My first thought about this game is the same this year as it is every year, “it’s about time.” And the pitching match-up is certainly Opening Day worthy with Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander doing battle.
Greinke is pretty good at pitching, what with that well deserved Cy Young award and all occupying a space on his mantle. Greinke led the league in ERA (Verlander was 5th), he led the league in WHIP (Verlander was 5th), he was 2nd in strikeouts (Verlander was 1first), he was 5th in innings pitched (Verlander was first). These are some good pitchers.
Johnny Damon has a 353/389/588 career line against Greinke, but that’s only in 17 at-bats. Ordonez has a .314 OPS! Brandon Inge has fanned 12 times in 43 plate appearances, but he also has the only 2 homers against Greinke on the Tigers roster.
Billy Butler is the only Royal to have success against Verlander (423/444/769 in 27 PA’s) and he has 2 of the only 3 homers against Verlander on the current KC roster.
Your lineups are:
Detroit:
- Jackson, CF
- Damon, LF
- Ordonez, RF
- Cabrera, 1B
- Guillen, DH
- Inge, 3B
- Laird, C
- Sizemore, 2B
- Everett, SS
Kansas City
- DeJesus, RF
- Podsednik, LF
- Butler, 1B
- Ankiel, CF
- Guillen, DH
- Bloomquist, 3B
- Betancourt, SS
- Kendall, C
- Getz, 2B
Detroit Tigers at Kansas City Royals – April 5, 2010 | MLB.com Gameday
POSTGAME
More to come, but for now…[audio:https://www.detroittigersweblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/onemoretime1.mp3]
Comments
95 responses to “Game 2010.001: Tigers at Royals”
Happy opening day everyone! It’s nice to be back at DTW on game day.
Nice of that Royals infield to help us out against Greinke. And a 23 pitch inning!
Nice 1st inning. Verlander looked real good.
Where is that Laird high infield popup when you need it?
Oh and thanks for bailing out Greinke on the high pitch count thing Joltin’ Gerald…
Why does Betancourt give us such trouble?
Why couldn’t Verlander put him away. Nine pitches to him is way too many.
I was just thinking that when he hit that. Do you think its just opening day or mentally he did not bear down, he has left a couple up there to get mashed.
Well sometimes you just have to credit the hitter with doing his job. Pitching is an art form, but I tend to look at it more like a golfing scorecard. It’s not about how well you pitch, but how often you don’t make mistakes or throw bad pitches. If you play the game perfectly, then you should hit par or under par every time. You only exceed par when you screw up.
i for one believe that pitching coaches are responsible for pitcher mistakes more than most people believe. Not 100% of everything that happens on every pitch is up to Verlander to decide. The coaches give them a lot of instruction and direction and game plans etc. and sometimes that helps pitchers out a lot and sometimes it’s bad advice. Although that’s my general attitude and it’s hard to cite the Tiger’s pitching coaches for their mistakes without being privy to the conversations they have with the players. All I know is I believe that Verlander has more pitching ability inside him than what we have seen so far, and that sparks a curiosity. If I was the GM I would fire our hitting coach staff immediately (assuming there isn’t a misunderstanding and the hitting coach has a real good excuse of how Leyland wouldn’t let him do his job the right way), but not necessarily the pitching coach staff. I’d be taking a real close look at what they are doing and if they aren’t on their game at a high level, I will find out within a week. But one thing’s for sure, I’m not letting anybody around my pitchers to mess with them unless I’m damn sure I have the right guys with the right philosophies. My instincts tell me we don’t have the right guys, but I can’t be sure, so I’m just skeptical.
Are you a teacher? 😉
Hmm, yes and no? I’m a businessman by profession. In my background I have spent a good portion of my time teaching sales reps, managers and recruiters, as well as teaching the related and relevant psychology, so I do think of myself as a teacher in principle, but not in the traditional sense that I’m a school teacher if that’s what you are asking. When you break things down, I have to think that 95%++ of any money I ever made on any traditional work checks was money that was given to me in exchange for really just my opinions. And the crux of what i have sold wasn’t a tangible item but intangible ideas that were really just my suggestion that they agree to purchase. They weren’t buying this particular service because they wanted it or sought it out, in fact hardly any of them even knew this service existed. They only bought it as they agreed with my interpretations of their business situation. If they didn’t agree, then no sale and I don’t get paid. So the perspective I always took with each new prospect was that we’re just here to talk and learn from each other and that I’m not a salesman, I’m just here as an informant and a guide. In the event that later on you arrive at the conclusion that what I say makes sense, then by all means feel free to give me a check.
Hey everyone nice to see everyone back at DTW………………. Love opening day. Love it more this year, our server at work is out so we had to come home, bummer I’m suffering through it though.
Bill………… Glad to see the game thread, teh live chat was pretty good but boy you have to be a pretty fast reader sometimes or hit the pause. Good stuff from the Tiger faithful
Lets go TIGERS
Steve,
PS that Homer was a bummer at 3-2
Happy B-Day to Betancourt.
Verlander has allowed 3 hits. All on 2 strike fastballs.
Reminds me of last year…
I can tolerate the powder blue uniforms of the Royals, but the 1/2 power blue with the white pants looks really bad to me. They need a uniform and logo upgrade. Coleman can you work on that.
Steve
Inge looks in mid-season form with that K and DP,,,looks like his knees are fine to me!
Bill the timer is off one hour on the site posts. Just saying 😉
Steve
I’m thinking multi-tone blue swirl pattern, with sleeves from the elbow down a solid pine-tar shade. Oh, and actual crowns instead of caps.
Go ahead and laugh, but imagine being in the batters box after a long pub session the night before and looking out at that, and it’s no laughing matter now, not the least bit of it…
The Inge K was classic Inge–work the count to 3-2 (good Inge!) then…oh
Gotta stick up for him on the DP thing though–he’s been one of the least GIDPish Tigers.
JL >>>>>> WOW
sorry JV you know what I mean!
Oh I thought you were talking about a new internet service provider that is greater than WOW. lol
Random/obscure > repetitive/intransigent
nice play be Everett saved a run….he does contribute on D
Uh-oh…G, where’d the money go?
If we load the bases for Billy F’ing Butler I’m cancelling my subscription to, oh, I don’t know, SOMETHING.
Billy F’ing Butler > F’ing Billy Butler ?
Holy Steve Sparks
Shook off Laird so he could throw another fastball. Great.
I wonder about the 15 consecutive fastballs and u don’t think the other team can hurt you…..
An agitated, wild-eyed Coleman sighted shuffling down the sidewalk muttering “Billy F’ing Butler…Billy F’ing Butler…”
When questioned by police he said “I’m Luke F’ing Scott, who are YOU?”
Donations for the Coleman defense fund can be sent to the email address above…
Nice hits by Damon, Ordonez, and Cabrera!
Need some clutch hitting from Guillen and Inge now.
Speaking of over-reliance on the fast-ball…
here will be the story of the year ……guys on base …..no one out and Guillen-Inge-Laird-Everett wailing away for three outs
one would hope that Santiago and Avila would be used whenever offense is deemed necessary…like right now.
got to Greinke some credit for limiting the damage
Verlander didn’t come out for the 6th and his pitch count wasn’t that high. I wonder what transpired between JL and JV after that 5th inning fiasco.
Vince,
I thinks that its early in the year and Jim is taking it easy. It also gives him a chance to see what the other guys have. JV was not totally dial in and he can get a few guys out there with a Tuesday off day.
nice bottom of the order work there . Lets see if it pays dividends
JV was at 93. Plenty for a first start.
Austin !
Pressure is on, lets keep getting hits
Here we go boys!
I hit up the Rangers game in the afternoon, what a game. Nothing like opening day.
atta boy Jackson
The rookies both come through in the 7th – that’s encouraging.
Thanks for the ribbies, former Yanks.
Damon !! attaboy
Now thats what we talking about!!!!!!!!!!!!!
J-O-H-N-N-Y D-A-M-O-N # 18
Last year we only had B.O.O.B.s
This year we have T.O.O.Ls (the Top of the Order Lads) also!
And in our 7th inning today we actually had B.O.O.B.T.O.O.Ls.
totally felt to me there was no way damon was failing there. even an out he would have made productive.
I agree with you there. I was strangely confident during that at-bat
Agreed. And it would have been very welcome.
Damon is clutch.
See…………….. Its the 1/2 BLUE uniforms and
The fact they are the KC Royals
when Inge rips you its time to forfeit the game …and a great swing to boot
is this the same game or is it tomorrow already?
Inge baby Inge!!
Gapper
The Royals thoughts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VePxbFQ-qfw
I think the half blue uni worked today but the white half is letting the Royals down late in the game , oh and their bullpen too….
It was just a matter of getting to the Royals bullpen, I guess. Way to make them pay!
Wow Z for the 7th, cool. Lets see what he has. And with that Coke is coming in.
Have a Coke and a smile 😉
It was good to get Greinke out of there. He’s a great pitcher, but it looks like he is liable to get screwed by his own bullpen this year (again). Has he signed long term with KC or are the Yankees or Red Sox going to land him soon?
Austin Jackson!!! What a throw
Curtis who???
It was Granderson, he hit a homer today that’s how I knew. 😉
I gotta ask, and I love Grandy, does Curtis make that throw?
I think Granderson would of played it gingerly. No throw at all.
I honestly don’t know. Granderson usually played pretty shallow, I don’t know where Jackson plays relative to Grandy. It was a short throw, one Granderson is capable of making.
It was a shallow spot to field the ball and he didn’t throw the ball very far, it even squibbed off the mound and redirected slightly. There’s no reason to be bouncing a ball off the mound from that position if you don’t have to, and I highly doubt he intended for it to go that way, it looked like it just got away with him but was luckily straight enough and hard enough to work out. It’s nice that he got the guy out, but I wasn’t impressed with the throw very much.
I have to say, nice bullpen management by Leyland so far today.
Bill,
Does Curtis make the throw ?,
And yes I agree as well……..Jim has done a good job. Now we need to close this out. An opening lose to the Royals would have been a bummer.
With the extra lefty maybe he will be more willing to be a “Captain Hook”.
lets hope Jones—no Rodney no the new guy closes this out!
Or lets hope that he doesn’t have to. Its not a save situation as of now.
Impemba thinks Damon has performed solid everywhere he’s been? Umm ok Mario, good luck winning baseball games with a .256 batting average like he had in Oakland.
Nice easy four batters for Perry with not balls out of the infield (11 pitches).
I lke bringing in Valverde here just to get and inning under his belt as a non save…can we say the bullpen has been pretty dang good today ?
Is there some way we could trade for this Farnsworth guy? He just cruised through the middle of the order, he must be great.
was that really Capt Crooked hat with a straight on cap and different number????
With a 4-run lead you should just take the out at first there.
Is it a LAW that the Tigers’ closer has to induce heart attacks? Dear god.
Welcome to 2010 everyone!
Great opening boys…keep up the good work!
Rodney, I mean Jones, I mean Valverde comes through.
Valverde is Rodney 2.0!
Rodney or Jones would of gave up 3 runs in a non-save situation. Valverde wasn’t even in much of a jam since nobody hit the ball out of the infield.
Well, no beer sold at Kaufman stadium for the rest of the season now.
Being that the Royals killed us last September, beating us 5 out of 6 games, makes this win for the Tigers even better.
We start the season 1-0 and it was our hitting that came up big.
Again not a ball hit out of the infield by KC in the bottom of the 9th. Hopefully this is a continuing trend and it should give us good chances if our infield defense holds up.
The guilty is on Santiago. Valverde did his job
The guilty is on Cabrera. No reason to go to 2nd with a 4 run lead. Take the easier out at 1st.
Hi guys!
Only time will tell if their pitching holds up, but today was a pretty good start for the team especially the hitters. I like how Inge went into the opposite field gap to open it up a big. Who here would take a repeat of last years first half hitting-wise from him?
*raises hand
**#One More Time#**
Hi guys!
Only time will tell if their pitching holds up, but today was a pretty good start for the team especially the hitters. I like how Inge went into the opposite field gap to open it up a bit. Who here would take a repeat of last years first half hitting-wise from him?
*raises hand
**#One More Time#**