2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.006: Rangers at Tigers

88 Comments

PREGAME: The Tigers look for their first 2 game winning streak of the season in another afternoon tilt against the Rangers.

Justin Verlander is on the mound for the Tigers as they start their second turn through the rotation. Verlander was the only one in the first turn that struggled as he was charged with 8 runs on Opening Day. Those 8 runs were 1 more than the other 4 starters combined to allow.

The Rangers will counter with Matt Harrison who is making his 2009 debut. Harrison posted a 5.49 ERA in 15 games as a 22 year old last year. He doesn’t strike out many (42 K’s in 83.2 innings). Lefties posted a .971 OPS against him last year.

Game Time 1:05

Texas vs. Detroit – April 11, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: How about that pitching? Justin Verlander followed up the performances of his rotation mates with a return to form so to speak. His command was great, but the Rangers couldn’t find his fastball above the belt, nor could they lay off it. The results was 8 K’s in 5 innings of work. The pitch count got a little higher than we’d like, but part of that was due to crappy left side defense in the 5th inning.

Verlander was asked to get 5 outs in that inning, and he didn’t unravel after the errors by Inge and Everett. He got a K of Michael Young after the first. He did allow a walk and then a bloop single to Hamilton that plated two. But he didn’t get rattled.

The bullpen was asked to get 12 outs, and they did it without allowing a baserunner. Nate Robertson pitched two scoreless innings, Bobby Seay got his two guys, and Ryan Perry retired one with a pop out before Fernando Rodney K’d the side in the 9th.

  • Adam Everett had entries in both sides of the leder in this game. He picked up a couple hits, drove in a couple runs, and scored from first on a double to left. He also blew a hit and run and had a costly error.
  • Miguel Cabrera looked dominant for 5 games and lost in the this 6th one.
  • Gerald Laird had a very nice game offensively and defensively. He was 3 for 4 with a hustle double and made a nice play on a foul ball reaching into the dugout.
  • How about the guy in the stands that pulled back the fan reaching for the double that Everett scored on. That guy gets an RBI.
  • Justin Verlander got 17 swings and misses in this game, and only 15 called strikes. That’s a pretty remarkable ratio.

88 thoughts on “Game 2009.006: Rangers at Tigers”

  3. I, too, am loving your iPhone mobile site!
    Thanks for the wonderful surprise!

    Go Tigers!

  8. Thought you might want to know that the new mobile look is great on Blackberry, too. (Except this comment box doesn’t wrap wright.)

  10. Glad you like the mobile edition. It’s something I’ve had on the site since last season, but about two weeks ago I broke it and just got it working again yesterday.

    And how about Adam Everett.

    I feel a little bad for the pitcher. Two ground balls and a bloop lead to two runs. But..I don’t feel that bad.

  18. The strikeouts are nice but the pitches are starting to pile up for JV. The walks and now the errors are going to shorten his day. Both errors from some of our defensive whiz kids.

  20. Jeez, ask him to get five outs this inning against this offense. I’m not happy with Everett so far. His range has been a factor, and he makes too many errors. Santiago does much better.

  26. We need more runs here. I don’t like our pen v. Rangers offense.

  28. It’s almost like having two starters. Verlander only gets through five, send Nate out there for a couple!

  30. Watch the replay of the Polanco double. A fan is reaching down for the ball and the person next to them pulls them back in to prevent the fan interference and allow Everett to score!

  36. I don’t understand Seay for Nate in the 8th. Lefty for lefty and Nate is pitching great.

  38. Nate is a baby and needs his rest. They got two solid innings out of him. Seay is a super baby, but maybe Leyland will let him go 1 full inning.

    Lyon on the other hand is a super established old timer, he can handle more than 1 inning easy if need be. Leyland told me so this past Tuesday.

  40. oh no nvm, Seay only can go 2 outs today, he has a 7 pitch limit set about by DD and enforced by teh Leylander.

  41. Then again I have Perry on both of my AL teams and since he got 1 out he lowered my team ERA by .00000000000000000000000001 yay!

  42. I’m disappointed with Everett’s D also. I was hoping he was going to be a great defensive whiz, but he’s been making mistake after mistake. At least he’s been hitting some and producing runs these last few games. I’d like to see him for a few more weeks though. 5 games is not nearly enough to come to any conclusions.

  49. Listening to Jim Price is like hearing a horse talk about eating hay. Or you could call him Mr. Obvious.

    Um guys you know its good, pretty chewy. You know you’ve got to chew it a lot. Make sure you use your saliva to break it apart. Did I mention you should chew it? Its a real exercise in jaw movement. Oh wow that fell out of my mouth. You know when hay falls out of your mouth you should dip your neck down and pick it back down and chew. Chew Chew Chew….Blah Blah Blah

  50. I feel proud =p I have got his signature on a floppy hat promo ~10 years back when I was a kid.

  54. Rodney looking like one hell of a closer today. Our pen was great today. Happy the LOB issues didn’t end up biting us.

  56. Leyland’s a genius, everything is grand in Tigerworld and the pull back guy gets a save.

  57. The Twins play the White Sox and KC plays NY. The Tigers could be tied for 1st place by the end of Today.

  58. David – genius. Though I do like Price’s voice, even if his “batting thiiiiiiiiiiiiiird” drives me nuts.

  62. Good pitching today, Verlander really showed his stuff. If it weren’t for a couple of dumb errors, he probably should have made it to the 7th. Nice to see production coming from the bottom of the line-up. Cabrera was definitely off today at the plate.

  63. It’s pretty clear that Leyland doesn’t trust Lyon in the setup role anymore. Went to Perry instead. Make sure to give the man credit. Leyland gets +1 in the book for that call.

  64. Great game today. Viewing on the Blackberry so I thought I would check DTW. Biller the view is killer now on BB.

    Let’s Go TIGERS

    Steve

  65. I wouldn’t impute Leyland’s decision re: Lyon today with any particular motive or logic. Knowing Jimmy he’s likely to trot Lyon out in the setup roll tomorrow. As we’ve seen it takes a lot before he’ll truly sour on someone’s ability to perform a given roll.

  66. Wait what if we had Fernando Rodney better than his 2006, Joel Zumaya of 2006 and Ryan Perry posted an ERA south of 3 with Seay doing the same…

    couple that with a 160 runs produced year from Inge, a MVP year from Cabby, an improved Galaraga… Porcello posting an ERA around 4, Jackson having a winning record. Verlander pushing his ERA sig. down every start, josh anderson stealing 30, Marcus Thames hitting 30+, darn it better slow down before I overheat

  68. Man, how unexpectedly good has this pitching been? Aside from Verlander’s first start, Lyon’s abortion, Rincon’s crappiness, Bonine’s mediocrity, and Porcello’s rough outing, this staff has been on fire. I’m not even being sarcastic.

  69. Kevin, I’ll agree with ya, Price’s voice is the least of his worries.

    He is going to have 70 candles on his cake in a few years, guy is gettin’ old but still as sharp 😉 as he was when I started hearing him.

  70. I didn’t even view Porcello’s outing as rough.

    And David, Anderson stealing 30? That’s a lot for a part time player who is OBP challenged.

  71. I missed the game today, but it looks like it was a good one. The line on Verlander doesn’t look good, but billfer says he did OK despite the 2 Es, so I won’t question that, although the 4 BB are troubling. The bully must have been in command (who would have thought?), and Rodney’s 3 Ks in the ninth are encouraging (Rodney + contract year = ?). Did Leyland DO anything to get credit (excuse me, but not doing something doesn’t count), or was this just a good player effort regardless of manager input? In other words is Jimbo 1-1 now or still at 0-1 in the +/- MGW/B (Managers Games Won/Blown) rankings?

  72. “I didn’t even view Porcello’s outing as rough.”

    9 hits in five innings — two of them home runs — isn’t rough? Is there a synonym you’d prefer? Even if he was unlucky on BABIP (which, considering the sample, he barely was), he lucked out on his runners stranded numbers, so it’s kind of a wash.

  73. @billfer: maybe David meant 30 in Tiger Stolen Bases, you know like when you talk about how old your dog is in dog years. I think 30 SB in Tiger SB is 8 or 9 major league stolen bases, which is definitely within reach.

  74. “Anderson stealing 30? That’s a lot for a part time player who is OBP challenged.”

    Leyland will insert him as a PR in many “base stealing” situations.

  75. Well someone yesterday was saying, big deal, so now the Tigers are on pace for a 65-97 season…well today makes that a 81-81 season so there. Besides, there was an obvious flaw in that projection–yes, the imbalance in home vs away games. A more accurate projection would be that they finish with a 20-61 road record, and 81-0 at home, which leaves us at 101-61 for the season. Not quite 1984, but enough to easily win the Central this season. Although the tickets at Comerica will be pretty frickin’ impossible to get hold of by July…

    Although I think the Tigers will be hard-pressed to keep this pace up if Cabrera doesn’t do something to break out of this horrible slump he has gotten into…

    [Actually now that I check, Mr. Gloomy projection guy was a Free Press comment, not from here, I should have known…]

  76. A nice job by the bullpen today. Robertson is surprisingly a good fit there, and maybe the contract year is helping Rodney.

  77. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the contract year has far less to do with Rodney’s success this year than a new pitching coach…

  78. I’d go with OK. He was making his debut and the only knock I have on him is the 2 homers. Those other 7 hits were all singles. One was a jam shot and two were of the infield variety. He wasn’t getting hammered around the park and he wasn’t battling control (64% of his pitches were strikes).

  79. WhiteSox up 6-0 in the bottom of the 7th. If the White Sox end up winning, say hello to the 1st place Tigers. 🙂

  81. Yea Billfer I know, if Anderson gets enough playing time to obtain 50, most likely either Guillen/Ordonez or Granderson have fallen ill for the majority of the season and none of us want anything to do with that. I don’t know how much(if any) of what I posted up there will come true.

    Even Miguel being MVP is a bit of a reach. By the end of the year usually there are several guys who put up fantastic #s. Although if he gets 150 steaks as Rod likes to call them, the field should look a lot weaker.

  82. Well we are off to a better start than last year.
    Offense will be solid all year. It feels to me that we have a better blend of starters and bench players than in the past couple years to work with.
    I have seen all or most of the games (except today) and my opinion is that we have the talent in the starters to stay in every game. (bullpen still not sure of yet) Texas has a pretty good hitting club and for the most part our pitching was better or much better than them.
    Looking forward in the schedule we have a variety of teams to see what we really have in starters. Good hitting teams like the Angels on the road and the Yankees at home will give us a good indication of where we stack up against the really good hitting teams. May brings us 17 division games so Im thinking that by Memorial day weekend we will have an idea if this team is gelling and good enough to run all year. I like the fact that it “feels” like we can make a run.

    Is it possible a new pitching coach has changed to tilted things to where we are now?

    Billfer thanks again for what ever you did to the system to allow sweet blackberry viewing. Its really good to keep up with things with relative ease.

    Can Edwin spin another gem?

    Have a great Easter everyone.

    Steve

  83. What’s up with Everett? I realize that it’s VERY early, but he has not looked anything like the stellar gloveman we supposedly hired. In fact, I’d rather have Ramon in the 6 hole at the moment.
    He’s missed at least three makable plays in Toronto, one of which was costly, and has 2 E’s already, one of which was costly.

    Today’s game looked like one of those “giveaways” by Miggy, that separates him from the Pujols/Bonds/A-Rods of the world.

  84. …on the bright side, Granderson looks like a man on a mission in effort to improve upon his zone rating, which was down last year. That was a heckuva catch early on.

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