The Detroit Tiger Weblog

Author: billfer

  • Game 147: Orioles at Tigers

    PREGAME: Jeremy Bonderman takes on Hayden Penn who has been shelled in 2 very brief appearances this season.

    I’m basing this on nothing but my gut, but I think Bonderman bounces back big time tonight.

    Game Time 7:05pm

    POSTGAME: Thank goodness for series openers. The Tigers won in a laugher tonight. Bonderman wasn’t dominant with 9 baserunners over 6 innings, but he certainly was more effective. Of course with 17 runs Bonderman could have been awful and the Tigers would have still won.

    The Tigers came out patient tonight with the first 10 hitters taking the first pitch they saw. While it took until the 4th inning for the Tigers to really break through, they had good approaches and good at-bats throughout the night. In the end they hit 4 homers, 3 of which went to the opposite field and that doesn’t count the one that Pudge had taken away. The one homer that was pulled was of course Brandon Inge’s which was complete with post-swing-cup-adjustment.

    Now for Inge to hit that homer (and for Matt Stairs to get the bases loaded walk) it required the Tigers loading the bases. Going into tonight the Tigers only had 13 plate appearances with the bases loaded since August 8th.

    The only downside to tonight is that Carlos Guillen seemed to be hobbling. Hopefully with an early night due to blow-out-ed-ness he’ll be back in tomorrow.

  • Tigers claim Matt Stairs

    The Tigers today picked Matt Stairs off of the waiver wire. Considering he was one of the names the Tigers were considering at the trade deadline, the cost of free is pretty appealing.

    Stairs is 38 and is on his 3rd team this season. He typically hits in the 260’s with a respectable OBP around 350. Texas picked him up at the trade deadline and he was pretty awful in limited playing time. In 81 at-bats he hit 210/273/370 with 22 K’s. The strike outs were out of line with his career numbers.

    Defensively he’s a designated hitter and shouldn’t be allowed near a glove.

    The move doesn’t bother me in the sense that there was nothing given up, and this is as short term a move as you can make. He won’t be eligible for the postseason. However in the aftermath of the Neifi Perez trade I’m worried that Stairs will actually be used and either a)force Marcus Thames into another platoon situation or b)take away from the already limited playing time that Chris Shelton sees.

    The good news is that Jeremy Bonderman won’t have to pitch against Stairs.

    In another move, Roman Colon was transferred from the 15 day to 60 day DL. This just means the Tigers can make another pitcher eligible for the post season roster.

  • Jeff Daniels sings the Tiger fan blues

    Michigan’s own Jeff Daniels has penned a tune about the Detroit Tigers. Through the wonderment of Youtube you can see the video here. (Hat tip Motown Sports)

  • Tiger Myth Busting

    With the Tigers losing, people are looking for reasons why. Everybody knows the offense has been horrible, and there must be some reason for the slump. There has been a lot of speculation. Some of it makes sense on the surface, but when you actually look, it just does prove to not be true. So we here at the DTW look to debunk some recent Tiger mythology.
    (more…)

  • Game 146: Rangers at Tigers

    PREGAME: I apologize about the continued site slowness/unreachableness. There will be scheduled downtime at 1 am to hopefully correct all the unscheduled downtime. In the meantime here is another brief game thread.

    Justin Verlander and Kevin Millwood duel tonight. These 2 met the first week of the season, and things turned out in the Tigers favor. Of course Chris Shelton was still killing the ball at that point. Leyland likes to take advantage of individual match-ups, even in small sample sizes. However Shelton’s 5 for 6 against Millwood isn’t good enough to knock Casey out of the lineup.

    Game Time 7:05pm

    POSTGAME: The nice thing about a 2 game series is that the next game is another series opener. Like we’ve seen so often (and as was pointed out during the in game comments) the Tigers can’t put 2 wins together. No matter how dominating or heroic a win the previous night is, the Tigers either frustrate or just plain diappointment the next night.

    And one of these nights the Tigers will play a home game sans rain.

  • Flipping for home

    Today MLB conducted a bunch of coin tosses to determine who would have homefield advantage in the event a one game playoff would be necessary to determine a wild card or divisional winner. All the results
    are here.

    But if you’re interested in how the Tigers fared, if they tie the White Sox for the AL Central, they’d play in Chicago. If the Tigers tie the Twins, they’d play in Comerica which is good because the Metrodome is evil.

    Interestingly enough, the only flip conducted for the AL Wildcard was Minnesota and Chicago.

    (Thanks to Jim for the tip)

  • Game 145: Rangers at Tigers

    PREGAME: Sorry about the site today. My host is having problems, and it took me 45 minutes just to post this. Vincente Padilla against Kenny Rogers on a soggy night.

    Joel Zumaya has a sprained wrist and will miss the next couple and Polanco could be back for Chicago according to reports on 1270.

    Game Time 7:05pm

    POSTGAME: Great win. The bats still are struggling, but they got just enough. Kenny Rogers continued to deal followed by a strong outing from Fernando Rodney. Craig Monroe made throw after throw that were right online. Pudge did a great job blocking the plate preventing Kinsler from scoring (horrible slide by Kinsler, anything creative or to the side and he’s safe easy). And of course there were those late inning heroics. It was the kind of win we expected early in the season, and the kind of win we’ve been craving for the last month.

    Now this certainly seems like a momentum building win, but we’ve seen several of those over the last couple weeks. Unfortunately they were followed by mini-losing streaks each time. But I’m not going to worry about that until tomorrow night. For now I’m just relishing the fact that today is one day when nobody gains on the Tigers. And who knows, maybe this is the start of something. Afterall, a winning streak has to start with 1 doesn’t it?

  • Tigers Rotation Shuffle

    According to Danny Knobler, it looks like Jim Leyland is using the 2 off days this week to realign the rotation for the Chicago series. Kenny Rogers and Justin Verlander will pitch in the Texas series. Instead of going with Wil Ledezma and Nate Robertson the first 2 games of the Orioles series, Jeremy Bonderman will be moved up. Because the Tigers are off on today and Thursday, Bonderman will be on his regular rest.

    Presuming that Nate Robertson doesn’t have lingering effects from the line drive to the ribs, he’ll get the nod on Saturday followed by Ledezma on Sunday.

    That leaves Kenny Rogers, Justin Verlander, and Bonderman to face the White Sox.

    Now earlier in the season, the Tigers went to Minnesota to face a Twins rotation that was stocked specifically to match-up with the Tigers. Leyland kept his rotation intact and left Zach Miner to face Francisco Liriano (which worked out okay). So is Leyland feeling the pressure now with a rapidly shrinking lead?

  • Game 144: Tigers at Twins

    PREGAME: This is kind of a big game. And it’s Jeremy Bonderman against Johan Santana. And it’s not on TV if you live in Detroit.

    Game Time 2:10

    POSTGAME: After seeing so many frustrating games where either the offense was good and the pitching was bad or the more common situation where the pitching was good but the offense was bad, the Tigers put it all together and combined the bad pitching with the bad offense for a 12-1 thumping.

    I was excited early in this game because MLB.TV neglected to blackout my feed. But then I kind of wish they would have.

    Bonderman still continues to confuse me, but not opposing hitters. His fastball velocity is still there. His slider is still sharp. He manages to locate both pitches for the most part. He keeps getting strike outs, but it takes him a long time to do it. And the guys he doesn’t strike out seem to put the ball in play with some measure of authority. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of a change-up, or if his pattern has become predictable. But the stuff still seems to be there, but the results aren’t.

    As for the offense, the approach was actually decent for the first 4 innings. Even when the Tigers would fall behind, they’d work the count back even or to a full count. Santana was averaging 20 pitches an inning before a 10-pitch-strike-out-the-side-5th inning. But despite the best intentions, the Tigers found themselves in one of those multi-multi-inning funks where they couldn’t get a baserunner near scoring position.

    Thank goodness for an off day.

  • Game 143: Tigers at Twins

    PREGAME: I really have no clever set up to this game, so let’s get to it.

    Nate Robertson will take the mound for the Tigers and try to fare better against Mauer and Morneau than every Tiger left hander last night did.

    The Tigers will be opposed by Boof Bonser who you may know as “the third guy” that the Twins got in the Pierzyinski for Nathan/Liriano deal.

    Game Time 7:10

    POSTGAME: It’s the same old story. The Tigers open up a series on fire, and then muddle through some frustrating losses. Invariably one of those frustrating losses will belong to Nate Robertson who was excellent. Of course you probably know that the runs came as the result of an Omar Infante error. What I still don’t understand is how Michael Cuddyer was able to run 270 feet in the time it took Ordonez to get the ball and throw home.

    The Tigers had opportunities early, which was a pleasant change, but weren’t able to cash in. And then the offense was completely shut down for the 2nd half of the game.

    And as for the umpiring, that blown call at 2nd base where Infante flipped to Guillen, Guillen caught the ball, took a step and touched 2nd base, and then went to transfer the ball to his throwing hand, was as bad a call as you will see.

  • Game 142: Tigers at Twins

    PREGAME: I’ve got a good feeling about tonight. After all, there are 2 Tiger blogger birthdays today and the club just couldn’t let us down now could they. Those birthday bloggers are myself and Samara.

    Wil Ledezma is charged with making today a Happy Birthday. He’s been outstanding since his move to the rotation. Leyland didn’t let him throw more than 71 pitches in either start, in part due to a stretching out phase, and in part because he was going on 3 days rest. (Speaking of Ledezma, Kurt did some interesting work extending research done by Nate Silver and found that under Silver’s methodology Ledezma may be the current rotation candidate that would most benefit from a move to the pen)

    He’ll be opposed by Matt Garza. Garza has made 5 starts, 2 of them good (against Baltimore and KC), 1 of them okay (against Cleveland), and 2 of them bad (against Toronto and New York). I think it is pretty clear that the quality of competition had a considerable influence in those games.

    Carlos Guillen returns to the lineup at short (cross your fingers that he doesn’t blow it out) and Infante retains 2nd base duties.

    In other news, Don Kelly cleared waivers and was outrighted to Erie while Chris Spurling was claimed by the Brewers. I’ve updated the Roster and Organizational Tree pages to represent the newly configured 40 man roster.

    Game Time 8:10

    POSTGAME: Sorry ’bout the much delayed postgame report. The game was, umm, frustrating? Who would have thought that on a night when the Tigers drew 3 walks in first 3 innings and Sean Casey pickedup an infield hit, and Magglio had good at-bat after good at-bat, and Carlos Guillen was back in the lineup along with Omar and Thames, that the Tigers would lose. Then again who would have thought that a nobody on, 2 out situation would turn into 7 runs either.

    It was just one of those nights. The Tigers made some mistakes defensively and pitching, and the Twins took advantage of them – especially Mauer and Morneau.

    I do think that Jim Leyland has become way too platoon happy. He insisted on lefties facing Morneau and Mauer, but if you look at their splits, they are good hitters no matter who they are facing. And Alexis Gomez over Chris Shelton in the 9th?

    Wil Ledezma wasn’t sharp. He was both wild outside the zone and couldn’t find the edges of a very large and erratic strike zone, and even the strikes he through he wasn’t locating them well.

    And then there was just the bad luck. Thursday night every ground ball with a runner on was a double play, last night it was a hit.

  • Tiger Blogger Night Links

    I had a great time with my fellow bloggers on Tuesday night despite the soggy losing-ness at Comerica Park. I’ll point you to Ian, Brian, and Samara who have done an excellent job wrapping up the night. But if you want one phrase to summarize the conversation it would have to be “What would Neifi do?” And I encourage you to check out the photography of the supremely talented Sam who managed to make rain look beautiful.

    On to some links: