Category Archives: Game Post

Game 2009.039: Rangers at Tigers

PREGAME: Some day baseball today as the Tigers try and pick up a second sweep and extend their winning streak to 6 games. It will be Edwin Jackson going for Detroit and Kevin Millwood for the Rangers.

Millwood has a reverse platoon split this year with lefties only managing a .591 OPS while righties are at .773.

Also, there will be no Rod Allen in the booth today so John Keating will join Mario Impemba and they will entertain questions from Twitter and Facebook. You can find them on Twitter @Foxsportsdet.

Texas vs. Detroit – May 21, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: It’s times like this that I really love baseball. When my team is winning, and things are clicking. The defense is solid, the pitching is dependable, and the offense is doing enough. Today the offense responded when they needed to. When the Rangers started the game with a first inning run, Clete Thomas answered with a shrubbery shot. When the Rangers tied the game, the Tigers responded with a two out rally to take the lead in the subsequent inning. The result was a 6 game winning streak.

  • Thomas definitely had a stamp on the game with the aforementioned bomb. He also saved a run with a PERFECT gun home. But then in the 8th he struggled with a fly ball to the wall.
  • Edwin Jackson wasn’t quite as sharp as his past starts, but still very effective and I feel like I didn’t jinx him. But I’m still worried about that pitch count. He walked 5 on the day, but I won’t hold the last one against him as he shouldn’t have been in at that point.
  • Fernando Rodney’s string of retiring 16 straight hitters came to an end with a leadoff walk (and later a single). But Rodney once again notched a save, his 8th of the year. He’s pitched the last 3 games though so I’d anticipate that Joel Zumaya will be  your closer on Friday night.

Game 2009.038: Rangers at Tigers

PREGAME: Tonight’s pitching match-up is Justin Verlander against Matt Harrison. I don’t normally do tables in game posts, but this pitching match-up just calls for it.

Verlander

Harrison

April ERA

6.75

7.89

May Runs

3

2

May Innings

22.1

23

Current ERA

4.29

4.23

K/BB Ratio

35/8

15/1

Last Homer Allowed

4/22

4/22

Oh yeah, and they both pitched complete game shut outs on May 8th. I think we’re looking at two pitchers, one lefty, one righty who are at the top of their games.

Texas vs. Detroit – May 20, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: With a 5 game winning streak it is happy fun time in Detroit. Short wrap tonight as it’s been a long week already:

  • Justin Verlander only notched 8 K’s in 6 innings. He had a legitimate shot at getting double digits before struggling in a very long 5th inning. Over 40 pitches in the frame ran his pitch count way too high and he was done after 6 innings. But only 1 earned run and his ERA dipped below 4 all the way to 3.99.
  • Wilkin Ramirez homered in his debut, and not just a homer but a blast into the centerfield shrubbery.
  • Brandon Lyon got touched for another homer. Ugh.
  • Joel Zumaya gave up a couple seeing eye grounders and found himself in a bases loaded no out jam but a bounce out and 2 filthy K’s meant only 1 run scored.
  • Fernando Rodney finally got in a save situation and retired the side in order. That is 16 straight batters retired for Rodney.
  • Brandon Inge and Ryan Raburn. Who knew?

Game 2009.037: Dontrelle’s Day

Sometimes the game story is a lot more story than game. Tonight is one of those nights as Dontrelle Willis found something. He found his command. He found his confidence. He found himself with his very first Tigers win.

Willis looked like a different pitcher tonight. He had control in his Twins start, but against the Rangers he had command. He worked both sides of the plate to both lefties and righties. He was moving in and out, up and down and working the edges of the zone. He had a very good hitting team off balance. While he did get some help from his defense on some hard hit balls, he had more than his share of dribblers and routine grounders as well.

Continue reading Game 2009.037: Dontrelle’s Day

Game 2009.037: Rangers at Tigers

PREGAME: Six weeks ago a Rangers team riding a 3 game win streak came into Comerica Park and got swept. Tonight a Rangers team on a 7 game winning streak returns to Detroit.

These aren’t your typical Rangers. Sure, they still slug the snot out of the ball (their slugging percentage is 32 points higher than the 2nd ranking team), but now they can prevent runs as well. The Rangers have a 4.54 team ERA. While it significantly outpaces their 5.11 FIP, there is some realness to it because they rank 2nd in terms of defensive efficiency.

In other words, Dontrelle Willis will have his work cut out for him tonight as he makes his second start. Willis didn’t have his control problems last time out, but he wasn’t fooling the Twins either and came out after 4.2 innings. He benefits in one respect that Josh Hamilton is out of the lineup, but the Rangers bring a lot of thump in Ian Kinsler and company from the right side.

Brandon McCarthy gets the nod for the Rangers. He has been susceptible to the long ball with 10 homers allowed in 38 innings. While 7 of those homers have come in Arlington, he still has a OPS allowed over 1.000 on the road. Lefties have also beaten him up pretty good so Jim Leyland has 5 in the lineup tonight.

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

Texas vs. Detroit – May 19, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

Game 2009.036: A’s at Tigers

PREGAME: The Tigers are going for their third sweep in a week – of course one of those times they were the sweep-ee. The Tigers have outscored the A’s 23-2 in the first 2 games of the series. I’m going to this one though and the Tigers are 1-4 when I’m in attendance. But the 1 win was Opening Day with Armando Galarraga on the mound. So anything could happen.

Galarraga hasn’t pitched well of late, throwing lots of sliders and not enough balls in the strike zone.

Trevor Cahill pitches for the A’s. He has more walks than strikeouts (20/14) but a 3.69 ERA. He’s riding a string of 3 straight quality starts and he’s only given up more than 2 runs in a start one time this season.

Oakland vs. Detroit – May 17, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

Adam Everett and Ramon Santiago congratulate Curtis Granderson
Adam Everett and Ramon Santiago congratulate Curtis Granderson

POSTGAME: This one looked bad at the outset. Armando Galarraga was the-awful  again, but I get the feeling this wasn’t entirely unexpected. Jim Leyland had Zach Miner up and working relatively quickly. Yes, 5 runs were plated before Galarraga was lifted, but it’s not often you have a replacement up and warm 15 minutes after the game starts.

It makes me think that there may be something beyond simple mechanical issues hampering Galarraga. I have no idea if he’s injured, but he does have a history of injuries, he saw a large spike in innings pitched last year, and he has lost the strike zone.

Fortunately the Tigers offense responded as they had all series. Detroit scored 34 runs over the last 3 games and have been responsible for 20% of the runs the A’s staff has allowed this season. In 3 games they hit 2 grand slams and 3 3-run homers. I kind of prefer that to small ball myself.

Ramon Santiago made the most of his start with a 4-4 day where he missed a cycle by just a double. Adam Everett did what he could to hold on to the primary shortstop role with 2 doubles, a single, and a sac bunt. And Curtis Granderson sealed the deal with a 3 run jack (he also had 3 walks).

Zach Miner was a pseudo starter today. He was by no means lights out but he deserves some credit (and he did get the win). He came in with runners on first and second and stranded them. He allowed a run in second inning, but when the Tigers scored their runs in the 3rd and 4th innings, he didn’t give any runs back to the A’s which let the offense take the lead for good.

The rest of the bullpenning was good as well save for 2 walks from Luke French.

This had to be a discouraging series for the A’s, to be blown out in 2 games and then cough up a 6 run early lead. Billy Beane has rightly been praised for his work with a limited budget, but A’s fans are getting fed up.

Photo Day

Today was on field photo day. It’s something we’ve done a couple times in the past. Back in 2003 there weren’t a lot of people. In 2007 it was a crushing mass of humanity. Today was something in between. It was full, but not packed and the Tigers organization did a great job of carving out areas for the kids. It is tough to make everyone happy, but I think they did a nice job striking a balance.

But I really have to give credit to the players.  I don’t know if they enjoy these days or not, but if they don’t you would have no idea. Everyone I saw seemed to be having a wonderful time. The smiles seemed genuine and they took time to really try and pose for pictures instead of just walking the line. Inge was of course a fan favorite, but Andy Van Slyke probably got the biggest laughs when he was holding an infant and making faces at the kid. Willis picked up a kid and gave him a hug. Cabrera was playing with another kid.

I know that none of this stuff makes a difference in terms of wins and losses, but for fan relations it does make a difference. I’ve said it a number of times, but if a player is nice to my kid he’s earned himself my support. I’m sure that’s true for a lot of other parents as well and the team did well in that regard today.

Game 2009.035: A’s at Tigers

PREGAME: Hopefully the Tigers didn’t use up all their offense last night and they have some runs left to pile on Dallas Braden. I covered Braden yesterday, so borrowing from earlier writings:

Lefty Dallas Braden takes the hill for Oakland. He has a sub 6 K/9 rate, but he walks less than half of that and keeps the ball in the park. Lefties only have 33 at-bats against him this year and they’ve only put together 7 singles and a walk. Most of the damage against Braden has been done in the later innings with a sub .700 OPS in the first 4 innings. But the third time through the lineup hitters post a 953 OPS against.

The Tigers will send out Rick Porcello. Porcello has only allowed 1 run over his last 2 games. He has walked 5 in his last 12 innings and the tigers would probably like to see that number drop a little.

Oakland vs. Detroit – May 16, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Starting pitch? Check. Bullpen? Check. Offense? Check. Defense? Check. Nothing at all to complain about in this one.

Porcello continues to hold his own at the big league level, showing progress with each outing. The curve ball was particularly effective today and he used his hook to notch 5 K’s. He also limited the walks to two. Early in the game he seemed to be leaving balls up a little with more balls in the air than he normally allows. But as he’s done in several of his starts, he’ll settle down after adversity and get on what seems like an effortless roll.

The infield did a very nice job making a number of tricky plays highlighted by a Miguel Cabrera web gem (at least it was a web gem prior to the late games ending).

Bobby Seay got an out and allowed a single. But Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney were perfect. It was a little overkill to use those 3 in this game, but with an off day on Monday they can still go tomorrow if need be without any repercussions.

And then there is the offense which started coming to life in the Metrodome. After seeing the Tigers slap singles around for a decent chunk of the season, it is nice to see balls banging off the fence or laced down the line. Miguel Cabrera, Gerald Laird, and Placido Polanco all had 3 hit games and Ryan Raburn picked up 3 more RBI with an opposite field homer. Things are good in Tiger town tonight.

Game 2009.034: A’s at Tigers

PREGAME: The Tigers journey through the AL Central with 6 wins, 6 losses, and a rain out. So they didn’t really lose or gain anything. Now they go out of the division for a while starting with the Oakland A’s. Kurt and Blake have already written up previews of this series, so I’ll just put my feet up after I tell you a little about tonight’s pitching match-up.

The Tigers look to Edwin Jackson to perhaps bullpen proof this game – or at least minimize the pen innings. Jackson hasn’t received a lot of run support this year, so if the pattern holds he’ll need to be close to perfect. My guess is that tonight’s pen consists of Fernando Rodney, Lucas French, Ryan Perry…and hope. Miner and Seay are likely out, and I’d guess that Jim Leyland would like to give Zumaya and Lyon an extra day after their marathon night on Wednesday.

Lefty Dallas Braden takes the hill for Oakland. He has a sub 6 K/9 rate, but he walks less than half of that and keeps the ball in the park. Lefties only have 33 at-bats against him this year and they’ve only put together 7 singles and a walk. Most of the damage against Braden has been done in the later innings with a sub .700 OPS in the first 4 innings. But the third time through the lineup hitters post a 953 OPS against.

Oakland vs. Detroit – May 15, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: It’s nice not to be in the Metrodome anymore. The Tigers hit 2 grandslams and took advantage of 4 Oakland errors, and got another great start from Edwin Jackson.

  • I never thought that at any point I would look at a list of most recent Tigers grand slams and see Brandon Inge/Ryan Raburn/Adam Everett topping that list.
  • Inge killed his grandslam to centerfield. You know he’s hit it well if he adjust his cup before he leaves the batters box.
  • Venezuela got going with 6 hits between Ordonez and Cabrera. Stud 3 hole hitter Clete Thomas also had 3 hits making a potent middle of the lineup, and enabling Inge and Raburn to combine for 10 RBI
  • Jackson once again pounded the zone and walked nobody with 69 of his 97 pitches going for strikes
  • About those 97 pitches though. Clearly it isn’t a heavy workload, but there was the rain delay. Plus he threw in the tunnel during the rain delay. Plus he had to warm up after the rain delay. That is way too much work in a game where the only doubt was when the tarp would come off.
  • The good news is that the entire bullpen should now be available. French and Perry only worked one inning each. Lyon and Zumaya got 2 days off. Miner and Seay should both be good to go as well.

On another note, sorry about misleading you about tonight’s A’s starter. I went off of the info on MLB.com’s site. Braden will be tomorrow night’s starter so at least I have a head start.

Game 2009.033: Tigers at Twins

PREGAME: After a lengthy game with a disappointing result the Tigers turn to Justin Verlander to stave off the Metrodome sweep. He’ll be opposed by Scott Baker. Both pitchers will be expected to log some innings today as both bullpens were burned up in last night’s marathon. Detroit does have a fresh option in Lucas French, who was due to take his regular turn in the Toledo rotation and is Nate Robertson’s replacement. (Nate hit the DL with a back injury).

With a 1:10 start (noon:10 local time) we’ll see which offense wakes up first.

Detroit vs. Minnesota – May 14, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: It’s not too hard to find someone to blame in this one. Bobby Seay and Zach Miner combined to be awful and give away a 5 run lead before recording 2 outs. The result was a wasted outing by Justin Verlander, and 5 runs which haven’t exactly been easy to come by lately.

Verlander

He was freakishly good yet again today with a career high 13 strike outs. The only knock is that his pitch count crept up too high too early on a day when the bullpen was depleted. But he didn’t surrender a run and didn’t ask his position players to do much of anything. He recorded 15 swinging strikes as batter just can’t find his fastball.

In reading the comments, there is a lot of disagreement as to whether he should have been pulled. Verlander topped the 120 pitch mark when he was lifted and it was the 3rd straight start with a heavy workload. In my mind he certainly wasn’t pulled too early, and may have come out too late.

Listening to the game I didn’t think he’d be back for the 7th inning at all, and if he did I thought it would be to get Joe Crede. With the bullpen spent, I thought a 5 run lead and a clean slate would be a good situation to indoctrinate Lucas French. More on this in a minute.

Verlander Fastball Velocity May 14th
Verlander Fastball Velocity May 14th

As it was, Verlander put 2 men on including a walk to Nick Punto. At this point Leyland had to get him. Whether or not you believe in pitch counts, this had nothing to do with it. Verlander was gassed. Justin is normally a quick worker, and in that 7th inning he was taking longer between pitches. He had fanned Punto on all fastballs in his first 2 at-bats and start to finesse him with offspeed pitches in that last at-bat. And the velocity had tailed off after a flurry at the end of the sixth inning. It was time.

The pen

As I mentioned up above, a clean start with a 5 run lead might have been a nice spot to get French in the game. The downside of Verlander putting 2 guys on was that the situation became much more dicey and did call for Bobby Seay. As one of only 4 options (Miner/Rodney/French) and lefties coming it made sense to go with Seay. Seay didn’t get the job done. Miner didn’t get the job done either. I’m not soured on Seay, but Miner does not seem to pitch well out of the pen. It was a Twins sereis last year where he couldn’t throw strikes out of the pen that led to his demotion and it was more of the same the last 2 nights.

The offense

With 15 runs over the last 2 games it is starting to show signs of life again. Granted, it was helped by Jason Kubel not embracing a direct route to Santiago’s double, but that’s part of the game and the Tigers added on. And everybody that isn’t wearing catchers gear found a way to contribute the last 2 games.

Game 2009.032: Tigers at Twins

PREGAME: It is merely coincidence that Dontrelle’s first takes place alongside the Lost Season Finale right? It isn’t a harbinger of things to come right? Headline writers won’t be able to point to some combination of Lost Season or Finale to describe this game right?

Well, here’s hoping that Dontrelle Willis maybe visited the island and his control problems have been cured. Willis is making his season debut as his DL (anxiety disorder) stint concluded after starts for Lakeland, Erie, and Toledo . Each stop saw an improvement in command over what we witnessed last year. Still his combined 26.7 innings pitched saw 9 walks, 3 homers, 16 K’s, and 23 hits so he wasn’t exactly dominating.

I have no idea what to expect tonight. I’m rooting for Willis, not only as a Tigers fan but because he seems to be one of the good guys.

Lefty Glen Perkins is on the mound for the Twins. There was a time when the Tigers hammered lefty pitching. That time isn’t now. Perkins started the year with 3 straight 8 inning outings where he allowed a total of 4 runs. Since then he hasn’t recorded an out in the 7th and has allowed at least 4 runs each game.

Detroit vs. Minnesota – May 13, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: This game deserves more analysis than what I’m about to offer up, but it’s 1 a.m. and I’m grumpy. Bringing Brandon Lyon out for the last inning was stupid. Leaving him in was beyond stupid. It’s almost hard to believe that a guy that is used to throwing 1 to 2 innings hung a curve ball on pitch number 60. Unless Nate Robertson was on life support this was incredibly freaking stupid.

Information coming in that Robertson is injured and Lucas French is on his way from Toledo. This news makes the above paragraph, well, misguided would be an understatement. You can backtrack on various pitcher usage through the game and look for things that could be done differently, but there is a point where you can’t plan for a 14 inning game.

Game 2009.031: Tigers at Twins

PREGAME: If there is one thing that really irritates me about the Metrodome (and this is of course hypothetical because there are many one things), it’s the fact that they have patterns in the grass like it has been mowed. Only it’s not grass and it’s never been mowed and never will be mowed.

That’s right, the Tigers are playing at the Metrodome. Sigh. New stadium coming soon though.

Tonight it will be Armando Galarraga going for Detroit. He’s the only starter in the last turn through the rotation to allow runs in the multiple sense. He’s struggled in his last 2 starts allowing 11 runs in 11 innings with 5 walks and 5 K’s and 3 homers allowed.

On the other side it will be Kevin Slowey. Slowey has been a strike throwing machine and he has a whopping total of 2 walks…this season. He has allowed 6 homers in 34.1 innings so maybe the air conditioner will be blowing out tonight.

Many of the Tigers were out for extra batting practice today and this is how they’ll lineup tonight:

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

Detroit vs. Minnesota – May 12, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: And the 3 game win streak is over. It was one of those games. Armando Galarraga wasn’t good again. He couldn’t find the strike zone consistently and when he did the pitches got hammered. The outs were well hit, the hits were well hit. The Twins hit 3 balls with home run distance but Clete Thomas brought one back.

Galarraga settled down a little in the middle innings before things kind of spun out of control. There was a tough 4 pitch walk, and 2 double play balls that didn’t get converted including Placido Polanco’s first error of the year.  Ryan Perry came in and gave up a run, but it wasn’t until his 3rd inning and I thought it was one of his better outings.

As for the offense, you can’t say it was dead. They had 9 hits, including 2 homers and they doubled Slowey’s walk total for the season. They even got the benefit of a misplay by Tolbert and another by Delmon Young. They had a runner on second in each of the first 5 innings, and in two innings they had 2 on and nobody out. But the big hit just never came. Cabrera came the closest with a flyball to the warning track in right and a sharp grounder up the middle that Tolbert instead turned into a double play.

But with Laird, and Ordonez, and now Inge struggling there are some holes in the lineup. Clete Thomas is still hitting 3rd in this lineup, and his production hasn’t been the problem. Detroit even got a couple of homers from Jeff Larish and Ramon Santiago, but somehow they came with no one on base.

  • I don’t know that I’ve seen a hitter do less with 5 pitches than Laird did tonight. A 3 pitch K, a pop out, and a check swing back to the pitcher.
  • Inge had nothing to show for his night, but he had a couple of lengthy at-bats. You’d like to see that pay in results, but it is hard to be upset with the approach.
  • Thomas also had 2 8-pitch plus at-bats, one resulted in a hit, the other a DP

Tigers Minor League Wrap 5/10/2009

Lehigh Valley 5 Toledo 3
Mike Hessman hit 3 doubles. Don Kelly was 2 for 2 with 2 walks. Jeff Frazier also had 2 hits. Ruddy Lugo allowed 6 hits and walked 4 in 5.1 innings. Fu Te Ni allowed a solo homer and 2 other hits in 2.2 innings. Clay Rapada struck out one in his inning of work.

Bowie 5 Erie 6
Cale Iorg went 2 for 4 with a double. Andy Dirks also had 2 hits. Deik Scram homered and walked. Jonah Nickerson struck out 6 and walked 2 in 6 innings of 3 run ball. Josh Rainwater pitched 1.2 innings with no baserunners allowed.

Lakeland – DNP

Clinton 8 West Michigan 9 (13 inn)
West Michigan has played their share of marathon games this year. In today’s they came back from 8 runs down. Ben Guez homered and doubled. Ronnie Bourquin went 3 for 6. Brent Wyatt doubled, tripled, and walked. Brandon Hamilton got knocked out in the 2nd inning after allowing 6 runs on 4 hits and 4 walks. Jared Gayhart pitched 4 scoreless innings with 3 K’s and a walk. Tyler Stohr pitched the last 3 innings allowing just 1 hit with 4 strikeouts.

Game 2009.030: Tigers at Indians

PREGAME: First of all, happy Mother’s Day to all the Mom’s out there. Now onto the game as the Tigers go for the sweep of the Tribe.

So how would you like to be Rick Porcello today? He’s sitting there in front of  his locker before the game. A teammate slides up next to him and says: “You know, the Indians haven’t scored in this series. Don’t screw it up.” Or course Porcello can point to earlier in the week when he tossed 7 shutout innings against the Twins and perhaps get credit for starting this 3 out of 4 game shutout string.

On the other side it will be Anthony Reyes. Reyes hasn’t pitched that poorly this year. While he does have a 6.84 ER, he has done a reasonable job keeping his team in the game, giving up more than 4 runs in just one of his 5 starts. The peripherals aren’t impressive though with 12 walks and 14 K’s and 4 homers allowed in 25 innings.

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

POSTGAME: Hey, it’s a sweep. And a sweep of a divisional foe. And the rest of the division lost today. And the Tigers moved into a tie for first place in the Central. And they’re 4 games over .500, someplace they haven’t been since the end of the 2007 season.

Rick Porcello allowed a run. Bum. Kidding of course. Porcello wasn’t particularly sharp early on, but his curve ball was in full hammer form and he did rack up 5 K’s in 5 innings of work. Not a bad outing at all.

Offensively the Tigers didn’t wait until the 7th inning stretch to get things going. Were it not for 4 double play balls this could have been a laugher.

And then there was Fernando Rodney. Rodney struggle with his fastball control on Saturday night. As a result he threw a ton of pitches and I was surprised to see him come out in today’s non-save effort. Things looked pretty good early on as two outs sandwiched a Jhonny Perralta single, and he got ahead of Grady Sizemore. The fastball command was there. And then it was gone. Sizemore ended up walking and things got way too interesting. What looked to be a “get back on the horse” effort quickly turned into one that could be invoking too much self doubt.

  • Maggs reached base in 5 of his 8 PA’s this series. Could this be something?
  • Granderson out played Grady defensively this series. This will not be debated.
  • Bobby Seay had a few struggles of late, but pitched an easy 1 2/3 innings
  • How long does Eric Wedge stick around? The Indians now have the worst record in baseball.
  • Jeff Larish making the most of his opportunities with a homer and a triple the last 2 games.