Tonight’s loss was a nice mix of all of the ingredients which drive us nuts about this team, served together as a big fat loss sundae. Poor pitching from a supposed ace, terrible base running, mediocre fielding, letting a bad team come from behind twice, and the icing on top – an awful bullpen performance.

So obviously, lots to gripe about.

But let’s get a few facts straight regarding the offense so we can make sure that our frustration is accurately placed.

1) Relative to the rest of the league, the Tigers are a tremendous hitting team. The Tigers’ team OPS of .761 trails only Colorado, and Colorado is boosted by an .894 home OPS (you read that right). The next closest AL team is the Blue Jays, with a team OPS of .739.  The Tigers have the third best road OPS in the majors at .742. Yes, OPS is down across the league, but relative to the league, the Tigers are one of the best hitting teams. Just to emphasize this point, the Tigers are second in the majors in runs scored, behind only LAA.

2) The Tigers do not give up on games. The club’s 41 come from behind victories is 2nd in the majors, and the team OPS is .742 when behind, 3rd in the majors.

3) R3L20 – the Tigers are middle of the pack, 11th in the majors, but the team OPS in that situation is .872. Scoring position – .777 OPS, good for 3rd in the majors. No one gets it done every time.

4) In extra innings the team OPS is .827, good for 7th in the majors.

Look, you can play around with the figures yourself. Objectively, it’s hard to complain about this offense. (We’re even middle of the pack in number of pitches taken.) Yes, we’re 2nd in the majors in GIDP, but that’s what happens when you’re on base so much. The reason why this team is mired in a division struggle despite an overwhelming abundance of talent does not rest with the offense.

The starting pitching is bad, and the bullpen is atrocious. The starters’ team ERA is middle of the pack in the AL, but when you consider the names (and salaries) in that rotation, middle of the pack is crippling. And then, for the least surprising stats I’ll post tonight, the bullpen is 3rd from the bottom in the AL in ERA, and dead last in the AL in BAA against and WHIP. I get that bullpens are fleeting and whimsical, and can be trusted as much as a con man, but I do believe that Ausmus has failed to effectively motivate and manage this pen, and this will be impossible to overcome in the coming weeks. Ausmus is somewhat limited by the arms on the roster, but other teams seem to make it work with random AAA call-up guy/free agent. That Jim Johnson is still pitching meaningful innings in the heat of a pennant race is nauseating.

Thus, with an off-day tomorrow, and the anticipation of the biggest series of the season looming over our keyboards tomorrow, I wanted to set the stage for some meaningful discussion. Feel free to challenge me on the offense thoughts above, but I think we’re wasting our time complaining about these hitters.

By the way, if Cabrera goes 4-5 in each of the remaining 10 games, he’ll probably win his 4th straight batting crown.

Solid win all the way around. The game followed suit for a lot of Det/KC games this year until the Tigers’ outburst in the 9th.  That’s 6-0 in KC this season, as the Royals are this year’s 2013 Indians.

Baseball-Reference postgame here.

Three stars:

1) Rick Porcello – he was dealing again. Only 6 hits in 7 IPs, but he did walk 3. Two of the baserunners were erased on double plays.

2) JD Martinez – leading off the 9th with a cushion run was huge. Have we lost since VMart sat?

3) Joe Nathan – they should all be that easy.

I’m going to update everyone on the web site in the morning.

These last two wins have been impressive. The night after the Tigers put up a season high in runs scored, they beat the Royals 2-1 behind a masterful performance from Sanchez and a good enough one from the bullpen.

Though Sanchez gave up 8 hits, he didn’t walk a single batter, and twice stranded runners at 2nd with less than 1 out. Joba and Nathan did a good job of emptying the liquor cabinets and Tums around the homes of the DTW faithful, but they each escaped 2 on, 1 out jams, to shut the door. A batter interference call in the 8th likely preserved the lead, but those sort of things go your way when you are playing well.

It’s interesting to note that Sanchez was only at 90 pitches after 7, and still pulled for JobaJoe, which reinforces the 8th inning 9th inning guy MO. I don’t agree with it, but it worked last night.

The Tigers managed only 5 hits off of Danny Duffy, which sounds ridiculous for a team who saw most of its lineup put up 5 hits the previous night. But there is nothing to be ashamed of – Duffy can pitch. He’s having a career year across the board, and at 26 he may have figured out this whole “art of pitching” thing. The curve down and in on Cabrera to K him in the 1st was nasty. I’m not really sure why Duffy was pulled (I didn’t watch the end of the game, maybe he had a minor injury), though the Royals bullpen held the Tigers hit-less over the final three innings.

Ausmus left in the 2nd with flu-like symptoms. Ausmus didn’t leave the park, which leads me to believe that this is akin to going to the “nurse’s office” in high school when you forgot to study for an exam. I think Danny Duffy was confusing Ausmus so much that he just wanted out of there. Also, please help me understand – when it’s not the flu, what is it? Why don’t we just say he has the flu? What is the mysterious flu-like disease that is so prevalent?

How great was that Holaday sacrifice bunt? I love that guy.

Anyway, the Tigers have now matched their season best 15 games over .500 (thank you SL), and have nearly matched their 7 game lead from mid-May. Man would it be great to go into the AS break on a sweep, and knowing that the Tigers have fought all the way back from the 9-20 valley to get to two games better. Regardless, this is the team we thought we had. Or at least they are playing like it for now.

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Kinsler to replace VMart on the All-Star roster. Hopefully VMart will be ready after the break.

That ending was like a never-ending buffet for a diehard’s soul.

Austin Jackson’s nine pitch walk was Sean Doolittle’s second walk issued this year. Doolittle had only allowed 1 walk against 56 strikeouts in 39 IPs this year. Those are video game numbers.

Then Rajai Davis stepped up, and took a curve for a ball.

Then this. The Ultimate Slam (down 3, walk off).

(I tried to embed the video, but couldn’t figure it out. If anyone knows, please explain).

I was able, however, to load up Dan’s call. This gave me goose bumps when I heard it live.

Enjoy. (you’ll need to turn your speakers up, still working out the kinks over here)

You can’t ask for much more than that. A sweep on the road, against a division foe, headed into an off day. I’m not sure if we’re back to being the .700 win team we were a month ago, but 4 wins in a row is a nice response.

Lots to like about the series. Three straight quality starts, good fielding, and great hitting. By my count, the Tigers were tied or led for all but 2 out of 27 innings this weekend. Cabrera was 5-13 with 5 runs and 4 RBI, and JD Martinez was 5-13 with 2 runs and 5 RBI.

The bullpen, well, its a work in progress.

Go Team USA.

Solid win. Indians are gonna score at some point in time, they just happened to do it in a very dramatic fashion tonight.

J.D. Martinez, friends.

Nathan has been lights out two nights in a row. Props.

Royals lost tonight, Tigers back in first.

If we can win one more this weekend, I’ll feel good going into the off day on Monday.

A series win is a series win. Player of the game should be Oswaldo Arcia.

Porcello was dominant for most of the afternoon, and note that all three 6th inning runs were scored with two outs. Having him go 7 after using up every clown in the car last night was huge. Joba and Nathan didn’t go quietly, but they escaped. Regarding Nathan – I’d like to point out a) his ERA was 6.66 right before he got that final out, and b) his WHIP is going to go up after that 9th inning. I think there is still has a lot of slack on that leash. Let’s hope that he can get going.

– A day after going 9-19 with RISP, the Tigers were 2-14 today.

– Austin Jackson is batting .116/.224/.140/.364 OPS with RISP. He’s batting .285/.377/.434/.811 in all other situations.

– 4 straight quality starts by Tigers starters. Verlander goes tomorrow.

– KC is about to win their 7th in a row. Four game set starts tomorrow (includes a makeup game on Thurs).

That was about as un-fun as a 19 hit, 12 run attack can be.

In the 3rd inning, down 5-1, Deduno got a line out and a K to get to 2 outs with the bases clear. He then gave up a single to Castellanos and walked Avila, and Gardenhire came out to get him. This was an interesting move considering how early it was in the game, and that there were two outs already. I think that Gardenhire pulled him for two reasons – 1) Gardenhire knew that 5 runs was very doable against this Tigers pitching staff (even with Sanchez going b/c eventually the bullpen has to pitch) and 2) That Gardenhire could care less about conventional wisdom. Though the move didn’t pay off for the Twins, I like that Gardenhire is making moves to influence the game. Ausmus has been relying too much on his players as of late. I’ll freely admit that the Tigers have significantly more talent than the Twins, so trusting the Tigers’ players makes sense, but we’ve been in a rut for a month now and Ausmus could do more to make his presence felt.

Suarez was awesome. A single away from a cycle, and he continues to play strong defense. Caution the exuberance though, as he’s never finished a minor league season with a combined OPS greater than .802. But even a .700 OPS will be a marked improvement over what we’ve been getting at the SS position.

Everyone had two hits except for Jackson (1) and Avila (0).

Torii Hunter misplayed another ball in RF. Not that this is news to anyone, but Hunter is the worst defensive right fielder in the majors. It’s not even close.

And finally, the bullpen. Six earned runs in 2 2/3. That’s hard to do. Seriously, try it. Collectively, the bullpen faced 19 batters, allowed 11 of them to reach and over half of them to make three left turns. Coke had a relatively productive outing, allowing only 3 hits and 3 earned runs in his one inning spanning the 7th and 8th. He gets paid to do that.

9-19 RISP.

It’s a win, but I have grave concerns about what’s to come tomorrow.