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  • Stuff you can win

    Not really a Tigers related post here, but something you might be interested in regardless. There is a “Call Your Shot” contest tied into the State Farm All Star Game Home Run Derby.

    The details are as follows, go to www.sfcallyourshot.com/2008 and enter between now and June 24th. Here’s what you have a chance to win”

    * All-expense paid trip for four to the All-Star Game and State Farm Home Run Derby
    * First class hotel accommodations in New York
    * Tickets to a Broadway show
    * $1,000 MasterCard gift card

    The grand prize winner will also get the chance to pick a spot to which two of the Home Run Derby players must compete to try to hit a ball. If the first player hits the ball to the called spot, the promotion ends. If either player succeeds, the fan receives a 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid vehicle and a 2009 season-ticket package for any team.

    Additionally, 10 fans will win first place prizes consisting of a $300 MLB.com gift card and 25 second place prize winners will receive $100 MLB.com gift cards.

    Good luck

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap – 6-19-08

    Toledo 4 Scranton 3
    Mike Hessman doubled. Freddy Guzman singled and walked. Virgil Vasquez allowed 7 hits, but no walks and he fanned 5 in 5 innings. Aquilino Lopez pitched two scoreless innings.

    Erie 2 Binghamton 3
    Kody Kirkland homered and singled. Dusty Ryan added a homer as well. Andrew Kown went 8.1 innings and allowed 3 runs on 8 hits and a walk.

    Tampa 3 Lakeland 6
    Shawn Roof had 3 hits. Brennan Boesch singled, tripled, and walked. Gary Sheffield was 0 for 2 with 2 walks. Rick Porcello allowed 2 runs in 5.2 innings with a walk and 3 K’s.

    West Michigan 1 South Bend 6
    Ronnie Bourquin had 2 hits. Phil Nardozzi allowed 4 runs in 5 innings. Noah Krol allowed 2 runs on 3 hits in 1 inning.

    Oneonta 13 Vermont 8
    Hayden Parrott doubled and homered. Wade Lamont had 3 hits and 2 walks. Joaquin Guzman and Carlos Ramirez each had 3 hits. Darwin De Leon, formally known as Edward Reynoso, allowed 4 runs in 4 innings on 6 hits, 2 walks, and 3 K’s. Aaron Furhman allowed 2 runs in 3 innings but fanned 6.

    GCL Tigers 1 GCL Braves 7
    Luis Salas, Adam Frost, and Jordan Lennerton all doubled. D’Andre Vaughn singled and added 2 walks. Victor Larez allowed 6 runs in just 3 innings. Richard Zumaya pitched 3 innings of relief allowing 2 hits and a walk while striking out 5.

    Minors Notes

    Take 75 North and Tigstown both break down the GCL Tigers roster.

    The Surge notes that Chris Carlson broke his hand in the All Star game.

    Lastly we have a couple of pictures of Flying Tigers that reader Bill Bouie sent me tonight.

  • links for 2008-06-19

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap 6-18-08

    Toledo – DNP

    Erie 5 Binghamton 4
    Deik Scram, Wil Rhymes, and Dusty Ryan all had 2 hits including a homer for Ryan. Josh Rainwater allowed 4 runs, 2 of which were earned, in 6 innings.

    Lakeland 2 Sarasota 8
    Gary Sheffield struck out, flied out, and bounced out twice to second. Mike Bertram had the only extra base hit with a double. Ramon Garcia walked none and fanned 5 in 6.2 innings of 3 run ball.

    West Michigan – DNP

    Oneonta 8 Vermont 1
    Keith Stein homered and singled. Carlos Ramirez also went yard. Luke Putkonen allowed just 3 hits and a walk while fanning 5 in 5 shut out innings. Tyler Stohr pitched a scoreless inning with 2 K’s.

  • Clete for Clevlen

    Clete Thomas has been recalled from his rehab assignment. It has come at the expense of Brent Clevlen. Clevlen didn’t get the bat going, but he did play some slick defense in the outfield. Clevlen and Thomas are probably a push defensively, but Thomas carries a left handed stick which is probably the reason for the move. One would hope that this wouldn’t lead to more platooning of Marcus Thames.

    Leyland was encouraged by what he saw from Clevlen saying

    “I think Clevlen is really, really close to being a Major League player for sure.”

  • Game 72: Tigers at Giants

    PREGAME: Armando Galarraga and Barry Zito in the series finale today.

    DET @ SFG, Wednesday, June 18, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

    Game Time 3:45

    POSTGAME: I saw about one inning of this game today. The Tigers scored their 7th run while I was watching so I can’t take too much credit for the victory. Not having seen the game I can just go by the box score. It was very pretty for Placido Polanco who had 4 hits and a walk.

    Also enjoying a lovely day was Galarraga who had 2 walks and a sac bunt, and allowed no earned runs in 6 innings dropping is ERA to 3.03.

    But what the hell was Leyland doing lifting Thames for a pinch hitter with the homer streak on the line? Come on, how often does a guy get in a position like that? And in a laugher of a game. This wasn’t a nail biter.

    A nice series win with a couple hard fought games. The boys get a day off in San Diego which is a nice treat for a team that has won 10 of their last 12.

  • The Edgar Defense

    When the 2007 season came to a close the Tigers had a top priority on their to-do list and that was to get a shortstop. Carlos Guillen’s knees and inconsistency making the routine play had dictated a move across the diamond to first base. So Dave Dombrowski moved swiftly to upgrade the infield defense while keeping a decent bat in the lineup by acquiring Edgar Renteria. Yet to listen to Tigers fans this year you’d think that they had pulled one of those statues down off the left field wall and positioned it between second and third. The fact of the matter is that Renteria is an average defender.
    (more…)

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap 6-17-08

    Syracuse 4 Toledo 5
    Fernando Seguignol walked twice, homered, and doubled. Freddy Guzman had 2 singles and 2 walks and 3 stolen bases. Anastacio Martinez allowed 3 runs in 5 innings of work. Francisco Cruceta allowed a run in 1 inning on 2 hits a walk and a strike out.

    Erie 1 Binghamton 10
    Deik Scram had the RBI with a single and a walk. Lucas French was knocked around for 6 runs on 7 hits and 5 walks in 4 innings.

    Lakeland 5 Sarasota 2
    Gary Sheffield walked twice, homered, and grounded out. Cale Iorg and Brennan Boesch added multi hit games. Jonah Nickerson pitched 7 innings of shut out ball allowing just 4 hits and a walk while fanning 6.

    Midwest League AS Game
    Kyle Peter went 0 for 2. Chris Carlson had a hit and RBI. Alfredo Figaro allowed 3 baserunners but no runs in his inning of work. Jon Kibler allowed a run on 2 hits.

    Oneonta 4 Vermont 6
    Ben Guez homered and walked. Mark Brackman allowed 6 runs on 4 hits and 3 walks.

  • Game 71: Tigers at Giants

    PREGAME: The Tigers will try to embark on a new winning streak with Kenny Rogers taking the mound. Rogers has only allowed 3 earned runs over his last 4 starts. He’s still not striking many out, he only has 34 on the season, but he’s cutting down on the walks which were hurting him early in the season and running up his pitch count.

    For the Giants it will be lefty Jonathan Sanchez. Sanchez is another guy fanning a batter an inning, and limiting homers to the tune of 6 in 80.1 innings this year with no one taking him yard since May 16th. In his last start he snapped a string of 5 consecutive quality starts when he was touched for 7 runs in 7 innings.

    Your lineup for tonight:

    1. Renteria, SS
    2. Polanco, 2B
    3. Guillen, 3B
    4. Ordonez, RF
    5. Cabrera, 1B
    6. Thames, LF
    7. Rodriguez, C
    8. Granderson, CF
    9. Rogers, P

    Notice that Pudge is starting for the second game in a row. According to Beck it isn’t the end of the alternating catcher plan, but Leyland thinks Inge is still bothered by the oblique.

    DET @ SFG, Tuesday, June 17, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

    Game Time 10:15

    POSTGAME: Very nice bounce back win for the boys and combined with a Cleveland loss the Tigers are now tied for 3rd place. Sanchez was some kind of filthy as he fanned 6 in his first time through the lineup. But the Tigers made some adjustments and got to him a little after being no hit for 5 innings.

    • Kenny Rogers brought it again tonight going 7 strong yet again and keeping the team inthe game when there was no margin for error.
    • Marcus Thames is some kind of wonderful. He got down to his last AB with a full count before crushing a ball to centerfield for a 5 game, 8 hit, homer streak.
    • Edgar Renteria gets on base 3 times including his 2000th hit.
    • Ryan Raburn comes through with the big pinch hit homer and Jeff Larish gets a pinch hit RBI as well.
    • More excellent defense today with diving plays from Brent Clevlen and Marcus Thames and some nice picking by Guillen and Renteria as well.

  • Head west young man

    Joel Zumaya’s rehab assignment is finished. He was to throw for the Mud Hens today so he could work in back to back games, but they opted for a bullpen session instead of the noon start. Following the 14 pitch session Zumaya was on his way to the airport to meet the team in San Diego.

    Now San Diego is his hometown having grown up in Chula Vista. That means he’ll be home for 3 days with the team not playing the Padres until Friday. Here’s hoping that he avoids any manual labor and calls in professionals if need be.

    He won’t be activated of course until the Friday game, which means someone needs to go down. There are 3 bullpen pitchers with options in Freddy Dolsi, Zach Miner, and Casey Fossum (nice sleuthing Eddie) who could be candidates.

  • Ramblings on Sheff’s rehab

    With Gary Sheffield beginning his rehab assignment I’ve heard quite a bit from Tigers fans that are actually concerned that Sheffield is coming back. Sheffield and his struggles have been received a considerable portion of the blame for the Tigers struggles. Now that the team is playing better and Sheffield isn’t around, people don’t want to mess with a good thing. That’s well and good, but why wouldn’t you want to upgrade a struggling position?

    In June the Tigers DH’s are hitting 192/288/365. Jeff Larish has provided the bulk of that production with a few starts going to Magglio Ordonez and Marcus Thames. Prior to hitting the DL Sheffield was “producing” at a 213/344/331 clip. Awful to be sure, and not in line with his contract (who cares, sunk cost) or his reputation, but fifty points of OBP is pretty significant.

    If there’s a chance that Sheffield can produce anywhere close to his pre-shoulder-injury numbers, don’t you want him back in your lineup? Yes I worry that he comes back and the shoulder still isn’t working and he’s allowed to flounder for an extended period of time. But the at-bats he’ll be taking will be mostly Larish’s. And yes you may give up a couple of Raburn’s and Clevlen’s at-bats and their gloves to a certain extent in the outfield which at this point the gloves would be the bigger loss.

    I share the concerns that the Tigers are willing to let Sheffield completely dictate when he’s ready to come back. It’s that tricky trade-off of applauding a guy who tries to play through pain and chastising him when he doesn’t get removed from the lineup.

    It’s a problem not unique to the Tigers. The Indians are dealing with the same things with Travis Hafner and Victor Martinez. It caused Rob Neyer to question

    Really? The Indians were better as a ballclub with a .216-hitting catcher with zero power? Speaking of which, Hafner’s batting .217/.326/.350 in 46 games. No, he wasn’t much good last season, but his numbers this season are simply beyond the pale. Here’s a question I’d like to see someone answer: How many games does the average team throw away in a season on guys who aren’t healthy enough to play, but do anyway? I’ll bet it’s more than three.

    But here’s the rub, especially for stat-heads. When does it go from random fluctuation to performance impacted by injury? Batting average is highly volatile in and of itself and of course it impacts OBP and slugging. So when is that time when you’re no longer riding out a slump and are now throwing away at-bats?

    A seemingly healthy Sheffield hit 200/369/306 in April 2007. That turned out to be a slump as he exploded in the subsequent 2.5 months to bring his season numbers more in line with career expectations. Now here you are in 2008 and your player says he is fine and the medical staff says he is fine, but he’s slumping. What’s the correct move for the team?

    I think it’s clear that the Tigers waited too long with Sheffield. It became too long when Sheffield himself started admitting that the shoulder wouldn’t always “fire” like it should. When the player is saying that it isn’t working it’s probably time to shelve him. But the decision isn’t always so clear cut.

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap & Rehab Report: 6-16-08

    Syracuse 2 Toledo 5
    Joel Zumaya pitched 1 inning, allowing 2 hits and an unearned run, but he walked no one and fanned 2. Clete Thomas is playing again and was a triple short of the cycle with 2 stolen bases so the ankle is probably okay. Chris Lambert fanned 6 in 6 innings while only allowing 1 run on 4 hits.

    Erie DNP

    Lakeland 3 Sarasota 2 (11 innings)
    Gary Sheffield hit 3rd and DH’d tonight. He flew out twice and walked before being lifted for a pinch hitter. I’m not sure if he aggravated something or if it was part of the plan. Brennan Boesch had 4 hits and Ryan Strieby had 3. Duane Below allowed 2 runs on 5 hits and a walk in 7 innings while striking out 3. Jay Sborz pitched 3 perfect innings of relief.

    Wesst Michigan DNP