PREGAME: The Tigers haven’t allowed a run since the Freddy Dolsi 5th inning horror show on Wednesday night. That’s 21 innings and counting. Let’s keep the streak going.
Edwin Jackson will be tasked with keeping the Royals off the board. He’s only lasted 4 innings in 2 of his last 3 starts, but in between he shut out the Orioles for 8 innings and then gave up a 2 run homer in the 9th as he went for the complete game. Maybe the every other thing will work in Jackson’s favor tonight.
He’ll be opposed by Luke Hochevar. Hochevar has been giving up a ton of hits, and subsequently a bunch of runs. But he’s also striking out quite a few and not walking many, so he’s probably been a little unlucky. In his last 3 games he’s allowed 15 runs in 18 innings, but he’s fanned 16 and walked 6. In the 2 starts prior to that he fanned 22 and walked none over 13.1 innings. He’s clearly capable of being dominant.
Hochevar has limited lefties to a 234/316/430 line but righties have hit him 293/338/503.
Kansas City vs. Detroit – August 15, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
well the streak ends.
if all things remain normal..Jackson giving up two has zero chance of winning this game considering the support doesn’t usually get
He’s going for the Verlander give-up-5-in-the-first-and-still-win trick…
Nice to have that silly shutout business out of the way, now we can just concentrate on the game…(hey, that’s the best I can do here)
Billfer… the human jinx. 🙂
Actually poor Edwin is having an identity crisis.
He looked behind the plate and saw Avila and realized he must actually be either Porcello or Galarraga, and Porcello is suspended, so…”wow, OK, I’m Armando Galarraga I guess…”
And he is pitching accordingly.
lol
2 runs for Jackson…….today might be christmas
call someone at the game and yell to Avila to throw the ball back to the pitcher instead of that lolli-pop toss he throws…after the way Laird fires the ball back, it makes him look even worse
and Ramon isn’t a good enough hitter to put Everett on the bench a lot more often….come on Smokey!!!1
Rockin’ Ramon!!
Haha, Mario with “Ramon gets to sit with the big boys now” stuff.
Nice try, but Ramon is a proud member of the Bottom Of the Order Boys that have been carrying the team. Nice of him to let Cabrera sit by him though.
Another Maggs-less lineup. Are we officially burying him now to avoid the vesting option?
That, or letting Boras know he better sign their #1 pick by Monday or say bye-bye to his percentage of Maggs’ $18 million. Just speculating, though.
lol, I love the way you think, Kathy.
Billfer,
I can’t decide if I enjoy the Pregame or Postgame more. Either way, I look forward to reading both and sometimes skim the comments even though too many are from people that can’t be Tiger fans. I think they call them Trolls.
Thanks so much for doing this!! I really appreciate the great job you do and the time you must spend on the blog and wanted you to know that real fans are out here.
Linda
Hear, hear!
good strategy don’t move the runner to third…. cause we can’t get him in and then score him from second…I like it
come on Lamont!!!..knees or no knees that was a big run
there is one reason why the Tigers are LAST in the American League in Sac flies///Mr Dare=Devil Lamont
Clete Housebythesideoftheroad…
I agree on Inge–Inge even looked like he might go anyway but relented and Lamonted back to 3rd.
Clearly, Inge missed my rant tonight. i promise to come up with some humdingers tomorrow.
Not your fault. It’s a Tiger rule no two consecutive batters in the lineup can be hitting, and with Avila and Santiago hot there was little Inge could do.
greedy greedy!! two runs down…….see ya!…nice defensive work grandy, ramon ,inge
Just looking at the replay again, and it occurs to me some guys ALWAYS get the tag down if the throw’s there, and I think we got a couple of those guys in Polanco and Inge.
they are awesome at it…they drag that glove right around the base instead of trying to get to the runners leg ,,,they let the runner slid in to their glove….classic they do it every time too….
And that’s why they are Royals…
Rare misjudging by Grandy, but great recovery, great throw, great relay by Santiago, and great tag. Now that’s good defense, when you get 3 guys playing it right all on one play.
Yup! Didn’t get flustered.
I don’t think it was a bad move by DeJesus to go for it either–the Royals have been stranding guys on 1st and 2nd all day and he had a chance to set up an easy sac fly situation, and all 3 guys had to play it right to get him.
Agreed
Oh, cripes, Edwin looks like he’s timid and tentative. What’s up with that.
C’mon Edwin.
think Jackson looked out to the bullpen saw Bonine and rose to the occasion…get otta this inning
You don’t get that runner out of the baseline avoiding the tag call every day
man, playing for KC would be so…demoralizing
now you see what Detroit 08 was like
It’s a great baseball town. They have their ace, Greinke, but need better pitchers.
Bonine-proof!
Guilllllllllen!!!!!!
Jackson says can we save a few of these runs for later
Rod says “it is sure interesting how the Tigers play at home vs. how they play on the road”……..DUH!
Avila has the Gibby stubble, swings a little like him, and now we see he slides into 2nd like him too, good stuff.
good comparison…..he even ran off the field with the Gibson sneer!
I’d like to invite Alex Avila back to my place. I have mahogany furniture and many leather bound books.
This made me laugh out loud.
Arby Avila!
The Bottom Of the Order Boys come through again!
This one’s practically Lambert-proof
Avila’s at-bats today:
Strikeout, single, walk, homerun.
I’m really starting to like having this kid in the line-up.
nice win .. Isn’t this the way it is supposed to be?
Hitting against lousy pitching? Sure!
I think there’s a reason we have so many bad pitcher-bad hitting days. It’s because one of the key components that makes someone a “bad” pitcher–and also one of the problems with rookie pitchers (usually)–is that they get behind in the count, walk a lot of guys, and get caught up in big innings.
Tigers: “Walk? What’s that? You mean like when you hit a ground ball and pretend to go to first? No? Four balls? How do you do that? When are you supposed to swing?” etc…
In other words, the bad thing that makes the bad in the bad pitcher isn’t so bad no more.
So go back to billfer’s pre-game and you’ll see: “He’ll be opposed by Luke Hochevar. Hochevar has been giving up a ton of hits, and subsequently a bunch of runs. But he’s also striking out quite a few and not walking many, so he’s probably been a little unlucky.”
Yeah, unlucky to be up against Detroit. Cause see, his good ain’t no good no more, cause ain’t NOBODY walking us anyway. And quite a few strike outs? No biggy for us, like we’re scared of putting up a few Ks. Hah.
Result? Well you just saw it.
hey! we face lousy pitching on the road and LOSE
How do you pronounce Avila’s name? Rod and Mario were saying AHV-yuh-luh at first, but tonight they were both saying a-VEE-luh.
Same here. They keep changing the pronunciation.
I wonder if it’s one of those things where he pronounces it differently than dad…I actually once upon a time dated someone like that; a pretty unfair way to end up pronouncing someone’s parents’ names wrong.
Fun game to be at tonight. Good pace. Rigs scored in every inning but 4th. Lyon has been money. Let’s go sweep.
What a great evening is was to go out and watch the game with friends. The Tiger bats were booming!!
hip hip, hurray! hip hip, hurray!! hip hip, hurray!!!
get the broom out !!!!!!!!!!
Go Tigers!
Sorry for Laird but we need the bats now more than ever so gotta keep Avila in right now, at least 3/2 platoon instead of 2/3 like Smokey originally planned.
I’m embarrassed to say I was suckered by Uncle Smokey, and was actually thinking that Avila would really be catching Porcello and Galarraga only, when I should know better–in fact the odds are that Avila would follow this pattern a couple of times, then never again, a la “Thames is the every day left fielder,” Curtis will be batting 5th the rest of the season, etc.