Category: Game Post

This afternoon is the asphalt game of the 4-game series as Brad “Bad” Penny takes on Trevor Cahill.  Then the Tigers skedaddle to Seattle.

Penny has a slight edge in the matchup, because Trevor Cahill is just not a very good baseball name.  More golf, really.  Watch for wild pitches; he has already had 3 this season, and at the Coliseum wild pitches have a lot of territory to roam.

Last night winning proved elusive (so no Charlie Sheen picture), and now we’re back to pursuing neither / nor.  Also, for once, my predictions fell flat, spectacularly. Although whether or not this is actually indicative of anything remains to be seen (see my publication:  “Incorrect predictions:  variance, or flat-out wrongness?”).

While we contemplate that question, let me say a word about the famous situation where you have the baserunning man on 3rd base and the number of outs is not 2, no, not at all.  The thing to do here is to hit the ball, somewhere, anywhere.  Because the aforementioned baserunning man will possibly score,  thus procuring your team a run.  By no means should you engage in swinging and whiffing–this is highly discouraged.

Last night Jhonny Peralta struck out in this very scenario, which was so rare and shocking that he could not resist doing the very same thing the next time he was at the plate.  Justin Verlander was so disturbed by this performance that he aimed a pickoff throw at the batter’s shoe (a normal baseball shoe;  the A’s left their clown shoes in the locker room last night).

This afternoon, Jim Leyland, known as the consummate player’s manager, will expertly avoid such embarrassment by devising a lineup which is extremely unlikely to produce a runner at 3rd with less than 2 out.

Player of the Pre-game: Austin Jackson

Brad Penny pitched well in his last start, but that was at 51 degrees.  With the warm afternoon Oakland weather, expect less break on the breaking balls, and a lot of long fly balls.  Whether AJax hauls them down or not will make the difference in the game. And let’s see how he responds to not being the leadoff batter.

Today’s xR3L2O lineup:

1. Will Rhymes 2B
2. Austin Jackson CF
3. Brennan Boesch DH
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Ryan Raburn LF
6. Don Kelly 3B
7. Johnny Peralta SS
8. Alex Avila C
9. Casper Wells RF

Jim Leyland has his 1,500th victory along with a bunch of cigars and some champagne (somehow the idea of Ol’ Smokey sipping from a flute of Dom just doesn’t resonate with me), and the Tigers have now climbed back up to the nor-winning-nor-losing mark (7- 7).  Next step: winning! (insert Charlie Sheen picture).

This is the plasticine game of the series, the Tigers having taken the first 2.  It is also the first game of the series which has the Tigers as the favorites, mostly because of the ace-ly presence of Justin Verlander on the mound.  Today also features an odd 6:00 pm PST start time, warm temperatures, and a stiff wind, so some non-Miggy balls may actually have a chance of clearing the park.  Not to fear though, since the warmer weather favors the pitcher with a fastball, and Justin sure has one (yes, I’m going to keep riding the weather horse until it bucks me).

One of the advantages of watching the Tigers in an opponent’s park (besides the fact that visitor-side tickets are easier to get) is the perspective you get from talking with / listening to the opposing team’s fans.  A’s fans were blasting Bob Geren last night:  the team is undisciplined, awful fundamentals (OK, is that really his fault?), bad bullpen management (they may have something there).

And the fans next to me all agreed:  the A’s could really go somewhere if only they had a manager like Jim Leyland. We were sitting in front of the bullpen, and they were all commenting on the difference between the A’s bullpen and the Tigers’–not the pitchers, but how it was managed.  “You guys are flat out professional” one commented.  “It’s all planned out.”

Player of the Pre-game:  Jim Leyland

OK, he isn’t actually a player.  But let’s celebrate his 1,500th, and be thankful he is not…Bob Geren.  Leyland’s lineup was heartily criticized on this very blog.  And yet almost all of his substitutions contributed to the victory:  even Donkey Don Kelly doubled.  And his pitching moves were right on.  So following that Smokey momentum, I will predict that Jackson and Ordonez spark the lineup tonight, with a timely contribution from Santiago.

Today’s Return-of-Magglio lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Ryan Raburn LF
3. Maggio Ordonez DH
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez C
6. Jhonny Peralta SS
7. Brennan Boesch RF
8. Brandon Inge 3B
9. Ramon Santiago 2B

Tonight in Oakland the Tigers have the chance to get to .500 for the first time this season, and in doing so get Jim Leyland his 1,500th career win.

Taking the mound for Detroit will be Rick Porcello, who hopefully will get a night as chilly as last night (no, really, it makes sinkers sink more).

The A’s will look for some relief from their strike-zone-aphobia from last night with Brandon McCarthy, who rarely walks batters (only 1 BB so far this season in 2 starts).

By the way, for all of the fretting about the Tigers not being patient enough at the plate last night, it was interesting to see this from the other perspective:  Gonzalez felt quite the opposite…

“These guys were being very patient,” Gonzalez said. “They’d give you one of these first-pitch swings and miss them, and all of a sudden they wait the next four or five pitches. It’s impressive. It was like a chess game. Every pitch was there but like a little hair off. Again, you live and you learn.” SF Chronicle

Today’s Player of the Pre-game:  Rick Porcello, who has his sinkerball working, gets a couple of double-play balls, and leads Detroit to the 4th straight  in another low-scoring affair.

Today’s What-Rhymes-with-Leadoff? Lineup:

1. Will Rhymes 2B
2. Ryan Raburn LF
3. Brennan Boesch RF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Don Kelly CF
7. Brandon Inge 3B
8. Alex Avila C
9. Ramon Santiago SS

(Also known as today’s Because-They-Bat-Left-Handed-That’s-Why Lineup).

The Tigers packed up Wednesday with a to-go order of walk-off under their belts to travel to Oakland for a 4-game series with their good friends the Oakland Athletics.  Good friends because the A’s are returning home from a road trip which saw them take consecutive series from the Twins and the White Sox.

The Tigers will go from facing the team with the best ERA in the league, to facing the team with the 2nd best (2.73), who recently held the Twins to 5 runs in 3 games.  Add to that the A’s lack of offense and the Coliseum’s large dimensions, and this is likely to be a low-scoring series.

The first game features a left-coast lefty matchup of Phil Coke and Gio Gonzalez, who has only allowed 1 run in 13 innings so far this season, picking up where he left off last season (2nd half ERA of 2.59).  His weakness is a relatively high number of walks, so if the Tiger hitters are patient they may be able to get into the bullpen early.

One of the nice things about Gio Gonzalez becoming so successful is that he is not on the White Sox.  They had him, and traded him–twice.

• Player of the Pre-game: Ryan Raburn. Raburn vs Gio Gonzalez is a career 4 for 5 (.800) with a 2B and 2 HR.

If the Tigers win, Raburn will likely be involved.  If not, the loss can probably be blamed on me for not following the short-but-sweet lucky game post format.

Today’s no-Rhymes-nor-reason lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Casper Wells RF
3. Ryan Raburn LF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez C
6. Jhonny Peralta SS
7. Brennan Boesch DH
8. Brandon Inge 3B
9. Ramon Santiago 2B

Short and sweet for a  W.

(can someone please post the lineup, meetings all morning)

Let’s try short and sweet for a W.

1. AJax – CF
2. Santiago – 2B
3. Raburn – LF
4. Cabrera – 1B
5. Martinez – C
6.  Boesch – DH
7. Peralta – SS
8. Inge – 3B
9. Wells – RF

The smoking hot Rangers bring baseball’s best record into CoPa for a three game set of afternoon games.  The Rangers are 8-1 and lead the majors in Home Runs, Slugging, OPS, oh, and ERA to boot.  They recently took 2 out or 3 from Baltimore, in Baltimore, and the Orioles did not score a run over the last 16 innings.  They’ve been playing pretty well.

Alexi Ogando makes his second career start today.  His first went about as well as it could, as he allowed 2 H, 2 BB and struck out 4 over 6 IPs.  He really only has two pitches, a plus fastball that was in the mid-90s through the 6th last week, and a good slider that he’s not afraid to throw on any count.  What made him so effective as a reliever last year, and in his first start, was good location.  You might see a change-up or two today.

JV goes for the Tigers.  Verlander has dominated the Rangers in his career.  In eight starts, he is 6-1 with a 2.37 ERA and 54 Ks in 49 1/3 IPs. Did you know that JV has the most wins in the AL since 2006 (74) and is second in Ks (975)?

If you are on the fence about heading out to the game, remember that Lower Baseline Box and Upper Box Infield seats are half-price through Wednesday.

Today’s AJax less lineup feature Don Kelly:

1. Rhymes – 2B
2. Boesch – LF
3. Ordonez – RF
4. Cabrera – 1B
5. Martinez – DH
6. Kelly – CF
7. Peralta – SS
8. Avila – C
9. Inge – 3B

Seems to me that Maggs is more of a #2 hitter these days, but JL and I disagree on quite a few things.

This afternoon the Tigers try to bounce back from their first home loss of the season in the rubber game of the series with the Royals.  The Royals send Luke Hochevar to the mound to oppose Rick Porcello

Speaking of Porcello, I happened to overhear one of those baseball science kind of conversations about the effect of temperature on pitching, in which someone was arguing more or less that cold weather is good for curve-ball pitchers, and hot weather is good for fastball pitchers (cold air is more dense than hot and therefore offers more resistance, which ball movement relies on).

So naturally I thought, well Porcello should have a good game tomorrow.  Then I saw the weather forecast for Detroit:  high of 76.  So much for that.

But since game time temperatures are recorded in the box scores, just for fun why not go ahead and see how Porcello did at varying temperatures last season.

Rick Porcello ERA 2010 by game time temperature:

4.14 – sub 70

5.43 – 70 – 79

5.96 – 80 plus

This is somewhat affected no doubt by his progression throughout the season: he struggled for a while, and came on strong at the end of the season, when it was naturally colder. But that begs the question whether or not that improvement was aided by the temperature.  In August he had 6 starts; the first 4 at 82, 80, 83, and 87 degrees, the last 2 at 74 and 75.  The first 4 he had a 6.95 ERA, the last 2 a 3.21 ERA, and he continued to improve into September.

Is it possible his improvement was aided in some way by the weather? Did he get better, or did it just get colder, or was it both? I wouldn’t try to form an opinion either way based on this little bit of data, but it does add an element that I hadn’t thought of before.

Then again, it’s possible that ALL pitchers do better the colder it is, and that’s all that’s showing up here, not anything specific to Porcello,  or to pitchers who rely on a sinker.

And that one is a little deep for the moment, so instead let’s look at today’s no-Magglio lineup (ankle soreness):

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Will Rhymes 2B
3. Brennan Boesch RF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Ryan Raburn LF
7. Jhonny Peralta SS
8. Alex Avila C
9. Brandon Inge 3B

Today the Tigers look to continue unbeaten at home, as Phil Coke gets his 1st start of the season (and only 2nd of his career) against Bruce Chen and the Royals.  Whether or not Coke adjusts to the starting role will likely have a big effect on how this season plays out, and whether or not any of the young prospects get called up during the season.

Bruce Chen has a mixed history against the Tigers.  Last season he was 2-1 with a 6.30 ERA (with 12 walks in 20 innings).  Luckily Miguel Cabrera is fine after his run-in yesterday with the tarp:  in 14 career ABs vs Chen he is hitting .571 with 3 HRs.  Chen will find some relief further down in the order–Inge has 1 hit in 21 career ABs vs Chen.

Expect the Tigers to take a patient approach at the plate with Chen.  In fact, the Tigers have been uncharacteristically patient this season as a whole, and surprisingly lead the league in Pitches per Plate Appearance with 4.13 led by Wee Willie Rhymes (4.69).

Today marks the first appearance of The Ghost in the starting lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Will Rymes, 2B
3. Maggio Ordonez DH
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez C
6. Ryan Raburn LF
7. Jhonny Peralta SS
8. Brandon Inge 3B
9. Casper Wells RF

It’s Homecoming time in the D, as the Tigers bring baseball back to Detroit for the 2011 Home Opener.

The weather is chllin’ (42 and rainy with 2 hours until the 3:05 start, but the rain is expected to go away) but the fans are grillin’ and I don’t expect any of that Yankee stadium empty seat malaise, because that’s just not how Detroit opening day goes.

The Home opener is simply bigger in Detroit,  according to Lynn Henning

Brandon Inge agrees, and says his bit on the subject in the Metro Times

On-field festivities include

• Raising of a Sparky Anderson flag and retirement of his number 11 (the players have also been wearing patch honoring him).
• A moment of silence for Bill Lajoie, Steve Boros, Cecil Kaiser, Woodie Fryman and the victims of the Japan tsunami.
• A military A-10 flyover, courtesy of the 107th Fighter Squadron, 127th Wing of the Michigan Air National Guard
• Game ball presentation by Master Sergeant Michael Lionberger of the US Air Force
• 7th inning stretch performance of God Bless America by Scott Stapp of Creed
• and rally towels for the first 10,000 fans!

The National Anthem will be performed by Committed, the winners of NBC’s The Sing-Off (yes, but can they measure up to Amber Grand?)

The ceremonial first pitch will be delivered by a young person from the C.A.T.C.H. organization, along with “very special guests.” (Ooh, I’ll guess we’ll just have to watch to find out!).

For those lucky enough to be enjoying all of the festivities in person, you might want to check out the new Food Network signature steak sandwiches (not to be confused with Sgt. Lionberger), which will be available in only 8 ballparks, and Comerica is one!

For those who can’t make opening day in person, you can follow the party online at the Detroit News, where they have a live fan blog with lots of photos and tweets and whatnot (I just saw the tarp coming off the field, yea!)

There are many ways to celebrate opening day–1,000 retirees at Fox Run retirement community in Novi will do a pre-game reading to honor Ernie Harwell.

How are you celebrating?  Please post and tell us, especially if you are lucky enough to be there at Comerica.  Go Tigers!

* * *

The Tigers will face the 4-2 Kansas City Royals, the youngest, cheapest, and apparently fastest team in the league (they lead the majors with 14 stolen bases).  And it’s not all small ball; they still have the dreaded Billy Butler.  A well-rested Max Scherzer (he left Baltimore a day early) will try to keep the runnin’ Royals off the basepaths–if not, expect them to test Alex Avila, who has had some early season struggles behind the plate. Not to worry too much though:  Mario and Rod pronounced yesterday that Scherzer will have 9 strikeouts today.

The home opening lineup:

1. Austin Jackson, CF
2. Will Rhymes, 2B
3. Magglio Ordonez, RB
4. Miguel Cabrera, 1B
5. Victor Martinez, DH
6. Brennan Boesch, LF
7. Jhonny Peralta, SS
8. Alex Avila, C
9. Brandon Inge, 3B

The boys look to take a series and get to .500 today.

Chris Tillman was pretty darn good in his first outing, throwing 6 innings of no-hit ball against the Rays, but was pulled after 101 pitches.  Tillman is young and promising, but his first two years in the bigs have been disappointing, at best.  In 124 2/3 IPs, all as a starter. Tillman has a career 5.34 ERA and 1.49 WHIP.  In three career starts against the Tigers, Tillman is 1-0 with a 3.20 ERA, averaging just over 6 innings per start.  This includes a 7 inning, 3 hit, 1 ER, 7 K performance in game 160 last year.

Brad Penny, well, he really can’t do any worse.  On the field, that is.  He seems to be doing okay off the field.  Though it would have been nice for that article to come out after his start.  The best part about the article is his wife is planning on having their wedding in “October or November.” Penny sure did his part last week to keep that timeline in play.

Ryan Perry went on the DL today, it’s retroactive to April 5th.  He has an “infected eye.”  Can you really get pink eye from a pillow as discussed in Knocked Up?  Robbie Weinhardt gets the call.

Tonight’s Lineup includes Don Kelly, Ramon Santiago and both Raburn and Boesch.

1. AJax – CF
2. Rhymes – 2B
3. Boesch – LF
4. Cabrera – 1B
5. Martinez – C
6. Kelly – 3B
7. Raburn – LF
8. Avila – C
9. Santiago – SS

JV looks to get to 1-0 on the season and continue his domination over the Orioles.  Over the last five years and covering 8 starts, Verlander is 5-0 with a 2.52 ERA and 1.10 WHIP against the birds.  JV had a ND in the opener against the Yankees.  Other than his 4 walks and 1 bad pitch to Teixeira, JV pitched pretty well.  Let’s hope he can keep his pitch count down and get into the 7th today.

Brad Bergesen starts for the O’s after their ace Jeremy Guthrie was hospitalized on Monday with pneumonia.  Bergesen’s stats look pretty average over his career –  4.33 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, but his FIP (4.70) and K/9 (4.48), suggest that he’s not all that great.  But I also thought the same about Jake Arrieta.  In his career, Bergesen has decent numbers against the Tigers – 1-2, 3.86 ERA, and a 1.19 WHIP.

Fun fact of the day – AJax led the majors in Ks entering Tuesday (8), but he also leads the majors in pitchers per at bat.

Tonight’s Lineup:

1. AJax – CF
2. Rhymes – 2B
3. Maggs – RF
4. Cabrera – 1B
5. Martinez – DH
6. Boesch – LF
7. Peralta – SS
8. Avila – C
9. Inge – 3B