2010 Season, Game Post

Game 2010.016: Tigers at Angels

115 Comments

Read the post game wrap up: Guillen holds hammy, Tigers hold on

Tonight Detroit plays their last game in Anaheim this season. If they win it would bring the road trip to 3-4. If they lose it means they will have dropped 3 straight series. Justin Verlander takes the mound for the Tigers and Joe Saunders goes for the Angels.

Verlander is coming off his best start of the season, a season that has seemed to go pretty badly so far. But then you look at his total numbers: 8.8 K/9, 3 K/BB, .87 HR/9, 1.35 WHIP. The numbers aren’t great but they don’t beget an ERA approaching 7 either. The problem is that half of the runners (50.5%) who get on base end up scoring. As that rate works it’s way towards a more normal ~70% that ERA will drop.

Saunders has done a good job limiting base runners this year (17 hits and 4 BB’s in 19 innings) but he’s been taken deep 4 times and he’s only fanned 8. Tonight’s lineup has a cumulative 320/383/464 line in 108 plate appearances against Saunders.

That lineup is:

  1. Jackson, CF
  2. Damon, DH
  3. Ordonez, RF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Guillen, LF
  6. Inge, 3B
  7. Laird, C
  8. Sizemore, 2B
  9. Everett, SS

115 thoughts on “Game 2010.016: Tigers at Angels”

  1. First off – I love the new look
    Secondly – With a decent sample size those splits look amazing and I officially predict an end to the come from behind (nod to BYB) Cardiac Cats and a wire-to-wire win

  4. Uh-oh, now what do we do, we just put up an early lead on a starter? 🙂

    Nice AB by Ajax to start out–the 14 pitches to Ajax and JD was a nice way to start the game..

  7. Unfreaking believable…We get the lead and Verlander can’t find the plate, which leads to what? Runs for the Angels…Can this team please get on the same page!?!?!?

  8. Not a great start to the game for Verlander. Give him an early 2-0 lead and he gives it right back. He needs to step up early in the season, every game counts.

  12. If Verlander wants to be known as an ace he needs to start earning his salary. Somebody needs to show him how to throw a complete game like Roy Halladay.

  14. Wow, first the early runs, then an extra base hit by…Laird! THEN the successful double-sac…

    This brings tears to my eyes…

    The B.O.O.B.s are perky tonight.

  17. What the heck is Guillen doing holding on to the ball!?!?! Get it in!

    That’s it…No more Guillen in the OF…

    1. He had no shot at third base because of the hit and run. With no chance for the out don’t throw it over there and give Abreu a chance to get to second.

      1. Fair Enough. I just have seen it a few times with our OF this year that they really like holding onto the ball for too long. Guillen just makes me nervous in the OF…

  18. Slight break there with the DP, but Verlander has already thrown 1000 pitches. (i think 60)

  23. Cabrera doubled in his 5th straight game. Last Tiger to do it was Frank Catalanotto in 1999.

  24. Franky Cat! The player most likely to be the subject of the sentence, “hmm I didn’t know he was on the ______s now…”

  25. Watching GameDay doesn’t seem like JV can get the changeup anywhere near the strike zone.

    1. That’s pretty accurate. The fastball is the only pitch he can throw for strikes tonight.

      1. That’s one worry, because unless he can rear back and fire it by the guy, he ends up in these marathon innings.

        What can you do, though, JV loses effectiveness if he becomes a pitch-to-contact guy, right?

        Does it all hinge on the curveball/slurvy thing that he won’t call a slider?

        Thank goodness for Brandon Wood tonight.

        1. Nah. He just doesn’t have the command tonight. It happens. Fortunately the bats picked him up and gave him a lead, and hopefully the bullpen can chip in too.

    2. Wow. The replay they showed seemed to look that way. And Mario/Rod didn’t even mention it.

      1. My first reaction was it hit the ground. I only have the Angels coverage and they showed two replays but never mentioned it hitting the ground.

        However they did mention that Jackson looked safe at third based on the steal.

          1. Was there any mention by Rod or Mario that he was safe? ( I have the game on mute as I am trying to work on homework…Ha!)

    3. I TIVOed the game, and did the slo-mo frame by frame on that play… Sure looks like the ball bounced off the turf into his glove. It’s also clear that AJax beat the tag into third base. They were hosed twice in the same inning — though, both were razor-thin calls. That throw into third was so early, you can almost forgive the ump for missing the fact that Jackson tucked his foot in before the tag was applied (bad glove work there). And the catch in center was sold well, and a lot further from the umps.

      That said, if the Tigers had lost, they would have had a pretty good beef — same as the day before with Damon getting tossed on a clearly inside pitch. But, I’ll take the wins!!

  30. Oh no Guillen is hurt. He was rounding 3B and down he went. Probably blew his hamstring.

  32. Carlos blew a tire coming around third……I hope it’s not a bad injury!

  37. Seems Verlander has a very hard time finding a consistent out pitch. He’s a good pitcher who once promised greatness, but he still has not achieved the greatness he has shown from time to time.

  39. I don’t agree with letting Verlander throw 125 pitches in mid April. I know he still had velocity, but where was it going to stop? Let him go to 130 if another batter gets on?

    1. I don’t think it was the intent. Zumaya wasn’t warmed up yet and it was the 2 very long at-bats that inning that did him in.

      I’m more concerned with Zumaya throwing the night after he threw 33 pitches.

      1. You’re right, but I guess I’d have had someone throwing at the beginning of the inning. Maybe you couldn’t forsee those two long at-bats, but he could have given up a couple of hits and found himself in the same situation, pitch count wise. I realize you don’t want to have a reliever warming up when your ace is starting the 5th but I would have done it.

  42. Wow. Verlander with 85 strikes tonight. That’s incredible. By my count, he had 16 balls and 20 strikes in the first. That means in the last 4 innings he pitched, he had 65 strikes and 24 balls. That’s almost 3 to 1, and that’s gonna win us a lot of games this year.

    Dickerson just mentioned that he counted 22 two strike fouls. Just a freaky night. The four walks are inexcusable, but I’m not worried about JV in the least.

    1. Inexcusable? Given the number of two-strike pitches that were fouled off, it’s actually a testament to the quality of the Angels’ batters, I think. Eventually, if you stretch out the at-bat long enough, any pitcher will throw you four balls.

      1. Sorry scotsw, those 4 walks weren’t the result of epic duels where the batter just outlasted JV.

        JVs 4 BB:

        Hunter (5 pitches): B, B, B, S, B
        Napoli (7 pitches): S, B, S, F, B, B, B
        Aybar (5 pitches): B, B, B, S, B
        Izturis (6 pitches): B, F, B, B, F, B

        Overall though I concur with K in D: not too worried about JV in the big-picture. But if there’s one thing this division has shown these last few years, its that ever game matters. Overall I think JV deserves his contract, and I’m sure he’s aware that starts like these tend to handicap his chances of winning certain pitching awards (so I don’t think he’s not trying), but it would be nice for him to figure out what this early season malaises are all about.

        1. Ach, I knew someone would go look it up…

          Still, it wasn’t the walks that bothered me — it was the fact that JV obviously wasn’t deceiving them last night. They put a lot of wood to leather. But he wasn’t getting them to hit much of anything on the ground, was he? Every at-bat seemed like an eternity.

  46. Question of the Night: Could Sizemore made the play at first if he actually threw the ball or was it too close?

    1. Had he made a perfect throw he wouldn’t have had Kendrick, and most likely he would have gunned the ball into the Tigers dugout.

      1. Yeah, I wasn’t really sure. It was probably the right call to hold on. It worked out in the end.

  49. Great composure Perry. Why Aybar wasn’t sitting 1 is beyond me, but I’ll take it.

  50. Awesome!!! Nicely done Perry!

    For the record, not a big fan of Rod’s obsession with saying “I see ya (insert player name)”

    1. You could always listen to the game on the radio or puchase MLB audio for 19.99. Dan Dickerson and Jim Price do a nice job. As for Rod, I just love him and his Rodisms. I’d fall asleep listening to Mario all night even though he’s a good announcer.

    1. Inge fouled one off ..I think teams will walk the bases loaded to face those two in the future…think about it

  58. Unbelievable. You *have* to get the insurance run in from 3rd with only 1 out. Epic fail on this way too many times…

  59. It seems it should be so easy……..but Inge and Laird sure prove that it is impossible to hit overwhelming pitching that is just so awesome and such. Just impossible to hit those pitches…..why, Ty Cobb himself couldn’t!

  60. Swing the bat! you know the curve is coming!

    Alright lets go Mr Potato Head!

  61. I must say that the Avatar ad with the Tigers/Angels scences is a little awkward…

  62. Is it possible to find out which teams have the most runners left on base this season?

  63. Please…can we try to work on NOT walking the lead off guy? And in general, work on throwing strikes?

  67. Yeesh, this is a whiny bunch. Frustrating to get not runs in the 9th, but the Angels did the same thing in the 8th. Great win. On to Texas!

    1. Nah – well trained :). Great win after a few less than ideal events. Whiny = fans that care. I’ll take this over indifference any time.

  68. That’s a big one. Looking at possibly splitting these road games if we can manage to take 2 in Texas.

    Valverde is hilarious.

  69. The Tigers do realize that they don’t get extra points for degree of difficulty, right?

  72. We stayed right to the end tonight and didn’t even leave after Inge and Lairds at bats ( I guess you had to call them at bats) There weren’t 3,000 people left by the end it was pretty Californnia cold (about 48) which is like 10 in Detroit. Went to the parking lot and there were fires to warm you…we are wimps out here ….Zumaya threw the same speed as last year but the movement was so much better he as almost lights out…..JV was just plain lucky… his command never did get good and the Angels helped….but with all the bad luck the Tigers had JV cashed in on some good luck for a change…..all the Tiger doubles , were crushed….nice win….after going 0-9 there wathcing the Tigers the past 4 years we sat thru 4-3 the past two years …that in itself is huge

  73. Argghhh! My DVR recording ran out in the middle of the ninth. I didn’t get to see Valverde’s happy save fist pumping gut dance!!

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