Detroit at Chicago, Verlander vs. Danks, and they ought to get it in this time, ‘neath the color of October skies (in June).
Tonight’s “Tigers are better than the Sox” lineup:
LF Davis
2B Kinsler
DH Cabrera
1B Martinez
RF Hunter
CF Jackson
3B Castellanos
C Avila
SS Suarez
P Verlander
Not liking Miggy at DH, for defensive reasons. Verlander and Danks both come in with well-pitched wins versus the opponent earlier this season. The bats showed up for JV; versus Danks, it was that familiar story of plenty of runners and not plenty of runs (1, to be exact). Verlander has two good starts against the White Sox this year, in fact. The second one ended happily with the legendary RBI bunt from Bryan Holaday. A little more such daring might be called for in this game and hereafter, because the Tigers are having one heck of a time plating runners and cashing in. One more runner left standing at 3B and I am going to scream.
OK, Chicago. Game on. We are your overlords.
POSTGAME: OK, we’re no one’s overlords. Bottom of the 6th, game over. Not one our favorite team can be very proud of. This one’s beyond hat tipping, I should think.
Comments
56 responses to “Game 2014.61: White Sox 8, Tigers 2”
Raj and Kinsler make me want to scream (heh/hew) RIP MJ.
Well, they’ve blown more scoring opportunities than we have, so there’s that.
Uh-oh. Time for a strikeout and a DP.
I hate to say it, but this is about to get ugly. hope i’m wrong.
Yup. Got ugly slowly. But still ugly.
Maybe it’s just me but why in the heck was Hunter playing so deep with 2 outs and a guy on 3rd?? That ball was catchable. with a 2 run lead and the tigers dead offense, the Sox will probably cruise to victory in this one. hate to be so pessimistic but wow.
Ausmus -1
Smokey Jr. has been racking them up lately.
Maybe he’ll bring out Nathan for the 9th.
I strongly suspect that he will. No objection. “Needs the work,” all that. Whatever.
That was a trick comment. There will be no 9th.
Hook, line, and sinker.
Maybe the Sox will let Nathan pitch their 9th?
Wow. Loading the bases twice in one inning takes some work.
2 more runs… I won’t defend Ausmus and JV this time. There’s going to be some well-deserved flak.
Major ugliness. Ausmus needs to lead. he should have pulled JV on his first trip to the mound. JV is not fooling anyone or getting into their heads much (hasn’t been for awhile) and he sure isn’t doing that with more than 110 pitches already thrown.
wheels are off
You said it.
Ian Krol. What? Taking him out? Why not let him face one more batter? I’m sure he’ll get the out. Eventually.
Not a good time to be a Detroit Tiger or Brad Ausmus. Man. This season is becoming the bag with the soggy bottom.
The Soggy Bottom Boys, new team nickname
They’ll need some banjos and fiddles to go with it.
Won’t ask how their bottoms got soggy.
This game explains all. They seem to have had a little accident.
Maybe it will rain tomorrow.
Maybe there’ll be a strike (the work stoppage kind). Tigers win the division that way
Well, let’s just get to .500, then, and start the season over..
Verlander’s SR (Sogginess Rating) was .78 tonight.
His line doesn’t reflect it, but I feel that he turned a corner. The stuff was good. The White Sox hit some good pitches, and sometimes you just have to tip your cap.
If a 2.31 WHIP is turning the corner, I’d hate to see where he was coming from.
Eight hits, four walks and a HBP in 5 and 2/3rd’s…equating to about a 2.5 WHIP for the night. What corner was turned?
I’m being facetious, of course. I’m tempted to keep a straight face and go on with it, but this is really too demoralizing for it.
For a minute there I thought you were echoing Jim Price. Glad to know you’re not partaking in that nonsense.
It’s the art of pitching.
Yeah. Coming out of the same keyhole.
More an echo of what we’ve heard before from JV and Ausmus, as jud suggests. I’m listening to the radio guys. I don’t think they’ve said more than that JV… just hearing it… stuff was good, command was not. Fair enough for the first 5 innings. They’re not making excuses for how the wheels came off, I don’t think. They just need to be a little more restrained in their criticism than we do.
Well, tjb, Dickerson and Price were in fact going too far to let JV off the hook in the postgame. With the appraisals. They did mention the horrendous stats over the past x number of starts, but this only made it harder to understand why they wouldn’t just tell it like it is in more than numbers.
They work for the Tigers I assume.
True in at least an indirect sense (not sure how it all works), but they do tend to be more forthright and more fan-like (in the best sense) than some other broadcasters I could mention.
I can hardly wait for JV to tell us how great he was AGAIN tonight………
I can’t wait for Smarty to tell us how great JV was AGAIN tonight
I can hardly wait for jud to say that again.
Oh, I guess there was some slight difference, jud. Sorry. I thought I’d gotten off a good one.
I don’t buy any of the “he’s tipping his pitches non sense. Instead, I think most teams he faced over the last 2 years have the book on JV. They aren’t rattled by him and they aren’t being fooled by his “stuff.” They hack away at his pitches and foul him up to a high pitch count by the 4th or 5th inning. Meanwhile, his command is inconsistent at best causing his walks to go way up. No idea what the fix is.
And the postgame better not have the words
Funk
I am not worried
Verlanders speed was just fine
We are ok
We have to pitch better
Our offense is just fine
Etc
Etc
Etc
I’m sorely tempted, just for fun.
Rally time. Someone had to say it.
“His stuff again was good. He just couldn’t muscle through a couple innings there,” Detroit manager Brad Ausmus said. “I don’t really know how to explain it. His stuff was good again.”
Translation: “Ace will throw 120 pitches next time, no matter what.”
That was another decent outing by Coke. He seems to have picked up 1-2 mph on his fastball. Hmm.
Is he available to start?
I’m sure he wouldn’t say no. I don’t know if you remember it (it was pretty forgettable), but he was a starter the first half of 2011.
He must have stolen it from Verlander.
What, the velocity? I don’t think JV’s velocity is an issue. Rather, he is not fooling anyone, as tbran points out. How seemingly lesser pitchers are baffling the Tigers and Verlander is being solved so easily is beyond me. I thought he was Justin Verlander, since that’s what they call him, but maybe it’s another pitcher with the same name. The other guy by that name was really good in the postseason last year. They should have kept him.
Well The Tigers are now 3.5 games out of last place…tell me it ain’t so !!!
Onward and upward. Or downward, as the case may be.
I am keeping an eye on the panic button, might have to push it if this death spiral of baseball does not stop soon.
I am beginning to believe that the Tigers of the first 30 games of this season was a fluke and that the Tigers of the last 30 games will remain for the entire season. The mojo is gone.
The Colorado Rockies of the AL.
Standings this AM:
Minnesota 3.5
Cleveland 3.0
Chicago 3.0
Kansas City 2.0
Detroit –
Doesn’t matter how Max does tonight unless he throws a shutout. If the Tigets can’t get any runs off Danks and any other bum off the street. Sale will carve the slug offense to pieces..I will TIVO and watch if the pull off a miracle …..
T fan Mississippi might be right. These just might be the real Tigers with a 2nd leutenent leading them instead of a General
Read Tom Gage article after the game last night (no don’t you will throw up) with the quotes from Smarty and Jv on how great everyone was last night..JV pitched great,but too many walks yadda yadda yadda…and accoarding to Asmus everything was yadda yadda yadda,cept he was disappointed at the outcome………..is Disney hiring????