Tag Archives: inning report

2008 Season, Uncategorized

The 4th Inning – 2008

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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 4th inning report.

The 4th Inning is over.

Each. 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for the first 4 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

In the 4th inning started out with a 1-5 record including a sweep at Oakland. The fortunes of the team changed on June 7th when a 5 run bottom of the 8th against Cleveland broke a 3-3 tie. Marcus Thames led off that inning with a solo homerun and Edgar Renteria later added big insurance with a Grand Slam. Including that night, the Tigers have won 10 out of 12 games and have moved to 3rd place in the division (6.5 games behind the White Sox). If the Tigers average 11 wins for the remaining 5 innings they will be at 89 wins, which may very well be enough to win the central.

The starting pitching has been terrific. Armando Galarraga withstood a strange demotion to the bullpen to come back and win 3 straight starts with a 2.08era in those starts. He is now being discussed as a possible ROTY candidate. Kenny Rogers is tapping the fountain of youth with a 1.24era in 4 starts (but only 1 win as he had no run support). Justin Verlander had a 1-2 record, but pitched to a 3.10era and only allowed 30 base runners in 29 innings. Nate Robertson was 2-1 with a 3.86era in 3 starts. Three other starters were used as the demoted Dontrelle Willis (2 starts), injured Jeremy Bonderman (1 start), and promoted Eddie Bonine (1 start) combined for a 1-1 record with an 8.66era allowing 36 base runners in 17.2 innings.

The Bullpen numbers are skewed by Casey Fossum’s horrible 5 appearances as well as Fernando Rodney and Francisco Cruceta each getting bombed in their only appearance. Those 3 pitchers combined for 0-1-24.55 in 3.2 innings. The rest of the bullpen combined for a 3.53 era. Todd Jones continues to be perfect in save opportunities (4/4 in this inning) despite giving up all kinds of base runners (12 in 7.1 innings). Bobby Seay lost a game and gave up 4 runs in 5 innings. Dolsi, Miner, Bautista, Lopez and Rapada were all solid with a combined 2-1-2.25 in 28 innings.

The Hitters continue to perform at a substandard pace based on their lifetime numbers. Marcus Thames is red hot (8-12-234/333/766). Guillen (1-11-328/416/478) and Polanco (0-10-380/413/451) have also been swinging a good bat. The new catching platoon of Inge and Pudge seems to be working as they combined for (2-5-292/387/446). Cabrera is showing signs of coming around to his usual self (2-12-294/355/471). Granderson (2-7-222/279/381), Magglio (1-8-227/320/303), and Renteria (1-7-228/328/281) all struggled in the 4th frame.

I stated that the panic button needed to be pushed after the 3rd inning, and after losing 5 of 6 to drop to 24-36, the panic button was fully engaged. Don’t let the 10 out of 12 fool you, the Tigers have very little margin of error for the rest of the season. They must win more than 60% of their contests for the rest of the year to have a shot of making post season.

2008 Season

The 3rd inning – 2008

8 Comments

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 3rd inning report.

The 3rd Inning is over.

Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for the first 3 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

In the 3rd inning the Tigers endured a 5-game losing streak. They have now had at least a 5-game losing streak in every inning. The optimist in me says that 23-31 matches the record the 2006 AL Champs had during the last third of that campaign. The realist in me says that the team just plays bad baseball and could very easily end the 2008 campaign losing more games than they win.

Based on Pythagorean theory, the 3rd inning should of yielded a record of 10 or 11 wins, but a 1-4 record in 1-run games, an 0-5 bullpen, and 19-3 win which blows Pythagorean off balance means only 8 wins. The team is now in 4th place and 7.0 games back.

The offense, a unit, is still not performing at their career levels. Only 2 stolen bases in the last 18 games indicate that the team is in too much of a station to station mode. Best performances were by Magglio (3-11-368/419/603), Thames (3-10-259/310/704), and Cabrera (2-9-333/387/500). Guys who are struggling are Granderson (1-7-269/275/358-1bb-11Ks), Sheffield (1-6-234/294/362), and Raburn (0-0-160/192/240-25abs). Inge’s line (1-7-188/188/438 – 32abs) indicates that he is swinging for the downs which is not his best suit.

The starters were much improved in the 3rd inning. Verlander (1-1-1.89) had his best performance. Galarraga (2-1-3.98), Robertson (2-1-4.74), and Rogers (2-1-5.24) each won 2 games. Bonderman (1-1-4.63) is still searching for consistency.

The bullpen had pretty good statistics (3.83era- 45 hits in 49.1 innings), but did go 0-5 as a group. Some of that could be due to the offense not scoring late in tight games. Zach Miner pitched a scoreless 10.1 innings and Freddy Dolsi had a 1.12era in 8 innings yet somehow each of these guys got a loss. Cruceta was bad as he had 2 loses giving up 9 hits and 7 walks in 7.2 innings (4.70era). Todd Jones knew when to give up runs as he was 3/3 in save opportunities but had a 7.50era in 6 innings.

I am presently watching the Tigers start the 4th inning by possibly getting shutout for the 9th time this year. It is NOW time to hit the panic button. I think Jim Leyland senses that. If the next 2 innings aren’t very good, I think the unbelievable will happen as the Tigers will become sellers at the trade deadline.

2008 Season, Statistics

The Second Inning – 2008

16 Comments

The following was compiled by DTW reader and commenter Sam Hoff. He breaks down the season into 18 game innings and reports how the team does.

The 2nd Inning is over.

Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for the first 2 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

The first 2 innings have been ugly. The team has endured a 7 game and a 5 game losing streak. The offense, whose initial starting lineup has an average lifetime BA of .297 is hitting 35 points below that collectively. The starters, 60% of who are left from the 2006 World Series team which lead the major leagues in ERA has collective ERA well over 5 with the best performance coming from an 8-year minor leaguer.

The good news is that the team is only 3.5 games out of first and if they play near their career norms should be able to easily make that up. In 2006, the Tigers last 3 innings were 9-9, 5-13, and 9-9 and that team went to the World Series. In 2007, the Tigers had 2 successive 7-11 innings (innings 6 and 7). In 2003, you couldn’t piece 2 innings together where the Tigers had as many as 15 wins!

The bullpen had a very good 2nd inning lead by Bobby Seay (5 scoreless innings), the departed Jason Grilli (4 scoreless) and Clay Rapada (1.59 era in 5.2 innings). The only member of the bullpen with an era over 5.00 was Denny Bautista (8.44era in 5.2 innings).

The starters were consistent as each of them had exactly 1 win. Galarraga (1-1-3.18) and Bonderman (1-1-3.93) were respectable. Rogers (1-0-6.19), Robertson (1-3-6.38), and Verlander (1-3-5.84) all really struggled. Verlander is a big concern as he has never looked this bad in his career and rumors are circulating that his shoulder is hurting.

The highest OPS in the 2nd inning belonged to Ramon Santiago (1-8-312/421/750) in 16 At Bats! Marcus Thames (1-4-412/444/588), Polanco (2-8-383/422/583), Granderson (5-10-254/362/593) and Ordonez (4-17-324/397/544) have all been hot. The guys who struggled in the 2nd inning were Inge (1-4-154/292/231), Guillen (0-8-246/333/281), and the departed Jacque Jones (1-2-146/265/317).

It is NOT time to hit the panic button. The Yankees started 21-29 last year and made the playoffs. The team definitely needs to start playing better baseball and the biggest disappointment, the starting pitching, needs to get better. Here’s hoping it does, otherwise when the Wings and Pistons are over, all we will have to look forward to are the Lions???