PREGAME: Minimalist post this time. Family obligations have kept me from writing the past few days. Today is me and Mrs. Billfer’s anniversary, so I won’t be witnessing the game, commenting on it, or writing about it after the fact. Probably not minor league wrap tonight either. Sorry bout that, but on occasion things trump the Tigers.
In any case, it’s Jeremy Bonderman and Casey Fossum as the Tigers try to stem a 4 game losing skid.
Game Time 7:10
Comments
28 responses to “Game 51: Tigers at Rays”
Heretic!
Enjoy yourselves. 🙂
After the Sheffield home run –
Rod Allen: “[Sheffield] is a bad boy… he is a baaaad boy.”
Happy anniversary, Billfer. I hope it’s a good night for you. I like the way this is shaping up. Hopefully Bondo has a quick bottom half of the inning.
Completely understandable, Billfer. Have a great evening.
What a beautiful slide. One of my favorite plays in baseball.
Bonderman this year is finally looking like the ace we all hoped he’d be
though “finally” is a pretty strange word to use when referring to a 25 year old, granted
Congrats!
In honor of your anniversary, the Tigers have returned!
congrats! hope its a good one bilfer.
Bondo looking good tonight, even threw a couple nice changeups to Pena so far.
Thames, aside from his first error is swinging well
jeez oh pete, Sheffield! I think he’s tied for the HR lead now
fyi Aaron Hill just stole HOME against Petitte. I can’t remember the last time that happened
wives…they always get in the middle of quality baseball time…i just found out i can’t go to saturday’s mets game on june 9th becuase of my wife’s 10 year highschool reunion….damn it!!!!
someone did it last year….stole home that is…crawford???
Well, that was a nice thumping.
Billfer, Dude your blowing us off for an anniversary?
Just kidding. I hope you had a good dinner at a sports bar eating wings and watching the game.
As for the Tigers it appears that a 14-2 lead is safe and maybe Billfer got in on some of that home run action 😉 tonight.
Nighty nite
Steve
Wow…Bilfer goes away for a game and the Tigers romp…Maybe you should try it again some time! 🙂
Hope you had a good one, Billfer.
Not much to hate about tonight’s game. Only one ER by Bondo…
The Tigers win! The Tigers win! Hurry everyone, back on the bandwagon. Keep your stat sheets handy. You never know when you’ll have to jump back off.
Cameron,
I agree, Biller should watch less ;-).
I think I would trade 1b with Tampa though. That Pena looks pretty good to me??
😉
-Sam
Sam, I do not understand why you bash on Casey so constantly. He is a good left handed bat, does not strike out very much, and usually hits line drives. Even when he was “struggling” at the beginning of the season, he was hitting the ball hard, albiet directly at people. Sure, he does not have the typical first base power, but I see him putting Monroe and Inge in RBI situations. I think Leyland sees him as a refresher after Ordonez and Guillen have cleared the bases, kind of a second lead off hitter. He is a stable fielder and hits more consistantly than Thames or Shelton. Yet again I am the type of guy who takes base hits over home runs anyday.
Sam, I do not understand why you bash on Casey so consistently. He is a good left handed bat, does not strike out very much, and usually hits line drives. Even when he was “struggling” at the beginning of the season, he was hitting the ball hard, albeit directly at people. Sure, he does not have the typical first base power, but I see him putting Monroe and Inge in RBI situations. I think Leyland sees him as a refresher after Ordonez and Guillen have cleared the bases, kind of a second lead off hitter. He is a stable fielder and hits more consistently than Thames or Shelton. Yet again I am the type of guy who takes base hits over home runs any day.
Sean Casey now has 11 RBIs in 160 ABs and Mike Rabelo has nearly half of that (4) in just 47 ABs. Monroe and Inge already kill the bottom 3rd of the lineup, it doesn’t need someone like Casey killing the middle of the lineup at the 6 hole. I’d prefer Pudge and Monroe in 6-7 even with their K counts this year.
And some “refresher lead off man” with his .322 OBP. He hasn’t had a good or effective season since 2005, when he was hitting in the band-box that is Cincinnati. Even then he hit 9 HR’s in a big time hitters park. And his lack of any power/ability to drive in runs wouldn’t kill so bad if we weren’t pretty anemic at 3B and C this year, as well.
Since Billfer’s out, if anyone’s wondering, here’s the roundup for the Tigers minor league teams:
Toledo 4 Scranton 3
Virgil Vasquez broke his string of bad starts with a 6 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 9 K, 1 BB performance in which he surrenderd 2 HR’s. The offense was led by Chris Shelton and his 1 HR and 2 RBIs. Chris Maples had 3 hits including 2 doubles. Contrary to my previous post, Shelton is not struggling right now. Hitting .283 with a .422 OBP but only a .417 SLG. He’s 16 for his last 38 (.421 avg) but only has 5 XBH; 4 doubles, 1 HR).
Harrisburg 1 Erie 8
Harrisburg’s 2 errors led to 3 unearned runs and a romp of the Senators. Andres Torres and Erick Almonte each had 2 RBIs. Almonte also had 3 hits. Andrew Miller’s 3rd start in Erie was another win. He went 7 IP, allowing 5 hits, 1 run and 1 walk against 5 strikeouts. He had 10 groundball outs and 6 fly ball outs and threw a wild pitch. Danny Zell struck out 2 of the 6 batters he faced in relief.
Lakeland 3 Tampa 8
Cameron Maybin hit 2 solo HR’s, his first long balls since April 17th. He also struk out twice. The other lone RBI came from SS Mark Haske. Matt O’Brien was lit up for 7 runs on 8 hits 4 walks and no K’s in just 3.2 IP. Ricky Steik and Gabriel Benitez combined to pitch the final 4.1 Innings where they scattered a collective 5 hits, 1 run while K’ing 4 and BB’ing 2.
Lansing 6 West Michigan 2
Matthew Lane paced the Lansing Lugnuts with 3 RBIs on 3 hits including a double. SS Louis Ott and 3B Brandon Timm provided the lone RBIs for the White Caps and Gorkys Hernandez was 2 for 5 in the leadoff spot with a double. He’s now hitting .317/.376/.417. A small concern that his OBP is so batting average driven, but the kids’ still not even 20 with HUGE upside. Christopher Cody seems to be West Michigan’s hard luck pitcher, sporting a 4-4 record despite a 1.79 ERA (2.04 FIP, so he’s not just getting insanely lucky/great defense behind him). He went 6 Innings, giving up 7 H, 3 runs while striking out 7 and walking just 2. Reliever Jose Fragoso gave up 6 Hits, 3 runs while walking 2 and striking out just 1 in the final 3 innings of the game that broke open what was a 3-2 game at the time.
Thanks everyone for the kind wishes and I’m glad my absence helped the Tigers.
Also thanks to Mike for doing the minor league wrap. Much appreciated.
At least Leyland had the sense to give Jones the night off.
Time to try some other pitchers in the closer spot. Relying on Jones in a tight game is suicide these days.
Go Tigers, go Red Sox!!!
Nicely done, Mike! Congrats Bilfer!
Happy anniversary!!
(Maybe you should have one every day, since the offense likes it so much…)