Game 2011.78: Diamondbacks at Tigers

“A baseball manager is a necessary evil.”  -Sparky Anderson

Some are more necessary and less evil than others, and today the Tigers honor Sparky Anderson and officially retire his number 11.  Many ex-Tigers will be on hand for the ceremony, including Kirk Gibson and Alan Trammell of the Diamondbacks, Rod Allen, Al Kaline, Willie Horton, Gates Brown, Dick Tracewski, Dave Bergman, Darrell Evans, Mike Henneman, Larry Herndon, Dan Petry, Dave Rozema, Frank Tanana, and Milt Wilcox.  (That’s a somewhat pitcher-heavy list for a guy known as Captain Hook).

It that weren’t enough excitement, fans are still buzzing about Justin Verlander’s impressive 14-strikeout performance last night.  In the 8th, he let the first two batters get to 2nd and 3rd, seemingly as a tease, just so he could strike out the side, making Upton look particularly helpless.  I’m sure he has a bad game in him somewhere, but it has been so long it will seem strange and foreign when we see it:  since May 29 he is 6-0 with a 0.72 ERA.

Brady Penny is no Verlander, but he has been good enough lately.  Penny is matched up against Joe Saunders, who is 4-7 4.35 for the season, but has been improving of late.

Alex Avila is notably missing from today’s lineup–he is resting a sore wrist he received from an errant Ryan Perry pitch.

Today’s Player of the Pre-Game:  Casper Wells

The Ghost has quietly put together an impressive June, hitting .333 with a 1.108 OPS.

Today’s Lineup With a Spark:

  1. Austin Jackson CF
  2. Casper Wells RF
  3. Magglio Ordonez DH
  4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
  5. Victor Martinez C
  6. Jhonny Peralta SS
  7. Brennan Boesch LF
  8. Brandon Inge 3B
  9. Ryan Raburn 2B

20 thoughts on “Game 2011.78: Diamondbacks at Tigers”

    1. is there a world record for this…maybe this is history in the making and I’m not quite appreciating it

  1. Wells has an 1.108 OPS? That’s more than impressive. That’s world-beater-ish. Raburn shouldn’t even see the field from the clubhouse. Ramon can play 2B.

  2. Viiiiiiiiiiiiiiictor…….you the man also…

    and lets not overlook Kelly PH for RaBum and actually gets on base!!

    1. I hope you weren’t serious? Kinsler isn’t good enough, he could put up some big numbers in his career, but he’s too well condensed into a not so impressive shortly above mediocre hitting level. We have had countless guys like that and that’s why we can’t win.

      The only thing we can do to get to a higher level is to condense our number of players in that category and acquire a larger number of players that are in the categories above Kinsler’s level. If anything, we should trade veteran pitchers sans Verlander to shed some salary and age in the process of acquiring better players, and concentrating on using our farm system to bring in cheap pitchers inhouse or via trade to refortify the pitching units for the long-term.

    2. By the way, I bet you the Yankees would bite on a trade for Cano if we offered the right package. This one would top the magnitude of the Grandy trade, and I see a lot of potential for a deal that works out for both teams! 🙂

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