Monthly Archives: May 2014

2014 Season, Game Post

Game 2014: 28 Tigers 11, Astros 4

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Thanks to a real gem by Max Scherzer and a couple of clutch hits by Rajai Davis and Victor Martinez, the Tigers are now on a 6-game winning streak, and have the best record in MLB. How about that?

What better time to debut new 22-yr old left-hander Robbie Ray, the main piece of the Doug Fister trade (Fister is scheduled to make his own season debut on Friday).

Ray

As we predicted yesterday, Jose Ortega was optioned to Toledo to make room for Ray, which was indeed the predictable move, no matter how much we want Phil Coke to disappear. In case you don’t remember Ortega, he last pitched in the last Tiger loss, which was oh so long ago.

In case you missed yesterday’s postgame, I pointed out that Victor Martinez is quietly putting together a team MVP type of season. Among his accomplishments: he has been the hardest player in baseball to strike out, with what is now 4 Ks in 113 plate appearances. What I didn’t know was that the called 3rd strike he took last night was his first called 3rd strike since May 21 2013. Wow  (courtesy of tweet from Jason Beck).

Tonight’s You Can Call Me Ray Tiger Lineup:

  1. Kinsler, 2B
  2. Hunter, RF
  3. Cabrera, 1B
  4. V. Martinez, DH
  5. J.D. Martinez, LF
  6. Jackson, CF
  7. Castellanos, 3B
  8. Avila, C
  9. Worth, SS

J.D. gets the start against his former team.

Postgame

That makes 7 in a row, and the Tigers are still in single digits in the loss column. Despite the 9th inning foolery, the game was great for Detroit on both sides of the field. Robbie Ray pitched well and was composed. He only gave up 5 hits, 2 of them infield hits, and nothing hit really hard; an awful lot of routine outfield flies and, even better, only one walk. Nothing like a rookie who is not afraid of the strike zone. Yes, it was just the Houston Astros, but last time I checked they were a Major League Baseball team. Thumbs up Robbie The Railroad.

Miguel Cabrera also had his best game of the season, with the rare long ball (3), on 4 hits, 1 of which was an RBI single through the right-side hole created by the shift. I don’t foresee an awful lot of shifting on Cabrera in the future.

Let’s do this again tomorrow, shall we?

2014 Season, Game Post

Game 2014: 27 Tigers 2, Astros 0

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Detroit finished off its road trip in grand style, sweeping the White Sox and Royals in back-to-back series. Now without so much as a day off in between, the Tigers return home for a 7-game stand before heading out to the East Coast, also without a day off in-between. This will give the Tigers 13 total games in a row without a day off.

Home stand schedule and prospective starters:

Astros at Tigers

Monday        May 5    7:08     Max Scherzer vs Jarrod Cosart

Tuesday       May 6    7:08     Robbie Ray (L) vs Brett Oberholtzer (L)

Wednesday   May 7    7:08     Rick Porcello vs Brad Peacock

Thursday      May 8    1:08     Drew Smyly (L) vs Dallas Keuchel (L)

Twins at Tigers

Friday         May 9     7:08     Justin Verlander vs Phil Hughes

Saturday     May 10   1:08     Max Scherzer vs Kyle Gibson

Sunday       May 11   1:08     Robbie Ray (L) vs Samuel Deduno

The interest in the current Astros series of course (besides featuring two lefties for each team) is the debut of Robbie Ray, the key piece in the Doug Fister trade.

As Ray comes up of course, the key question is who will go down? It’s got to be Phil Coke, right? The story linked above points out that dumping Coke will leave the Tigers with only one lefty reliever in the bullpen, but if Ray stays, won’t Smyly be back in the pen? Besides, Coke doesn’t get out lefties any better or even as well as any of the right-handers, so I don’t consider him a lefty in the bullpen. At any rate, it would be logistically easier to simply demote Jose Ortega or Justin Miller; I expect Ortega to get the short straw this time. (The team has already made room on the 40-man roster by outrighting Jordan Lennerton to Toledo).

At 26%, the Astro–otherwise known as Bud Selig’s gift to the American League– have the 3rd highest swing-and-miss percentage in all of baseball.  Look for Max to light up the K column of the scoreboard.

Postgame

When Prince Fielder was traded, there were some people (not here, to our credit) who wondered where the RBIs would come from, and who suggested that everyone would just walk Cabrera without a Big Batsman behind him.

The season is now exactly 1/6 of the way over, and the 1/6 MVP of the Tigers is Victor Martinez, who is quietly picking up the slack from the denatured Miguel Cabrera, and who turns out to be the one they all pitch around–Martinez is now 2nd in the AL with 7 intentional walks (2nd only to Prince Fielder, who has been intentionally walked more than any .690 OPS batter in history).

At any rate, in addition to leading the team with a healthy .901 OPS, Martinez has been the hardest man in baseball to strikeout–only 3 strikeouts in 109 plate appearances–and has been about perfect with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 out. Tonight he added a huge insurance home run to tilt the scales in Max’s favor in a great pitching battle, and here are the Tigers with a 6th consecutive win.

 

2014 Season, Game Post

Game 2014.26: Tigers 9, Royals 4

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1st place Detroit (16-9) wraps up the series (and the road trip) against still 2nd place Kansas City (14-15). Mention of anything related to brooms is strictly prohibited until the game is concluded. A Royals fan would bristle at the suggestion.

We have intercepted the encrypted message, and our code-breakers have deciphered it as follows:

THE LINEUP

LF Rajai Davis
2B Ian Kinsler
1B Miguel Cabrera
DH Victor Martinez
RF Torii Hunter
CF Austin Jackson
3B Nick Castellanos
C Alex Avila
SS Andrew Romine

P Justin Verlander

POSTGAME: Didn’t seem like either side played well at all today. I don’t know what’s so hard about hitting a guy holding a stick from 60 feet away, especially when he’s standing still, but time after time after time, the ball-throwers kept missing badly, except for once. Fortunately, the judges awarded more points to our side. But seriously… or even more seriously…

YOU SAID IT

Vince in MN May 4, 2014 at 3:20 pm

If not everyone on offense is exactly “hot”, nobody is really “cold” either. Everyone is contributing something right now.

Ab-o-lutely.

17-9 and way out in front, homeward bound on a 5-game roll. Bring on the Astros and let’s see us some Robbie Ray, and hope that they don’t do him the disservice of slotting him in so that his (potential) second start is against the Orioles or the Red Sox.

2014 Season, Game Post

Game 2014.25: Tigers 9, Royals 2

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I wasn’t going to tell you, but since you asked:

THE LINEUP

LF Rajai Davis
2B Ian Kinsler
1B Miguel Cabrera
DH Victor Martinez
RF Torii Hunter
CF Austin Jackson
3B Nick Castellanos
C Bryan Holaday
SS Danny Worth

P Drew Smyly

Just when things were getting to be a muddle of too many days off, despair over the bullpen, and grumblings about the hitting, Detroit (15-9) has gone and snapped off three wins in a row, all of them games with plenty to like. Good times.

POSTGAME: In the time it took to throw 17 pitches, only 17 pitches had been thrown, and as a result, the game went on for what seemed like hours. But seriously… or even more seriously…

YOU SAID IT

Jim EggersUSMC May 4, 2014 at 12:35 am

I switched to Pepsi a looooong time ago…..no more COKE!

Kevin in Dallas May 3, 2014 at 11:10 pm

It’s unfortunate, but he has no place in a major league bullpen. A move is going to be made soon.

You speak the truth, Kemo Sabes. Leave it to Coke to blow another shutout for the team. As Vince says, enough is enough. This really can’t go on. If you can’t relax and do your thing and get a few outs with a 9-run lead, when can you? OK, so he did he got a few outs eventually.

LET ME REMIND YOU

Danny Duffy seemed too amped up to pitch well, and yet he held the Tigers scoreless for 3. Detroit really had him on the ropes in the 4th and let him get away (then again, he was leaving anyway)… Drew Smyly was good and efficient, but not without big help from his defense and some close calls on three flyballs down the lines that might have snuck over the fence fair had his angels been on break. Still – he was quite good. I can get behind the talk of him going back to the bullpen on the condition that he gets to come in only in relief of himself… Austin Jackson won the defensive CF contest today with a couple good catches, one great, and Torii Hunter made a great catch (and a great roll), and Rajai Davis made a spectacular play to run down Danny Valencia’s apparent double, wheel, set, and make a perfect throw to 2B to gun him down. Game-changing plays, all of them. Outfield defense tonight, +++… Miguel Cabrera should get credit for stealing home on the Nick Castellanos sac fly to shallow left. Alex Gordon isn’t the only guy he fooled. Brilliant. One-dimensional player? That run was big and stayed big for a while… Bad day on the bases for Ian Kinsler. Caught napping on the pickoff (the rumors preceded him), and since when is halfway between second and third the time to look to the outfield and slow down? Oh well, maybe he picked up the sign from Dave Clark late or something. It sure looked odd, and he was dead on arrival at 3B… The Tigers 9th was everything the 4th should have been. The Danny Worth double was encouraging, nothing cheap there, and how great is it to have a backup catcher who can motor? And that was only the beginning. Before Hunter’s blast, I was thinking how long it seemed since his last big blow. Probably not as long ago as I thought, but he does come up with runners on often enough, about time anyway… You could say the Tigers should have gotten even more out of the 6th – Worth left the bases loaded – but it was a great inning. Both runners advancing on a productive out (boy were the Royals sloppy defensively) and the classic Castellanos swing delivering the runs… Thoroughly convincing win, great game.

2014 Season, Game Post

Game 2014.24: Tigers 8, Royals 2

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And now, another DTW Exclusive:

THE LINEUP

2B Ian Kinsler
RF Torii Hunter
1B Miguel Cabrera
DH Victor Martinez
CF Austin Jackson
3B Don Kelly
LF J.D. Martinez
C Alex Avila
SS Andrew Romine

P Rick Porcello

POSTGAME: At Kauffman Stadium this evening, the Detroit Tigers American League baseball club scored 8 runs, and the Kansas City Royals American League baseball club scored 2 runs. After some deliberation, it was determined that the Detroit Tigers had won the contest.

YOU SAID IT

Vince in MN May 2, 2014 at 10:36 pm

This is gonna be his breakout year. And if not this year, next year.

Meaning 4-1 Rick Porcello, of course, who earned the win with 7 IP, 0 serious earned runs, and 19 near-strikeouts, all while throwing only 50 pitches, give or take.