Brad Penny was once again Good Enough, but the Tigers were unable to do any damage against Cy Bumgarner, and after a brief bit of excitement when they sent The Beard to Zambrano-land, the rug was pulled out from under on a bang-bang game ending double play. It was exciting enough that Aubrey Huff had tears in his eyes after the victory, although that could have also been because the Giants took a pass on a really delicious ham sandwich to keep him on the roster, or from relief that he changed his mind at the last second about strolling to the water cooler as Brian Wilson was coming off the field.
On the bright side, Casper Wells made Sportcenter’s Play of the Day when he thwarted interfering fans and threw a perfect strike to a plate-blockingly perfect Avila. You don’t run on The Ghost! Good stuff.
Pablo Sandoval is about the only guy hitting for the Giants, and yet that was somehow enough. And also we somehow threw him a strike on a 0-2 count with 2 out, because…well, just because.
At any rate, 2 more games, and the interleague horror show is over.
Tonight the Tigers give the ball to Home Boy Max Scherzer. Home Boy because he is 5-1 with a 3.13 ERA at Comerica. Barry “The Contract” Zito flings it for the Gigantes, in only his 2nd start since April.
Today’s Player of the Pre-Game: Jhonny Peralta
Zito is pretty much the definition of what you would call a “finesse” pitcher. If you look at the BBRef pitcher type splits, Peralta just jumps off the page with a .360 / 1.045 OPS vs finesse pitchers. As opposed to, say, Inge (.182 / .473). In fact Inge and Ordonez are a combined 7-for-49 (.143) vs Zito.
Today’s Raburn is SO Due Lineup:
- Austin Jackson CF
- Casper Wells RF
- Magglio Ordonez DH
- Miguel Cabrera 1B
- Victor Martinez C
- Jhonny Peralta SS
- Brennan Boesch LF
- Ryan Raburn 2B
- Brandon Inge 3B
Scherzer appears to be back to being a BP Pitcher… Can interleague play just be over with already???
Raburn showing off his skills at 2nd again…DFA him!
Hey Max 95 down the middle is batting practice!!!!
The 2nd Half collapse is starting early this year.
I am not able to see Raburn.
I don’t have fun to watch tigers because of Raburn.
You big boss do something
Leyland and Raburn out and the Tigers will win
Nobody in the city want Raburn in the team exept Leyland and he know that Raburn is not a major leage player
I hope heis shy to take is pay
Are we in a rain delay? Any chance this game gets cancelled?
Not a good week for our beloved Tigers. Can’t wait for Monday.
Nice seeing you Villareal.
10-0 I turned back on……Raburn- Inge- Jackson to bat in the 3rd….I turned off…see u tomorrow
The Tigers pitching is currently 12th in the AL. Since 2006, when they led the League in ERA. They have only been in the top 1/2 once (2009 5th). Every year we are told what good pitching, that we have. Each year, the results tell a different story. The Tigers Finished 10th in the AL in ERA last year. The bottom Line, the pitching situation needs to be fixed. I don’t know if that means, putting out a better defensive lineup, AAA stints, call ups, or tweaks of the mechanics. IDK. There is a general theme of a lack of command w/ tigers pitchers.
This is good research. How long has Knapp been here?
I blame Zumaya’s motorcycle accident as the root of all of our troubles.
Someone needs to be fired. This teams performance in recent weeks has been absolutely pathetic. Our pitching staff is just awful, with the exception of Justin Verlander. How can so many pitcher turn to crap so quickly? I feel like we are back to the days of Chuck Hernandez. Is this all Rick Knapp’s fault? The line-up is all on Leyland. He says that he is going to put his best line-up out on a daily basis, yet Raburn, with his lack of hitting and lack of fielding skills, starts almost every night and is batting 7th and will even sometimes creep up to 2nd.
This isn’t just a collapse, this is an embarrassment to have a teams pitching staff obliterated like this so many times in a 2 week period.
Let’s not overreact. They are 6-7 in the last two weeks, and 2 games over since June 1.
Penny was outstanding on Friday and Scherzer will get it together. We’ll be alright.