Category: Game Post

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PREGAME: Of all the years for MLB to do away with their asinine coin-flipping scenario for deciding home field advantage for tiebreaker games. Of course if the Tigers could have managed 1 more win at some point they wouldn’t even be in this situation. But this situation isn’t so bad, the Tigers are still playing and they’ll be the only game around tomorrow afternoon.

It’s Rick Porcello and Scott Baker. This will be the second time in a week the Tigers will have a chance to clinch the AL Central against Baker. The Tigers certainly had their chances last Thursday with a bevy of baserunners and 4 Twins errors to go along with 6 walks issued by Twins pitchers. Unfortunately the offense only mustered 3 runs.

The Tigers have hit Baker this year. In the 2 previous starts they got him for 4 runs and 6 runs and Baker hasn’t lasted into the 6th inning in any of the 3 starts.

Porcello has faced the Twins 4 times this year and has quality starts in 3 of them. His worst start against them was a 6 run 4 inning effort in the dome. A week ago Tuesday he pitched the front end of the double header and he went 6.1 innings allowing just 1 run while scattering 7 hits and a walk.

For more on the game:

• The Baseball Analysts: Baker-Porcello: A Study in Batted Ball Contrasts
• Daily Box Score 10/5: Let’s Play 163 – Beyond the Box Score
• The One Game Playoff | FanGraphs Baseball
• Randy Marsh is home plate ump | StarTribune.com

PREGAME: Edwin Jackson and Jake Peavy is the first pitching match-up Tigers fans care about tonight. The second one is Lenny DiNardo and Francisco Liriano Jeff Manship.

Peavy outdueled Eddie Bonine last time out despite Bonine’s fantastic outing. The Tigers fanned 8 times in 7 innings and could only muster 6 hits and 2 walks.

Jackson on the other hand was dinged for 5 runs in 7 innings when he faced the White Sox last time. He did only walk 1 batter though so the improved control was a good sign.

I wish I had something light and pithy or at least moderately insightful to add. Maybe I’m tense. Maybe the pressure is getting to me.

Chi White Sox vs. Detroit – October 2, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

Kansas City vs. Minnesota – October 2, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: My friends and I decided to splurge a little since this was the last game in our season ticket package and have dinner in the Tiger Club. For those who haven’t been, that is the glassed in area that hangs from the uper deck in right field.  They have a buffet with a 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. seating. We took in the 5 p.m. option so we could be in our seats in time for the game.

The buffet featured prime rib which delicious and marbled beautifully. Next to the prime rib was a personal favorite of mine, chicken oscar. You put asparagus and crab with anything and I’ll try it. Unfortunately the first batch was a little dry, I think it had been sitting under the lamp too long and the crab dried out. Fortunately they put out more that was delicious.

Around the corner from the chicken was ravioli florentine which was good enough to warrant a corner of each plate I prepared. There were green beans and sauteed vidalia onions as well as red skin mashed potatoes. The highlight for me though was a scallop and risotto dish.

There were cheeses and relish and salad options as well. I didn’t delve into those areas greatly. And for those who enjoy more traditional ball park food there were nachos and hot dog stations as well. Again, I passed.

I was already uncomfortably full though when I went for dessert. It was a monstrous Sanders hot fudge cream puff.  It was huge and wonderful and worth having to loosen my belt.

After paying our bill we went out to watch the game. Casey Fien and Clay Rapada did a nice job.

PREGAME: So, what will everybody be doing this afternoon? If you’re at work do you listen on the radio, or follow along with gameday, or do you stream mlb.tv, or do you leave work completely and head to the park (or a bar)? Or does your day not change and you’ll just wait to get home to see who had the better day, Scott Baker or Nate Robertson.

Robertson wasn’t good his last time out. Alfredo Figaro and the offense had to bail him out against the White Sox. But prior to that he was put into a must-win situation in Minnesota and he came up big. For a player looking to be relevant, this game today is dripping with relevance-inducing moments.

Scott Baker comes in with the crazy reverse platoon split homer numbers (21 of the 27 homers allowed this year have been hit by righties) so if you see Marcus Thames penciled in you now know why.

Oh yeah, one more thing, if the Tigers win today they clinch the division…

Minnesota vs. Detroit – October 1, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Well, that was at least entertaining as far as frustrating blow outs go.

Those gritty Twins who play the game the right way made 4 errors, walked 6, and hit a guy…and still won easily. That’s in large part due to the fact that the Tigers were once again left longing for that big hit.

Nate Robertson got through 6 innings and allowed 4 runs, 3 earned, which is a perfectly acceptable performance. Meanwhile Scott Baker labored and he broke the 100 pitch mark in the 5th inning. The Tigers worked the count, saw lots of pitches, did everything right essentially except for getting hits at the end of those at-bats.

So the celebration is on hold. The magic number is still 2. But I’m not worried…yet.

• Angel Hernandez always feels the need to make his presence known. This time he did it by blowing a tag-up call on Ramon Santiago saying he left early when replays show he didn’t. That got Leyland irritated. When Bobby Seay didn’t get a called third strike on a borderline pitch to Denard Span, that probably got things simmering. When a pitch went behind Adam Everett and Marcus Thames had already been hit and knocked down (and Span had been hit earlier) Hernandez warned both benches which set Leyland off.
• Bonderman came out and promptly plunked Delmon Young, which was clearly retaliation and Bondo didn’t really care. The trouble is the Tigers are going to need some long relievers on Saturday. Bondo will get suspended.
• I don’t think anybody was throwing at anybody (except for Bonderman) but Thames was certainly peeved the second time he got buzzed. Both were breaking balls, but I think Thames took issue with the fact that they came in high.
• And when the ball went behind Everett, Mike Redmond didn’t catch. He didn’t make an attempt to catch it. Or to retrieve the ball. Yet Gerald Laird stayed on second base. I don’t know why he didn’t advance. I don’t know why Hernandez called time when nobody had the ball.
• I don’t know why Polanco didn’t play and didn’t pinch hit in several big situations. This is concerning and not because I think it is managerial malpractice, but because I think it was something other than Leyland keeping him out of the game.  Polanco missed 2 ground balls this week which just isn’t him. I wonder if his back problems have flared up with the cold weather and the doubleheader.
• One very bright spot was the job that  Ryan Perry and Fu-Te Ni did coming into a 2nd and 3rd no out situation and getting out of the inning unscathed.

PREGAME: Let’s do this again. After a very long day of baseball, it’s just a regular night at the ballpark. Except that it is the immovable force named Carl Pavano that the Tigers will be going up against.

Pavano’s mastery of all things Tigers and few things not-Tigers is one of those epic mysteries. It’s the stuff of a Time-Life book series (Coincidence? Read the book!). The last time out the Tigers got to Pavano for a ga-jillion baserunners but not so many runs.

In a similar vein, we’ll see of Eddie Bonine’s powers of seduction (I’m for sure going to be the number 1 Google hit for “eddie bonine power of seduction) extend beyond the Chicago White Sox. Bonine faced the Twins once last year and it resulted in a 7-0 loss. Here’s hoping for a better outcome.

Minnesota vs. Detroit – September 30, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME
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I’m in Alexandria, Virginia but it was easy to find Tigers fans. And even fans without a rooting interest were pulling for the Tigers tonight. Pirates fans, and Red Sox fans, and pretty much everyone I ran into was on the Tigers bandwagon tonight. It was awesome. And there was beer.

But meanwhile, those in Detroit took care of business. The boys gave us all reason to be proud. Eddie Bonine was shaky to start, but after allowing 2 runs in the first that would be it for the Twins.

Now we’ve seen before what happens when Carl Pavano pitches and it is mostly frustration and angst for Tigers fans. But tonight the Tigers got him. They got him good. They got him real good.

Brandon Inge and Magglio Ordonez. Two Tigers who have had their highs and lows this season both delivered bases loaded doubles. Both came up huge. Both should be celebrated.

• I don’t get using Miner in 3 innings and I don’t get using Lyon with a 5 run lead and I don’t get using Rodney with a 5 run lead. But only Miner is likely unavailable tomorrow. And really, tonight is much more important than tomorrow…until tomorrow.
• Twice the Tigers splashed a Brett Favre graphic over the Tigers game. Yeah, I don’t get it either.
• Little has been easy for the Tigers this year, but this was as close to an easy win as the Tigers have had in a while.
• Ramon Santiago has driven in runs in his last 2 starts. Kudos Ramon.
• Yeah, I’m pretty giddy right now.
• Oh yeah, 34K in attendance tonight. Way to go Detroit.

PREGAME: So….are you freaking out a little? Do you have chills? Are you sweating? Me, not yet. I’m a little grumpy but panic won’t set in until the Tigers are looking up at the Twins. Then I’ll be shriveling lump of despair. Until then, let us cast our gaze upon one Justin Verlander.

It’s probably unfair. How many times has Verlander been put in this position and come through this year? There was the White Sox game when Chicago had tied things up. And the Red Sox game where they were on the brink of being swept.

Of course Verlander doesn’t hit. He could pitch damn near a no-hitter (just ask Eddie Bonine) and it won’t make a difference if the Tigers can’t generate some offense against Brian Duensing. Do you know how many times Duensing has allowed more than 3 runs in a start? Once. July 7th. He shut the Tigers out for 6.1 innings on September 18th and limited them to 5 base runners.

Your, “huh, Gerald Laird again?” lineup is:

1. Raburn, LF (aka Little Jimmy Jackson)
2. Polanco, 2B
3. Ordonez, RF
4. Cabrera, 1B
5. Thames, DH
6. Inge, 3B
7. Granderson, CF
8. Laird, C
9. Everett, SS

So, my buddies and I usually pick a Tiger each game we attend. A simple guess as to who will have the best game. Who is going to come through for the Tigers tonight. Dare I say, “Who’s your Tiger?”

Minnesota vs. Detroit – September 29, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME:

PREGAME: The Twins and Tigers lock up in what has been dubbed the Tigers biggest series since 1987. That dubber is Lee Panas, man of metrics and not a purveyor of hyperbole so I tend to agree with him.

By now you know the drill. If the Tigers take 3 (or better) the division is theirs. If the teams split then the Tigers need 2 wins against the Sox or 2 Twins losses against the Royals, or some combination thereof. If the Twins take 3 things are deadlocked going into the final 3 games. If the Twins sweep, well, that would really suck.

The Twins, winners of 5 of their last 7 send out Nick Blackburn. Blackburn pitched 7 shutout innings his last time out. He also pitched a complete game against the Tigers back in July. In 98 plate appearances where the first pitch has been put in play, hitters are OPSing 1.021.

The Tigers, winners of 5 of their last 7, send out Rick Porcello. Porcello got the win in Cleveland limiting them to 1 run in 5 innings. He lost in a quality start against the Twins on September 18th.

The weather is wet and windy and generally yucky so hopefully they play this one.

Yeah, there was a lineup posted here before, but it will likely change with the doubleheader today. So I deleted it. The rest of the post stands though because the pitching match-up is the same. We’ll have a separate post for the nightcap. Oh yeah, and the weather is cold and rainy today also.

Minnesota vs. Detroit – September 28, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

PREGAME: It’s Daniel Hudson and Edwin Jackson doing battle in the rubber game of the series.

Hudson has 4 appearances this season, but he made his first start on Monday against the Twins. He went 5 innings and held the Twins to 3 runs (1 earned) on 4 hits with 4 K’s. He also walked 4. Considering what the Twins have been doing to everybody else lately (they smoked Buehrle and Danks following the Hudson start) that was pretty impressive.

Scouting Hudson’s last outing, it looks like he throws a fastball at about 93-94mph, a change-up, and a slider. The change-up was his best swing-and-miss pitch but also the one he had the least control of.

Jackson will make his 3rd start of the year against Chicago. Despite walking 8 and only striking out 6 in 12 innings only 5 runs have crossed the plate

Detroit vs. Chi White Sox – September 27, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: What started out so promising sure did spin out of control by the end of the game. Curtis Granderson got things started with a leadoff homer. That was it for the offense until 1 run in the 6th inning and a couple of “let’s not make this so look so bad” runs in the 9th inning.

Edwin Jackson didn’t seem to enjoy pitching with a lead. He gave back 1 run in the 2nd and then he got down to business retiring 10 in a row. Until the Tigers got him that lead in the 6th and Jackson promptly got XBH’d to death for 3 runs and that was it for his chance at a win.

• Brandon Inge’s series could only be described as miserable. He was 0 for the series with 8 K’s, 2 E’s, and though it wasn’t an error, he failed to make a play on Alex Rios’ double leading off the 6th.The play wasn’t routine, but it wasn’t exactly web-gemmy either.
• Curtis Granderson picked up 5 hits in a row between last night and today, and it would have been 7 except for a nice running play by Alex Rios. And these weren’t bloops. Grandy was hitting bullets all over the park.
• Fernando Rodney…not so much.
• At least Trey Hillman managed aggressively with a Zach Greinke Cy Young Award in mind and he put in Joakim Soria for a 2 inning save, which he recorded successfully despite some tension.
• Though Jackson got the loss, I thought he looked better today than in Cleveland. He had better command and his slider seemed to have more bite. The difference in results was that the Indians hit their hard hit balls at people, plus the White Sox have more firepower.

PREGAME: One thing about the divison race has become increasingly evident. The Twins won’t lose. So the Tigers just need to respond by not losing too. Simple right?

Nate Robertson gets the start. I’m sure after watching Eddie Bonine take a loss last night he’s just chomping at the bit.

Freddy Garcia is still alive and pitching tonight for the White Sox. Not only is he still alive, he has a streak of 6 straight quality starts. Egads!

Detroit vs. Chi White Sox – September 26, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME:

This pretty much tells the story:

This one got off to a scary start. Nate Robertson didn’t have the good stuff tonight. The way some of his breaking balls stayed way out side had me wondering if the groin, g-g-groin, g-g-groin (Cheers reference) injury was flaring up again. He surrendered all 5 runs, and it could have been worse without some nifty defense from Carlos Guillen in left field and a heck of a double play turn by Adam Everett.

The offense will get a lot of attention (and rightfully so) for awaking from a 13 inning scoreless slumber. It turned into a blow out thanks to some hard hit balls, and some weakly hit balls hit to the right spot, and some routinely hit balls that went between infielders.

But could it be that on this night the star is a mop-up man who threw 2.2 innings of scoreless ball to keep the game from getting out of hand and allowing the offense the opportunity to get back into it? Alfredo Figaro’s 1 hit performance tonight was huge, huge I say.

One thing that is, um, mysterious, is why use your primary set-up guy for 2 innings in a blow out? Especially with Seay day-to-day? I don’t get the Brandon Lyon usage.

• Everybody hit except for Brandon Inge who has 6 K’s in his last 8 plate appearances. Use the game link to see the box score. Lot’s of hits (20) all around.
• Zach Miner with another strong performance.

PREGAME: The Tigers enter into their final road series of the season. They’ll face a White Sox team who was eliminated from the division crown last night. They’ll face a White Sox team who was just swept by the Twins despite having Mark Buehrle and John Danks go in the series.

The Tigers send out Eddie Bonine. Bonine makes just his 3rd start of the season, but it his second against the White Sox. Back when the White Sox were hot on the Tigers tails Bonine was called on to pitch the backend of a double header and he held the sox Sox to 3 runs in 6 innings.

Jake Peavy makes just his second start since the trade that sent him from the Padres. In his first time out he allowed just 3 hits and 2 walks over 5 innings to the Royals, but 3 runs came around to score.

Detroit vs. Chi White Sox – September 25, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: I can’t really add much that won’t show up in a regular game story. Eddie Bonine allows 2 hits and takes a loss because the offense can’t get anything done. Heck the offense could barely put balls in play with 12 K’s. And Inge made an error. And Adam Everett was used as a pinch hitter for the designated hitter.

PREGAME: At least the Twins won’t win tonight. Aside from that though, a loss for the Tigers would  be very disappointing. I know there are reasons why you play the games and all that, but this match-up tilts heavily in the Tigers favor.

Justin Verlander has owned the Indians this year allowing 1 run on 9 hits over 3 starts. And he’s fanned 30 Tribe batters.

Meanwhile, Carlos Carrasco is a highly touted prospect who has struggled in his brief big league career. He debuted against the Tigers and they took him deep 3 times for 6 runs in 3 innings. He’s improved slightly in his 2 subsequent starts allowing 5 runs and then 4 and going 1 inning longer in each effort.

Detroit vs. Cleveland – September 24, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME

It wasn’t the slam dunk that I thought this game would be, but it is still a W, still a sweep, and still a 4 game winning streak.

The offense did their part with Carlos Guillen headlining the BOOBs (bottom of the order boys). The boys got on a single, first to third, kind of roll in the 4th inning and they plated 4 runs without an extra base hit.

Guillen has killed the ball in this series and he followed his big night with a 3 for 3 plus a walk effort tonight. His last hit, a double, came right handed making it hard to take him out of the lineup – and a little bit easier to take Granderson out against tough lefties.

Brandon Inge looked more like April Inge than August Inge and he came up with 2 hits, including a double. He also ended the game with a slick diving play – also reminiscent of April Inge.

Verlander had moments of dominance (11 K’s is actually quite a few moments), but he escaped what looked to be a big inning in the 3rd allowing only 2 runs. Verlander does an excellent job of mixing pitches – until he gets in a jam. Then he shakes off every off speed pitch and just wants to throw 98 past everybody. Sometimes it works. This time the Indians laid off the high heat. The pitch sequence once the Indians put runners on 2nd and 3rd went:

Toreagas: 6 fastballs
Brantley: Change-up and then 5 fastballs
Carroll: FB-Change-Curve-FB-FB-FB-FB-Change
Choo: 6 FB
Hafner: 4 FB

I understand the fastball is his best pitch, but what’s the harm in the occasional change-up, curve ball, or slider? Twenty-six out of thirty pitches were fastballs.

• Fernando Rodney had the two quick outs before everything got dicey. Heck, he was up 0-2 on Choo before the 2 run homer. And he had Hafner at 2 strikes. Sadly he’s probably burned for tomorrow. Happily Brandon Lyon was efficient. Sadly, something appeared up with Bobby Seay.
• How big was Ramon Santiago’s stolen base in the 8th inning? By getting to second he scored easily on Placido Polanco’s single (also very big, don’t mean to underestimate that) and that proved to be the difference.
• The defense also came up big once again. Inge’s game-ender was already mentioned, but Polanco also made a nifty pick to start a double play.
• Also look back at the play that Miguel Cabrera made coming home with the ball in the 8th inning to gun Hafner at the plate instead of taking the sure out. The run looked expendable at the time. As an aside, did anybody notice how surprised Lyon was when Cabrera gunned it home? Lyon was running to cover first and had to hit the deck when Cabrera threw to Laird.