Game 2010.020: Tigers at Rangers

The long grueling road trip is over. I’m exhausted after these 11 days and nights. I can only imagine how the players are feeling. A win tonight would mean a palatable 5-6 trip. A loss and it is a disappointing 4-7. Arbitrary you ask? Yeah, it is.

Jeremy Bonderman takes the ball for Detroit. I was going to wow you with a pitch f/x breakdown of Bonderman this season. The thing is, try as I might, I can’t classify his pitches. I haven’t trusted what gameday is telling me so I did my own k-means clustering trying a variety of variables and I got nada. I can pick out some fastballs and some sliders. The rest is noise. Hopefully the noise is effective tonight ‘cuz the pen needs a breather.

Matt Harrison goes for the Rangers. Much like Bonderman he has two quality starts and a stinker this year. The Tigers faced him twice last year and neither game he made it out of the sixth inning and the Tigers plated 9 runs total.

The lineup:

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

Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers – April 26, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

80 thoughts on “Game 2010.020: Tigers at Rangers”

    1. He missed a grand slam by about 1 foot. It’s a bases loaded double, but someone will surely call it “BABIP luck”. Balls in play like that are going to be hits 100% of the time.

  1. THEM CROOKED NUMBERS!

    (Any chance Bonderman throws a scoreless first inning? I’ll say it’s in the 10 percent range.)

  2. would be great so see Rayburn return to the end of last years form…he contributed a bunch

  3. that was such a big hit by Rayburn because Inge and Laird could have figured out a way to get all of those guys on base out!

  4. Damon is awesome. One of the smartest and most reliable hitters I’ve seen in a Tiger uniform since Kaline. He bats smart and all his years of experience give him an aura of self-control no matter what the circumstances,

  5. watching Jackson trying to decide whats a ball and what’s a strike makes you apprecitate how hard it must be to hit any major league pitcher.

      1. I was actually in the shot when a runner was on first, at least from the Rangers cameras. Could have been my big chance to unveil myself to DTW. Next time.

        1. I didn’t see you…but then again I was looking for someone dribbling a basketball…

  6. Bonderman needs to forget about those base runners. Just get the next 3 guys out, and if they score, so be it. We’ll still have a 6-3 lead. Bondo’s pitch count is still real low so he just might make it 8 innings if he doesn’t blow up.

    1. Not the time to be experimenting to see if you can throw a certain type of pitch.

  7. The Rick Ankiel pitch……despite that pitch he did some serious pitching that inning to escape with only one…way to go Bondo!

  8. That’s 2 more hits for AJax. When he gets a pitch down Broadway, he sure knows what to do with it. His BABIP is about .670 when he gets ahead of the count.

  9. I’m not positive, but that looked like a misplay by Jackson out there in center. Maybe Kevin at the game knows better…

    1. If you are referring to the Vlad single to tie the game, yes, he misplayed it. Had he taken the first step in, AJax would have made the catch.

  10. Man, it’s amazing how quickly the game changes, from an excellent outing into another short, semi-disappointing performance.

  11. Man…that start for Bonderman was looking good… I figured he could have gone for at least 7 innings… Alas, he fell apart in the 6th and our bull pen again will pick up more innings than it should, right before the series with the Twins…

  12. At what point does Laird’s .119 batting average become too much of an issue for him to start with regularity?

        1. to bat a .100 means you make 90 outs in 100 at bats….thats almots hard to imagine being that bad of a hitter…..

  13. Thing’s have fallen apart…..can the Tigs right the ship and win the game?

    1. Scoring six runs should be enough to win this ball game, this falls on the pitchings staffs inability to get big outs….

  14. Lots of work for bullpen to start the season. Didn’t think pitching would be such a problem

  15. the Rangers 7-8-9 batters have been on base 17 times this series I wonder how many time the BOB’s have been on in this series

  16. This man has bailed this team out so many times… He deserves league MVP already this season… Now, can the bullpen hold it for one measley inning? One can hope…

  17. Remember when people where complaining last year that Cabrera wasn’t clutch? Yea, that was funny.

  18. Inge has been in the wrong spot in the battign order all year,,,wow he crushes it in the 5 spot

    MIggggggggggggggy!

  19. I appreciate the effort from Laird on that hit, makes me feel like he is actually trying.

  20. I’m sorry did our slow-witted catcher who is hitting .118 just try and take third with two outs?

    1. hey he got most of the way there …the throw only beat him but 2 or 3 seconds which of course in baseball is 15 feet

      1. He was actually safe. Tag was high (ball got there too soon). Even the Rangers fans behind me were willing to concede that.

  21. Rod said Laird thought he was back in Little League — so happy to get a hit that he kept on running. Funny!

  22. Yep, 5-6 is definitely a passing grade for that trip. Hardest road trip out of the way.

  23. Another win. This turned out to be a decent road trip. I’ll gladly take 5 of 11. IMO, Seattle, LA, and Texas are good teams and all 3 have a legit shot a winning the AL West.

Comments are closed.