The Tigers have dropped 4 of their last 5 games. They’ll try to right the ship tonight with Dontrelle Willis on the mound as they welcome in the Oakland A’s.
Willis was good and bad in his start against the Dodgers last weekend. He was getting ground balls, and then he got wild. With Max Scherzer throwing bullets down in Toledo Willis may be in a competition with Armando Galarraga for a spot in the rotation. Willis has the advantage of contract status and left handedness, but one wouldn’t think he can’t afford too many outings like his last one.
The A’s send out a former NL pitcher turned reclamation project of their own in the form of Ben Sheets. Sheets hasn’t pitched through the 7th inning, but he is starting to rack up some strikeouts with 8 K’s in 3 of his last 4 games.
Oakland Athletics at Detroit Tigers – May 28, 2010 – MLB.com Preview
Finally I get to watch some baseball. I missed the last couple of games. Wednesday due to a power outage and the day before because it was late and I feel asleep. Just wish Willis wasn’t pitching. If he craps out early, I’ll need to hit the bar and drink those troubles away.
Are the 24 Carat Club, Silverbird Lounge, Uncle Sam’s or Harpo’s still open for a cold pop in Detroit?
Carlos and Miggy are back ….. so the Tiger bats should be going BOOM BOOM in the night!
A rickety man who hasn’t played second base since the Clinton Administration, how could this possibly go wrong?
Dude hasn’t played second base in this century.
Remember the Y2K scare? That happened AFTER the last time Guillen started at second.
Remember when the only way to get from Flint to Detroit was by stagecoach? That was right before Guillen last played second base.
Wow, bunting first inning with a wild pitcher. Just wow.
How many more chances are management willing to give Willis if he fails tonight.
Man, bunting in the first inning against a guy who has been wild for the last three years is pretty damn close to managing malpractice. Seriously, I’d have a hard time rooting for a team with that kind of managing, you’d just know at some point he would do something stupid that would cost you a game. Seriously, that’s a high school math teacher coaching American Legion ball kind of over-managing.
CAB….BOOMMMMMMMMMMM!
I think Carlos pulled his foot before he caught the ball on that DP that got wiped out.
I still can’t get over the bunt. Worst routine managing call I’ve seen in forever.
Great line by Dan Dickerson. “Dontrell cant get a handle on it tonight…. I just seems to come and just seems to go”
next start I vote for Bonine here
Willis 3 innings, 61 pitches 8 baserunners and one wild pitch. Good thing he’s pitching against a glorified AAAA team.
Better to be lucky than good 😉
pretty sad with the dead wood on the Tiger roster Worth gets sent down
hey jim we’ve seen enough!
2 seam fastball? That looked like a BP meatball. No control, no speed changes, no movement. I don’t get it.
And then he looks like Kenny Rogers against Barton! WTF?! 75 mph, to 90 mph, to 85 mph. High, low, in and out. Golden.
I just don’t get this guy.
He got taken deep by some #9 hitter on the weakest hitting team in the AL…a guy named “Landon”…sigh
I full expect Willis to get the next nine guys in a row as he goes into his patented ‘I don’t want to be released’ mode.
Willis is going to get the A’s in the fifth in order and that’s going to earn him two more starts. Meanwhile, his WHIP is nearing 2 an inning but Leyland will talk about how he ‘battled.’
Sheets and Willis benefiting from a giant strike zone. Umps must have 930 dinner reservation in Greektown.
Big Daddy!!
I miss the old picture. This is nice though considering they are playing the A’s
I changed it to accompany an “elephant in the room” thread on here…I’ll change it back at some point.
*white elephant in the room
HOLY CABBBBBBBY!
Cabrera is pretty good.
CAB…..BOOM again!
Cabrera for MVP. It’s sad he’s got 2 1B ahead of him for the freakin AS team.
Hey I don’t think Perry is available tonight he still has one more session with Willis’ Shrink who’s trying to explain why Jimmy left him in so long Wednesday!
Good Point, Who is coming in. D train has 82 pitches. No way he goes past 6 into 7
Gabe Gross can’t hit lefties. Get him out and get Willis out.
Goodnight Dontrelle and congrats again on pitching just well enough not to get waived. We’ll see you in five days.
Miracles are possible…Inge singles to RF…
It was an accident. Probably just a failed check swing.
and willis is still in there why?
Jimbo lets make sure this game is totally out of control before you get your old behind out there to take him out AGAIN TODAY!
Thank goodness, the D-Train ride is over.
come on Battlestar we all want you to get back on top of things!
Miggy with the roll-over double play. Carlos looks good making the turn at second.
He sure does. He doesn’t have the quick feet that Worth does, but so far he’s plenty serviceable… And then when you throw his bat in there, he’s a very worthy replacement.
agreed! great to see Carlos back. its just too bad
Worth can’t replace another bat in that lineup that needs replacing
easy play for Guillen
Dontrelle Willis has now pitched 91 innings as a Tiger. He has allowed 185 baserunners. He has earned approximately $24 million.
oh! he thought he was getting paid By the number of base runners!
Our offense has been kinda pathetic lately. What’s the deal? Damon, Jackson, Boesch… Let’s get some hits here!
And I hope Santiago leads off the 8th. No need for Everett to be batting after the 7th.
Barton has swung and missed at 7nor 8 breaking balls down all day..so who decides to throw him a high fastball…..Hey Avila you cant hit how about calling a good game
Unbelievable!
The A’s… the freakin A’s. This is frustrating to watch.
i guess when you get 14 hits and 5 walks its hard to lose those games
and when you take away Miggies three bombs the Tigers haven’t done squat
Wow.
CAB…..BOOOOOOM…..one more time!!!!!!
It’s nice to see Ni has been coached up on pitcher’s fielding and is in postseason form
he gets the out there we are tied now
I thought Inge had the tying home run there but the second baseman caught it…….what a great night for Cabby and a pathetic night for everyone else
I thought Boesch got ahold of his also at first glance. A couple really nice cuts from the rookie. It’s now time for a couple guys to get hot. I have a feeling Guillen will be stroking, but we need Damon and or Jackson to get hot. Avila needs to start finding some holes/gaps as well. He’s been hitting the ball pretty hard, just always right at someone.
I want to know why Jim didn’t put a pinch hitter in for Inge?
I remember! Inge had his son’t T-ball team at the game.
Hilarious.
Perry instead of Zumaya = Leyland trying to rebuild Perry’s confidence after the Seattle debacle?
If so, how do you think he’s feeling now? The HBP after the IBB was particularly brilliant…
On the bright side, we got to save our closer again…
The way we’re hitting, Valverde will be doing mop up duty before long just to get some work in.
the Tigers were out-hit (14 – 7), out-pitched, out-played and out-coached – they’re lucky they didn’t get blown out…the A’s had 13 LOB.
time for JL’s ‘gut check’ sermon – one directed at his roster, one looking in the mirror.
hoping the Twinkies and white sox keep losing should not be part of the team’s game plan.
Great interview with Willis.
Polish Night at the Park, Cabrera’s hits 3 home runs. How much memorable if we had just won the game.
Michal Kabrovski
I have people in my family with names like that, but I’m not Polish.
I’m soooo sick of Leyland. Hell, I’ll take Trey Hillman over this guy. First we get the Perry debacle in Seattle (where any manager with a brain would’ve got him out of there following the single which followed a two run HR)), and then tonight he walks the tightrope with Willis for five plus innings when he should’ve beeen gon by the fourth inning. Get him the hell out of the game and pitch Brad Thomas in long relief for a few innings. How many times do Jim and DD need to see Willis struggle like a Little Leaguer (just praying to throw strikes) before they pull the plug on this guy as a starter? I’ve never seen anything like it. This is supposed to be the highest level of baseball on the planet and we are starting a guy who can’t comand any of his pitches with any consistency. I want to win and I hate that we are pissing away games to inferior teams like Seattle and Oakland. Leyland is the worst manager in the AL Central with the possible exception of Manny Acta (don’t know much about Yost in KC, but I’d seriously take Trey Hillman over Leyland….make the call DD). I liked the way his teams played the game. He never had anywhere near the talent that Leyland had the last three years, but he kicked Leyland’s tail pretty good when their teams played head-to-head.
I feel your frustration, Jerry, but I disagree about the part “pissing away games to inferior teams.” The Tigers went to the WS in ’06 and couldn’t beat Kansas City in a 4 game series to take the Division title that year. There really aren’t any inferior teams when it comes to the Tigers, or any other team, as far as I’m concerned. No team in MLB should be considered inferior if your playing for a berth in the playoffs.