Clearing my mind

Editors Note: Sorry for the lack of a cohesive post here. Things have been busy lately and while some of these topics might warrant a post, I know it won’t happen in a timely manner. Instead you are stuck with this concoction of stuff.

The Tigers really need to make a point of announcing Alan Trammell as the bench coach. He deserves a round of applause from Tigers fans. This is especially true since he unintentionally played into the Tigers marketing campaign when he said he’d “Always be a Tiger“…

Amber Grand sang the National Anthem on Sunday. Always a treat and I would like to see her in the rotation more often…

The nice thing about the Tigers playing from ahead is that they don’t have to make moves yet. They get to take a longer look at Ordonez/Guillen/Figaro/Galarraga to see what they really need. If they were trying to make up ground, they wouldn’t have that luxury…

Did Dontrelle Willis really refuse assignment? With the clarifications that Eddie provided on option refusal, the team has to submit a written request 4 days in advance. Willis bombed on a Sunday and was DL’d on a Thursday. The timeline would be at least circumstantial evidence to support the claim…

I enjoy keeping score at games. When I do road trips to other parks the scoresheet is my main souvenir. With a few ballparks under my belt the scoresheet by the Tigers is the best. When you combine layout, information, and value ($1) I haven’t found a better one. The worst? St. Louis. Expensive, the pencil costs extra, and it is basically a bunch of ads…

Rick Knapp has received lots of praise this year. As far as I know he’s doing a fine job and you can point to Justin Verlander and Edwin Jackson and Fernando Rodney as pitchers who have improved under his watch. You can also point to Armando Galarraga who has performed much worse (and this goes beyond regression to the mean). I just bring this up because the Tigers and Indians are battling it out to see who will walk the most hitters in the AL. In all fairness though, with Willis out of the rotation it should help. Willis has issued 10.5% of the team’s free passes while only pitching 5.5% of the team’s innings.

Brandon Lyon’s walk numbers don’t look too good with 16 in 35 innings. But 6 of those are intentional walks and that leads the AL. Second place on that list is Justin Verlander with 4, 2 of which were to Albert Pujols…

My favorite player for the Lakeland Flying Tigers is Robbie Weinhardt…

I think spending a game as a member of the grounds crew would be really cool. But probably not for one of those games with lots of rain delays…

Lost in the euphoria of last night’s walk-off win the fact that the Cubs had been walking off against the Indians all weekend escaped me…

10 thoughts on “Clearing my mind”

  1. Well, with the way Galarraga has been going lately, putting Amber Grand in the rotation may not be such a bad idea.

  2. Armando was also the only one last year, at least publicly, who had a lot of good things to say about working with Chuck. Those two seem to have been a good fit.

    And I can’t believe the scoring pencil costs extra in StL. Is it a least a full-sized Cardinal-design pencil, or is it just a golf pencil?

  3. Interesting that the Tigers should walk so many under Knapps influence. The pitchers he helped produce from the Twins system didn’t always have lights out stuff but they all threw strikes. Maybe this lesson takes more time to absorb.

    1. I’ve noticed that it has been more of a problem as of late. Most of the walks I would say are coming from a few pitchers. Galarraga, Willis and Perry are probably the biggests factors to the increase of late, as both three have lost command, or confidence in Galarraga’s case, of their pitches. I would say Jackson, Porcello, and Verlander’s walk numbers are about normal for the number of innings they have pitched.

  4. The pitchers that have been doing better than last year are doing so because they walk fewer. JV and EJax most notably. Even Zoom is well below last-year’s shot in the dark type control. A couple weeks ago I would have said the same thing about Fernando, but he’s picked up the bad habit of walking the bases loaded lately. Brendan’s point about all the walks coming from a few pitchers hits the mark exactly. Bring back Perry only after he learns to throw strikes. I just shake my head a the D-Train-wreck.

    1. Point well taken about the bulk of the walks coming largely from a few suspects. Robertsons line is ugly too from a BB/IP perspective (and every other.) I can’t imagine what he’s still doing on the roster. Must be detailing DD/JL cars.

      1. I’d amend that to quite a few suspects, namely the bullpen, where none of them have particularly good BB/IP ratios. Is it tougher to correct when pitchers don’t throw as many pitches compared to starters?

  5. I’m with you Re: scorecards.
    Try to always keep score, and it (along with my ticket stub) are my souvenirs.
    Having lived in StL, I totally agree that is the worst scorecard I’ve ever seen. The worst part, it’s 6 pages (when opened from fold-out), but still no place to write. Also, it doesn’t even have a space for a pitching line. (??!!??)
    I went to the last game at old Busch, and decided to keep score on paper towels from the men’s room, rather than pay for that piece of crap.

  6. Went to STL last week and kept score on Wednesday – you’d think National League teams would plan ahead for the inevitable double switches and the like, but they didn’t even have 10 slots for people in the lineup! The STL side of the scorecard had maybe 6 people in one slot. Not to mention no place for pitcher’s stats…just disappointing.

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