Long time readers of this site remember a feature called the Inning Report. Reader Sam Hoff would break down the season into 18 game segments or “innings.” Why 18 game? Because there are 9 18 game segments in a season. When the Tigers completed the Oakland series that also completed the second inning. Sam is still putting these together, but he’s posting them on his site this season. So click through to read The Fourth Inning is over with games through last Friday.

The Tigers had their best inning in terms of wins and losses, and that was despite much hand wringing during a 4 game skid. Remarkably they did it by outscoring their opponents by only 1 run over the 18 games. They did very well in close games, which is either good news (that they outperformed basic luck) or bad news (that it probably isn’t sustainable).

A couple things of note:

• This is the homering-est inning for Tigers hitters since Sam started doing these reports in 2007.  A little bit surprising since a chunk of the games were played in NL parks without a DH
• The run prevention has been very consistent in each inning. However this time around the Tigers relied very heavily on the bullpen.

Sam Hoff has completed his 3rd inning report (this is actually through Saturday’s game but I’m late getting to it. The Tigers were .500 over the latest period. The pitching held the opposition to a remarkable 65 runs over the 18 games. Unfortunately the offense only managed to score 67.

Patti Engineering Insight » The 3rd Inning is Over

Last year Sam Hoff started breaking down the season into 18 games segments, each representing 1/9th of the season, or an “inning.” Here is the 7th inning report.

The 8th Inning is over.

Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for the first 8 innings in 2008:

                                        Starters:         Bullpen:
    W-L   RS –RA     HR-SB-AVG/OBA/SLG    W-L-IP-   ERA     W-L-S-ERA
1:  6-12  74 -112    15-10-262/345/404    3-9- 96.2-5.96    3-3-3-5.28 
2:  9-9   98 -87     21- 6-261/350/426    5-8-105.2-5.11    4-1-2-3.61
3:  8-10  89 -75     19- 2-275/326/442    8-5-109.2-4.19    0-5-4-3.83
4:  11-7  85 -74     19- 8-268/350/416    8-4-113.0-3.27    3-3-5-5.17
5:  12-6  86 -78     25- 6-297/347/476    6-4-106.1-4.23    6-2-6-3.43
6:  9-9   118-96     25- 8-299/368/483    8-6-105.0-5.49    1-3-2-4.03
7:  7-11  93- 103    26- 8-265/353/455    7-7-104.0-4.67    0-4-4-4.92
8:  8-10  91- 118    27- 8-263/335/475    4-8- 92.2-6.90    4-2-5-4.68

In the 8th inning ended with a three game winning streak, otherwise it would have been really ugly. The pitching has completely fallen apart. They gave up seven or more runs in 50% of the games in the inning. The team is playing out the string and it is clear that most of the team cannot wait until September 28th comes. Looking back at all the expectations that this team had in March, it is hard to believe how bad this team is.

The starting pitching was abysmal. Galarraga was the only pitcher with an ERA under 5.00 (and he barely made it). Miner has come back down to earth after some very good starts and the great mystery of Verlander’s 2008 struggles continue. Kenny Roger’s career looks over and Nate Robertson gave up 5 homeruns in his only start!

Name	               GS	IP	       W	L	K	ERA	WHIP
Zach Miner	        4	23.1	       2	0	10	5.40	1.37
A Galarraga	        3	20       	0	1	15	4.95	1.45
Chris Lambert	       3	11.2	       1	1	8	6.17	1.89
Justin Verlander	4	20    	        1	2	20	6.30	2.10
Kenny Rogers	       3	14    	        0	3	8	11.57	2.14
Nate Robertson	       1	3.1	        0	1	0	14.73	3.27

In the Bullpen, Kyle Farnsworth was terrific. The 2 Tampa reject (Glover and Fossum) also pitched well. Francis Beltran pitched 2.2 scoreless innings. No one else had a WHIP below 1.64. Do not be fooled by Rodney’s 5 saves, He gave up 7 walks and 10 hits in 8 innings!

Name	                G	IP	W	L	S	K	ERA	WHIP
Kyle Farnsworth	       0	7.2	1	0	0	10	0.00	1.17
Casey Fossum	       0	10.2	1	0	0	5	2.53	0.94
Gary Glover	             0	10    	1	1	0	5	3.60	0.90
Francis Beltran	       0	2.2	0	0	0	2	0.00	0.00
Aquilino Lopez  	    0  	14    	0	0	0	11	4.50	1.64
Fernando Rodney	       0	8    	0	1	5	11	4.50	2.13
Clay Rapada	       0	2.1	1	0	0	1	3.86	2.14
Freddy Dolsi	       0	2.1	0	0	0	1	7.71	3.00
Nate Robertson	       0	5    	0	0	0	3	12.60	2.00
Bobby Seay	        0	4.2	0	0	0	3	13.50	2.57

The offense scored over 5 runs/game. Cabrera, Ordonez, and Granderson are leading the pace. Can anyone give a good reason why Sheffield is continuing to garner his regular playing time? If he gets to 500 homeruns (he needs 4 more) is he going to retire? If that is the case, bat him leadoff so he can get his milestone and save the Tigers 14m next year. Displaying from best to worst:

Name	                G	AB	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG
Miguel Cabrera	        18	67	8	20	0	.299	.347	.716
Magglio Ordonez	        18	70	4	16	1	.386	.408	.700
Curtis Granderson	18	68	3	9	1	.324	.459	.632
Edgar Renteria	        14	48	2	5	2	.292	.327	.521
Mike Hessman	         7	17	2	3	0	.235	.350	.647
Marcus Thames	        13	40	3	5	0	.250	.279	.500
Placido Polanco	        16	71	0	7	1	.282	.301	.338
Carlos Guillen	         5	15	0	0	0	.267	.353	.400
Dusty Ryan	        2	4	1	2	0	.250	.400	1.000
Dane Sardinha	        2	3	0	0	0	.333	.333	.333
Ramon Santiago	       10	21	0	1	0	.238	.333	.286
Matthew Joyce	       16	31	0	2	0	.161	.308	.258
Brandon Inge	       17	53	1	7	2	.189	.279	.283
Gary Sheffield	       16	61	3	8	0	.180	.254	.361
Ryan Raburn	       11	14	0	1	0	.143	.143	.214
Jeffrey Larish       	8	25	0	3	1	.160	.192	.160

The Tigers must now go 12-6 in the final inning to have a winning record. DO NOT BET ON IT. As long as they keep trotting out Sheffield, Thames, and 29-year old minor league legend Mike Hessman and do not play any youngsters, there is absolutely no reason to watch the train wreck known as the 2008 Tigers. Watch the Lions, their 50 year run of futility will make you feel better about the Tigers.

Last year Sam Hoff started breaking down the season into 18 games segments, each representing 1/9th of the season, or an “inning.” Here is the 7th inning report.

The 7th Inning is over.

Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for the first 7 innings in 2008:

                                                          Starters:         Bullpen:
    W-L   RS –RA     HR-SB-AVG/OBA/SLG    W-L-IP-   ERA     W-L-S-ERA
1:  6-12  74 -112    15-10-262/345/404    3-9- 96.2-5.96    3-3-3-5.28 
2:  9-9   98 -87     21- 6-261/350/426    5-8-105.2-5.11    4-1-2-3.61
3:  8-10  89 -75     19- 2-275/326/442    8-5-109.2-4.19    0-5-4-3.83
4:  11-7  85 -74     19- 8-268/350/416    8-4-113.0-3.27    3-3-5-5.17
5:  12-6  86 -78     25- 6-297/347/476    6-4-106.1-4.23    6-2-6-3.43
6:  9-9   118-96     25- 8-299/368/483    8-6-105.0-5.49    1-3-2-4.03
7:  7-11  93- 103    26- 8-265/353/455    7-7-104.0-4.67    0-4-4-4.92

In the 7th inning found the Tigers start the inning with a 5-game losing streak that seemed to drain the life and energy out of the team and their fans. The season thus far can be broken into 3 distinct segments: The abysmal 24-36 start that dug a huge hole, the 28-13 run that started June 7th with a Thames’ lead comeback win against Cleveland that got the team to 52-49, and the most recent 10-15 run that was started July 25th with Dye’s 2-run 9th inning homerun off of Todd Jones.

The starting pitching improved as a unit from Horrible to Mediocre, the exception being Galarraga who was great. Displaying from best to worst:

Name	      GS	IP	W	L	K	ERA	WHIP
Galarraga	4	26.2	3	0	19	2.36	1.16
Verlander	3	18    	1	2	16	5.50	1.39
Robertson	3	18    	1	1	12	4.50	1.72
Miner	        4	18.2	1	1	12	4.82	1.82
Rogers	       4	22.2	1	3	22	6.75	1.81

In the Bullpen, the emergence of Fernando Rodney as a closer was a bright spot. Bobby Seay continued to do well and Gary Glover provided 2.2 innings of perfect work. Other than those 3, it was pretty much like throwing gasoline on a fire. Displaying from best to worst:

Name	       G	IP	W	L	S	K	ERA	WHIP
Rodney	       7	9 2/3	0	1	4	14	1.86	0.83
Seay	        9	8    	0	0	0	9	3.38	1.13
Glover	       2	2 1/3	0	0	0	2	0.00	0.00
Dolsi	        4	5 1/3	0	0	0	3	1.69	2.06
Lopez  	       5	9 2/3	0	0	0	6	5.59	1.66
Beltran	       4	5 2/3	0	0	0	3	6.35	1.59
Fossum	       6	7 2/3	0	1	0	6	8.22	1.57
Farnsworth	7	7 1/3	0	0	0	7	7.36	1.91
Zumaya	       5	4    	0	2	0	4	9.00	2.75
Jones	        1	 2/3	0	0	0	0	0.00	9.00

The offense did OK. The 93 runs do not match a 1,000 runs/season pace, but scoring over 5 runs per game should be sufficient. Overall, I would give the individual hitters in the 7th inning a passing grade except our Catching tandem (Inge and Sardinha), and the extremely cold Marcus Thames. Displaying from best to worst:

Name	        G	AB	HR	RBI	SB	BA	OBP	SLG
Cabrera	      18	71	6	17	0	.282	.362	.606
Polanco	      17	69	3	9	2	.319	.390	.565
Granderson	18	74	4	11	2	.270	.372	.554
Renteria	17	59	2	6	1	.322	.385	.508
Guillen	      12	48	1	3	1	.292	.393	.438
Sheffield	17	63	5	13	1	.254	.347	.508
Joyce	        16	42	2	6	0	.262	.311	.476
Ordonez	      17	68	1	10	0	.279	.380	.368
Santiago	7	15	0	0	0	.267	.389	.267
Raburn	      12	32	0	2	1	.281	.324	.312
Inge	        18	60	1	8	0	.200	.314	.333
Thames	       8	27	1	2	0	.111	.111	.222
Sardinha	6	14	0	0	0	.071	.133	.071

Even if the Tigers were to go 28-8 over the remaining 36 games to get to 90 wins, both Chicago and Minnesota would have to play at or below .500 to win the division. The Wild card is even more daunting as the Tigers are 11 games back and would have to pass four teams. The last two innings should tell a lot about 2009 and what kind of direction the team will take in the off season. That is the only reason to keep watching this train wreck at this point.

Last year Sam Hoff started breaking down the season into 18 games segments, each representing 1/9th of the season, or an “inning.” Here is the 6th inning report. This doesn’t include the Tampa series which got the 7th off to an awful start.

The 6th Inning is over.

Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for the first 6 innings in 2008:

Starters: Bullpen:
W-L RS –RA HR-SB-AVG/OBA/SLG W-L-IP- ERA W-L-S-ERA
1: 6-12 74 -112 15-10-262/345/404 3-9- 96.2-5.96 3-3-3-5.28
2: 9-9 98 -87 21- 6-261/350/426 5-8-105.2-5.11 4-1-2-3.61
3: 8-10 89 -75 19- 2-275/326/442 8-5-109.2-4.19 0-5-4-3.83
4: 11-7 85 -74 19- 8-268/350/416 8-4-113.0-3.27 3-3-5-5.17
5: 12-6 86 -78 25- 6-297/347/476 6-4-106.1-4.23 6-2-6-3.43
6: 9-9 118-96 25- 8-299/368/483 8-6-105.0-5.49 1-3-2-4.03

In the 6th inning found the Tigers put up their best scoring effort by outscoring their opponents by 22 runs. The unfortunate part is a 1-5 record against the 2 teams they are chasing including five 1-run loses in those games made for a lot of “what-if” thoughts amongst their fans. They did actually gain 1.5 games on the White Sox during the 6th inning (5.5 back on July 31).

The Starting pitching was horrible. Justin Verlander (2-2-5.68era) allowed 16 of 31 base runners allowed to score. Nate Robertson is fooling no one (0-1-11.29era) and is starting to form disastrous 2008 numbers. Kenny Rogers (2-1-4.74era) is pitching mostly on guts allowing 40 runners in 24.1 innings. Armando Galarraga (2-2-3.65era) continues to have a fine rookie season and Zach Miner (2-0-1.50era) gave the Tigers 2 great starts.

In the Bullpen, Todd Jones (0-1-2saves-5.68era) had a huge blown save (only his 2nd) against the White Sox and is now on the DL. Bobby Seay continues to be the Tigers best reliever (1.08era) and had 12ks in 8.1 innings. Joel Zumaya (2.70era) – 9 walks in 10 innings and Fernando Rodney (3.48era) – 8 walks in 10.1 innings both continue to struggle finding the plate. Casey Fossom pitched a scoreless 5.2 innings and picked up the only bullpen win getting out of a huge self created jam against Cleveland. Freddy Dolsi (8.22era), Aquino Lopez (5.68era), and Clay Rapada (10.80era) were all no relief.

The Hitters finally scored on a 1000 run pace for an inning. Matt Joyce (4-11-327/383/691) was awesome. Now every day catcher Brandon Inge did well (3-8-270/372/568) and made management feel Pudge (1-3-333/395/436) was expendable. Miguel Cabrera was an RBI machine (3-23-299/329/481). The biggest struggle on offense came from 5th inning hero Marcus Thames (3-5-184/231/429) although Gary Sheffield is still not performing at a career level (3-11-236/306/455).

The Tigers now sit 2 games over .500 with 1/3 of the season left to play. Winning 36 and losing 18 over the last 54 games will leave the Tigers at 91-71, which still may not be good enough. The present lack of energy and the dud the team played in the first game of the 7th inning makes it seem that a lot of players will be getting 2009 auditions in September.

Last year Sam Hoff started breaking down the season into 18 games segments, each representing 1/9th of the season, or an “inning.” Here is the 5th inning report. Sam sent this to me Thursday morning, but I haven’t had a chance to post until now.

The 5th Inning is over.

Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for the first 5 innings in 2008:

                                                            Starters:         Bullpen:
    W-L   RS –RA     HR-SB-AVG/OBA/SLG    W-L-IP-   ERA     W-L-S-ERA
1:  6-12  74 -112    15-10-262/345/404    3-9- 96.2-5.96    3-3-3-5.28 
2:  9-9   98 -87     21- 6-261/350/426    5-8-105.2-5.11    4-1-2-3.61
3:  8-10  89 -75     19- 2-275/326/442    8-5-109.2-4.19    0-5-4-3.83
4:  11-7  85 -74     19- 8-268/350/416    8-4-113.0-3.27    3-3-5-5.17
4:  12-6  86 -78     25- 6-297/347/476    6-4-106.1-4.23    6-2-6-3.43

The 5th inning found the Tigers put up their best record since the 4th inning of 2007 (13-5). The Tigers won a lot of close games having a 6-1 record in one run games and a 3-1 record in two run games. Not surprisingly, the bullpen put up their best numbers of the year. Despite the performance in the inning, the Tigers lost ground to red hot the White Sox (now 7 games back).

Justin Verlander is back to his old self (3-0-3.00era and 26Ks in 24 innings). Nate Robertson (1-1-4.26), Armando Galarraga (0-0-4.32) and the demoted Eddie Bodine (1-1-4.22) were all serviceable. Kenny Rogers (1-2-5.68era) may be a concern as elbow and age issues make you feel a cliff is coming sometime in the near future.

In the Bullpen, Jones continues to gets saves (4 total) and allow stupidly high totals (15 runners in 8.1). Bobby Seay (6 innings) and Aquino Lopez (3 innings) were unscored upon. Zumaya (1.93era – 19 runners in 9.1) and the demoted Miner (1.23era – 13 runners in 7.1) were both lucky. Rodney (5.14era – 8 runners in 7.0) had a 5.14era and a big loss. Dolsi (4.50era) and Fossum (4.22era) were serviceable in long relief.

The Hitters were a bit perplexing in the fact that they hit a lot of homeruns, batted 296, and were patient at the plate could not manage more than 86 runs. On a positive note, they were only shut out once and did not skew the numbers with a big blowout (the most they scored in a single game was 9).

The offense are being lead by the Mudhens. Holliman, Joyce, Raburn, Larrish, and Thomas were a combined 4-13-306/390/556. Granderson is scorching 1-6-438/487/616. Cabrera had six of the 25 homers hit by Tigers while only striking out 9 times.

Go Tigers!