The Detroit Tiger Weblog

Category: Game Post

  • Game 2010.030: Tigers at Indians Redux

    We’ll try this again, although the conditions don’t look much better than last night. Dan Dickerson reports that there are 60mph win gusts in Cleveland. Regardless of the direction of the wind, it will certainly making catching the ball a challenge.

    That wind would certainly seem to favor Justin Masterson who gets 56.8% of balls hit on the ground as opposed to the other Justin, Justin Verlander who only has a 38.2% ground ball rate.

    Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians – May 8, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

  • Game 2010.030: Tigers at Indians

    Sorry. Pressed for time. Jeremy Bonderman and David Huff in Cleveland tonight.

    Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians – May 7, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

  • Game 2010.029: Tigers at Twins

    Rick Porcello will take on Kevin Slowey as the Tigers try and stave off a sweep in Minnesota. Brandon Inge gets the day off with Don Kelly playing third base. The Tigers uniforms will have the Ernie Harwell patches today.

  • Game 2010.028: Tigers at Twins

    Yesterday Max Scherzer built upon a previous underwhelming outing by performing considerably worse. Maybe Dontrelle Willis can build upon a satisfyingly strong outing by doing better. Of course better than 0 runs is tricky.

    Last week Willis fanned 6 Twins in 6 innings while allowing only 6 base runners and his 3.75 ERA would certainly qualify as surprising.

    The Twins send out Nick Blackburn. The Tigers torched him for 9 runs in 3.1 innings the first time they faced him last year. Then he held them to 3 runs in 16 innings over his next 2 starts. Blackburn’s peripherals are pretty ugly this year with 8 walks, 7 K’s, and 6 homers allowed in 23.2 innings.

    Your stat to watch tonight: opposing hitters have led off an inning get on base at a .520 clip off of Blackburn this season.

    Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins – May 4, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

  • Maxed Out

    Max Scherzer didn’t really give his team a chance to win, and that’s pretty much the game story in a nutshell. Speaking of shells, Scherzer was pummeled early and often and the Tigers were down 7-0 nothing before they even got their bearings at Target Field.

    In the first inning Jim Thome drove in the first run on a pitch low and away. Thome did a nice job with a tough pitch. The rest were pitches up and in the middle and pitches that Scherzer can’t make.

    In Max’s defense Jim Reynolds wouldn’t give him calls on the edges of the strike zone, but Scherzer has to do a better job. Especially after the Tigers started to chip away. In a way the 5th inning which featured 2 walks after the Tigers had cut it to a 4 run deficit were just as damaging as the early inning barrage.

    • Brad Thomas didn’t exactly clean up Scherzer’s mess, but he did go 3.2 innings to finish the game.
    • Austin Jackson is damn entertaining to watch. He ended up with another 3 hits and a strike out free game. He has 5 games without a strikeout, 4 of them are against the Twins.
    • Brennan Boesch continues to impress at the plate with 2 more hits of his own and he just missed his 2nd homer.
    • Detroit went 0 for 11 with RISP. A couple of those outs did plate runs, but it also kep the rallies short and harmless.

    Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins – May 3, 2010 – MLB.com Wrap

  • Game 2010.027: Tigers at Twins

    For the first time ever I’m excited to see the Tigers play in Minnesota. Sure, I’ve been excited for games that have taken place in Minneapolis, but never excited by the prospect of the Tigers being there. But with the Metrodome no more, we can just enjoy the Twins new digs. Oh yeah, and the winner of the series will be in first place come Thursday.

    Max Scherzer is coming off his worst start, which was against the Twins. He’s also got this thing where he fares poorly against a team when he sees them in a second consecutive start. Which if the trend follows it would mean that his last start would no longer be his worst of the season. I’m not expecting that, just sayin’

    He’ll be opposed by Scott Baker who happened to be the opposition last time too. Not much has changed since the Tigers faced Scott Baker last, so I’m going to cheat and just say read last week’s pregame.

    There is no word if Paul Emmel will be on hand to haunt Denard Span.

    The big news from the Twins camp is that Joe Mauer may miss the series. In typical Twins fashion though his replacement, Wilson Ramos, stepped in and had a 4 hit day on Sunday.

    The Tigers lineup will be:

    1. Jackson, CF
    2. Damon, DH
    3. Ordonez, RF
    4. Cabrera, 1B
    5. Boesch, LF
    6. Inge, 3B
    7. Raburn, 2B
    8. Laird, C
    9. Santiago, SS

    I haven’t complained too much about lineups this year, but I really think Alex Avila should be catching today.

    Also, I talked with FS North in a Know the Enemy segment that they did to preview the series.

    Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins – May 3, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

  • Verlander is back

    When Jim Leyland said he was going to put Justin Verlander on a strict, but undisclosed pitch count today, who thought it would be 120? It probably is a few more than Jim would have liked, but when you have a pitcher as in control as Verlander was today, 120 doesn’t seem to be a stretch at all.

    By the numbers

    The numbers really do tell a story of how dominant Verlander was today:

    • 23 – The number of consecutive hitters Verlander retired after Torii Hunter singled in the first inning.
    • 82% – The rate at which Verlander racked up first pitch strikes
    • 9 – The pitches that Verlander threw from the stretch. It’s safe to say he wasn’t pitching under duress.
    • 4 – The number of times Verlander went to a 3 ball count. He didn’t walk any batters.
    • 3 – The hits allowed.
    • 72% – Verlander’s strike rate for the day

    That’s pretty much as good as it gets and not a moment too soon.

    Everybody else

    The bottom of the order led the charge today and 5 runs proved to be more than enough. The bottom 4 in the lineup went 5 for 14 and set the table for Austin Jackson who does what Austin Jackson does. He gets a hit or strikes out. Five ABs, 3 hits, 2 strike outs. It really is incredible.

    • Alex Avila reached base 3 times. I’m not sure what was more impressive, his rope double down the line or the 8 pitch walk he worked in the 8th.
    • Brennan Boesch continues to hit and picked up another double. Boesch has been mashing first pitch fastballs since getting called up. This time though he jumped on a first pitch slider. It was nice to see the adjustment for the youngster.
    • It was unfortunate that Jose Valverde had to come in today. He’s now appeared in 14 of the team’s 26 games and is on pace to make 84 appearances this year. It would certainly help with his goal of 74 saves, but that is a heavy workload.

    Tigers 5, Angels 1

  • Game 2010.026: Angels at Tigers

    The post game can be read at Verlander is Back

    The Tigers wrap up what seemed to be a very quick home stand. They won both series already, and a win today would be icing on the cake. Of course with the ace on the mound for Detroit the team and fans are looking for something more than a solid effort on get-away day.

    Justin Verlander did a good job against the Twins in keeping them off the scoreboard. He would have had 6 shutout innings were it not for a Ryan Raburn error that allowed an unearned run.

    But even with the nearly 6 innings, he went over 120 pitches for the second consecutive game. For the season he is at 4.42 pitchers/plate appearance. The league average is typically in the 3.7-3.9 range. While it seems like more pitches are being fouled off, this rate is only 2% higher than his career norms which means just 7 additional fouls over the 5 starts.

    Jered Weaver takes the ball for the Angels. He held the Tigers to 2 runs over 7 innings in Anaheim. His 34:6 strike out to walk ratio is particularly impressive (and daunting). He’s allowed 5 homers this year, 4 of them to right handers. This probably doesn’t mean a lot, but in his 5 starts the leadoff batter is 0 for 5 with 4 strike outs.

    Los Angeles Angels at Detroit Tigers – May 2, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

  • Game 2010.025: Angels at Tigers

    The Tigers look for the morning storms to move out of the area so they can get in an afternoon tilt against the Angels. It will be Jeremy Bonderman taking on Scott Kazmir.

    Kazmir has had a tendency to walk people in the past, but when the two teams hooked up earlier this season he fanned 7 Tigers hitters without issuing a free pass as he picked up a win. He followed that up by walking 4 Yankees in 5.1 innings though so I don’t know that the control issues are corrected.

    Jeremy Bonderman was nearly great his last time out, humming through the first 5 innings before things got away from him in the 6th. At least he was efficient needing only 74 pitches to get through 5.2 innings.

  • A memorable inning

    I think the scorecard tells the story (as scorecards should). The 4th inning was a thing of beauty and majesty and an inning that won’t be forgotten for quite some time.

    The rookies were of course the story of the night. Scott Sizemore and Brennan Boesch both getting their first career homers in the 4th inning. Austin Jackson’s perfect 5 for 5 was exciting to see. It was a pretty special night and seeing Boesch’s emotion had to bring a smile to even the most jaded of sports fans.

    I was at the game (some photos below), and can’t really judge Porcello’s location. What I do know is that he was a groundball machine and happened to give up a homer at the worst time, after 2 ground ball singles. So he was getting the grounders, but like in the other games a few too many balls were drilled as well. So maybe we call it improvement, but there’s still work to be done?

    • Johnny Damon was a homer shy of the cycle.
    • Ryan Perry game in throwing gas retired the first 3 hitters on strike outs.
    • I count eight “4-3” outs on my scorecard meaning it was a very busy night for Sxott Sizemore.
    • Phil Coke just couldn’t find the strike zone tonight. On another Coke related note, he seems to be the leader of the bullpen. At least the whole pen followed him down the left field line from the dugout.
    • I loved seeing the Tigers aggressive on the base paths late in the game. Austin Jackson stole second, and even Miguel Cabrera went when he wasn’t being held on (Boesch popped out on the pitch).
    • I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Gerald Laird’s first homer of the season. Good. I’m no longer remiss.
    • Surprised to see Jim Leyland go to his big bullpen guns with such a sizable lead.
    • Props to the fan who caught Sizemore’s homer. The bullpen guys offered him another ball in exchange and he willingly tossed Sizemore’s first career homer ball in.

  • Game 2010:024: Angels at Tigers

    It’s Rick’s turn. Dontrelle Willis is figuring stuff out. Jeremy Bonderman is showing glimpses. Justin Verlander didn’t allow an earned run last time out. It’s Rick Porcello’s turn flip the switch.

    Whether it has been bad luck (.427 BABIP, 12.7% line drive rate, 63% LOB) or bad pitching, Porcello is getting knocked around and giving up way too many runs. He didn’t make it out of the 5th inning when he faced the Angels 2 starts ago.

    Joel Pineiro is on the bump for the Angels. The Tigers got him for 9 hits in 7.1 innings out in LA, but they managed to not score any of those baserunners.

    The Johnny Damon goes for RBI 1500 lineup is:

    1. Jackson, CF
    2. Damon, DH
    3. Ordonez, RF
    4. Cabrera, 1B
    5. Boesch, LF
    6. Inge, 3B
    7. Laird, C
    8. Sizemore, 2B
    9. Everett, SS

    Los Angeles Angels at Detroit Tigers – April 30, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

  • Should this post be about Maggs or Dontrelle?

    Dontrelle Willis shines, Magglio Ordoñez makes history, the Tigers take their first series of the year against the Minnesota Twins. Any way you slice it this game was a heck of a lot of fun.

    Willis walked the second batter he faced, and the last one. In between he was mixing pitches and speeds and mixing up the Twins to the tune of 6 strike outs and 6 innings of shut out baseball. We shouldn’t draw too many conclusions in April, but Willis has been good more than he’s been bad this season. Against the Twins he was very good, not lucky, not pitching on the edge, just plain old good.

    And then you have Magglio Ordoñez making history and becoming just the 6th Venezulean to reach 2000 career hits. He joins fellow country men Luis Aparicio, Omar Vizquel, Andres Galarraga, Dave Concepcion, and Bobby Abreu.

    You have the Tigers manufacturing a run in the first inning against a pitcher who has had their number. Single-steal-error-sacrifice fly and the Tigers had all the runs they’d need.

    Then there is the bullpen with Joel Zumaya dominating again for 2 innings. The signature moment was a 3 pitch strikeout of Joe Mauer. And Jose Valverde picking up his seventh save.

    And in the end you have a series win against a divisional foe. Good times.