Cataloging pitches using pitchF/X data
Game 153: Tigers at Indians
PREGAME: Nate Robertson and CC Sabathia today.
Game Time 12:05
DET @ CLE, Wednesday, September 19, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com
Game 152: Tigers at Indians
PREGAME: The Tigers get back at if after last night’s tough loss. Fortunately, this team does seem to have a short memory for these types of things. Justin Verlander will do his best to give the team the same kind of chance that Kenny Rogers did last night. Verlander has been awesome his last 4 starts with 3 runs allowed in 28 2/3 innings and a 26:6 K/BB ratio. But in his last 5 starts against the Tribe dating back to last year they’ve hung at least 7 runs on him in 3 of those starts.
Jake Westbrook takes the ball for Cleveland tonight. In his last start against Detroit he allowed just 7 baserunners and no runs over 8 innings. It was one of the few starts where the Tigers couldn’t get to him.
Marcus Thames is in the lineup playing left field tonight while Timo is on the bench. Ramon Santiago starts again at shortstop with Carlos Guillen playing first.
Game Time 7:05
DET @ CLE, Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com
POSTGAME: Not much to figure out in this one. Tigers – lots of hits and all but one were singles. There were clutch hits, but with the singles they needed to string together a bunch. The Indians, a few hits and all homers 15 rows back. Justin Verlander was living at the belt all day, he simply couldn’t find the bottom of the zone and the balls got tatoo’d.
Game 151: Tigers at Indians
PREGAME: Here we are, the Cleveland series. The last 3 chances for the Tigers to exert their will on the teams they are chasing. I can’t remember being this nervous for a game, maybe game 2 of the ALDS, but even then I’m not sure. I guess I’m nervous because not so much of what a win would mean – that just keeps the window of hope alive – but what a loss would do to already slim playoff chances. There’s been lots of talk about “if the Yankees win X” or “if the Indians win Y” and none of it matters as much as “if the Tigers win tonight.”
As for the match-up it’s Kenny Rogers and Paul Byrd. The Tigers have scored some runs off of Byrd in 3 starts this year, but he’s still a good bet to get to the 7th inning while giving his team a chance to win. He won’t walk more than 1 or 2, so pitch count isn’t usually a concern.
Rogers is making just his second start against the Indians this year, so maybe a slight edge to the Tigers in the “lack of familiarity” department. Rogers should be stretched out after throwing 83 and 94 pitches in his last 2 starts, but it’s more a matter of how his elbow holds up.
One thing to watch is what happens if the Tigers have a slim lead late in the game. Todd Jones has thrown 3 days in a row, and of course yesterday was especially rocky. I’d be surprised if he was available. And Joel Zumaya has thrown the last 2 days, but he didn’t throw a lot of pitches in either outing so we might still see him.
Game Time 7:05
DET @ CLE, Monday, September 17, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com
POSTGAME: Crushed. Me, the team, the season, the postseason hopes. Crushed.
links for 2007-09-17
-
Lee notes that Curtis Granderson is the first player in history with a quad-22.
-
Buried at the bottom are notes that Cale Iorg and Jeramy Laster will be playing in the Hawaiian Winter League. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but it sounds like a sweet gig.
-
An enhanced gameday break down of Jurrjens start against the Twins. He went very fastball heavy, but the good news is that his velocity increased as the game went on.
-
A compendium of impending free agent lists
links for 2007-09-16
-
Do the Tigers bring Jonesy back? Does Jones accept any role in the bullpen to stay with Detroit?
-
Before the season I would have said Grady – as much as I love Grandy – based on age and OBP. But offensively right now it’s a push and Grandy is the better defender.
-
Sam recaps Blogger night, with lots of pictures. She summed up the high points and made fun of me for eating a fajita. Like last year there were lots of laughs and a good time was had by most.
-
All the pics from blogger night. Sam is quite amazing.
-
Kurt picks apart Tony Demarco’s slam piece of the Tigers.
Game 150: Tigers at Twins
PREGAME: The Tigers look for their first series sweep since…the last time the Tigers were in the Metrodome. It will be Jair Jurrjens taking on Scott Baker.
Baker has been a tough match-up for the Tigers this year throwing a complete game 1 run 3 hit effort and adding another quality start in his last outing.
The Tigers will send out Jair Jurrjens who has reclaimed a spot in the rotation coming off the DL. In one respect Jurrjens has been pitching lucky with only 7 strike outs in his 20 innings of work. At the same time opposing hitters haven’t been able to center the ball. And Jurrjens is still capable of inducing some swings and misses with his curve ball.
Game Time 2:10 p.m.
POSTGAME: Did anyone else have flashbacks to Oakland? A chance to gain ground on the Indians. A comfortable early lead for the Tigers. Five innings of no hit baseball from a Tiger starter. Fernando Rodney and Todd Jones melting down.
Fortunately the Tigers did enough to hang on this time, adding a couple runs late and Jones hanging on to the lead by his fingertips.
Overshadowed in the bullpen walk-a-thon and adventures in fielding was the fact that Jurrjens was awesome. Clearly it was his best start of the season as he finally started to add some strikeouts taking his season total from 7 to 13 today. Despite entering the 6th with a no hitter, he was never really a threat to pitch a complete game as his pitch count and previous injury just wouldn’t allow it.
Offensively it was a balanced attack with every starter picking up a hit except Pudge Rodriguez (playing the day game after a night game) and Pudge even contributed a key run with a sacrifice fly.
In the end though the Tigers have a 5 game win streak, their first streak that long since they won the last 5 going into the All Star Break. They also picked up a series sweep, their first since the last trip to the Metrodome. Yes the Twins are a dead team right now, watching Michael Cuddyer take pitch after pitch right down the middle was, well, pathetic. But the Tigers still took care of business and did what they had to to make the last 2 weeks of the season compelling.
DET @ MIN, Sunday, September 16, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com
Tiger Stadium stuff up for auction
Sales began at 6:00 a.m. this morning for Tiger Stadium memorabilia, and by 9:00 a.m. the web site was already down. Nice. Even when the city of Detroit contracts with other people stuff gets screwed up.
Still, you can get Tiger Stadium seats which are available on a first come first serve basis. For $279 including shipping you get a pair of regular seats or you can get Tiger Den seats for $399 a pair. The pairs of seats come as-is (dirty, dusty, rusty), but functional. I’m still really tempted and it comes down to the degree of irritation I want to inflict on Mrs. Billfer.
Other stuff that I saw up for auction before the site crashed included a bunch of signage, some benches from the dugout, some doors, and the urinal from the Home lockerroom. Bidding on the urinal opened at $100.
UPDATE: The site is back up, and as a public service here is the direct link to the home dugout urinal. Picture self peeing alongside Hank Greenberg, Al Kaline, Denny McClain and many other greats.
Welcome to TigerstadiumSale
Whitecaps win Midwest League Championship
Congratulations to the West Michigan Whitecaps on their MWL Championship. The Caps won the rubber game in a best of 5 series 11-6 over the Beloit Snappers.
It was a night of big innings as West Michigan used an 8 run 5th inning to wipe out the Beloit 5 run 3rd inning.
Scott Sizemore and Michael Bertram each had 3 hits to lead the offensive attack.
Charlie Furbush was knocked out in that 3rd inning and Luis Marte came on in relief and threw 5 shutout innings allowing just 2 hits and no walks while fanning 9.
Congratulations to manager Tom Brookens and the rest of this year’s Whitecaps.
The Surge – Whitecaps Baseball: West Michigan Whitecaps – 2007 MWL Champions
Minor League Baseball: Scoreboard: Scoreboard