2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.008: White Sox at Tigers

95 Comments

PREGAME: After brief stops in the other AL divisions, the Tigers get to take their first stab at their Central foes.  Last year the team was 27-45 in division, a mark they are determined to improve on in ‘09. They welcome the White Sox to town for 3 afternoon tilts.

Zach Miner will be the Tigers moundsman (I don’t think that is a word but it sounds like something they’d use in the 1920’s doesn’t it?). Miner was one Ramon Santiago error short of a quality start against Toronto. Which was a little surprising considering it took him 5 Jays hitters to record his first out.

He’ll be opposed by Gavin Floyd who pitched 7 innings of two run ball against the Kansas City Royals. Scouting him with Pitch F/X, the table below shows his pitch selection and what the Royals did with said pitches.

Results/Pitch CH CU FC FF FT SL Total
Ball 4 11 2 14 3 6 40
Called Strike 4 1 6 11
Foul 1 9 2 4 16
In play, no out 1 2 1 4
In play, out(s) 1 1 7 2 1 12
In play, run(s) 1 1 2
Swinging Strike 4 1 6 11
Total 4 20 7 40 8 17 96

Only 11 called strikes is what jumps out at me. If the pitch was near the zone, the Royals were hacking at it. Virtually all of the swings and misses came on the breaking balls from Floyd.

Game Time 1:05

Chicago White Sox vs. Detroit Tigers April 13th, 2009 | MLB Gameday

POSTGAME: That wasn’t nearly as much fun as the winning. I got most of my description from Dan and Jim today, and watched an accelerated version of the game on the DVR. Zach Miner didn’t have it today. I don’t know if the extreme cold played a role in Miner’s struggles, but given the fact that White Sox pitchers walked 9 Tigers it certainly seems that it was a tough day all around for pitchers.

The Tigers got some offense today, and had many chances, but couldn’t come up with enough clutch hits to drive in the numerous baserunners.

  • I hated the idea of Ramon Santiago batting 6th, but he did it all right. He ripped a 3 run homer, and had a couple more hits and was robbed of a triple.
  • Josh Anderson also had a very fine game with anice defensive play and he drove in the Tigers other 3 runs.
  • Curtis Granderson can’t get anything going since leaving Toronto.
  • Eddie Bonine has now allowed homers in each of his 3 appearances
  • Juan Rincon allowed 4 baserunners, but he ate up 3 innings on a tough day, allowed no runs, and fanned 5

95 thoughts on “Game 2009.008: White Sox at Tigers”

  1. Moundsman drove me to dictionary.com and it is baseball slang originating between 1910 and 1915. You were right on Bilfer. Didn’t Ernie use that term once in a while?

  2. Time to start settling some family business against these AL central bozos. The Sox are #1 on my list.

  4. Andre, that’s a great trip you must be young, single or both. Doubt a 48 year old married guy could pull that off. Ahh the good ole days.

    I too totally dislike the whosox. for me is 50% team and 50% distain for the Hawk. There are only 2 or 3 things better in this world than a win over the Whosox. I’ll let you guess at those.

    I am trying to balance reality and the fact that the Tigers look decent. I wrote earlier that we have some pretty good hitting teams coming up so I hope we can keep the same mashing and pitching up to beat the Angels and the Yankees. 17 division games in May so LETS GO get them

  5. Steve,

    It was a brutal trip; five of us crammed into a Taurus from Chicago to Detroit. Since age is relative, I felt every year of my mid-twenties as I rode bitc…uh, middle. In order to get away with the trip, I had to bring the lady-friend…which was either a genius move, or pure insanity – I’m still not sure.

    We had one Chicago fan with us (my roommate), so after enduring a weekend of mocking from him, it would be nice to extract a measure of pay-back this week. Boooo day-games though, I won’t be able to watch much or hear Hawk complain if the Tig’s play well.

  6. Andre……. a good and Cheap way of getting audio is paying the 15 bucks and getting MLB audio if it works for you at work. I have it on in the background in my office. Some people listen to music at work, I have chosen the ball game for background fulfillment. Warning timely hits or K’s tend to make you shout which people take some getting used to (especially if they are on Conference calls)

    Steve

  7. Anyone know how the weather looks at Comerica for the game? Radar appears to show rain on the way.

    Sunny in Mississippi!

  8. Is Guillen going to play today?
    If not I would love to see Anderson bat lead off and move Grandy down in the line-up to bat 5th to protect big Cabby.

  9. Steve,

    Thanks for the tip – since I’m moving at the end of May, I’m gonna be in a bad way for Tigers coverage until the mid-season when I can get the 1/2 season discount on the MLB tv package. This should hold me over nicely.

  10. In my Opening Day player by player roster analysis, I have the White Sox as the worst defensive club in the AL. I think they made a huge mistake letting Crede go.

  11. C Granderson
    P Polanco 2B
    M Ordonez RF
    M Cabrera 1B
    C Guillen DH
    R Santiago SS
    B Inge 3B
    J Anderson LF
    M Treanor C

  12. Not having the Sheff, sure does help on a day like today with Guillen having a gimpy leg

  13. RKT,

    It started raining here in southwest Michigan around noon. Depending on how it tracks we could see a rain delay at some point. It’s coming down pretty steady.

  14. Miner can only control the fastball, and it’s obvious the White Sox have realized it.

  18. Jermaine Dye continues to kill us. Hang in there Zach, hopefully some run support is heading your way!

  31. hey Jim is it too cold to walk all the way out to the mound?. Isn’t 6 enough for one guy to give up.? Miner obviously doesn’t have it today!

  35. Nice that following Miner’s terrible 3rd, we get two guys on with 2 out…wouldn’t mind seeing Thames batting here. Too bad Jimmy can’t envision him as anything other than a platoon player.

  37. atta boy. Ramon..too bad if you do really good you will be back on the bench tomorrow but great job so far today!!!!!1

  47. Jim will sit Santiago tomorrow his logic will be “He can’t” do that two games in a row”…Ramon if only you were one of Jim’s boys!!

  50. Ozzie is being stupidly stubborn. Let’s make him pay. Even if it is just another BB.

  54. 8-6 thanks to Anderson…GameDay Audio a terrible idea for workplace stress levels…

  56. Well, Anderson’s first big hit as a Tiger. Yippee. Treanor sucks. As I’m unable to watch the game, I can only guess that the cold (37 degree) weather prevented Miner’s sinker from, you know, sinking like it’s supposed to. The sinker seems to be a warmer weather pitch…

  58. game of inches… Quinten hits a home run on a pitch that was two inches from bouncing up there, Wise by and inch makes an unbelievable diving catch with two guys on and the ball Dye just hit his inches from Grandson reeling it in…

  59. Pitches 7 & 8 to Konerko (on the corner of the strike zone) sure looked like strikes to Ump Cuzzi back in the 5th (a pitch on the corner to Santiago was called a strike). Instead, this time they were called balls, and pitch 9 was hit for an RBI double.

    Ugh. I hate arguing balls and strikes, but this is ridiculous.

  60. I just figured out the problem the Tigers have today…they’re throwing strikes…

  69. Watching us play the White Sox is just brutal. It’s the same thing every time. Dye, Konerko and Thome go ballistic on high 80’s fastballs at the belt and we can’t figure out their mediocre pitching staff…

    At least Alexei “The Cuban Wonderboy” Ramirez is having an off day…

    Come on Miguel, change my mood!

  71. Erik already mentioned it, but pitches in the other batter’s box are still being called strikes. I just hope we don’t see Cuzzi again all year.

  73. strand 10..give up 16 hits…let your starting pitcher give up 8 in three…formula for a loss or a miracle

  78. How many line ups is Jimmy going to use this season? I swear he messes with the lineup way to much!

  80. Well, the Tigers had another case of the Mondays. It was nice being in 1st place. I guess you have to enjoy it while you can. Never know when we’ll be back at the top. Could be Tomorrow, could be 20 years from now.

  82. Well, that was about what I expected from Miner. His stay in the rotation won’t last until the end of the month. The bullpen was pretty solid and the offense did its best. The late hits just weren’t falling in the right spots. I questions Leyland’s call on brining Miner back in to the 4th inning.

    It was too bad we couldn’t get a good start to the divisional play. I now hope we don’t lose this series to the Sox and lose all momentum that was earned during the Texas series.

  83. Rick- Gerald Laird was sick. Guillen was gimpy. Probably wise to have Santiago in, a lefty bat, vs Floyd also. Hopefully we see more of Santiago.

  85. I think it’s easy to see that Guillen won’t last much longer in LF. He’s just a liability wherever he plays on the field.

  86. We have to find out who on the white sox has the Tiger Voo Doo doll. Man I was really hoping for a first class beating today. I thought it was me because for a while the only games I was in Detroit for was the white sox. Now I’m home and they still cant beat them WUWT

  90. Sad news about The Bird. I’m too young to remember him, but its amazing the mark that he left on the game after essentially only pitching one full year.

    As for the game, I think this was the Zach Miner that everyone feared when he “earned” a spot in the rotation, which is too bad, because Floyd was far from great today for the Sox. One thing that is getting annoying about the White Sox is that all their hitters and pitchers seem to put up their best numbers against the Tigers- going back to ’06 when no one else could hit Tiger pitching. Take Josh Fields for instance- a good player, but not great, who has something like 7 or 8 homers against Detroit in the last couple of years. Don’t know what it is, but hopefully it ends soon.

  92. One of kind was Fidrych, even to the end.

    I wonder if he might have been helped (even a little) by today’s focus on pitcher abuse and such.

  93. The Bird’s 1976 season was electric, every bit as amazing as 2006 for more recent Tiger fans. I still remember the game of the week vs. NYY…awesome.

  94. Didn’t personally see Mark pitch, but I remember one weekend series in Anaheim I attended where he signed autographs for hundreds of Angel and Tiger fans before each of the games. He pumped gas before his career,and I remember him living on a farm after baseball. There was a great story on him in SI long after his career was over. Quite the character chasing those hot dog wrappers around the infield and talking to the baseball. Much will be written about this guy in the next few days. The opposing fans cheered him too. He was one of a kind.

  95. I haven’t been a fan of how Leyland has been setting the batting order, but I may be changing my mind. Like batting Thames 2, Guillen 6, and Inge 7 didn’t make sense to me, until I considered the possibility that the point was to help Thames and Guillen get going–which seemed to work. Similarly batting Laird in front of Inge.

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