What does Damon do about Damon?

(don’t laugh at the graphic, I’m still learning)

Well, Johnny Damon has been claimed off of waivers by the Red Sox.  Damon seems as if he wants to stay, but it must be tough considering DD (and perhaps JL) would rather give someone else his playing time.  If you will recall, Damon parted with the Red Sox nation on less than ideal terms after they failed to make signing him a priority; though the current Red Sox clubhouse is saying all the right things to woo him back.

On the field, his contributions to the Tigers have been positive, though not quite to the extent that we were hoping.  He’s got an OPS+ of 106, but most of that comes from the OBP component, as he has only 40 extra base hits.  Moreover, he’s primarily been a DH appearing in only 36 games in left.  On the other hand, he seems to be a voice in the club house and was responsible for the first walk-off HR of the season (that I can remember).

Game 2010.125: Royals at Tigers

Tigers looked sharp over the weekend, they look to extend the hot streak against the Royals starting tonight.

Bondo can only get better, as his last three starts have seen him allow 16 ER in 15.1 IPs.  As a team the Royals are 2nd in the majors with a .275 BA, but they are a light-hitting team who doesn’t walk much, as their OPS is .722, 9th in the AL.  (Compared to the Tigers .750 OPS, 7th in the AL.)

Chen has only made it out of the 6th inning twice this year, though he did beat the Tigers on June 4th after allowing 2 runs on 4 hits in 5 innings.  On the season he’s 8-6 with a 4.61 ERA, and a Tiger friendly 1.51 WHIP.

Two hits for Inge would put him at 1,000 for his career, or 67 less than his career strikeout total.

Tonight’s Casper Wells lineup is brought to you by the Marlboro Man.

Jackson – CF
Rhymes – 2B
Damon – DH
Cabrera – 1B
Raburn – LF
Peralta – SS
Inge – 3B
Wells – RF
Laird – C

Game 2010.119: Tigers at Yankees

The reception for Damon last night at Yankee stadium was one of the coolest moments of the season.  Do you want him back? (make sure you check out the video in that link if you didn’t see it last night).  He seems to know his place on the team, and I think he’s been a great influence in the clubhouse.  For the right price, I’d love to keep him as our fourth outfielder.

Here’s a little follow-up on the Granderson/Jackson debate from last night.  I also like how one New York paper compared the Bronx Bombers to the “Golden Girls” after last night’s game. Finally, ARod looks to be a game-time decision, please post if you hear something.

JV is my Tiger tonight.  We could really use a dominating (Scherzer-like) performance out of him.

Game 2010.117: Tigers at White Sox

Galarraga looks to get on track tonight.  He’s lost his last four decisions (spanning 7 starts) and has a 5.31 ERA since June 29th.  He’s also allowed at least one home run in six of those seven starts.

Garcia pitched well two starts ago against the Tigers, allowing only one run in 6 2/3.  But he was hammered last time out by the Twins, giving up 8 hits and six runs in 2 and 1/3.  On the year, he’s giving up more hits and walks than usual, and he’s getting less ground outs than his norm.  Hitters are batting .292 off of him this season and he gives up almost a HR per start.

Despite his record (10-5), Garcia is very beatable.  Tigers with a shot at taking a series on the road today.  A road series win would be their first since May (2 game sweep in Oakland), and only 3rd of the year (@ KC opener).

A few tidbits from today’s game notes:

– Both Damon and Cabrera have three career HRs off of Garcia

– Raburn is hitting .364 over his last nine games

– Tigers lead the league with 31 OF assists…this is likely explained by the departure of Granderson, and then significant playing time for Raburn and Boesch in the OF

– Tigers are 11-8 on Sundays this year

Lets go boys.

Game 2010.116: Tigers at White Sox

I’m wondering if we can create a metric which measures overall bullpen effectiveness.  My argument is that this bullpen (and to some extent the mis-management of it) has been the number one cause of our demise.  Something like quality starts.  Holds doesn’t do it for me, b/c it’s an individual measure.  There may be something already out there…any help here?  If not, any ideas?  Here’s mine.

Simplistically, I looked at the number of times that a reliever lowered or raised his ERA over the past few weeks (“positive” or “negative outings”). Problem is that reliever ERAs don’t just get raised, they get blown up.  Thus, a 1 IP 1 ER effort is significantly more negative than a 1 IP 0 ER effort is positive.  My thinking is that for every X appearances, a reliever should have Y positive outings, and Z negative outings, on average.

I realize that WHIP is probably a better number than ERA, but I’m not sure what we set the WHIP at.  Anyway, I’d be curious to see if something better already exists (likely), or if we can come up with something ourselves.

Quick tidbit – The Tigers lead the majors with 34 triples allowed.  Even though, back to back triples is RARE.  Tigers pitchers this season have allowed 1 triple for every 129 batters faced, or .77%.  So the chances of giving up back to back triples is .006% or roughly 1 in 17,000.  (Though Beckham and Pierre probably have a much higher likelihood than just about any other two batters in a lineup across baseball.)

Tonight’s lineup:

Jackson – CF
Damon – DH
Boesch – RF
Cabrera – 1B
Guillen – 2B
Inge – 3B
Raburn – LF
Avila –  C
Santiago – SS

Baseball is fun.

Is this going to get any better anytime soon?

A few random notes that I found, and a few questions for the community.

(Saw this in the Journal yesterday.)  Even with all of the injuries this year, Uncle Smokey is not at the top of the list for most lineups used. That goes to Manny Acta who has used 102 lineups in 113 games.  The article did not list every team, but Smokey is somewhere between 68 and 93.  I’m guessing that one of our more resourceful members (Coleman, this is you), knows where to find this info.

Looks like the Tigers came very close to sending Boesch down last weekend.  But Leyland is going to let him work out of it.

I don’t think Perry has looked right all season, but his #’s are worse when he pitches on back to back nights.

Have Fu Te Ni and Enrique Gonzales been the cause of losses, or the effect?

After Tuesday’s loss, the Tigers are 30-22 when they get a quality start.  The first-place Twins are 48-12 when they get a quality start. (Courtesy of John Lowe).  So is this an indication of a bad bullpen, poor run support, or both?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Well, we all know that we are 7-22 since the all-star break.  (Holy cats that is ugly in type.)  And we all know that injuries are a significant part of that.  But our relief pitching has been just as bad as the offense, and has been a huge cause of .300 baseball.

Take a look at our pitching splits before the all star break, and then after.  Baseball Musings makes it hard to see traditional pitching metrics (again, I’m sure that one of our posters will chime in with relevant data), but you can see a few things.  Take a look at the starters OPS allowed (.761 pre/.755 post AS game), versus the relievers (.662 pre / .877 post).  .877 OPS allowed is not good.  By way of comparison, Boston’s offense leads the majors in OPS at .803.  Our starters have been decent over the past month, with a 4.39 ERA and 1.42 WHIP.  But they are 5-14 during that span despite 14 quality starts.  Scherzer and Verlander have combined for an ERA around 3, but only a 3-5 record to show for it.  Here are our bullpen ERAs since the All Star Break:

Valverde: 8.74 (up from .92)
Perry: 2.51 (down from 5.47)
Coke: 3.38 (up almost a full run)
Gonzales: 6.17 (up from 2.25)
Weinhardt: 8.49 (up from 2.25)
Bonine: 6.55 (up from 2.81)
Thomas: 5.91 (up from 4.12)

Offensively, the offense was pretty average pre (.768 OPS), and has been downright terrible post (.652 OPS).  Injuries to Inge, Maggs and Guillen have hurt, but I’m not sure that we are in the race if those guys had stayed healthy.  (Incredibly 4 teams have been worse than us offensively over the past 30 days.)  I’d be curious to see where we are record-wise compared against all of MLB during that time frame.

So anyway, what are your expectations over the final 48 games?  Do we make a run at the Central?  Do we make a run at respectability? Or do we continue to slip further and further away, and perpetuate the 2nd half spiral that has come to define our team of the last few years?