The Detroit Tiger Weblog

Category: Game Post

  • Game 2010.023: Twins at Tigers

    Way back in the early days of the season, the Tigers swept the Cleveland Indians. It was the last time they won a series. Granted, they did notch 2 splits on the road so it hasn’t all been bad. Today it will be Dontrelle Willis looking to edge out Carl Pavano.

    Pavano had this bizarre mastery over the Tigers last year. Overall he had a 5.10 ERA last year. Against the Tigers it was 3.00 and he went 4-1 in his 6 starts. This year he’s pitching quite good against everybody though. He’s 3 for 4 in quality starts and has only walked one batter this season while fanning 17.

    This isn’t an ideal match-up for the Tigers hitters, and it isn’t ideal for Willis either. Even with improved control, walks have still been an issue this year – just not a debilitating one. And the Twins are the only AL team to earn more free passes than Detroit.

    Minnesota Twins at Detroit Tigers – April 29, 2010

  • Capitalizing

    There will be considerable focus on the Denard Span play (pictured in a series of screen grabs above) as it comes with considerable controversy. That play though was only a part of what proved to be an offensive onslaught by the Tigers. Detroit didn’t win because of that call, but it was a large factor.

    When Damon came up with 1 out and Austin Jackson on first the Tigers win expectancy was 40.4%. After the play that had pushed through to 55.1% with the go-ahead run getting into scoring position with 1 out. The run expectancy went from 1.16 to 2.09. If the play is ruled as a made catch and Jackson returns to first, the run expectancy drops below 1.

    Here’s the thing though, the play would not have ended the inning, like Ryan Raburn’s play the night before would have. The Tigers still followed with a walk, a HBP, and 3 doubles before the Twins recorded another out.

    You can consider the Tigers fortunate to get the call, but the team had already closed a 6-1 deficit to 6-5 at that point and they went on to plate 6 more runs while keeping the Twins at bay. A game without controversy is always preferable, but this isn’t a Paul Emmels induced win.

    Max Scherzer

    Scherzer got banged around and once again the Tigers had to turn to their bullpen early. Scherzer was neither efficient, nor effective. To his credit I guess he didn’t walk anybody on a night when the zone seemed to be quite tight.

    The bullpen

    Brad Thomas struggled in his spot start, but he was a big factor in tonight’s victory and earned the win. He held the Twins off for 2.1 innings and bridged the gap from Scherzer’s short night to the more dominant back of the pen pitchers. Phil Coke managed to get Jim Thome out along with 5 other outs while allowing just 1 hit. Jose Valverde finished the game, and he issued the only walk of the night by Detroit pitchers.

    The bullets

    • Johnny Damon continued his hitting streak
    • Austin Jackson didn’t strike out for the second game in a row.
    • Magglio Ordonez had 3 hits and is at 1999 now for his career
    • Good things happen when Brandon Inge homers and doubles in the same game. Well, at least this week that’s been the case.
    • Brennan Boesch absolutely smoked his bases loaded double and he was just a little bit of air from a grand slam.
    • The biggest damage came on 3 straight pitches when Boesch, Inge, and Ryan Raburn took the first pitches they saw and each laced doubles.
    • With Ni going 2 innings yesterday, and Thomas and Coke each going 2 today, it will be interesting to see how Jim Leyland will deploy his southpaws tomorrow. But he did accomplish his goal of resting Joel Zumaya for two consecutive days.
    • Paul Emmel made the call on the Span play. Emmel was the ump who tossed Span on Tuesday night. There will be no love lost between Span and Emmel and I’m sure he’s enemy number 1 in Minneapolis tonight.

  • Game 2010.022: Twins at Tigers

    Hey, at least Scott Baker can’t be quite as good as Francisco Liriano was last night can he?

    Baker goes for the Twins after getting beat up for 10 hits and 6 runs in 5.2 innings against Cleveland his last time out. Baker has continued his reverse platoon splits from last year into this young season where right handers hit him better than left handers.

    Max Scherzer is coming off a strong outing that earned him a quality start on a 7 K, 2 BB, 7 inning effort in Arlington. He’s never started against the Twins.

    Your lefty heavy lineup is:

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

  • It’s Liriano’s world, we’re all just flailing in it

    While the Ryan Raburn error was terribly frustrating. And the Scott Sizemore error made you think, “c’mon, they’re not even in that God forsaken dome and this stuff keeps happening.” This game was all about Francisco Liriano.

    Liriano spotted the fastball to both sides of the plate. He froze Tigers hitters with back door sliders and had them flailing at regular sliders that dove at their back foot. Six of the Tigers ten strike outs were off the backwards K variety. They couldn’t even muster a swing.

    Credit where credit is due, Liriano put on a clinic an deserved to win.

    On the other side Justin Verlander was better. He didn’t walk a batter not named Jim Thome while fanning 7 including victimizing Justin Morneau 3 times. He deserved to get out of the 6th were it not for the Raburn error, but it would have been his final batter regardless with a pitch count of 121.

    At least this time out it wasn’t stuff lacking, just efficiency.

    • On a night when 12 of the 27 Tigers outs came on strikeouts, Austin Jackson didn’t have a single one while drawing the only walk, thus ending the 20 game streak. I love baseball irony.
    • Johnny Damon kept the hit streak alive.
    • Fu-Te Ni came into a bases loaded situation and got a come backer to the mound and managed to go 2.1 more innings. He picked up 2 more walks and benefitted from a wide strike zone (just ask Denard Span) but the end result is that he was able to “reset” the bullpen by staying out that long.
    • Eddie Bonine didn’t have it after being so effective and critical to the team’s win on Saturday.
    • For all the talk about the Twins doing things the right way and manufacturing runs and what not, they did strand a lead off triple with their 2-3-4 hitters up. I’m just saying, it happens.
    • Disappointing to see the Tigers play so poorly on defense regardless. In addition to the 3 errors I’d argue that Ordonez didn’t take a great route to Span’s triple. I don’t know if he would have got it, but it appeared if he angled back he may have had a better shot.

    Twins 2, Tigers 0

  • Game 2010.021: Twins at Tigers

    Check out the post game at: It’s Liriano’s world, we’re all just flailing in it

    The Tigers are back in Detroit and they welcome in the Twins. Speaking of people who are back, have you checked out what Francisco Liriano has been up to? He’s sporting a 1.29 ERA and a 2.75 FIP. He hasn’t allowed a homer in 21 innings this year and has thrown 15 scoreless innings over his last 2 starts. Sheesh.

    Meanwhile Justin Verlander is still in the hunt for his ace-like ways. While Verlander has given up some hits this year, it was the 4 walks and 125 pitches in 5 innings that was most disconcerting in his last start against the Angels.

    The Twins are 2.5 games up on the Tigers and they are pounding the ball with 99 runs scored in their 19 games so far. Theoretically the Tigers could be in first place at the end of the series. In April it doesn’t matter a whole lot one way or the other though so let’s not get too worked up.

    Your matchup notes include Jim Thome with 7 homers and 10 walks in his 51 plate appearances against Verlander. Lefties are 1 for 20 against Liriano this year so it’s a good thing Damon is the only hook in the lineup. Magglio Ordonez has a 381/409/810 line against Liriano in 22 PA’s. Tonight’s line up has 23 strike out sin 85 plate appearances against Liriano, and that doesn’t include Austin Jackson.

    The lineup:

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

  • They’re coming home

    It looked like a laugher, but then the jokes stopped getting funny, then the Miguel Cabrera had the last laugh. It’s games like this where I like to let Fangraphs tell the story.

    Jeremy Bonderman looked great in the early going. He only needed 38 pitches to get through 4 innings. He pitched his way out of a rocky 5th with minimal damage, so it was quite the surprise to see him unable to finish the 6th and spare the bullpen.

    And that bullpen which has been quite good and quite heavily used was vulnerable. Joel Zumaya finished off the 6th inning, but got knocked around for the first time this year. Phil Coke came on and got the first out before Vladimir Guerrero tied things up.

    The offense scored early and late. Brandon Inge broke his home run drought in a big way. After sending a ball to the warning track he got angry and went homer-double-homer for a monster night. Ryan Raburn narrowly missed a grand slam and added another double.

    But the biggest blast once again came from the biggest hitter. The Rangers inexplicably threw Miguel Cabrera a pitch over the plate in the 9th inning and he put it over the wall to give the Tigers a win that Jose Valverde saved easily.

    A 5-6 road trip isn’t great, but it is certainly acceptable. And we get back to 7p start times, and the Minnesota Twins.

  • Game 2010.020: Tigers at Rangers

    The long grueling road trip is over. I’m exhausted after these 11 days and nights. I can only imagine how the players are feeling. A win tonight would mean a palatable 5-6 trip. A loss and it is a disappointing 4-7. Arbitrary you ask? Yeah, it is.

    Jeremy Bonderman takes the ball for Detroit. I was going to wow you with a pitch f/x breakdown of Bonderman this season. The thing is, try as I might, I can’t classify his pitches. I haven’t trusted what gameday is telling me so I did my own k-means clustering trying a variety of variables and I got nada. I can pick out some fastballs and some sliders. The rest is noise. Hopefully the noise is effective tonight ‘cuz the pen needs a breather.

    Matt Harrison goes for the Rangers. Much like Bonderman he has two quality starts and a stinker this year. The Tigers faced him twice last year and neither game he made it out of the sixth inning and the Tigers plated 9 runs total.

    The lineup:

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

    Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers – April 26, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

  • Doubled up in Arlington

    Let the Rick Porcello panic set in. He was knocked around pretty good for the third straight start, which was a shame because an interesting lineup managed to plate 4 runs in the first 2 innings.

    The raw numbers don’t paint a pretty picture in this one. Four innings, ten hits, six runs, two walks, three strike outs, 92 pitches. I’m not going to sugar coat this, Porcello didn’t make the pitches he needed to when he got in trouble. When things were at their worst the balls came off the bats the hardest. But I’m still not worried.

    Half of the hits that Porcello gave up came on ground balls. The second inning outburst was set up by two ground ball hits and a line drive just out of the reach of Ramon Santiago. While the bases loaded walk was inexcusable, the bases clearing double was on a pitch that was off the plate inside to Michael Young. The homer he allowed in the first inning was off the plate away.

    Both the Young pitch and Murphy pitch were up too high in the zone, but he didn’t throw them in the middle of the plate either. Porcello didn’t make enough good pitches, but he also didn’t get enough good results on the good pitches he did make.

    Here’s where I get accused of being an apologist. I understand that and I can live with that and I still think that Porcello will be okay. If he doesn’t, feel free to go back to this post and point out how wrong I am.

    As for the offense, it was an interesting day. The bats came out strong but after the second inning they were completely silenced. Colby Lewis went on to fan 10 batters. Four of those strikeouts were caught looking.

    • Dontrelle Willis walked the bases loaded and allowed 2 add-on runs. After a strong outing against the Angels  you have to see the control problems return. Maybe it was coming out of the bullpen, but the Willis situation is fragile to say the least.
    • Fu-Te Ni walked 2 in 2 innings, but that was mitigated with 5 strike outs and Phil Coke pitched a nice inning was well.
    • The bullpen has been effective, but is in getting worn down. Jeremy Bonderman needs to go 6 innings at least tomorrow, and pray for no extra inning games.
    • Congrats to Austin Jackson on his first career homer.

  • Game 2010.019 Tigers at Rangers

    Read the game wrap: Doubled up in Arlington

    Rick Porcello hasn’t had an easy go of it this season. He’s managed to pitch around some struggles, but the Angels hit him pretty good. Already things like “sophomore slump” are being bandied about and with one more rough outing [air quotes]clever[air quotes] will start calling him Por-shell-o. A strong outing against the Rangers would certainly help quell that talk.

    In actuality there is nothing wrong with Porcello:

    porcello stats

    He’s getting more ground balls, striking out more, walking less, keeping the ball in the park better, and the only thing that isn’t happening is that his balls in play aren’t being converted to outs. He’s also giving up fewer line drives. Porcello is fine.

    Colby Lewis goes for the Rangers. He has 18 K’s in 17.1 innings this season, including a 10 strike out effort against the Indians. He is prone to the walk though with 10 allowed over his 3 starts.

    Magglio Ordonez is sore and will get his first day off today.

    Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers – April 25, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

  • Wins in unexpected places

    When your team turns to an emergency starter and you get a win, the aesthetics of such a win become irrelevant. Which is fortunate because this wasn’t exactly a pretty victory.

    With Dontrelle Willis battling a stomach virus the Tigers turned to Brad Thomas to try and eat some innings. Thomas wasn’t good the first two innings. He either missed the strike zone or got hammered. Even factoring in an Austin Jackson misplay, you had the feeling that the Rangers should have scored more than 4 runs in the first 2 innings. But Thomas did manage to come out for a quick and painless 3rd inning.

    The Tigers then got frisky in the 3rd and 4th innings. They strung together 3 hits, an RBI ground out to get the game within 1 run in the 3rd.

    In the 4th inning it was Tigers patience and a screwy wild pitch that gave the Tigers the lead. Ramon Santiago scored from second on a pitch that went through Taylor Teagarden’s 5-hole.* That was enough for the lead, but the Tigers added some more runs as they batted around.

    *Does anybody else remember another game in Texas where Nook Logan scored from first base on a wild pitch?

    Bullpen Dominance

    The story of this game though is probably the bullpen. Eddie Bonine followed Thomas and allowed just 2 baserunners in 3 innings while getting 9 ground ball outs. Bonine threw his knuckler 7 times, all for strikes and 2 resulted in ground outs.
    Joel Zumaya was next and recorded 5 of his 6 outs with strike outs. Jose Valverde handled the 9th inning allowing just an infield single.

    The final line for the pen was 6 innings, 3 singles, 1 walk, and 5 K’s.

    Because Bonine and Zumaya in particular were able to chew up 5 innings, it means that the rest of the pen is available tomorrow.

    • The bullpen would have had one more hit surrendered were it not for a spectacular leaping grab by Jackson. It may be his best catch of the season.
    • Jackson did keep his strikeout streak alive. It’ll end some day.
    • I liked seeing the Tigers taking advantage of the defense and picking up 2 bunt hits. I hate the sacrifice, but love seeing a guy drop one down when the 3rd baseman is playing deep.
    • Adam Everett left the game with a hamstring strain.
    • Scott Sizemore didn’t play due to ankle soreness.
    • Johnny Damon’s hit streak extends to 11 and he reached base 4 times.

  • Game 2010.018: Tigers at Rangers

    Read the post game wrap-up: Wins in unexpected places

    The Tigers have dropped 4 straight series openers. They’ve dropped the first two games of each of their last two series. The Tigers will turn to Dontrelle Willis to draw this Rangers series even.

    Willis was quite good his last time out allowing just 4 hits and 2 walks in a 6 inning loss to the Angels. Willis faced the Rangers once last year in what was one of the more memorable games of the season. Willis pitched into the 7th inning and only gave up a hit and 2 walks while fanning 5.

    The Tigers were set to face Rangers starter Scott Feldman last night before he was scratched due to a lingering illness. That means I get to copy and paste last night’s stuff.

    Scott Feldman went 7 innings in his first 2 starts, but didn’t make it out of the 3rd in his latest outing against the Yankees. He faced the Tigers once last year and Detroit got to him for 6 runs in 2.1 innings. Granderson did the bulk of the damage hitting homers in each of the first 2 innings.

    Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers – April 24, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

  • Questioning the IBB

    In my opinion these are the hardest losses to swallow. On a night when the team had to have been tired they really did battle. They fought against a closer with an electric arm and tied up a game in the 9th. But then there was a failure. A failure of execution and of strategy. A game where it seems like the manager let his team down.

    I wish that Fox Sports Detroit did a post game with Jim Leyland because I’d love to know the thinking in walking Ryan Garko to get to Nelson Cruz. I don’t always agree with Leyland’s decision making process, but I can usually see his side. In this case I don’t really see another side at all. I’m dumbfounded. Given the effort his team gave him in the top of the 9th, they deserved better.

    Perhaps I’m making too much of the IBB. The win expectancy only went down 1% for the Tigers. It was actually the smallest WE event of the inning.

    Of course Leyland wasn’t the one who walked Justin Smoak, or Nelson Cruz for that matter. Fu-Te Ni’s control has been poor this season (8 walks and 2 HBP in 6 innings). Ryan Perry has to make a better pitch with 2 strikes to Elvis Andrus. If Perry comes in and doesn’t get Garko out, I don’t have a beef with the manager. In this case though it seems like Leyland walked right into what Ron Washington wanted.

    The downside is that I spent 3 paragraphs lamenting negative instead of talking about the top of the 9th inning, which was terrific. The at-bats were all solid. Don Kelly fanned but it took 7 pitches. Ramon Santiago had a 13 pitch at-bat that resulted in an out but had to certainly wear on Neftali Feliz. Austin Jackson was determined to not strike out for a 4th time and put the first pitch in play, and Johnny Damon fought off a couple pitches before getting a bloop hit. And of course Magglio Ordonez with the line drive to right to tie the game. Great stuff that should be remembered.

    And we haven’t even mentioned Brennan Boesch’s debut which saw him hit a double and a single (and later make a baserunning mistake). We haven’t mentioned Max Scherzer who went 7 innings and fanned 7 in a quality start. There was quite a bit of good in this game, and the players deserved the same from their manager.

    • It’s a quality start Scherzer because one of the runs was unearned and was the result of a charged error when Alex Avila used his mask to corral a ball.
    • Avila did gun down both attempted base stealers.
    • Scott Sizemore had a rough night at the dish with 3 uncomfortable looking strike outs. A pinch hitting appearance by Don Kelly may have spared him the sombrero.
    • Ordonez looked a little off balance at times on the west coast, but he reached base 4 times.
    • Miguel Cabrera’s 5 game double streak came to an end, but Austin Jackson’s 16 game strikeout streak and Johnny Damon’s 10 game hitting streak are still intact.