Jordan Zimmermann looked like Jordan Zimmermann for the first time all season, and the Tigers continued to hit like Brad Ausmus said they would, and now here we are with an actual winning streak.
It was great to see contributions from all over the lineup: Romine had a good day, Avila broke his slump in a big way, Upton and Castellanos went long, and the bottom of the order went wild, with Presley getting his first big league home run. Even Leon threw up a blank in his first major league appearance. Now we get Justin and a possible sweep. A good weekend of baseball in Detroit.
Today’s Sox-Sweeping Lineup:
- Dixon Machado 2B
- Nick Castellanos, 3B
- Miguel Cabrera, 1B
- JD Martinez, DH
- Justin Upton, LF
- John Hicks, C
- Mikie Mahtook, RF
- JaCoby Jones, CF
- Jose Iglesias, SS
Pitching: Justin Verlander vs David Holmberg
I dont get it JV…. 40 pitches… 35 fastballs…. 30 between the waist and the numbers…. You have 4 different pitchers and you use 1 of them….. I just don’t get it.
One hour and it’s the bottom of the second inning. I guess were lucky it’s only 1-0….Can’t wait to hear Brad and Verlander tell us how good JVs stuff was today. 60 pitches 50 waist high fastballs. 30 foul balls.. It’s the same pitch over and over!
Meanwhile Holmberger is pitching the Tigers the exact way to beat them… 40 pitches… 5 strikes so far.. Swing swing swing….
Obvious that JV had a problem. Brad should have pulled him earlier but JV’s such a pain in the butt I understand. Should be a lot worse than 2-0.
JV.. Report groin pull… But in Brads world that doesn’t matter. If you don’t throw 100 pitches you ain’t coming out… Period!!!!
Blue cost us one or two that inning.
This guy behind the plate makes CB look like a great ump…. He’s all over the place..
Warwick is keeping us in this.
I was just happy that Miggy didn’t get tossed. I always take comfort that umps that are missing the obvious always do it to both teams.
JD.. Pitcher is struggling to throw strikes you go up and hack at a very marginal strike for a DP… Hmmmm.
Hicks!!! The sticks!
Rod you are exactly wrong!.. You bunt to third because the SS is covering second.. If you bunt first base he just throws to third.coverd by the third baseman. Come on Rod!……
Oh better yet.. Single scores Hicks who steals third… Great move!
The Mudhen Boys are looking like they belong.
I can’t remember a season with so many contributions from Toledo, and it’s only been two months.
I don’t know what or who got to Casty but in this series he has been a model of plate discipline. He has several walks and avoided the misses out of the strike zone. If he can keep it up, he’ll get close to .300 this year.
Warwick.. 3 innings 0 runs last time…. 4 innings 0 runs this time…. Atta boy!
Nice inning… Bats keep improving.. Hicks, Iggy, a big part of it from the bottom
Shouldn’t Brad be walking out to the mound?
Never mind, too late.
Oh Brad, Sometimes I wonder. First you let AWillie pitch to two many batters. Then after the pinch hitter is announced, you bring in a left hander and the batter bats .306 against lefties. You wait until the game is tied to bring in Greene into a bad situation.
Bullpen management can never be any better than bullpen performance. You can manage the heck out of it, and then one bad pitch or one good swing and it’s over. It’s the pitcher’s job to get guys out. For relief pitchers, that is *especially* in a bad situation. Greene has been a pretty good bad situation guy in 2017, having (had) allowed only 4 of 24 inherited runners to score. Now 4 of 26. So wasn’t it brilliant of Ausmus?
Letting AWillie pitch to two too many batters? The results say that, but no one else could have given up the hits? I suppose I would wonder why Wilson had to pitch two innings, but I guess he looked pretty strong in the 7th. So wouldn’t taking him out have been liable to being second-guessed?
Daniel Stumpf vs. Leury Garcia: There’s more to scouting reports than stats we can see, but if you look closer at what we *can* see, Garcia does not hit lefties *well* (= hard) (also see career splits) and is clearly worse as a RHB. The White Sox were probably expecting a RHP.
The Tigers bullpen over the past month has been pretty brilliant. Greene, A Wilson, Saupold, the departed Bell, Leon – really really good. J Wilson has scuffled a bit, Hardy even more. The only real blot on the record is F-Rod.
Nice walk off win in spite of Brad’s management of the pen today. As he walked off the sox pitcher looked like he wanted to kill Sanchez.
This weeknd wow. Isn’t it supposed to go like this! ….JUp…see ya!
Playing the White Sox, that is exactly the way it should go!
The boys covered for Brad today.. Brad being Brad. AWillie 25 pitches.. What! Story of Brads tenure. “Two batters too many”
Bad time for an off day.
listening to Hawk call Upton’s game winning 3 run HR was especially satisfying… all three times i watched it 😉
DET is again a .500 ball club
They HAVE to keep JD. Even over Miggy. He is the new number one (just like Fulmer
+2
Have to keep JD? How long? Rest of the season? I’m all for that, even at the cost of “no compensation.” Beyond 2017? It would take at least the equivalent of the Upton contract to keep him. If we imagine that Upton opting out would somehow enable this (I don’t think it would), something to consider is:
Is JD a better all-around ballplayer than Justin Upton? Durability? Baserunning? Defense? If he is, is that going to continue for another 5 years? Is Upton decliniing and JD still on the ascent? Would JD through 2022 look like any less of an albatross in 2-3 years than Upton through 2021 might right now? No one can afford an outfield with both, that’s for sure.
It might be better for Detroit long-term if both moved on after 2017, as much as I hate to suggest such a thing about JD. That is some big power to lose. Can’t think of a comparable power hitter the Tigers have had in this current golden age.
Great weekend for the Tigers! Nice to have thoughts pushed in a more optimistic direction. I was running out of ideas for who to kick off the team and how the trade deadline sell-off might go. Now that Detroit has finally put together 4 consecutive wins (that’s the longest losing streak, too, so in a sense “consistency” isn’f the Tigers’ problem), I’d like to see a shutout. 56 games without one is unusual even for a team in the lower echelon of team pitching stats. In fact, going back to 2016, Detroit pitching has exactly 1 shutout to its credit in the past 101 games.
Matthew Boyd turned in a quality start for Toledo, though maybe not a killer instinct start.
Great weekend for sure. Too bad the Angels are coming in. The Tigers do not do any better against them in Detroit than they do in LA… Angels get 2 of 3…if not all 3…
The pitching match ups don’t matter at all. The Angels could pitch Trout with a broken hand and win. Scoscia knows exactly how to pitch every Tiger.. Watch how few strikes the Angel pitches throw, plus 99% of the pitches will be outside or wider than that. Except Miggy who hits about 0.90 against the Angels because they pound him inside….
Chavez and Meyer like Shoemaker..as all Angel pitchers Own the Tigers.. Chavez has like a 20 something inning shutout streak going against them and Meyer shut them out in LA…..
Couldn’t resist responding to Loon’s take on pen management above.
No matter how you slice or dice this, Brad ALMOST cost us the game. Nothing wrong letting AWillie start the 8th inning, he had an easy 7th. After that it’s downhill. Letting AWillie pitch to Anderson after Frazier’s double may have been forgivable but letting him pitch to Smith with the tying run on 2nd was moronic. Bringing in Stumpf at all into a pressure situation with the game in balance makes no sense at all when you have Greene, one of our best pen guys this year, ready. The fact is that L. Garcia hits better against lefties just makes it dumber. Biggest error was bringing Stumpf in at all. But in the end, you win anyway because Brad will be our manager all year.
Leury Garcia does *not* hit better against lefties, Tony. You need to look a little farther than batting average in 2017. I don’t win because of Brad staying on, because I’m not defending Brad per se. I am only pointing out the unreason in your arguments, which you are doubling down on.
Almost cost us the game
Moronic
No sense at all
Dumber
Biggest error
That’s a lot to put on two at bats. All one guy’s fault for choosing the pitchers. However, choosing Greene, the next pitcher, doesn’t count. Greene got the outs he was apparently destined for, being the best bullpen guy, and gets all the credit.
I didn’t see the top of the 8th as so controversial, myself.
Of course you make a great point: Greene could have come in several batters earlier. Great news is that it didn’t matter. Thanks to J-Up.
Blaine Hardy is not a major league pitcher… AAA not AAAA…