PREGAME: Jim Leyland has complained that the Tigers never get the extra day off at the All Star break. This year they got it. I hope it was good for the players because for the fans it stunk. Too long without baseball for my tastes. The “second half” finally begins tonight as the Tigers get their first taste of the homer-happy new Yankee Stadium.

Luke French gets the honor of kicking off this portion of the season. It’s an interesting choice with a full rotation at his disposal, but my guess is that Leyland wanted French out there on a night when the pen was rested, and the fact the Yankees haven’t seen him may have been a consideration as well.

French will be taking on AJ Burnett. The Tigers have had some success against Burnett, or at least they haven’t been completely shut down by him in the past. Burnett’s one weakness this year has been a tendency to walk too many and he’s walking about a batter every other inning. Burnett has a reverse platoon split this year with a 787 OPS allowed against righties and only 690 against lefties.

Random Factoid of the night: Hitters have a 932 OPS against Burnett when putting the first ball in play.

Detroit vs. NY Yankees – July 17, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: And Zumaya blows another one. One horrid inning destroys what otherwise was a mostly impressive game from the rest of the squad.

Luke French wasn’t great, but he hung in against a tough lineup and tossed 5 solid innings, and he even did it with some shaky defense behind him. Clete Thomas was charged with a tough error on a nice one hop throw to Gerald Laird that Laird couldn’t handle, so Thomas is off the hook. But Josh Anderson’s 5 hole error, the second one he’s had against the Yankees this year) resulted in an unearned run.

The top of the order was quite productive with the top 4 all getting 2 hits and Clete Thomas getting 2 walks. However a rough game for Inge (0 for 4 with 2 K’s) meant that not enough of them came around to score. In Inge’s defense though, he did hit a liner to Robinson Cano at 2nd with 2 on in the first. An out, but not because it was a bad at-bat.

Granderson looked like the Grandy of old reaching base 3 times with 2 extra base hits.

PREGAME: The Tigers will look to end the “first half” of the season, as well as the homestand on a happy note when they take on the Indians today. Cleveland sends out Tomo Ohka and Justin Verlander takes the bump for the Tigers.

Ohka only has 3 starts this year and has only appeared in 6 games overall. He has fanned 10 and walked 9 in 28.2 innings…and he’s allowed 7 home runs!

Verlander pretty much began his dominant streak against the Indians (well, it actually started against the Yankees but the Indians games are what made it a streak). In back to back starts against Cleveland he fanned 22 in 16 innings and allowed just 1 run. Of course the Indians have a history of beating him up pretty good, and the way they hit the ball against Galarraga last night means it probably won’t be as easy of a game for Verlander as it was back in May.

Cleveland vs. Detroit – July 12, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: You know when you hear the Tigers hit 3 homers in a game, you kind of expect Miguel Cabrera or Marcus Thames to be involved somehow. Instead they were busy with back-to-back infield singles while Clete Thomas and Brandon Inge decided to go back-to-back homers. The middle of the order brought some serious thump today with Thames picking up 4 hits, Thomas a double short of the cycle, and Inge doubling up on long balls.

In the end the Tigers had themselves a much needed and enjoyed blowout as they head into the break. The 10 runs was more than enough as Justin Verlander shut the Indians down once again and he’s allowed them exactly 1 run and fanned them 30 times in his 3 starts this year.

Really, the only negative was Zach Miner who hadn’t worked in a while, and it showed.

Inge, Verlander, Granderson, and Jackson now jet to St. Louis for All Star shenanigans.

PREGAME: It will be a rematch of Carl Pavano and Armando Galarraga tonight. The two hooked up on May 1st, and Pavano allowed just 2 runs in 7.1 innings while Galarraga was knocked out in the 5th after allowing 5 runs. That game is the only one the Tigers have dropped to the Indians in 7 tries this year.

Pavano has solid peripherals (71 K, 20 BB, 11 HR in 99 innings) but a 5.36 ERA. That was due in large part to a 3 start stretch in June when he lasted 13.1 innings and opposing hitters posted a 1.201 OPS against. He has rebounded in his last 2 outings though going 13.2 innings with 9 K’s and 2 walks and just 4 runs allowed.

Galarraga is someone also looking at his last 2 starts as a return to form. After kind of sucking for May and June, Galarraga has allowed just single runs in each of his last 2 starts (though he did walk a disturbing 6 batters against Oakland).

Cleveland vs. Detroit – July 11, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: This game was remarkably similar to the May 1st game. Pavano had an easy time of it. Galarraga wasn’t that good. The bullpen gave up an add-on run. The Tigers hit the Indians pen up to bring the game to within 1 run, but they fell short. Really the only difference was that last time it was 6-5 and this time it was 5-4.

Pavano was pretty good tonight, and he pounded first pitch strike after first pitch strike. His first pitch to Granderson was a ball, but his other first pitches went: strike looking, strike foul, strike looking, strike looking, triple, strike looking, strike foul, stike looking, strike looking, strike foul, strike swinging. That takes you to 2 outs in the 4th inning before he threw his next first pitch ball. The next one didn’t come until the 7th. There were no 2-0 counts while Pavano was on the mound. That was kind of the night.

Of course Detroit gave away a couple runs. A first and third, one out situation, resulted in a strike-em-out, throw-em-out 2-4-5-2 double play. Galarraga pitched scared in the third after a 2 out triple by Sizemore and walked the next 2 guys. That first walk then came around to score on a liner that Raburn dove on and just couldn’t squeeze.

The Tigers had their chances, didn’t take advantage of enough of them (they did okay in the 2nd plating 2 runs) and they came up on the short end.

PREGAME: Talk about some tough pitching match-ups. The Tigers just got done facing Zach Greinke and now they welcome in Cliff Lee. Lee was knocked around by the White Sox two starts back, but that is really on the only blemish in his last 5 games. He has 85 K’s and 31 walks in 120 innnings. The last time the Tigers faced Lee he was outdueled by Justin Verlander.

Tonight Lee will face the Tigers other ace, Edwin Jackson. Jackson has been effective lately, but not as dominant as he was earlier in the season. Jackson has walked 4 batters in 3 of his last 5 starts.

Cleveland vs. Detroit – July 10, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

HEADS UP: I’m going to be watching part of this game from the FS Detroit truck. I’ll have some updates on Twitter (@billfer)

PREGAME: And once again the Tigers find themselves a mini 3 game skid. Hopefully it will remain mini and not force me to invoke backwards game post.

Justin Verlander has traditionally feasted on the Royals and he hasn’t allowed a run in his last 2 starts while pitching into the 7th both times. Of course if the offense gets stymied again a shutout might not be enough.

Bruce Chen will be designated as the stymie-er tonight. The lefty is making just his 3rd start since the 2006 season.

Here is tonight’s lineup, and while you’re watching this lineup in action, click the big honkin’ button there on the right and vote for Inge. He’s just behind Ian Kinsler and definitely in the mix. Your vote could make a difference. A vote for Inge is a vote for America, and awkwardness. And at least you’ll feel like you were productive tonight.

1. Granderson, CF
2. Polanco, 2B
3. Cabrera, 1B
4. Thames, DH
5. Raburn, LF
6. Inge, 3B
7. Ordonez, RF
8. Laird, C
9. Everett, SS

Kansas City vs. Detroit – July 7, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Nothing is coming easy right now. The Tigers worked the count, they hit the long ball, and yet the game was a nail biter the whole way.

Justin Verlander fanned 11 and walked none (the first Tigers pitcher with double digit K’s and no walks since Jeff Robinson who did it twice in 1988), yet it took him 114 pitches to get through 6.

The Tigers take an early lead in the first, give it back in the second. They take get some space in the 5th and a hanging curve gets hit out and Brandon Inge makes a throwing error.

They get an insurance run in the 6th, and then Bobby Seay and Joel Zumaya walk the first hitters they face. Fernando Rodney would have loaded the bases before getting an out were it not for a generous strike 3 call to David DeJesus.

The boys prevailed in the end, but none of it was easy or clean. Incidentally, it was the Tigers first win by more than 2 wins since they beat Milwaukee 9-5 on June 20th.

PREGAME: Finally, the Tigers get some home cooking as Rod Allen would say. I downplayed the significance of the weekend series against the Twins, but I may go ahead and up-play this 6 game homestand heading into the break. Things are always tough in the Metrodome, those losses are going to happen. They don’t become a big deal if the Tigers take care of business in the games they are supposed to win. With 6 at home against the bottom two teams in the division, the Tigers need to get these games.

Tonight it will be Gil Meche and Armando Galarraga. Galarraga wasn’t hit hard at all his last time out which is very encouraging. He also walked 6 A’s hitters which is very discouraging. It was also the first time since April 26th he didn’t allow a homer. The lineup and park factor certainly didn’t hurt, but hey, it’s something. Coincidentally that April 26th start was against the Royals.

Meche has been all over the map this year. The Tigers knocked him out in the 3rd inning back in May. He came back from that outing and posted a 0.93 ERA in his next 4 starts including 16 scoreless innings against Cleveland and Arizona. But in his last 3 starts he’s walked more than he’s struck out and has allowed 5 homers in his last 14.1 innings.

Kansas City vs. Detroit – July 6, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: There are games during the season where a team has no chance, and there are other games where you steal one you have no business of winning. Tonight the Tigers gave one away. Gil Meche wasn’t that good. He had little control and walked 5. But the Tigers couldn’t knock him out of the game early. A hit early on and the complexion of the whole series could have changed. But that big hit never came. It came close, with Adam Everett ripping a pitch down the line foul with the bases loaded, but it was just a strike.

Armando Galarraga deserved better. He had his slider working, he fanned 7, he only walked 1, and aside from one hanger that got punished, he was great.

But all that asideI can boil so much of this game down to 1 pitch. I’m probably making too big a deal out of one pitch, but it set the tone for the late innings. After Miguel Olivo looked idiotic on two breaking balls Gerald Laird called for the fastball up. Olivo didn’t chase but that wasn’t a bad call. The next pitch he called for was a fastball outside. The fastball call was questionable, but the location was sound. The trouble is Zumaya through it on the inner half instead of the outer half and it was fisted for a single. Not a hard hit ball, but a ball that shouldn’t have been hit at all. Zumaya has the ability to strike guys out and he missed horribly with his location.

He had chances to get out of it, but an awful sequence to DeJesus where Zumaya lost the strike zone but two on. I actually have much less of a problem with the Bloomquist triple than the awful pitch to Olivo.

• A Fernando Rodney change-up got hammered. Not good, but oh well.
• Ryan Raburn and Marcus Thames were the offense. Each had a solo homer, and Raburn later had the double that drove in Anderson who was pinch running for Thames.
• I can’t kill Raburn for getting thrown out going to third. The Royals did a nice job with the relay and made the play. In retrospect it didn’t work out, but I can’t kill him for the decision.

PREGAME: Rick Porcello gets the ball for the Tigers. Porcello has struggled in his last 3 starts allowing 32 baserunners in 15.2 innings and not making it out of the 5th inning in any of those starts. The last time (and only time) he face the Twins this year he threw 7 shutout innings.

Nick Blackburn goes for the Twins. Blackburn is a master of efficiency going 7 innings or more in 10 of his 16 starts this year and only topping the 100  pitch mark in 6 of his 16 starts. But when the Tigers faced him in May, they chased him in the 4th inning, one of only 2 times he didn’t make it to through the 6th inning this year. 

Detroit vs. Minnesota – July 5, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

PREGAME: Nothing like an afternoon game after a 16 inning bout, but the Tigers play at 4p on the 4th on Fox Saturday Baseball. Happy 4th of July to everyone as Edwin Jackson matches up with Francisco Liriano. Both managers will look to these gentleman to provide some innings with both bullpen’s taxed. The Tigers at least have everyone except Joel Zumaya and Freddy Dolsi available, not sure about the Twins situation.

Liriano still hasn’t put things together since his Tommy John surgery. He’s fanning 8 per 9 innings, but he has 42 walks and 12 homers in 89.2 innings. He faced the Tigers earlier in the year though and went 7.1 innings in his best start (Game Score 68) of the season.

Jackson had fought his control a little bit in June before turning in a 7 inning, no walk performance against Houston. Jackson has only gone past 100 pitches once in his last 4 starts so Jim might lean on him a bit today.

Detroit vs. Minnesota – July 4, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: The first 2 games of this series have lived up to the hype. But the Tigers only came out on top once. Sadly I don’t know what was the bigger surprise yesterday, the offensive outburst of Magglio Ordonez or the offensive outburst of Nick Punto.

The Ordonez homer was particularly impressive, because unlike his homer against the Cubs on a hanger, he drilled a fastball over 400 feet to the pull field. Dumb luck or a reason to be encouraged? Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled for Maggs and hope it is a sign of things to come, but a little bit of skepticisim is warranted as well.

Edwin Jackson was bit by walks again, and too often he’d get ahead 0-2 and then nibble his way to a 6 pitch at-bat. Either he wasn’t as aggressive as he usually is, or he just flat out didn’t have the command.

Brandon Inge and Curtis Granderson both fanned 3 times today. Blech.

PREGAME: Here we go, another series in the Metrodome. I don’t know if it is the dome itself or the way that the Tigers play there, but this games are rarely enjoyable. This time first place is at risk with the Twins just 3 games back (and the White Sox 2 back).

Lee has a detailed comparison of the two squads doing better tonight, and things are pretty but the Tigers are benefitting from some good fortune in close games. I have a feeling that good fortune doesn’t really apply to the Tigers when facing Joe Frickin Crede though.

Tonight’s match-up features Luke French making his first career start. Never a dominating force, French got by with location and moxie until he started fanning batters to the tune of 7.9 per game resulting in a 3.60 K/BB ratio for Toledo.

Ten game winner Kevin Slowey gets the ball for the Twins. He walks like no one, with only 15 free passes in his 87 innings of work. But he will give up the occasional homer with 14 on the year, but those even seem to come in bunches.

Random Factoid of the night: Slowey has only induced 6 double play grounders this year. And 2 of them came in his start against Detroit.

Your Magglio-less lineup is:

1. Granderson, CF
2. Polanco, 2B
3. Cabrera, 1B
4. Thames, DH
5. Kelly, LF
6. Inge, 3B
7. Anderson, RF
8. Laird, C
9. Santiago, SS

Detroit vs. Minnesota – July 3, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Well, that certainly was a memorable game. I’m sleepy so only bullet points tonight:

• The Tigers did get some offense, lots of it early in fact. But then there was the 9 innings of shutout ball between the 5th and the 14th.
• French was okay and he held Justin Morneau in check. I am surprised that Leyland didn’t let him go the one additional out for the win with the big cushion. It is a little indicative that the team has been struggling because that is when he tends to over manage.
• Two walks to Nick Punto. Really? The good news is that the Tigers only had 1 other unintentional walk.
• But two intentional ones, and this I thought was a great move by Leyland. Zumaya had control tonight, and the risk of walking in a run is always present, but passing on Mauer and Morneau when their runs were meaningless was good strategy.
• Despite the game going 16 innings only Freddy Dolsi and Joel Zumaya should be unavailable for the next 2 days. Rodney (6 up, 6 down) and Lyon were efficient in their multi-inning outings. Ni and Seay threw less than an inning and Miner was too ineffective to run up his pitch count.
• The Tigers didn’t play great defense tonight. During Miner’s meltdown inning, I thought both triples should have been fielded. Neither play was easy, but both plays were makeable.
• Eric Cooper was awful. I really think he’d ask the pitcher and catcher what number he was thinking of, whoever was closest got the call. One of the many egregious examples was a called 3rd strike against Polanco that Gameday tracked at 3 ft, 10 in off the ground. So at Polanco’s nipples essentially.
• Magglio hit into kind of a tough luck double play, but then he finally had a ground ball not go at someone and through for an RBI single.

PREGAME: Justin Verlander takes on Dallas Braden. Sorry I don’t have more guys, it’s one of those weeks.

Detroit vs. Oakland – July 1, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

PREGAME: Gio Gonzalez takes on Armando Galarraga.

Galarraga continues to teeter on the edge of the rotation. Gonzalez makes just his 2nd start of the season. He was rocked in his first start and was knocked out in the 4th inning after allowing 10 hits (but with 6 K’s).

1. Granderson
2. Polanco
3. Cabrera
4. Thames
5. Raburn
6. Inge
7. Ordonez
8. Ryan
9. Everett

Detroit vs. Oakland – June 30, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: This wasn’t the text book way to go about getting a win, but it’s a win.

You aren’t supposed to win when your starter gives up 6 walks, but the A’s didn’t hit Galarraga hard at all so there were only 2 baserunners via hits and only 1 run to show for all of their patience. I guess that’s what you call scattering your walks. But Galarraga did seem to have some bite on his slider and it was inducing some swings and misses – I just think he used it too often, like when he was ahead of Jack Cust 0-2 and he threw 3 straight sliders nowhere near the zone.

You aren’t supposed to win when you make 2 baserunning errors where outs are made between 3rd and home. Those are runs you have to have, or at least not toss away so easily. The baserunning mistakes, and the ill advised sacrifice bunt attempts early in the game against a struggling pitcher are why the Tigers only plated 3 runs off of Gio Gonzalez despite having 7 hits, 3 of which were for extra bases, and 2 walks in 5 innings.

You aren’t supposed to win when you make 3 error-like plays in the field. But Galarraga pitched around a dropped foul fly by Ryan Raburn, a fumbled grounder by Everett, and another play by Everett where the Tigers only got 1 out instead of 2.

You aren’t supposed to win when your closer allows 3 baserunners and a home run, but Rodney only let the game get to 2 runs before a double play grounder ended the night on 19 pitches. Oddly, it was Rodney’s fastball getting hit and really, his control improved after an initial walk.

• Ryan Raburn and Placido Polanco were the offensive stars. Raburn hit everything hard. Polanco drove in 3 of the 5 runs and is on a mini-Marcus power surge as of late.
• Inge was having a rough night offensively but he got a blooper to drop behind a drawn in infield to score an insurance run.
• Dusty Ryan was patient, and he took called 3rd strikes his last 2 times up
• Magglio, I don’t know. He did drive a ball to right field once, and a 2-0 count. He was also late on a 3-1 fastball. He also swung and missed a ball well off the plate as it looked like he was gearing up to try and pull a fastball.
• Bobby Seay and Joel Zumaya (pictured above thanks to photos from westcoasttigerfan) had good games. Zumaya hit 102.7 and 102.6 matching his fastest pitches from the Cubs series.

PREGAME: The Tigers once again find themselves in the middle of a very long road trip, next stop Oakland. The Tigers salvaged a happy plane ride at least after dropping 2 in Houston. The A’s meanwhile are scuffling having lost 5 in a row and their bloggers are deservedly restless.

As for the pitching match-up it will be Rick Porcello taking on Brett Anderson. Anderson faced the Tigers earlier in the year and his infield pretty much error-ed for the cycle as he allowed 9 runs, only 3 of which were earned. Anderson has a 45/18 K/BB ratio in 69 innings with 13 homers allowed.

Porcello turned in a QS when he faced the A’s in that same series. He’s allowed 21 baserunners in his last 2 outings spanning 10.2 innings, but he has limited the damage to 3 earned runs (5 runs total).

Detroit vs. Oakland – June 29, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: That was some kind of ugly. Porcello gave up a ton of baserunners and didn’t make it out of the 5th inning. There were some defensive lapses (and a couple nice plays to be fair) and the offense was shutdown by another pitcher with an ERA over 5.

The Tigers fanned 14 times in the game. They did make Anderson work and ran his pitch count up, but they sure couldn’t hit him. They couldn’t even make contact off him with 11 swinging strikes and 3 foul tips on 46 swings. That’s a 30.4% swing and miss rate which is just brutal and dumbfounding.

The only brightish spot was Fu-Te Ni making his debut (and wearing Todd Jones’ old number). He did allow a monster homer, but that was the only baserunner he allowed and he fanned 3 of the other 5 batters he faced.