Well, Rick Porcello did his part, the bullpen held on in roller-coaster fashion, and the Tigers head into the fur game of the 4-game series only 1/2 game behind the Indians in the Central.
Fur game because the performance of Furbush will be key tonight; with Valverde done until the break and Alburquerque out until the break, the bullpen is a bit light right now, and Furbush is on a limited pitch-count. If Furbush and the Tigers do come through tonight, they head into the first-half finale with none other than Justin Verlander holding the broom, and with 1st place in sight.
The Royals will turn to Luke Hochevar, who may look a bit nervous as the 5th inning begins–in his last start he gave up a 5-run 5th.
As noted yesterday, Austin Jackson will be kept out of the starting lineup for the rest of the series with wrist soreness (he will be available for defense and pinch-running). Tonight Casper takes his turn haunting CF.
Today’s Player of the Pre-Game: Don Kelly
They pitch around V-Mart to get to Kelly, and The Donkey makes them pay
Today’s All-Star Peralta Gets the Dhay Off Lineup:
- Andy Dirks LF
- Ramon Santiago SS
- Brennan Boesch RF
- Miguel Cabrera 1B
- Victor Martinez DH
- Don Kelly 3B
- Alex Avila C
- Ryan Raburn 2B
- Casper Wells CF
Comments
36 responses to “Game 2011.91: Tigers at Royals”
I see Leyland is breaking out his patented 10 man line-up. I guess he figured Inge wouldn’t sit, so he’ll go with two 3B’s.
I would have Inge batting 10th myself…I’ll edit it eventually…
The Furbush experiment doesn’t seem to be panning out…
I’m shocked that someone isn’t up and throwing. If we had more arms in the pen, I think someone would be. We’re stuck for another two innings.
There goes Wilk.
I’m calling this Butler AB the AB of the game.
This could ugly real fast.
And there it is…..fricken eh….
Is it mandatory that our 2nd Hitter has to hit under .250? Since we’ve gotten rid of Polanco, that seems to be the trend.
First pitch fastball scouting report is actually working for a change. Seems like it hasn’t worked since 2007.
Wow Getz got up for that Martinez liner. Great play.
Clown show alert…
That’s 100% on Leyland. Watch us lose 9-7.
What happened? I’m stuck with Gamecast?
Oh…that…yeah…I’m glad he left Furbush in there….Probably figured he was due…
They were teeing off on Furbush. Leyland was praying that he’d somehow get out of it, and it cost us a 3 run bomb. We’re gonna get more runs, probably a lot more. But 10 is tough to do.
At least they stopped hitting singles. That was pure torture. Thanks for putting us away with the homerun.
Leyland is proving to be more of the problem than Rick Knapp ever was…
5 of those runs were unearned. Hard to yank the starter that was getting unlucky when you don’t have much of a bullpen.
Ramon Santiago is quickly becoming one of my least favorite guys on the team.
He has made the play of the game, so far…
Which is unfortunate, because he’s been really valuable for a few years.
Damn, we have a chance to get back in this. A VMart HR ties it.
Nobody blaming the manager for leaving Hocheavar out there?
“They pitch around V-Mart to get to Kelly, and The Donkey makes them pay”
This team so desperately needs a SP and a 3B who can hit just a little.
Ryan Dempster and Aramis Ramirez. Although word is Ramirez wants to stay in Chi.
Cle ties it up in the bottom of the 9th…
Bautista unties it in the top of the 10th.
A true Tiger
WP (Wildman Perry) adds to the misery. Fortunately all the runs were unearned.
Our staff is getting hammered by the worst team in the AL. The Jeff Jones experiment is a failure.
We gave up 8 ER and just 4 extra base hits in the last 3 games. That’s not really getting hammered. We give up a ton of annoying cheap singles though.
Furbush and Wilk are fresh from the minor leagues. No pitching coach can give them the 5 years of MLB experience that they really need. We can go with Brad Thomas instead, but I’m quite sure Jeff Jones can’t fix him either.
But this is the price we pay for playing 41 games in 42 days. There has been next to no rest at all for our beaten up pitching staff. Good thing is that we are just .5 game out of 1st place. Things could definitely be worse.
Agreed and agreed. With a little help from Tor, we’re in 1st place headed into the break. Worst case scenario, we’re 1.5 games out. Not too shabby.
How’s that Guillen rehab sting going? Is he back after the break?
This may sound crazy, but I got a strange feeling that when Guillen comes back, either him or Raburn moves to 3B and the other plays 2B. Inge will be out or be used as a late inning sub.
Inge will replace Guillen when he goes back on the DL in 2 weeks. And the advantage of Raburn at 2B is that Guillen won’t look so bad when he takes over.
Line-up will look like
AJax CF
Boesch LF
Magglio RF
Cabrera 1B
VMart DH
Guillen 2B/3B
Peralta SS
Avila C
Raburn 3B/2B