Detroit Tigers, 41-42, 4 1/2 games behind Chicago.
Well, here we go again. The Tigers have their 9th shot at getting to the .500 mark since May 15, and are 0-8 so far at it.
They will have to do it against the Royals, who will go all-lefty on the mound for the 3-game series. The first lefty up will be Jonathan Sanchez, future topic of Worst Trade lists (the Royals traded Melky Cabrera, who is tied for the NL BA lead at .356).
Sanchez has had trouble finding the plate: he has given up 40 BBs in 46 innings, including 6 each in his last 2 outings. The Tigers have had recent success with an aggressive approach at the plate. It will be interesting to see if they change this up against the struggling Sanchez, or continue to whack away.
Detroit sends out Drew “Four-Inning” Smyly, who pitched against the Royals in April and held them to 1 unearned run in 6 innings.
Justin Verlander says cheer up fans, the 2nd half will be better.
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Yesterday’s game had a little of everything: a rain delay, two consecutive outs at the plate (nice throws by Cabrera and Raburn; nice plate-blocking by Laird), a little 3 Stooges action on a pop bunt, in which Fielder almost took out Laird (I guess that makes Laird Larry); dodge ball on the mound, which led to an early exit for Porcello; big hits by Jackson and Cabrera and a really big hit for Fielder (if you wait long enough, the 3-run homers will come).
But with everything that happened, Jim Leyland said the key to the game was the clutch relief performance of Darin Downs, who relieved Porcello after he took a line drive off of his bicep. Downs must have felt some sympathy for Porcello. Nicknamed The Pitcher Who Lived, Downs suffered a fractured skull from a line drive in AA in 2009.
Stat of the Day: Detroit passed Minnesota, and is now only the 2nd worst team in the league in bases-loaded hitting (.219 BA, .531 OPS).
Today’s Player of the Pre-game: Austin Jackson. AJax is hitting .400 with 6 RBI over his last 6 games, which doesn’t match what Cabrera has done in the same span, but Cabrera gets funny sometimes when he is at DH. Jackson stays hot against the all-lefty menu.
Today’s Clown Show Alert Lineup:
- Austin Jackson CF
- Quintin Berry RF
- Miguel Cabrera DH
- Prince Fielder 1B
- Delmon Young LF
- Ryan Raburn 2B
- Jhonny Peralta SS
- Alex Avila C
- Ramon Santiago 3B
Comments
33 responses to “Game 2012.84: Royals at Tigers”
I think the defensive alignment should be:
Jackson: LF-CF
Berry: CF- RF
Young: Rover
Young already is a Rover, even when he plays LF.
Mumbles said after the game Rayburn did ” real good” yesterday. So I guess 0-3 but with no K’s must be real good…Maybe we have to lower our expectations a bit!….
God I love this lineup. And the defensive setup – ew la la. Lots of fun in store for all.
I wish I had known it was Country Night before I did my write-up.
Cy Smyly.
4-inning Cy Smily.
Innings 1-4: Cy Smyly
Innings 5+: Hanging-On-For-Dear-Life Smyly
Inning 6: Leyland-Leaving-Him-In-Too-Long-Smily
He was a victim of clownumstance.
Hi everyone,
At the game. Fielder has Long sleeves on. Its 94 but a decent breeze.
Steve
Do you have your glove? Go out to 2nd, please.
He can’t do that. We need him in left!
It would be great if we could get six innings out of Smily tonight – with all the Ks he has already thrown 64 pitches.
It looks like the circus is giving an evening performance starting this inning.
Clownburn + Clownmon = Pitcher’s Clownmare
Yut tut tudda dudda ….. all Comerica needs is the pipe organ like at the circus
Imagine where the Tigers would rank defensively if Mr. Rayburn-Young wasn’t the official scorer.
Tigers are great defensively! Fielding % of 1.000 today.
Fielder almost took out Laird on a popup yesterday. Today, with both Young and Raburn in the field, could there be a possibility……
Atta boy Smyly play over those clowns!!!!
DY makes amends for his previous faux pas in left field ….. it looks like his bat might be heating up.
Young says …take that you clownshowers….(new word for us)
Figured I’d help Raburn out a bit there.
1-13….2 for July….Rayburn is, on fire!!!!!!
Vaseverde in for the save.
It was just sweat.
And he Ks Francoeur with a 95MPH Brylcream Fastfall, setting him up with a couple of 88MPH Spitters.
.500! Too bad the CWS are on a roll.
Well, the White Sox are actually serious about winning the division I think. I mean, they have even gone out and improved their team lately.
Josh Hamilton left the Rangers game early…spot opening up for AJax?
BTW – Rangers fans are ready to jump off a bridge after a little 3 (maybe soon to be 4) game losing streak.
Just a little perspective. Always looks worse from the inside.
Note, it’s actually 5.