Category Archives: Game Post

Game 2009.050: Red Sox at Tigers

PREGAME: This is some stretch of games the Tigers are about to embark on. Three against the Red Sox and 3 against the Angels (who give the Tigers fits) before a 5 game series in Chicago. The Tigers will be getting back Marcus Thames in the near future and likely Jeremy Bonderman and that means that 2 players will likely get sent down or out, whether or not they really deserve it. The team and its outlook could look really different by next Friday. Or maybe not.

With that preamble out of the way the Tigers welcome in the Red Sox who have the 3rd highest OPS in the American League. So it will be no easy task for the Tigers pitchers. The Sox are known for seeing a lot of pitches, will makes tonight’s match-up with Rick Porcello interesting because he typically doesn’t throw a lot of pitches.

Random factoid of the night: Dustin Pedroia has grounded into 11 double plays this year.

The Tigers don’t typically see a lot of pitches with their 3.70 P/PA only a smidge more than Seattle’s 3.69 which is the fewest in the AL. But Daisuke Matsuzaka typically throws quite a few topping the 4 pitch per PA mark in each of his first 2 years and he’s at 3.8 this year. Matsuzaka is looking for his first and he missed a chunk of time due to injury. He hasn’t gotten out of the 6th inning this year and has allowed at least 3 runs in each of his 4 starts.

Bonus Random factoid of the night: Magglio Ordonez has fanned in half of his PA’s against Daisuke.

Boston vs. Detroit – June 2, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: It happens. The Tigers had a decent game plan against Matsuzaka. They were willing to wait him out (4.6 P/PA). They got some walks, they got some hits, but not enough of either and throw in some bad baserunning and that’s how you waste 9 baserunners in 5 innings turn into 1 run. Actually, part of the problem is that of the 6 hits none were for extra bases, and a couple other hard hit balls were right at people, but…it happens.

Cabrera, Granderson, and Polanco all hit multiple balls hard. Gerald Laird had good at-bats but the Tigers didn’t get enough runs early and then they were playing uphill against a good bullpen.

Rick Porcello wasn’t bad, but not as sharp as he has been. He was also singled to death, but the Red Sox did mix in 2 exta base hits and those led to the 3 runs he gave up.

The Tigers bullpenning was passable except for when Ryan Perry lost the strike zone. We saw this a little bit with Perry early on and fortunately it hadn’t happened for quite sometime. You hate to see a run plunked in, which is what Brandon Lyon contributed but  in the end he came into a bases loaded, 1 out situation and allowed 1 run. Lyon pitched 2 more innings allowing only a double.

As for that rally off of Papelbon, let’s look at it for what it was. A broken bat, a check swing, and a seeing eye groundball. But I will give Josh Anderson a ton of credit for his 10 pitch strikeout .

Game 2009.049: Tigers at Orioles

PREGAME: The Tigers are running out kind of a different lineup today. One without Miguel Cabrera or Placido Polanco. They didn’t really do much last night, but still…

Edwin Jackson will try and get the Tigers a series split. Detroit hasn’t played particularly well in this series, and Jackson throwing a bunch of 0’s on the board would certainly help the Tigers chances.

He’ll be opposed by Jason Berken who is making his career start. He allowed 7 hits and 3 walks but only 2 runs in 5 innings in his debut against the Blue Jays.

Detroit vs. Baltimore – May 31, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Well Jackson certainly did throw a bunch of 0’s on the board. Eight of them to be exact and he was efficient enough that at 101 pitches he probably should have been given the chance to complete the shut out himself. I mean this as no disrespect to Fernando Rodney who has been pitching great. But Jackson has been asked to work deep into other games when he wasn’t as effective, or when the lead was ridiculously comfortable. I thought this would be one of those “it’s his game” type situations.

Regardless, he picked up 7 K’s while only allowing 2 hits and a walk. And somehow he held Luke Scott in check fanning him twice and getting a 3-1 lineout to first.

The Tigers offense was fairly anemic again. I don’t know how much credit should be given to the Orioles young staff, but they held Detroit in check and did so fairly easily the last 4 games. But Curtis Granderson drove a solo homer to right center and that was all the Tigers would need. Though they did add on when Clete Thomas and Jeff Larish drove in runs late.

Ordonez’s hitting streak was snapped, but he did take a walk his last time up.

Game 2009.048: Tigers at Orioles

PREGAME: Enough Luke freakin’ Scott already. This series is not going well and I’ve reached my Luke Scott limit. The offense has been comatose for the last two days. The pitching has been meh. I blame it all on Luke freakin’ Scott.

If anybody can slow him down it has to be Justin Verlander right? Thankfully he’ll have the ball tonight for the Tigers.

Verlander will go up against Jeremy Guthrie. Guthrie has a K/BB ratio under 2 and has given up 11 homers in 60.1 innings of work.

Detroit vs. Baltimore – May 30, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Hey, there’s one for the win column. It didn’t look good there when the Tigers continued to squander early scoring chances. This was despite solo homers from Clete (who had 2 of them) and Granderson. But 3 8th inning runs proved to be Luke Scott proof.

But Scott got his in. Verlander hadn’t allowed a homer the entire of month of May, but Scott was the immovable force who took him deep. Verlander was cruising early on, but rough 5th and 6th innings quickly ran his pitch count up and he was done after 6. Fortunately the bullpen was money.

  • Ryan Perry walked a guy and Bobby Seay allowed a double to Nick Markakis, but that was it. Seay got a pop-up with runners on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out setting things up for Joel Zumaya.
  • Zumaya was filthy and pitched out of the 7th inning jam with a 3 pitch punchout of Melvin Mora. In fact Zumaya picked up 4 outs on 12 pitches…all of which were strikes.
  • Fernando Rodney was nearly as good allowing only a single in the 9th and only need 12 pitches, 10 of which were strikes.
  • Placido Polanco and Miguel Cabrera combined for 1 walk. Polanco even popped up a 3-1 bunt attempt. Their struggles undid the big days from Thomas, Ordonez, and Granderson.
  • Ordonez is up to 16 games with the hitting streak and he picked up 3 more hits tonight.

Game 2009.047: Tigers at Orioles

PREGAME: The Tigers will hand the ball to Dontrelle Willis tonight. Willis has been solid in his last 2 starts and will look to keep it going. He’s still walking a few too many (8 in 17.1 innings with only 9 K’s), but it is a vast improvement from where he was.

Dontrelle’s career has many highlights, a Rookie of the Year award, a World Series ring, he’s a 2 time All Star, and a Cy Young runner up. He’s also in the process of bringing his career back from the brink, but there is something he still hasn’t accomplished…facing Matt Wieters [cue the trumpets]. Wieters has come to save the Baltimore Orioles and all of baseball for that matter.

The guy who has the honor of having Wieters catch his first big league pitch is Brad Bergesen. I’m sure Bergesen will have some jitters with Wieters behind the plate and hopefully the Tigers get can on the board before the smoke from the Wieters introduction fireworks clears.

Detroit vs. Baltimore – May 29, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Missed this entire game as Mrs. Billfer and I celebrated our anniversary. I thinkn I had more fun than those of you who watched the game.

Game 2009.046: Tigers at Orioles

PREGAME: When Detroit travels to Baltimore things seem to get interesting. There was the game where Dmitri Young had 2 homers and 2 triples. Or the time that Craig Monroe hit a grand slam in extra innings. Last year there was the game the Tigers put up a 6 spot in the first only to find themselves losing 8-7 after 3 before falling in extra innings 11-10. So no matter what happens it should be interesting the next 4 days.

It will be especially interesting for David Hernandez who makes his big league debut tonight. He posted some very nice numbers for the Norfolk Tide with a 60/13 K/BB ratio in 45 innings. He hasn’t been ranked on the O’s top prospects lists the last 2 years, but Baseball America has rated his slider the best on the O’s farm in both 2008 and 2009.

Armando Galarraga sports a slider too. It just hasn’t been so effective as of late. It’s been a miserable month for Galarraga. I’ll leave it at that.

Detroit vs. Baltimore – May 28, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday


POSTGAME
: It would be easy to focus on the offense’s inability to score the simplest of runs (runner on 3rd, less than 2 outs) on 3 separate occasions. Sure it is tremendously frustrating, but the Tigers have actually been pretty good at coming up with big hits this year, so I won’t dwell on it and chalk it up to “one of those things” or “that’s baseball.” Instead I’ll focus on a much improved outing from Armando Galarraga.

Galarraga wasn’t great, but there were times when he had his slider back. There were other times he hung it, but this was definitely progress, and the fact he pitched into the 8th meant he was nibbling nearly as much as he had been. He did allow 10 hits and he was helped by 3 double plays (the last one turned by Inge was awesome), but definitely a step in the right direction.

Game 2009.045: Tigers at Royals

PREGAME: The Tigers go for the series win with Rick Porcello and some day baseball. Porcello has been on a roll and in his 4 May starts he’s allowed just 3 runs in 24 innings. He’ll be opposed by Kyle Davies who has really only had 2 bad starts this season, one of them coming against the Tigers on April 25th. In his last 3 outings he’s allowed just 6 runs, he’s fanned 15, and he hasn’t allowed a homer.

Detroit vs. Kansas City – May 27, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: This was one of those “taking care of business” games where the Tigers came out and excelled on several fronts to take the series. Offense, defense, pitching, it was all working. Fortunately I’ve been able to say that quite a bit lately.

  • Rick Porcello was a little off in the first inning, but he settled in VERY nicely and went 6 innings on only 82 pitches. I actually wouldn’t have minded him going another inning as throwing 95-100 pitches on occasion probably wouldn’t hurt. But perhaps his success and the team’s success are creating a great emphasis to keep him available deeper into the season – meaning more conservation now.
  • When I saw Anderson leading off I im’d Ian how brilliant it was to maximize the at-bats for a guy with a .660 OPS. Of course he went out and notched a hit in each of his first 4 at-bats after getting 4 hits in his previous 24 at-bats.
  • Is the top of the order starting to click? Polanco had good swings all series, Ordonez is riding a 13 game hitting streak.  If these guys start clicking that takes pressure off of everybody else.
  • Bobby Seay got charged with a tough run after a bloop hit got over Adam Everett and Joel Zumaya allowed him to score.
  • Both Zumaya and Rodney had been taxed last week, and have been gathering moss ever since. So Leyland wanted each to get work, and work they got. Too much work.

Game 2009.044: Tigers at Royals

PREGAME: I have to admit, I’m a little bit excited about tonight’s pitching match-up. The Tigers will be taking on Zach Greinke who quite frankly has been dominating the bejesus out of all comers. But the Tigers get to send out Edwin Jackson who no one would mistake for a slouch this year.

Greinke is coming off a rare loss, one in which he allowed a season high 8 hits. He’s yet to allow a home run this season. Heck, he’s only allowed 7 runs (6 earned) all season.

Jackson is of course coming off his 132 pitch outing and it will be interesting to see how long he is left in, especially in a game that looks on paper to be tight.

Detroit vs. Kansas City – May 26, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Zach Greinke is really good. That’s kind of the story tonight. The Tigers picked up a run early, and they got some hits, but oh those GIDPs. The Tigers hit into 3 of them, one of them even on a hit and run. The double plays negated the benefit of getting the leadoff men on and they also prevented the Tigers from running up Greinke’s pitch count. And then Greinke just got better as the game went on and tallied 8 K’s with no walks allowed.

For awhile it looked like that early run might be enough. Jackson’s command wasn’t spot on early on and he fell behind a number of hitter with first pitch balls. But the Royals didn’t really seem to want to wait him out and he course corrected and started cruising until he came undone in the 6th inning. A single and an error by Jackson and the Royals were in business. When they plated 2 runs, it felt like he’d allowed 1 too many.

  • It was another decent start for Jackson who still isn’t disappointing. It was also a light workload for him today with only 89 pitches thrown – which makes me happy after his last 2 times out.
  • Magglio Ordonez extended the hitting streak to 12
  • Brandon Lyon continues on his Farnsworthian pace with yet another homer allowed. I’ll admit to advocating for Brandon Lyon to help the bullpen. I thought many of the calls for his release were overblown back in April, but the leash has to be shortening

Game 2009.043: Tigers at Royals

PREGAME: I don’t want to bash a team that went 7-2 in their last 9 games, but dropping the last 2 games of the homestand while only scoring 4 runs and seeing the top 3 inthe lineup fail to get a hit for 2 straight days didn’t really leave a good taste. Maybe some barbeque will get the offense clicking.

The trouble is they have to face Gil Meche. Individually the Tigers have some good numbers against Meche, but the offense never seems to do much against him as a whole with Meche turning in 5 straight quality starts against Detroit.

Hopefully the Tigers will only need a couple runs because they have Justin Verlander going for them. Verlander is on a 5 game quality start streak of his own. He’s also thrown a considerable number of pitches lately (averaging 118 pitches over his last 4 starts), so a “light” day in terms of workload might be nice.

Detroit vs. Kansas City – May 25, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Well, Meche didn’t turn out to be a problem…at least not for the Tigers. He was wild from the get go and the Tigers were inclined to wait him out. Meche threw 73 pitches and only recorded 7 outs, and he clearly wasn’t helped by an error by Mark Teahen (who has a habit of gunning down Tigers at the plate). And really, pretty much every ground ball found a hole for the Tigers and ever broken bat flopped into the outfield. It was one of those days. With the lopsided final score the Tigers have now allowed the fewest runs in the American League.

Justin Verlander was awesome again, retiring the first 9 batters in a row and picking up the first 6 outs on only 17 pitches. He finished the day with an easy 7 innings and only 96 pitches. He was efficient enough that he had a decent shot at a complete game shutout, but given his recent workload I loved seeming him lifted with the game out of doubt. The ERA is down to 3.55 and Verlander is looking better than he ever has.

  • There has been some talk of fans not wanting Magglio Ordonez to return to the lineup. Coming into today he was at 378/465/541 in his last 10 games and he added a single and a walk today.
  • Zach Miner gave up the shut out with back to back 2 out hits, but somehow managed to throw only 11 pitches in his inning.
  • Jeff Larish donned the golden sombrero and still managed to reach base twice
  • Miguel Cabrera is good at baseball. Not only did he have 4 hits, but he turned a nice 3-6-3 double play

Game 2009.042: Rockies at Tigers

PREGAME: The Tigers will try to get their second 40 games back on track as they try to close out their 9 game homestand on an up note. With 7 wins under their belt already, the homestand has been a success, but if they drop the series to the Rockies it will seem a lot less satisfying.

Dontrelle Willis will try to replicate his success against the Rangers, although a 1 hitter might be asking a bit much.

The Rockies will counter with Jason Hammel. Hammel has allowed a lot of hits this year, 45 of them in 31 innings. Lefties have beat him up with a 1.066 OPS this year so I’d expect to see the left handed hitting outfield and Ramon Santiago in the lineup.

Colorado vs. Detroit – May 24, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

Game 2009.041: Rockies at Tigers

PREGAME: Armando Galarraga takes the mound for the Tigers tonight and he’s looking to avoid being the weak link in the rotation. The Tigers have 7 quality starts in their last 8 games, the lone non-quality start belongs to Galarraga when he was chased in the first inning by the A’s. In May the Tigers have 12 quality starts in 19 games and 4 of the non-quality starts belong to Galarraga.

For the Rockies it will be Jason Marquis. Marquis has middling peripherals and a middling ERA (4.75) to go along with them. But he has compiled some very nice games this year, and they’ve been on the road where he has a 1.138 WHIP. In Colorado that WHIP is 1.583.

The lineup courtesy of Jason Beck is:

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

Colorado vs. Detroit – May 23, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: And the streaks are over. The seven game winning streak – gone. The eight game Comerica winning streak – gone. The undeated on days of the week that start with the letter S – gone. The Tigers had the go ahead run on base in the 9th, but they were outplayed by a larger margin.

The Rockies hit the ball hard consistently off of Armando Galarraga and probably could have had more runs with some better luck. Heck, they lost a run when Chris Ianetta couldn’t score because he pulled a hammy. As for the Tigers offense? Two-thirds of the runs came when the Rockies failed to throw out Magglio Ordonez on a failed hit and run. The Tigers got another gift when Ordonez wasn’t punched out on a full count pitch in the 9th.

  • Galarraga wasn’t awful, but he wasn’t good either. Most troubling was that when the team did get him off the hook for the loss he came up and went 3-0 to Todd Helton and then served up a meatball. But for most of the game he wasn’t nearly as nibbly as he has been.
  • Some nice bullpening tonight from the beleaguered Nate Robertson and Brandon Lyon who combined to allow 2 baserunners, no runs, and a stranded runner on second in 3.2 innings with 3 K’s.
  • The top of the order was brutal with a combined 0 for 12 from the top 3 and only one well struck ball in those 12 pa’s

Tigers Minor League Wrap 5/22/09

Toledo 3 Gwinnett 7
Don Kelly went 2 for 4 and Wil Rhymes was 3 for 4 with a triple. Ruddy Lugo allowed 5 runs, but only 1 was earned, in 4 innings on 6 hits, 2 walks, and 3 K’s. Fu Te Ni pitched 1.2 innings allowing no hits and 1 walk with 2 K’s.

Erie 1 Akron 0
Ryan Strieby was 1 for 1 with 3 walks. Alex Avila and Andy Dirks both doubled. Jon Kibler was one out short of a complete game shutout. He scattered 7 hits and 2 walks while fanning 6.

Lakeland PPD

West Michigan 14 Peoria 4
Billy Nowlin homered twice as he came up a triple short of the cycle. Jordan Lennerton had 3 hits and Avasail Garcia went 4 for 5. Brandon Hamilton allowed 2 homers among 5 hits in 6 innings. He walked 1 and fanned 5.

Game 2009.040: Rockies at Tigers

PREGAME: The Tigers welcome in the Colorado Rockies as their first interleague opponent. The Rockies have struggled this year, but their pitching has actually been pretty good with a 4.27 FIP which coincidentally is the same as the Tigers.

Tonight’s starter is Ubaldo Jimenez. Jimenez walks a batter every other inning, but he also fans nearly one an inning and has allowed only 1 homer in 46 innings this year. He’s thrown 4 straight quality starts and has allowed just 6 runs in his last 27 innings. The walks have also been under control of late with a 22:6 ratio.

Rick Porcello gets the ball for the Tigers. Porcello has also been rolling allowing just 2 runs over his last 3 starts.

And on a related note, Rod Allen will miss his 2nd game as he attends his youngest daughter’s graduation. In his place will be Dan Petry. Does anybody else remember a certain game where Petry filled in for Allen? It was also on a Friday night. Give up? It was the Yankees game that ended at 3:30 in the morning.

Oh, and GO WINGS Colorado vs. Detroit – May 22, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: It was a beautiful night at the ballpark, especially for those who appreciate stellar defense. This game had a reel full of web gem type plays. It’s probably best to just watch the highlights but here is a quick run down:

  1. Inge charges and barehands a ball to make a play look easy.
  2. Josh Anderson throws a seed to the plate to end an inning and save a run
  3. Brandon Inge runs to left field to snag a foul ball with his back to the basket
  4. Miguel Cabrera fields a ground ball along the line, spins and touches the bag and fires home to turn a 3-2 GIDP

Rick Porcello certainly appreciated the help, but he was pretty good on his own as well. He was very efficient up until that 6th inning when struggled a little. But he finished with 6 innings, 1 run, and another quality start.

Inge crushes a ball to right center for the big hit of the game, and it was even a pretty good pitch, so Inge deserves all the credit on that one.

The rest of the offense can be largely attributed nice baserunning. The first run was set up when Gerald Laird hustled to go first to third, and then nicely read (with some help from Placido Polanco) a wild pitch to score the first run. Later in the 8th inning the Tigers twice broke up double plays with hard slides (Polanco at third and Larish at second) that allowed a 4th run to score which proved to be the difference because…

Joel Zumaya wasn’t good. He was on in place of Rodney who had pitched the previous 3 days. He was wild and very fastball happy. He couldn’t find the curve ball and make a 3 run lead with the bases empty into a 1 run lead with runners at the corner. Unfortunately Perry was used 2 innings and Zumaya threw 31 pitches so both are likely unavailable for Saturday’s game.