The Tigers look to sweep their three-game series this afternoon in hot Kansas City (temperature 92 and climbing).
Mad Max Scherzer will man the broom against the Royals. He has been in good form lately, with a 2.14 ERA over his last 5 starts. Bruce Chen has a 7.48 ERA over his last 4 starts, but always seem to give Detroit trouble.
V-Mart will not be in the lineup: he suffered a knee sprain on an ill-advised attempt to score. Word to come on how serious it is. Victor says “I felt a sharp pain in my knee, on the way up (to the clubhouse), I felt the pain go away. I just iced it, and we’ll see how it feels. Everything looks pretty good so we’ll see how it looks (Sunday).”
The lack of Martinez for any length of time would cause serious problems for the Tigers, so let’s hope it isn’t bad.
Today’s Player of the Pre-Game: Gene Lamont
Today Gene sleeps standing up and nobody gets hurt.
Today’s Sweepy Lineup:
- Austin Jackson CF
- Brennan Boesch LF
- Ryan Raburn 3B
- Miguel Cabrera 1B
- Magglio Ordonez DH
- Carlos Guillen 2B
- Jhonny Peralta SS
- Alex Avila C
- Andy Dirks RF
No long ABs in this heat. Good strategy.
Another Leyland line-up that seems to be made up by the use of a dart board.
Raburn has a good history vs Chen.
2 homers in 18 AB’s, with .381 OBP, and .992 OPS.
Leyland actually plays the batter pitcher match-ups!!!
http://www.theargylesweater.com/
I’m not even going to ask how you found that…
Just realized that we are facing Cy Chen today…Could be along day for Scherzer, as he shouldnt expect any run support.
Maybe, but I think we’ll romp Chen the 2nd or 3rd time though the order.
that’s through the order.
Here’s some of Miguel Cabrera’s stats vs Chen. 8 for 16, with 3 homers, .500 AVG, 1.840 OPS.
So when Miggy hits a 3 run bomb, don’t be too shocked.
I will be very shocked if he manages a 3-run HR with the bases empty.
Didn’t Chen completely shut the Tigers down earlier this season. I seem to recall him doing it in previous years.
He did back in April, in 46 degree weather. But we’ve owned him more often than not.
0 runs, 3 hits, 1 walk, 7 Ks in 6 innings
Did Brookens go all Lamont on us, or did Cabrera do that on his own?
I’ve gotta say, I don’t have the greatest feeling about this game today. I know we’ve done well against Chen in the past, but so far the offense is looking pretty tame, much like that cold day in April. I hope I’m wrong.
This just isn’t Max’s day…
Looks like only Jackson will get that 3rd time up vs Chen
Perhaps the fun can continue with their bullpen?
Uh oh…Rain Delay….The timing seems suspect, after the Tigers start a come back. What’s the weather forecast look like for the rest of the day? Hopefully they can come back and win this thing…
Chen was falling apart, and he likely would have pitched to another batter or two. I think this delay is going to hurt us.
That damned Coleman is in again.
Hey, it’s not my fault, blame the rain
The old “blame it on the weather” excuse.
Francouer just bailed you out, Coleman.
Poor baserunning in that inning?
We have atrocious baserunning as a team, we don’t teach it properly. It’s been a problem every single year, and a big problem. We also have a shortage of speed, and we lose a lot of efficiency on not being able to beat out infield hits, or stay out of double plays, or assume extra bases. If you aren’t going to have SKILLED BATTERS, you better have FAST runners at least! We don’t have either.
Here is my offensive summary report for the day in case anybody cares:
http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=1128439&p=28722136#p28722136
No matter the result today, great outing by Below – 7 up, 7 down, 4 Ks. Can he be our long guy instead of just a “lefty specialist”?
Darn…thought we could have won that one….Rain delay may have screwed that up. Oh well, can’t win them all. 2 out of 3 on the road isn’t bad. Now let’s do the same thing in Cleveland.
4 singles and 2 walks later, and the Rangers have taken the lead in the bottom of the 8th.
Leyland gets another year…
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110808&content_id=22923098&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb
What???
I’ve not been one of the guys really calling for Leyland’s head, but at least see if they manage to finish the job this year.
And can’t anybody get rid of Lamont, or at least move him to some job where he is not costing us key runs or causing an injury every week?
No comment!?
Tigers haven’t won baseball’s weakest division since ’87 and would be in 3rd place in every other division this year. Extensions all around!
ive super happy for dave dombrowski. making detroit tigers baseball relevant again. anyone disliking his extension must not have been very involved watching the randy smith era.
jim leyland is more questionable overall to me. but i guess i can deal with a 1 year extension.
first place in the central at the all star break in: 06,07, 09, 10, 11
blame leyland. maybe dave d isnt making the best additions at the deadline and all that bs, but his teams are CLEARLY in contention. the breakdowns of 07, 09 are of a manager.
i can not believe people hating on dave d. he has somewhat philosphosicial problems running an organization. he relies too much on drafting pitching and trading/signing hitters. thats his motto, if you don’t see it. it’s not terrible. he’s showing it can work, it won’t ever make him the best, but his teams matter. and he has strong pitching bargaining chips.
but you would think you could find a balance within it all. he, and now the tigers, are pretty poor at developing field talent. though i’d easily admit someone like boesch coming through the cracks, avila (al’s own son has developed awesomely for the moment) everyone else is left out. 1st trade, second guillen now trade, ss trade, 3rd now trade, rf signing, center trade, lf developed.
now a lot of those trades have centered around our drafted pitching and the likes. and im not perfect on the subject so ill just let it be. but thats the reasoning, draft pitching, something people are always looking for, and pawn it off for a bat, sign a free agent hitter. its a strong program, if not the best.
im happy dave dombrowski is sticking around for a few more years.
So DD builds these wonderfully competitive teams, allows his good buddy JL to run them into the ground every Fall, and then gives him an extension (twice). Is DD better than Smith – yeah. Is mediocre better than horrific – yeah. DD has had 6 years to get them over the hump and in my view he hasn’t done it. I’m not terribly upset with extending DD, but I do think 4 years is not warranted. Some good deals, some bad deals and way too many long-term bad contracts. I think he’s over-rated and the “Wonderboy GM” label belongs in the distant past.
First of all the AL Central wasn’t even created until 1994, so from 1988-1993 the Tigers were still playing in the AL East with the Yankees, Red Sox, etc. Also, the AL Central hasn’t been the weakest division in baseball the entire time since 1994. The Indians had very strong teams in the 90’s, and the Twins and White Sox have had some strong teams as well in this decade. Our division has been one of the weaker divisions in recent years, but that has not been the case the entire 17 years of its existence.
That being said, the extensions are not warranted and I agree that Ilitch should have kept the extensions as a carrot to entice Leyland and Dombrowski to finish the job or else.
Sorry, my reply was meant for stephen, not you Vince in MN. I hit the reply button after I had scrolled down and read other comments. Sorry.
Strange that an organization so recently and markedly hamstrung by bad long-term contracts would opt to extend DD for 4-years.
I don’t think he’s awful (and I think the Leyland extension is largely irrelevant [as most managers are]) but, and correct me if I’m wrong here, weren’t these two told they needed to win something to get extended? We’re entering the homestretch with a .54 win% which, thanks to the unexpected weakness of our main predicted competition. Thankfully that has been good enough for a 4 game lead this year, but I can’t shake the feeling that this has largely been a gift – not something that DD has necessarily earned. Not only that, but we haven’t even locked up the division yet.
Again, I think DD is decent and this year especially I think he’s done some good work shoring up our weaknesses (even if you could argue that relying on Inge and Coke was bound to be a gamble). I just don’t see how we went from these guys being on the hot seat to Dave now being one of the most secure GMs in the league. Its a little like Inge’s extension – sure you can argue there are no immediate internal/external replacements @ 3b…but why extend for 2 years at above market? Tigers are doing well so far…great. However, if its just the strength of the division making DD look good…