Game 2011.136: Royals at Tigers

Not much time to celebrate last night’s walk off

Paulino is a late scratch with back-spasms, so Nate Adcock takes the ball for the Royals. Adcock is on a pitch count limit of about 50 pitches, and then some guy named Everett Teaford will man the mound.  This actually does not bode well for the Tigers, as the Royals pen is touting a sub 2 ERA against the Tigers this year.

Porcello was pretty good his last time out, but he’s been pretty bad over the past three months. At this point in time, I’ve got to think (hope) that he’s not quite a lock for the playoff rotation, and every start is an audition.  That plot will really thicken tomorrow between innings 1 and 6.

– Avila’s streak of 18 consecutive games at C is tops this year, says Freep.
– Who knows when Boesch will be back, if at all…as Gage reports that he needs surgery.
– That same article says Al Al has been cleared for baseball activities.  Get better soon Al Al.

Today’s Lining Up for a Series Win Lineup is:

1. Jackson, CF
2. Santiago, SS
3. Young, LF
4. Cabrera, 1B
5. Martinez, DH
6. Avila, C
7. Betemit, 3B
8. Raburn, 2B
9. Kelly, RF

 

35 thoughts on “Game 2011.136: Royals at Tigers”

  1. Where is this team’s patience at the plate? They are just hacking away at everything. Adcock has only thrown 22 pitches threw three innings, and based on the pitches in the dirt he has thrown, it seems like they should take a more patient approach with this guy. Of course, that would make too much sense to do when they can just go up there and hack at everything, expecting to hit a home run.

    1. Team patience at the plate is a major problem indeed. By the way last night I got cut off on some messages so anybody that didn’t get a reply that was expecting one sorry, but once I post a lot late at night I get shut down every time after a certain point.

      1. I think that’s just a system thing. Not sure what the parameters are, and I def know that I can’t change them.

        1. You guys should just find a system them that has no bugs or problems of any kind. Why be a prisoner to a crappy system?

  2. What is it with Kansas City at the end of the season? We could obliterate them every other part of the season, but come late August and September, our pitching sucks and the bats go cold, as if we are playing the Red Sox…

    1. Working extra hard cause they are all on notice and they want to keep their jobs? They really should try less hard and be less aggressive, what’s the point of their OF almost breaking his arm to save that deep fly ball, for what? There’s nothing to gain and that could have been a career ending injury and winning games just gives them a worse draft pick. Now’s not the time to play like a champion, now’s the time to relax and coast.

      1. Cleveland just took 2/3 from them. It seems to me that the Tigers are always losing big games to Kansas City down the stretch. 2006 and 2009 are perfect examples of this.

        1. Well our team just isn’t uber dominant, and laws of statistics say that in the long-run there’s nothing magical about being unusually weak against one of the generally weaker teams and vice versa. That’s all statistical happenstance of being too close to a coin-flipish value of a team.

  3. And Porcello is done, better pull him Leyland before he gives up 7 runs and this game gets completely away from us…

  4. Peavey got clocked for 6 runs, 6 hits (2 HR’s) against the Twinkies in the first inning today.

  5. Well…at least Chicago is down by 6 right now….that could be the only good news today, as this team continues to suck against bottom feeding KC….

  6. Valverde does it again. But still wondering what was up with the Avila decision to try for that ill advised attempt at home. Oh well, we got the win so whatever. Guess we’ll just ignore that. *shrugs*

      1. apparently Lamont never got ‘do not run on Francour’ memo. fortunately in this instance, it proved to be relevant

  7. Great come-from-behind win. Lets finish off the series tomorrow with a Turner victory

  8. Stepped away for a 30 min meeting, came back to a W. What a win. Can’t wait to go for the series tomorrow behind Turner.

    1. I assume he is on a strict pitch count (he was at Toledo), so the bullpen should get a workout too.

  9. It’s August 31. I hope the team is thinking of some roster moves for playoff eligibility. We probably won’t need so many pitchers in the playoffs with more days of rest, so Dirks or somebody else could come up.

    1. From Jason Beck’s blog:

      Answering question about postseason rosters

      The question came up by chance today, but it’s been asked by readers for the last week or so: Will the Tigers make any roster moves before Sept. 1 to make sure guys are eligible for postseason rosters?

      The answer is that they don’t have to. As long as the Tigers have players on the disabled list at season’s end — and with Joel Zumaya and Brad Thomas, they’ll have two — they can technically use those spots to add players to the postseason roster who weren’t up with the team on Aug. 31. In past years, they would’ve had to use a pitcher to replace a pitcher on the DL. They no longer have to do that.

      Thus, for example, if the Tigers were to want Andy Dirks on the roster for the Division Series as an extra roster, they can still wait until Sept. 1 or later to call him up. They can use the rule and “replace” Zumaya with Dirks, and use Thomas’ spot on somebody else. As long as they’re in the organization before Sept. 1, they can be used as a replacement.

      1. Thanks. I just read that on his blog and came over here to cut & paste it myself. Should have read your comment last night!

  10. A great come from behind win (come from behinds are always great!). That finishes the Tigers at 18-10 for the month of August which means the Dog Days belong to the Tigers! I hope we can have as productive Septembers and Octobers!

  11. I haven’t been around much this summer, so I don’t know if this has been mentioned here yet, but…

    Has anyone else noticed how many Tigers have been thrown out by a mile at the plate this year? Is Gene Lamont getting senile or has he always been this bad?

    1. As far as anyone here can tell, everybody but Jim Leyland has noticed Lamont’s inability to judge distances.

    2. Of course some of remember last year when Mag running with a bag ankle was sent home and thrown out for the season. The Tigers do appear to be more agressive in try to score.

  12. Good to see Jackson with the 4/4 day – that made all the difference. Hopefully he can put a hot streak together down the stretch. Typical game from Penello, as he successfully keeps his ERA above 5. Santiago making the most of his opportunities. No AB for Inge today – excellent! Although Cabrera is hitting .328, it would be nice if he could kick it up a notch – with only 83 RBI he may not get 100 by the end, which would be a sub-par season from him. His HR power is also down this year.

  13. As far as Cabrera goes, you can’t really blame him for the RBIs. With the line-ups Leyland makes, he has relatively few people on base for him. Look at the on-base rates of Jackson, Raburn, Ordonez, Rhymes, Santiago and other guys Leyland usually puts at the top of the order.

    The other thing is, since midway through last season, opponents have been walking him like crazy. Which is why it feels like he has had a quiet season despite having a pretty good OPS.
    That hurts the RBIs too.

    If only Leyland could make a line-up that makes sense!

    1. Agreed. It would help if DD would go about a better strategy of player acquisitions for him to work with so that he has better players to assemble, then the goofy lineups wouldn’t hurt as much. Procuring the ingredients comes first, then you bake the pie.

      1. Jeff, I’m not sure if that article really supports the claim that line-ups don’t makevery little difference.

        It says that the optimal 2006 line-up would produce 5.342 runs per game compared to 5.051 runs per game with the worst line-up with those same people. So, just rearranging the batting order gets an extra 0.3 runs per game.

        Your point about not really having an “every day” line-up is taken, but an extra 0.3 runs per game would mean maybe 4 wins on the season. So, that’s nothing to sneeze at.

        Anyway, the point being discussed here is actually why Cabrera has so few RBIs. Even if the various permutations produce the same number of runs (which they don’t), order can certainly have a big effect on how many RBIs an individual gets.

        1. I agree with TSE — we should be able to edit! What I meant to say was “Jeff, I’m not sure if that article really supports the claim that line-ups make very little difference.”

  14. I think we have some good ingredients. Why is Avilla down in the lineup is beyond me? Put the best OBP personnel at the top so you have one or two on for Cab.

Comments are closed.