Good teams don’t give away games like this.

Sorry Seay, I started you too.

Thank you Billfer.

Thank you RedWings.

I’m tired, wasted, and happier than I’ve been in months!

Tigers are playing good baseball for the most part. There have been many blunders here and there, but we are making fewer mistakes than most other teams. We are new to this style of baseball also. Just give it a little more time. We didn’t even imagine playing small ball like this in Spring Training, but we have been playing that way for the past 6 weeks. If we keep playing this way the chips should fall in our direction. We might even run away with this division if things get better.

You also have to remember: the bullpen just pitched 8 innings the night before. You can’t just look at this game in a vacuum.

Leyland abuses Verlander. He will be gassed by the end of the season. Look for his usual 5+ ERAs with horrible command come August and September.

Leyland and the bullpen will kill Verlander’s ERA this season, just like last season, too.

My take on this situation is that Verlander was tired. Looking at data (velocity), results (walk to Nick Punto), and subjective observation (change in pitching pattern to Punto, taking longer between pitches to catch his breath) is what brought me to this conclusion. I also know that he was in the 120 pitch range in each of his last 2 starts.

He may still have been the best option to finish the inning, but that doesn’t make it necessarily the right decision to leave him in. He’s just too good and too valuable to risk on one game. Not to mention it was a 5 run lead.

The other thing at play here is that last year Leyland seemed to leave Verlander in too long. He’d turn a decent outing through 6 innings into a crappy outing through 7.

As for him not wanting to come out, that’s not a surprise. Pudge didn’t want to platoon last year. Players want to play and contribute. I’m sure that Verlander wanted to get through 7 knowing what the team went through the night before.

The bullpen didn’t have to be as unhittable as Verlander was today. All they had to do in the 7th was get two outs before the guy who was in the hole crossed home plate. It wasn’t a tough situation. It was real simple. Even if they let both of Verlander’s runners score, the game is still 5-2. They had to get two outs and couldn’t do it. Bobby Seay does it pretty regularly so I’m not going to give up on him. But it’s a tough loss.

I would have thrown the dice to let him work out of the jam and then rolled out the bullpen with 8th. But as someone else commented, it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

One thing is sure… I don’t think JV himself wanted to come out. He looked pissed.

Also, look at what he did to Punto. Punto’s first 2 times up he threw 4 seamer after 4 seamer and fanned him twice. His last time up he starts finessing him. I konw there is some game theory at play here, but it’s Nick freaking Punto. He was finessing because he was reaching back for everything he had and only getting 93 mph. The guy was done and I don’t care what the pitch count was.

5 friggin’ run lead. Seriously.

To the tune of the National Anthem –

Oh Seay can you see by the dome’s crappy light,
The five run lead we had before JV was leaving,
The bullpen gave up six runs, Tigers were up late last night
O’er the infield hits went cross the plate Twins were streaming
Seeing Leyland’s mean stare, f-bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the game that the bullpen was bare
Oh, Seay, does our bullpen need to get a big save
Or the central division, will be lost I’m afraid

Ask Grady Little about that one.

Anyhoo, there’s merit to a pitch count. Managers get gunshy about keeping a guy in there too long for a few reasons that have nothing to do with winning that day’s game. First, the significant investments in these guys arms dollar-wise. Nolan Ryan was never on a $160 million contract. Secondly, you don’t want to get a reputation as a destroyer of arms. I don’t think free agent pitchers are clamoring to sign with a Dusty Baker-led club. FWIW, I’ll link to the most extensive study on the issue I’ve read.

http://www.baseballprospectus......cleid=1477

I’m curious, did you watch JV today? I didn’t, but from the announcers and others it sounds like he might have been close to done (that’s just their opinion, of course). Maybe not entirely used up, but even if you don’t believe in strict pitch counts, Verlander was in the process of recording three consecutive “high” pitch count games.

In any case, I’m sure that Billfer will shed some light on this, and hopefully we’ll even be able to spawn a full-blown pitch count analysis post…although I think I remember one already on this site, I’m just too lazy to look for it.

Dear RedWings,

Please help me forget today’s collapse.

Thank you in advance.

If Verlander’s mostly cruising, I have no problem with him throw 130 pitches or more. But if it looks like he’s running out of steam at 110, pull him then. I think Verlander was probably tiring by the end of his game today.

So on some day where he’s not had any really long innings, but maybe has been a little inefficient, I’ve got no problem with him going 130, or even beyond, if it doesn’t look like he’s tired. But if he has labored some, and looks tired through 95, I’ve got no problem pulling him out there, either. You have to take it on a case by case basis, I agree, but you also have to be careful and not overextend a guy who doesn’t have any gas left.

Assigning a pitch count to the point in the game when you pull a pitcher, say 100, or 110 — (or in this case, to pull a pitcher after his first mistake or first sign of trouble after a certain number, say 100, or 110 pitches) makes no more sense than saying after a certain number of assists or putouts you need to pull your shortstop and replace him because he’s spent. What?

Why 100? Why 110? What data or reasoning is there? Show me. But wait… I’ll tell you exactly the cornerstone of the reasoning at play here. Forget the data — let’s look at the origin of how this arbitrary and ridiculous number crept into the game. If you’re going to argue the pitch count, you need to look at the history, which traces back to one manager (who happened to be a very, very smart and highly respected baseball guy) back in the 60s who was promoting a young and inexperienced pitcher right out of high school (last time I checked this is not JVs profile). This was an extremely controversial move and the manager was heavily (and perhaps rightly) criticized for doing so. So what did he do? He countered the criticism with a strict 110 pitch count to placate the media and justify the decision. So there you have it. That’s why every manager in the game employs the pitch count today (whether they know it or not), and that’s what’s created this very platform for debate, and that why the Tigers lost the game today… because the media was a little harsh on Paul Richards for promoting Larry Dierker’s major league pitching debut on his 18th birthday.

Even so, the origin of the pitch count is a case where the manager employed a specific strategy due to a unique circumstance. This circumstance doesn’t apply to every situation, yet managers blindly follow in almost every situation, seemingly knowing not for what or why they do. What started with one manager for very valid reasons graduated to couple more managers who took heed and followed Richards lead, to the next generation of managers who adopted the strategy cuz “that’s how you play the game”, and so on, to the point where a seemingly valid debate exists over a non-issue, and to the point in the game of baseball today where every single manager in the entire game abides by an irrelevant pitch count rule, like lemmings over a cliff.

But hey, man, that’s just my opinion.