Blog

PREGAME: Andrew Miller will be pitching on short rest, slightly, he of course of the 4 hour rain delay start. Here’s hoping he pounds the strike zone and doesn’t walk any lefties, like he had a propensity for doing against the Yankees. It was his first start back so I’ll cut him some slack, but he ran into the same pitch efficiency issues he did prior to the injury.

For the Royals it will be Zach Grienke who is back starting after a sabbatical in the bullpen where there was talk of him being a back end guy for the Royals. He made his first start since the beginning of May last week against the Indians and allowed just one hit and one walk in 3 innings before being lifted after 48 pitches. We’ll see how long he goes tonight.

Game Time 8:05

POSTGAME: Ummm. Andrew Miller. Really, really, really not good. Four free passes and he didn’t even make it out of the first inning. And one of the outs was a pickoff. Nice night for Zach Miner though who came in and picked up 12 outs giving his team a chance to get back in it…but they didn’t.

Eight left on base tonight is a sign that the offense isn’t a total wasteland (it means they are getting baserunners), just very disappointing. The star tonight would of course have to be Timo Perez who had 2 doubles, a walk, and would have had a couple RBI if not for Sean Casey being the runner on first when he hit both doubles. (talk about your irony, hours after I bash the reasoning of “he can score from first on an extrabase hit”). Of course that presented Brandon Inge with 2 2nd and 3rd situations where he fanned both times. One of them being the patented check swing. So much for new approaches and breaking out of a slump.

Now the Tigers are looking to avoid a sweep by the Royals. And the 2 long men in the pen won’t be available after long outings each of the last 2 days. Bad, bad scene.

PREGAME: The Tigers, after taking 3 of 4 from the Yankees, head to Kauffman Stadium to take on the 4th place Royals. The Tigers looking to build on the momentum of their first series sweep in eons will send out a line up that features both Timo Perez and Ramon Santiago. See, this is the danger in having Perez on the roster is that Leyland will use him, and bat him 3rd!.

Luckily the Tigers are going up against Brian Bannister so it’s not like it will be tough. Bannister hasn’t allowed more than 3 runs in a game since July 16th, whlie pitching 7 or more innings in 5 of his last 6 starts. Left handed batters have a pretty distinct advantage against Bannister with a 769 OPS against compared to .580 for righties. Of course that probably includes a bunch of guys who normally have OPS’s of 769 or better regardless of the pitcher, which the Tigers don’t seem to possess short of Grandy and Guillen.

For the Tigers it will be Nate Robertson who has pitched better of late including a bad luck loss against the Yankees (crazy hops, crazy routes to fly balls) and a no luck no-decision against the Indians when he allowed 4 baserunners in 8 2/3 innings.

Game Time 8:05

DET @ KCR, Tuesday, August 28, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: I caught the first 2 innings, and got back just in time to see the 8th and 9th. So working mostly off the boxscore I see:

• Sixteen hits for the good guys. That’s good. Offense is still producing.
• Only 3 runs. I’ll have to take a look at the play by play but oh yeah there it is…
• #9 Ramon Santiago – 3 for 4, #1 Curtis Granderson/Ryan Raburn 2 for 4 plus a walk, #2 Polanco – 3 for 5, #3 Timo Perez 1 for 5, #4 Ordonez 4 for 5. One of these things is not like the others.
• But with 13 runners left on base it can’t all be Timo Perez’s fault, but he certainly gets a chunk.
• Nate Robertson, not so much in touch with his inner strike zone with 4 walks in 4 1/3 innings and 92 pitches, only 53 for strikes.
• Jason Grilli was good, again, and kept the team in the game with 3 2/3 perfect innings. He also save the rest of the pen on a night when the starter didn’t help the cause.

A disappointing result for sure and thanks for the active comment thread.

PREGAME: As big as any of the Tigers recent games have been, this one is right on par if only from a fan confidence perspective. Lot’s going into this game:

• a win means the first series win since the Metrodome sweep
• a win means splitting the season series with the Yankees despite all 8 games coming when the team is slumping and injury riddled
• a win probably means a decent outing by Justin Verlander. One of Bonderlander really needs to follow a big win with a strong outing and create some semblance of a winning streak

Mike Mussina has a little bit riding on this game because Moose’s rotation spot is at stake. The Tigers rocked him good in the Bronx last week. I’d be ok if he loses his job if it means a win for the Tigers.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: Well that was fun. The Tigers won a series, and each of the 3 wins had that something extra in them. The first one actually had extra innings, and extra rain. The second had the bullpen hanging on to a 1 run lead, and the third had extra bases galore, even from Sean Casey.

It really says something though when the story of the night when you hang 16 runs on a team is the performance of your starter. Justin Verlander looked awesome. There was more velocity, more bit on his curve ball, and he was in or near the strike zone most of the night. If you’re looking for signs that the Tigers are breaking out of this, getting Verlander back on track is a big part of it.

The offense of course was awesome and fortunate, but you need some of both when you’re going to get 20 hits. Not all of them are going to be pretty, but there were plenty of legit ones as well. Including 3 doubles from Brandon Inge who for the last week or so has looked to have made some adjustments.

Tigers 16, Yankees 0 – certainly looks nice doesn’t it?

PREGAME: It will be a battle of rookies as the Yankees send out phenom Phillip Hughes while the Tigers counter with Jair Jurrjens.

Jurrjens seems to have mastered the Cleveland Indians with 2 strong starts against the Tribe. Of course it’s hard to say what will happen when he faces the Yankees because we’ve never seen him face anyone else.

Hughes is making his 5th start since coming off the DL. He struggled with control in his last start walking 5 in 6 1/3 innings. In the early going he’s done a good job keeping the ball in the park with only 2 homers allowed.

Game Time 1:05

POSTGAME: I missed this entire game, but watched the condensed version on MLB.tv. So really, I have nothing to add to the 150 comments that you guys already covered. I will say that at least in the condensed version, Maybin appeared to have his best game in the field.

Also, I think Leyland is trying to get the Rodney/Zumaya platoon working like last year. There’s a huge misconception that Leyland followed a 7-8-9 pattern with Rodney/Zumaya/Jones to close out games. In actuality, he was more likely to going an inning plus with 1 of the 2 before going to Jones. That way at least one of the set up men would be available the next night.

Great win for the team today, despite only mustering 4 hits. But when 3 of them are homers that can help. But the 5 runs wouldn’t have meant a whole lot if not for the efforts of the bullpen.

PREGAME: Earlier this week the Tigers won a pretty dramatic game and sent one of their young aces out the next night. Things didn’t go so well as Justin Verlander was rocked early and often. Tonight Jeremy Bonderman will try and better that effort, and help rest a bullpen that pitched 6 2/3 innings last night.

A key to that will be getting Bonderman off the mound with fewer that 20 pitches thrown in the first inning, which we know to be a struggle.

The Tigers will go up against Chien Ming Wang. The Tigers knocked around Wang last weekend, but only converted 11 baserunners into 3 runs in 6 innings.

The task will be tough tonight with a lineup with 4 consecutive hitters who don’t exactly scare you. I know that guys need a break after last night, like Rabelo playing was a given. But after Carlos Guillen the Tigers will send up Mike Rabelo, Sean Casey, Brandon Inge, and Ramon Santiago. It’s not exactly murderer’s row. It’s not exactly toe-stubbers row. I’ll amend this slightly. In looking back at the last start Mike Rabelo did have 3 hits off Wang, and Sean Casey hit the ball hard 3 times in that game. Small sample sizes and all I know, but Wang might pitch to their strengths.

Game Time 7:05pm
NYY @ DET, Saturday, August 25, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Pretty disappointing follow up to last night’s game. The extra base hit string is snapped. Bonderman’s slider wasn’t there any he recorded now strikeouts. He threw 100 pitches and didn’t get out of the 6th inning because he couldn’t put anyone away, even going up 2 strikes. Just a terrible showing.

Ordonez had 2 ground ball singles, but when your number 2 hitter hits 3 back to the pitcher and your number 3 hitter fans twice, that doesn’t make for a lot of RBI opportunities.

If you’re looking for bright spots, Jason Grilli was quite good for the second night in a row and pitched 3 scoreless innings. And Brandon Inge had 2 singles, one was solid and one was a snort and he looks to be breaking out of his funk.

But when the perennial whipping boys represent your highlights, you know it was a rough night.