Rochester 1 Toledo 5 Mike Hessman went 3 for 3 with a walk including his 9th homer. Brent Clevlen homered and tripled and is now hitting 284/346/526 – but still striking out in a third of his at-bats. Yorman Bazardo only allowed 1 run on 3 hits in 5 innings, but he did walk 3. Casey Fossum added 3.1 innings of 1 hit relief.
Erie 2 Akron 6 Danny Worth singled and walked. Max St. Pierre was 1 for 2 with 2 walks and is hitting a surprising 371/443/532. Danny Christensen allowed 4 runs, only 2 of which were earned, in 5.2 innings.
Lakeland 7 Dunedin 2 Justin Justice was 3 for 4 with a homer and a walk. James Skelton singled and added 3 walks. Duane Below allowed 7 hits and 4 walks in 5 innings, but only 2 runs crossed the plate and he added 6 K’s.
Early in the season during the time of the great losing, there were numerous complaints about the Tigers approach at the plate. They were going up their swinging early and swinging often. I didn’t totally buy into the theory because the pitches per plate appearance were in line with league norms. But we didn’t know whether or not they were really chasing more pitches. But thanks to the folks at Fangraphs we now have a handle on this information.
Just this week they started to report out stats related to plate discipline. We now know how often players swing at pitches out side of the strike zone (O-Swing%) versus how often they swing at pitches in the zone (Z-Swing%). And how often they make contact with said pitches.
I brought in the Tigers data through April 29th and added the pitches per plate appearance and the percentage of time players swung at the first pitch. These data are found on the individual player pages at Baseball Reference. The results as well as some league norms for a point of reference are below:
Some things to note:
Granderson, Inge, Guilen, Rodriguez and Jones are all seeing more pitches per plate appearance than at any point in their career.
Pudge, Polanco, and Sheffield, are all swinging at the first pitch less than they have at any point in their careers – and there are some serious track records to work with. For good measure you can add Thames to the list as well.
Inge, Santiago, and Jones rates of swinging at the first pitch are less than half of their career rates at this point.
And yes, Pudge is still chasing more than the league norm. But understand that in the last 3 years his O-Swing% were 37%, 38%, and 41% so this is considerable improvement.
The take away is that everybody in the lineup (and even on the bench) is either meeting or exceeding their career levels of patience. And in terms of first pitch swinging there are some significant, significant changes underway. It’s still early in the season and these numbers could certainly, and I’d expect in many cases, to normalize. But if the team has a quick inning here or there or seem to swing at a few too many first pitches or pitches out of the strike zone, know that they’ve still been better than most in this regard.
PREGAME: Nate Robertson takes the mound looking to earn a 3rd straight quality start for the rotation. Robertson pitched well his last time out working 7 innnings on only 89 pitches. But the Angels bunched their baserunners in the 4th inning when 4 runs scored.
He’ll be opposed by Ian Kennedy who has struggled so far this year. He’s been knocked out in the 3rd inning on two different occasions and with a 15:17 K:BB ratio he looks like he good be pitching for the Tigers. One positive for Kennedy is that he’s only allowed 1 homer in 19 innnings this year.
POSTGAME: We’ll probably hear the naysayers talk about how this wasn’t the Yankees at full strength. They didn’t have two big guns in Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada. Well, tough. Yes it’s a break to play a team when they are struggling or banged up. Just ask the White Sox who took 5 of 6 from a slumping Tigers team that had the top third of the line-up banged up or missing altogether. But they still count as wins. Continue reading Game 29: Tigers at Yankees→
Toledo 3 Louisville 4 Matt Joyce was 2 for 4. Erick Almonte singled and homered. Jon Connolly allowed 4 runs, 2 of which were earned, in 6.2 innings.
Erie 4 Akron 8 Wilkin Ramirez who homered twice yesterday was a homer short of the cycle today. Deik Scram and Ryan Roberson each had 2 hits and Scram added 2 walks.Andrew Kown allowed 4 runs on 4 walks, 4 K’s, and 6 hits in 5 innings.
Lakeland 5 Dunedin 6 Rick Porcello pitched 4 innings of shut out ball before allowing 2 runs in the 5th. He walked 3 and didn’t fan anybody. Ryan Strieby had 3 hits, including a homer, and a walk. Jeramy Laster bested him with 2 homers and a single.
West Michigan 6 Wisconsin 1 I just noticed that every team in the org is on the road tonight. Joe Tucker had 4 hits. Kody Kaiser doubled and homered. Kyle Peter singled twice and doubled. Lauren Gagnier fanned 11 in 6 shut out innings of work.
PREGAME: The Tigers look to get an early grip on the series in New York.
Jeremy Bonderman will look to not walk everyone. He’s allowed 13 in his last 2 starts and 21 in 27.1 innings this season. Somehow he has a 4.28 ERA but it won’t stay that low if he can’t find the strike zone with any kind of consistency.
Andy Pettitte has been up and down this season with 3 quality starts and a couple un-quality ones. His last time out Cleveland got to him for 5 runs in 5 innings on the strength of 11 baserunners and two homers.
POSTGAME: Did the Tigers just make it through a game with only 2 pitchers? Did a starter get 23 outs? Did Placido Polanco hit 2 homers? Yes, it all really did happen.
The Tigers have dealt Jason Grilli to the Colorado Rockies for Zach Simons. This frees a spot for the activation of Francisco Cruceta who will join the team tomorrow.
I’m surprised on a number of levels.
That the Tigers would part with a pitcher given the woes of the starting rotation. The starters aren’t going deep and have generally been unreliable. Meaning the Tigers could use extra options as spot starters (like Zach Miner) and the Tigers have leaned heavily on their long men.
That they’d make the move without Cruceta available to join the team considering Bonderman has walked 13 in his last 2 starts. They might need that arm tonight.
That Grilli would be trade-able at any point in the season.
That Zach Miner wasn’t optioned to Toledo. I think Miner can be effective but the guy has given up runs in 5 of his 10 outings this year. He’s been good in 3 of the last 4 appearances, but still…Grilli has been more effective this year and has pitched 11.1 scoreless innings since some early season rockiness. The longest scoreless streak for a reliever this year is 13.1 IP just as an aside.
As for Simons, he’s a 23 year old right hander in High A ball. He was transitioned to the bullpen last year and bumped up his strike out rate to nearly one per inning. He does struggle some with control with a walk almost every other inning. Beck’s Blog: Cruceta to join Tigers, Grilli traded
Jamie Samuelson blogs about Galarraga bumping Willis to the rotation. Thought this aside was interesting and accurate: Doesn’t it seem like Leyland coddles the underachieving vets, but has no problem criticizing the young guys?
I’m pretty excited that I’ll be participating in a Detroit sports blogger roundtable on WDET 101.9 FM on Tuesday morning. I’m excited because first I love talking about blogging. But second, the other participants in the group are: Big Al of The Wayne Fontes Experience and Side Lion Report, Matt Watson of Detroit Bad Boys, and Bruce Macleod of Red Wings Corner and The Macomb Daily.
The discussion is part of the Detroit Today program and is set to kick-off at 11 am. If you’re in the area you can tune in at 101.9 FM or via their website if you’re anyplace else.
UPDATE: We’re getting bumped for the president. He decided to make a speech today and WDET will be airing that. Perhaps Wednesday morning at 10am.
Bumping this to reflect the new program time: 10am April 30th
UPDATE: Here is the audio from the show. We’re on about 15 minutes in. It was fun being in the studio and talking shop with fellow blogger Matt Watson. The segment lasts 15-20 minutes, but it seemed to fly by.
[audio:http://www.wdetfm.org/audio/detroittoday/371/WEDNDESDAY.MP3]
Toledo 4 Louisville 3
Mike Hollimon doubled, tripled, and walked. Brent Clevlen added 2 hits and a walk. Derek Wathan homered. Eddie Bonine moved to 5-0 with a 6 inning, 3 run, no walk, 8 K effort.
Erie 7 Akron 4
Wilkin Ramirez homered twice, doubled, and walked and is now hitting 316/350/621. Max St. Pierre, Danny Worth, and Ryan Roberson all had multiple hits. Lucas French allowed 3 unearned runs in 4 innings. Freddy Dolsi got his second Erie save with a scoreless inning.
Lakeland – DNP
West Michigan 5 Wisconsin 7
Jordan Newton was a homer short of the cycle. Justin Henry added 2 hts. Manny Miguelez allowed 3 runs on 6 hits, 4 walks, and 5 K’s in 5 innings.
PREGAME: It will be two pitchers going tonight with a combined ERA of 15.51. That combined is added of course and not the average of Kenny Rogers’s and Phillip Hughes’s lines.
Hughes has nearly as man walks as strike outs (10 versus 11) but that bests Kenny’s 15:9 ratio.
The Tigers trot out their full lineup, fresh from an off day.
Granderson, CF
Polanco, 2B
Sheffield, DH
Ordonez, RF
Cabrera, 1B
Guillen, 3B
Renteria, SS
Rodriguez, C
Jones, LF
The Yankees however are a little short and coming from a late night in Cleveland. Jorge Posada is out with shoulder issues and Alex Rodriguez is out with a quadricep injury.
Johnny Damon, CF
Derek Jeter, SS
Bobby Abreu, RF
Hideki Matsui, LF
Jason Giambi, DH
Shelley Duncan, 1B
Morgan Ensberg, 3B
Robinson Cano, 2B
Chris Stewart, C
Programming Note: This will be simulcast on FSN and FSN+ until 10pm. At that time the Red Wings will be on FSN and the Tigers on FSN+.
It’s the first day off the Tigers have had in awhile. In the interest of sparking discussion that deviates a little bit from “The Tigers need to bench Gary Sheffield in favor of Brandon Inge” (which given the historical feelings about Inge I find to be a surprising sentiment) I thought we’d talk about the home of the Tigers.
For those of you who have been to Comerica this year, or in year’s past even, what are your thoughts on the place. Give me two: a)Favorite things about the park b)least favorite things about the park c)simple changes that could be made to make it better (I’m not looking for big reconstructions here, actually feasible things).
Favorite Things
The concourse. It’s big. It’s covered (nice in the rain). You can still see the game. It’s something they really got right.
The food selection. You have choices. While some might call it heresy to have anything but a dog, I like being able to get the Mucho Nacho, or a Pulled Pork sandwich in the beer hall.
Least Favorite Things
Disinterested concession employees. I don’t mind lines due to the place being busy. What I hate are lines because the concession workers don’t seem the least bit motivated to get your order quickly. I know every stand isn’t bad, but it seems to be the rule more than the exception. The stand behind section 213 (where I sit) is one of the offenders.
The under-utilization of the scoreboard. It’s better than it was, with more stats being shown. But I look at other places with comparably sized scoreboards and they communicate so much more information. Plus replays are hardly ever shown. The commercial to replay ratio on the video board is very heavily skewed to the former (ergh Chad Johnson from Lady Janes)
Things I’d change
Go back to larger sized beers. I’m willing to pay for more. But the 16oz cans are a joke, especially in the 32oz cups. Bring back the 32oz beer!
Better utilize the scoreboard. It’s touted as one of the biggest. Use it!
Indianapolis 1 Toledo 7
Mike Hessman, Jeff Larish, and Mike Hollimon all homered for the Hens. Jeremy Johnson allowed just 1 run on 4 hits and no walks in 7 innings.
Altoona 4 Erie 5
Wilkin Ramirez was 2 for 4 with a homer. The Seawolves stole 6 bases, 3 by Freddy Guzman. Benjamin Fritz allowed 4 runs in 6.2 innings. Freddy Dolsi got his first save at Erie with a scoreless inning.
Fort Myers 3 Lakeland 8
Justin Justice, Brennan Boesch, James Skelton, and Jeramy Laster all had 2 hits. Matt O’Brien had a quality start and got the win allowing 3 runs in 6.1 innings with 1 walk and 2 K’s.
West Michigan 9 Cedar Rapids 2
Kody Kaiser singled plus added 2 walks and stole 2 bases. Ronnie Bourquin tripled, singled, and walked. Ramon Garcia pitched 7 strong innings fanning 5 and walking 1.
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