2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.106:Orioles at Tigers

56 Comments

PREGAME: Don’t look know, but the last turn through the Tigers rotation was not good at all. Edwin Jackson threw 115 pitches in 4 innings his last time out. Armando Galarraga was rocked. Justin Verlander gave up 5 runs in his first inning of work. Jarrod Washburn had a less than stellar debut. Rick Porcello was the only bright spot.

I bring this up because it is Jackson’s turn once again. The Tigers need to start taking care of business against the bottom dwellers in the league and they need their stud pitching to be stud pitching. To channel Jim Leyland, “I’m not calling anyone out and Jackson has been a horse for us, but he needs to give us more than his last time out. That’s not calling anyone out, that’s just a fact.” Of course Jackson nearly had himself a complete game last time out against the O’s, so that is a positive indicator.

Jeremy Guthrie takes the mound for the Orioles. He’s allowed 26 homers this year. Hopefully we all get some Arby’s tomorrow.

Baltimore vs. Detroit – August 5, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: First of all I want to clear up some confusion, Leyland didn’t make the above quote. That was an imitation. Sorry. That said, Jackson certainly delivered tonight. My goodness did he deliver. He was getting all those swings and misses that he couldn’t muster in Cleveland to the tune of 8 K’s. Do you realize the only time an outfielder made a play on a ball for the first 5 innings was when Curtis Granderson chased down Gerald Laird’s errant throw?  It was a remarkable effort.

And once again it looked like the Tigers team would need every bit of that effort. Clete Thomas and Carlos Guillen made bids for homers to left center, but both were tracked down. It was a Magglio Ordonez line drive homer off a 92mph fastball that looked to be the difference maker, until a 3 run 8th inning provided enough breathing room.

  • Ordonez and Everett put good swings on the ball every time up. Ordonez added a single to the aforementioned homer. He also hit into a GIDP but once again the ball was well hit. Everett sent balls to the warning track in left and right  before getting a big single in the 8th.
  • Speaking of Everett, a day after I ask for more from him on defense he delivers. He made a sensational play to take a hit away from Adam Jones.
  • Two outs on the bases are never a good thing. The Thomas pickoff with 2 outs and Cabrera up wasn’t exactly the way you draw it up. Laird was out on a hustle play, I don’t have too much of a problem with that.

56 thoughts on “Game 2009.106:Orioles at Tigers”

  1. Correct me if I’m wrong, but is this the first time this season that Leyland has called an individual player out by name? (Yes, I realize that Leyland said “I’m not calling anyone out” right before he called Jackson out, but

    And if so… isn’t it a little shocking that Jackson is the first one to get called out for poor performance?

    1. Did Leyland actually say that re: Jackson? I thought it was just Billfer imitating a Leyland-esque comment.

      1. I think that was just a little fun from Uncle Celery.

        Pretty good Leyland-esque-ism though, and he didn’t even need to play the “horse***” or “weak Grilli ****” cards.

  2. I agee, sure Jackson didn’t pitch well but there have been much more worse starts. How about calling out Galarraga for terrible start when the Tigers really needed him to get some innings. Jackson’s start really wasn’t all that bad. He obviously didn’t have his A-game that night but he was throwing strikes and the Indians kept battling taking him deep into the count. Whereas he usuall finishes off hitters with a K or weakly hit ball, it wasn’t working. Let’s hope he gets it done tonight.

    Maybe Leyland should call out the offense!

    1. Lemme give you my sig-other’s email Bill, that’s such a foreign phrase for me to hear, maybe you can teach it to her.

  5. Awesome offensive start. Three pitches, two outs. Way to work the count Grandy and Placido.

    1. I know the main intent is sarcastic, but if you are actually disappointed Placido didn’t work the count I suspect you of being a closet optimist. There are only 8 AL players with a lower PPA than Polanco–and he’s actually above his career avg this season.

      1. Well it was directed at both guys, especially our leadoff man Granderson. First pitch swinging pop out to third base not exactly getting it done. I’m just tired of watching teams like the Indians drive up Jackson’s pitch count to 115 in four innings, yes 4 innings, and we constantly let guys get thru innings with single digit pitch counts. Its just frustrating to watch.

  6. Guthrie’s biggest problems have been the home run ball–this is obviously good for the Tigers, and getting out of the 1st inning–oops, not so good, since we’ve been a brutal 1st inning team, and our only 1st inning base-runner just un-base-runnered himself.

  7. Maybe we should explore the 15 day DL for Inge and give Hessman a shot at third. He’s got some pop in his bat and couldn’t be any worse than post-AllStar Inge at the plate. BI is an automatic out these days.

    1. Inge hasn’t been getting on. Unfortunately the list of automatic outs doesn’t stop with Inge: Granderson, Guillen, Thames, Everett, and Laird all have lower OBP than Inge the last 2 weeks. That’s a lot of call-ups….

  8. Why can we just not score any runs for Edwin it is really getting old. Especially when facing a crap pitcher like Guthrie has been all year.

    1. far too many crap/rookie pitchers have shut us down…for at least the past two years. it’s all about the hitting. sometimes i think the tigers should have fired two coaches last fall.

  9. I feel sooooooobad for Jackson. He is once again dominating out there and his teammates are pulling their Houdini vanishing act at the plate once again. I sit here in amazement at the absolute lack of ability our hitters consistently display. Scoreless after 4. Too bad this isn’t soccer, we could play for the draw.

  14. MAGGLIO!!!! Finally we took this HR giving up machine (Guthrie) out of the yard.

  19. Time for today’s installment of Who Am I..

    Who Am I [PA-HR-RBI-BA-OBP-SLB-OPS] with RISP:

    Player A 109 5 41 .289 .367 .515 (.882)
    Player B 85 4 32 .304 .341 .481 (.822)

    2. Time for the answers to today’s Who Am I:

      Player A: Miguel Cabrera
      Player B: Magglio Ordonez

      Maggs has slowly been creeping back up towards Maggs-like territory…

      (Of course Maggs has to go and hit into a GIDP…BTW players A and B have 6 and 7 GIDP with RISP).

    1. He has hit three balls hard tonight, that one was just badly located. I can live with that if it means he’ll be getting swings like that from now on.

      1. I suppose, but besides just having trouble to score runs in the first place, this team sure gives away a lot of outs.

  24. I liked the decision to bring Rodney in last week and I hope smokey Jim does it again tonight. 22/23 are pretty good odds.

  25. I’m a little surprised Santiago isn’t pinch-running for Inge here…

    And I might bat Thames for Grandy vs the Lefty.

    Although both moves weaken the 9th inning defense.

  28. Maybe Cla “Where’s the rest of My First Name” Meredith didn’t get the Polanco memo…the one that says he’ll take strike one then swing at whatever you throw up there for the 2nd pitch…

  29. My goodness…4-2 with a runner on first, two outs and Luke Scott at the dish.

    How can it never be easy for the Tigers?

      1. Exhale.

        It never ceases to amaze me how this team manages about one laugher a month.

        Rodney = anti-blood pressure medicine.

  34. It wouldn’t be Tiger baseball without some ninth inning drama. Too bad for Edwin that he plunked the leadoff guy, because it would’ve been nice to see him get the CG shutout. Jackson was great tonight, allowing to “excuse me” singles thru 8 innings.

    However, I can’t complain about the timely hitting in the 8th from the Tigers tonight. Polanco’s hit was huge, and Tremblay made a big mistake by not walking Polanco and leave the lefty in to face Thomas. Its good to see opposing managers make boneheaded moves just like Ol’ Smoky.

    Rodney was pretty good tonight. I actually didn’t mind seeing the Luke Scott walk once he got behind 2-0 in the count because we all know how this guy feasts on Tiger pitching. When it was 2-0 on Scott I was envisioning watching the back of Thomas’ jersey in RF as the ball sailed into the “Belle Tire Blast Zone”. I liked that he didn’t give in to Scott and went after Zaun instead, a guy who is much less likely to take you deep in the ninth inning. Nice win, let’s hope that CLE and ANA help us out a little bit tonight. More importantly, let’s not settle for a split tomorrow. Our record in Thursday matinees at Comerica this year is just 2-2. The good news is that we are 2-0 in TH afternoon home games coming off a win the night before, 0-2 when coming off of a loss the night before. The trend favors us and hopefully it holds up tomorrow.

  36. White Sox are rolling – beating up on the Angels while we squeak past the Orioles.

    Gonna be an interesting August.

    1. At least CLE continued their hot hitting and took down the Twins 8-1 tonight. MIN drops 3.5 games off the pace in the AL Central.

  38. Seay, please stop di$^ing around. Man, we’ve got a five run lead and he’s trying to nibble and get guys to chase. Attack Bobby, stop pussyfooting around.

  39. Way to go Mr. Lyon! Way to pick up Seay, who sucked out there today. Lyon did what you are supposed to do with a lead, attack the hitter. Seay’s mistake was trying to paint the black on every pitch. Too much nibbling for Bobby and it cost him (and the team) a run.

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