First place on the line and Justin Verlander on the mound, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Although last night will be tough to top: tense, tight game, close plays on the bases, the rare night when the calls were going Detroit’s way, and a dramatic walk-off triple (the first career walk-off hit for Ramon Santiago).
The triple was aided by B.J. Upton, who was playing Santiago shallow and shading toward left. In fact Rod Allen commented more than once during the game that Upton was playing a very shallow CF for Comerica, and that came back to bite Upton. There certainly was no reason to play shallow with Martinez on first; even a double wouldn’t have scored the run. One wonders if Maddon were on the bench, if Upton would have been repositioned. Was Maddon’s ejection the hidden key play of the game?
Not that you can blame Maddon for being upset. Ruggiano, the runner called out at the plate, even took it to another level, hinting that he’s just going to do a Posey on catchers from now on. “If they’re going to give catchers the benefit of the doubt on those plays, then I feel like that narrows down our options to a collision at home every time,” Ruggiano said.
Tonight not only brings us the battle of first-place teams, but also the battle of the Justins, Verlander vs Masterson. Verlander is in top form, 5-0 with a 2.14 ERA his last seven starts. And he says he isn’t really pitching his best right now. I can’t wait to see what that is. The key for our Justin is to get past Michael Brantley, who is .538 for his career vs Verlander.
The other Justin did well in his start against Detroit earlier in the year, and is pitching well in general, but falling victim to the team slump–he held the Twins to 2 runs in 8 innings his last start, but got the loss.
In unrelated news, Ryan Raburn needs a few more ABs to statistically qualify for the league leader lists. Which is a shame, because he just edged Chone Figgins for the lowest On-Base Percentage in the American League (.235).
In other news, Brandon Inge was seen taking batting practice today.
Today’s Player of the Pre-Game: Don Kelly
See above.
Today’s Lucky Lefty Lineup:
- Austin Jackson CF
- Don Kelly 3B
- Brennan Boesch RF
- Miguel Cabrera 1B
- Victor Martinez DH
- Andy Dirks LF
- Alex Avila C
- Ramon Santiago SS
- Ryan Raburn 2B
Comments
47 responses to “Game 2011.67: Indians at Tigers”
Okay…so let me get this straight, Magglio gets benched against Masterson because of the match up, yet helpless Raburn is left in the lineup, instead of starting switch-hitting Santiago. If Leyland is going to use that logic to bench Magglio against Masterson, the same should apply with Raburn, considering that we have better options against a Lefty…
Yeah, the move would seem to be to put Santiago at 2B, and leave Peralta at SS (against his former team, nonetheless). In essence, Smokey is going with Raburn over Peralta today.
Rayburn is MR2B and Santiago is not. End of story.
Peralta hasn’t had a day off for awhile. He usually sits every 10th game of so. Raburn just had 2 days off. I understand resting players, especially players that are slumping like Peralta. Jhonny is 0-8 in his last 2 games and 6 for 34 in his last 9 games.
Raburn has been slumping since March.
The Tigers won’t have a day off until June 23. Their last day off was on June 2nd. Nevermind.
Yeah, I missed that part….Peralta is benched….one of the hottest hitting guys on our team is benched for Raburn…
Leyland with another classic sound bite when asked about Ordonez not being in tonight’s lineup.
Magglio will probably pinch hit for Don Kelly later in the game if a lefty pitcher comes in.
Been looking forward to this series.
Anyone else having problems loading MLB.com Gameday? It hasn’t seemed to work in a few days for me.
It’s working for me.
grumble
Jumping Jax!
Mario just ruined the surprise unveiling of our new third basemen: ALEX AVILA
Look out Inge!
Hey Jack Hannahan –
You don’t belong in the batter’s box.
kthxbye
Love you,
Justin Verlander
Good to see Verlander toughing it out when he doesn’t have his best stuff yet.
I see what you did there
That why Dirks is batting 6th.
Mr. Dirks, you are a fine, upstanding citizen.
As is your neighbor, Mr. Avila
Ah, good old station-to-station Tigerball.
Inge better hope that he doesn’t have another kid. That kid would really feel left out
He’s got 2 legs, allegedly.
atta boy raburn
R. (Rallykiller) Rayburn!
We can always count on Raburn to kill a good inning with a strikeout. It’s almost like they pitched around Santiago to get to him. Hmm…
Its restaurant week in Ann Arbor and I told the gf that I’d take her to one of the restaurants tonight, so I’m going to have to leave the couch soon and take a break from watching this game. What she does not know is that I am choosing the restaurant based on the presence of televisions in the establishment. If I am wrong here, tell me. And if you do tell me I’m wrong, I will not listen to you. FYI.
OK, so did that pitch REALLY hit Santana in the 1st inning? Because it is looking possible that that could turn out to be a very significant call.
Your 1st Place Detroit Tigers
opps wrong place for that
Standing O.
Ahh, that’s too bad… Well done, Verlander.
Nice support from Smoking Man, bringing in the 8th inning defensive replacements.
Wait, seriously, Worth has a .950 OPS?
lets never give first place back
GO
Mr X May 31, 2011 at 10:35 pm
Prediction: Tigers will be in 1st place at or before June 16th.
Mad props here. I’ve had that in the back of my mind for a while.
So Mr. X, how long will it last?
Sometimes you just have to appreciate Rod Allen.
With an 0-2 count on Sizemore, and Verlander at 11 strikeouts:
Rod: Verlander with 12 strikeouts
Mario: How many?
Rod: Did you see that last swing
Mario: (chuckles)
…followed by an awful swinging strike 3.
Which, by the way, got Grady a brand new golden sombrero
Just in case you haven’t seen Grandy’s stats as of late.
http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=434158
Super happy for the guy, just wish it were anyone but the Yankees.
I was going to reply with some comment about wishing we had a real hitting coach on this team, but I guess I should refrain from doing so when we have one of the better offenses in the league. Don’t know if McClendon is responsible, but we’re doing okay.
It wouldn’t be. How many other “short porch” teams are there?
Tigers string of consecutive games with an extra-base hit ends at 66.
Thanks for ruining my perfect run. Now I know what JV musta felt like in the 8th.
I tweeted this after the game last night:
@adamholwerda: Verlander now in top 5 of each AL Triple Crown category. WINS: 2nd (tied with 2 others) STRIKEOUTS: 3rd (105K’s) and ERA: 5th (2.66) #tigers
Not predicting a Triple Crown, necessarily, but the guy is at least putting himself in a position to do it.