Is it a fluke? I don’t know. That’s really the question. Aside from a slightly different stance at the plate, what I most notice in Branden Inge is mental. He looks more confident and comfortable at the plate; he takes more pitches, is more patient, and simply waits for his pitch.

I only saw highlights, but that pitch shouldn’t have been in the strike zone no matter what he threw.

Directed at nobody here in particular, I think in this case some people (especially the WGN announcers) are guilty of a little double-standard when it comes to the basics of pitching re: pitch selection. I constantly hear about how changing the height and speed of pitches are hallmarks of great pitching. I’m not an expert, but if that’s true then I don’t see how you can fault following a steady diet of fast-balls with an off-speed. Maybe he should have gone with the curve, but prior to that hit, I would guess that most “experts” would have been ok with Zumaya dialing down the velocity to throw off Hauf’s timing.

“fouling off a 100-mph pitch is not an indication that the guy is actually capable of turning on one. Hauffpauir was sitting on a changeup, because that’s the only pitch he had a real prayer of putting in play.”

We’re both making assumptions here, and you know what that leads to! You’re assuming that Hauf’ was sitting on a changeup, no way to verify that was the case vs. pure luck. You’re right that the ability to foul a 100mph pitch doesn’t automatically mean that Hauf’ could have centered one, but it does indicate the ability to “fight off” his fastball (at least to a degree), which could have led to a series of fouling off heaters, wearing Zumaya out and increasing his chances of mistakes.

I happen to think that there was a chance (maybe not equal) that Hauf’ ends up putting a heater in play, just like there was a chance that Zumaya locates his off-speed correctly. I’ll go a step further in assuming, maybe Zumaya was trying to get cute and embarrass Hauf’ with the off-speed (in my mind, you look extra silly striking out on off-speed when you’re swinging to hit a fast-ball).

Either way, hopefully this is a lesson learned in his case, and one that didn’t end up costing the Tigers a game.

I know there is a lot of resistance to the idea of Inge the Catcher at bat=bad, Inge the 3rd B at bat = good…I’m sympathetic to the argument that there SHOULDN’T be such a big difference. But it’s hard to look at the splits even briefly and not see that there IS a huge difference. So my reasoning was that if Inge played 3rd all season, and stayed healthy (which normally isn’t a problem, as long as you keep the pillows away), and he was maybe batting 7th instead of 8th or 9th, he figured on 17 or 18 HR, so it took very little optimism to decide 20 HR was a reasonable expectation.

Last season was bad for Inge even when he was playing 3rd–except you can see a couple things stand out. His stats last season while playing 3rd: .217 / .331 / .391.
.217 / .331?? Yep, a lot of walks, 18 in 136 PA (1 / 7.6 PA, vs a career avg of 1/13 overall, 1/11.5 while at 3B) This season the “new and improved” Inge is walking 1 per 9.3 PA…the old dog learned that new trick last season

As Zumaya said post-game, Laird knew this, and Zumaya shook him off THREE times when Laird called for heaters or curves.

If you were expecting Inge to hit for 20 HR AND a .260 average, you were an optimist for sure. He’s exceeded 20 home runs exactly once before in his career, and .260 twice. In the two previous years he batted above .260, he hit 13 and 16 hrs. In short, in the past, Inge has had awful years, years when he’s hit for respectable average, and years he’s hit for respectable power. This is the first year he seems to be putting it all together. His current OPS is more than 100 points higher than any other season, and almost 200 points (!!!) above his career average. That denotes the old dog has learned some new tricks.