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  • Game 89: Tigers at Mariners

    PREGAME: It’s game 3 of the 4 game set and it will be Kenny Rogers taking on Miguel Batista.

    Batista’s peripherals aren’t that impressive. A 5.9 K/9 and a 1.55 K/BB ratio won’t really wow anyone, but he does have 3 straight quality starts. Gary Sheffield should be smiling tonight as he comes in hitting .346 with 5 homers in 31 PA’s against Batista. Looking at Batista’s splits, the key is to jump on him early. The OPS against is 868 the first time through the lineup, and it drops to 738 the second turn.

    For the Tigers Kenny Rogers looks for his 4th straight win since coming off the disabled list. The thing to watch tonight is his endurance. He went from 75 to 84 to 95 pitches in his first 3 starts. He has had plenty of rest with the All Star Break, but he also hasn’t really had a chance to get stretched out yet either.

    Placido Polanco returns to the lineup tonight and Marcus Thames will start in left field again. Otherwise the lineup is full of the usual suspects. Pudge Rodriguez was suspended one game, but he isn’t serving that tonight as he hits 6th.

    Game Time 10:05

    DET @ SEA, Saturday, July 14, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

    POSTGAME    : A pounding headache and 3 straight West Coast games have me feeling out of it, so this’ll be real quick:

    • The first game of the series and the last game before the break the Tigers kicked the ball around. Last night and tonight the defense was quite exceptional – with Brandon Inge turning in 3 highlights over the 2 nights.
    • Of course there was an error tonight, but that was from Kenny Rogers who really hurt his cause. Between the error and the walks, and the grand slam, it really was a defense independent pitching performance.
    • Rogers is typically a ground ball pitcher, but there were a lot of balls in the air tonight.
    • Bruce Froemming is basically a cartoon at this point. But he was pretty consistent, so I won’t get too upset. Kenny couldn’t get calls on the edges of the strike zone which will make for a long night.
    • Batista didn’t look that tough, at least from my viewpoint on my couch in Michigan. But the Tigers couldn’t really touch him.
    • Actually, Granderson, Sheffield, and Rodriguez seemed to hit him pretty hard. Just not enough fell.
    • Still, the Tigers put up a couple runs in the 8th. And Raul Ibanez made a very nice running catch that saved putting the tying run on 2nd with one out.

  • links for 2007-07-14

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap – 7/13/07

    Richmond 7 Toledo 5
    Yorman Bazardo was rocked for 7 runs on 7 hits in just 3 innings. Eulogio De La Cruz pitched 2 scoreless innings. Brent Clevlen went 3 for 4 and is now 9 for 16 since returning to Toledo
    .
    Bowie 5 Erie 10
    Jackson Melian was 3 for 4 with a homer and 5 RBI. Clete Thomas had 3 hits as well and Jeff Larish walked 3 times. Matt Righter allowed 5 runs on 8 hits and 2 walks in 4 2/3 innings. Five relievers pitched shut out ball the rest of the way.

    Daytona 4 Lakeland 0
    Justin Justice 2 was 2 for 2 with a walk. Lucas French went 6 innings and allowed just 1 run on 3 hits in 6 innings.

    Beloit 5 West Michigan 3 12 innings
    Scott Sizemore was 3 for 6 with a triple and 2 RBI. Gorkys Hernandez singled, tripled, and walked. Duane Below fanned 7 in 6 innings and allowed 3 runs on 7 hits and a walk.

    Oneonta 2 State College 3
    Chris Carlson homered, doubled, and walked. Justin Henry had 2 hits and Casper Wells walked twice. Sendy Vasquez allowed 3 runs, 1 earned, on 3 hits and 5 walks in 4 2/3 innings.

    GCL Tigers 5 GCL Phillies 3
    Christopher White, Carlos Ramirez, and Joseph Bowen all had 2 hits. Jay Sborz allowed 1 unearned run on 5 hits and no walks in 3 innings.

    Minors News

    Mike Rojas has been managing the Mud Hens while Larry Parish recovered from ankle surgery. Well, the team announced that Rojas will manage the rest of the year. Parish is slated to return next year.

  • Game 88: Tigers at Mariners

    PREGAME: The Tigers will try and shake off last night’s loss and rebound against Jarrod Washburn.

    Washburn has been excellent in his last 3 starts going 22 innings and only allowing 3 runs. He walks about one batter every 3 innings, and only fans a batter every other inning. But he’s only allowed 7 homers in 106 1/3 innings this season. Against the Tigers it’s kind of a mixed bag. Gary Sheffield, Pudge Rodriguez and Craig Monroe have all had success while Magglio Ordonez, Brandon Inge, and Placido Polanco have struggled.

    That’s not particularly good news for Ordonez who looked to really struggle last night with 3 K’s and 2 weak grounders. I went back and looked at a couple of his at-bats from the end of May, and compared them to his last few games. It appears that his stance is more closed now. At the end of may you couldn’t see his name/number on his back. Now you can. Plus it looks like he might be standing farther away from the plate – at least with his back foot. But I’m not a scout or a hitting instructor so I may be full of it as well.

    The Tigers will send out Jeremy Bonderman who went 8 innings in each of his last 2 starts and allowed a combined 2 runs. In both of those efforts he was pitching without really any run support to speak of.

    It’s an all right handed lineup tonight with Ryan Raburn leading off and playing centerfield. Polanco is still out so Thames will bat 2nd and Infante will play 2nd.

    Game Time 10:05pm

    DET @ SEA, Friday, July 13, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

    POSTGAME: Sure it might not have looked good with Jarrod Washburn racking up 4 strike outs his first time through the order, but he also went to full counts on 5 of the first 10 he faced. But then the Tigers loaded the bases ahead of a Gary Sheffield grand slam. The sixth for the team, each by a different player. They were fortunate though that the Sheffield was still in the batters box to hit it though because he took a very good looking pitch with 2 strikes. But after Thursday night I’m not going to look a gift umpire in the mouth.

    As for Bonderman, he was quite good again. He fanned 5 and walked none, but did allow 2 homers. It looked like he had set himself up with a shot at a complete game by inducing a lot of early contact. However in the 7th inning he started falling behind batters and there was some solid contact. So Leyland ended his night despite being at only 87 pitches.

    The pen did their job with 2 scoreless innings though Todd Jones did put runners on 2nd and 3rd and ran the count full to Ben Broussard before getting him to chase a high fastball.

    Ryan Raburn looked pretty good at the plate. He was willing to work the count and drew 2 walks. Sean Casey came in as a defensive replacement and homered, his 2nd of the year. He also made a real nice pick at first to make both ends of a slow roller to third look sweet. Interesting, though not surprising, that when Casey entered the game he took Thames spot leaving Monroe in left field. Monroe is still lost, and Thames continues to be locked in. Ordonez is also slumping and he hasn’t had a ball leave the infield in the first 2 games of the series.

    Tigers 6 Mariners 3

  • Tigers trade Roman Colon

    The Tigers have traded Roman Colon to the Royals for that famous PTBNL, aka the player-to-be-named-later. Colon’s rehab has been assigned to AA Wichita.

    Impact: zero.

    I’m actually surprised that the Tigers could get anything for Colon, what with the felonious assault indictment and all. One way or another he punched his ticket out of Detroit when he punched Jason Karnuth and broke his face.

    The move does free up a spot on the 40 man roster. There isn’t a pressing need at this point, unless it’s a precursor for something else.

  • links for 2007-07-13

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap 7/12/07

    Richmond 3 Toledo 5
    Brent Clevlen was feeling it tonight with 2 dingers and Mike Hessman added his 27th. Timo Perez chipped in 2 hits as well. Virgil Vasquez allowed 2 runs in 7 innings on 6 hits, no walks, and 3 K’s. Aquilino Lopez struck out the side in the 9th for the save.

    Bowie 1 Erie 9
    Mike Hollimon had 3 hits including his 9th and 10th homers. Jeff Larish went deep twice as well. Kody Kirkland also hit a homer, but only one. Andrew Kown pitched the complete game and fanned 5 while walking none.

    Daytona 8 Lakeland 4
    Wil Rhymes homered, singled and walked. Danny Worth doubled and walked. Kyle Sleeth started and it wasn’t good. He only lasted 1 2/3 innings allowing 3 runs on 4 hits and 3 walks.

    Beloit 4 West Michigan 5 12 innings
    Santo De Leon had 3 hits and Gorkys Hernandez added 2. Jonah Nickerson allowed just 1 unearned run in 5 innings while fanning 5.

    Oneonta 4 State College 3
    Justin Henry and Mike Sullivan each had 3 hits and a walk. Sean Finefrock allowed 1 run on 5 hits, 2 walks, and 3 K’s over 6 innings.

    GCL Phillies 1 GCL Tigers 0
    Christopher White and Carlos Ramirez had 2 hits each, and that was it for the offense. Emmanuel Miguelez was solid allowing 5 hits and no walks while fanning 5 in 6 shut out innings.

  • Game 87: Tigers at Mariners

    PREGAME: Before the season started, this series looked like a nice one to ease into the second half. But the Mariners are the surprise team of the AL. They’ve won their last 3 and are 14-6 in their last 20.

    It’s a great pitching match-up tonight with Andrew Miller taking on Felix Hernandez. Interesting story about the Mariners took place right before the break. The awesome blog USS Mariner wrote that King Felix was throwing too many fastball in the first inning. The post was handed to Hernandez by his pitching coach and mixed things up. The results were sparkling, 8 innings of 2 hit shut out ball.

    Here I lamented Andrew Miller’s reliance on the fastball in the Atlanta start. He definitely mixed in more pitches against Boston. I’m still waiting for thanks from Chuck Hernandez (kidding of course).

    Placido Polanco is sitting out tonight, and left fielder Marcus Thames will bat in the 2 hole with Omar Infante manning the pivot.

    Game Time 10:05pm

    DET @ SEA, Thursday, July 12, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

    POSTGAME: Well, Miller pitched good. He mixed his pitches, and kept people off balance. He also induced more ground balls than in his other starts. He’s a ground ball pitcher, as indicated by his extreme differential in the minors, but that hasn’t shown up at the big league level prior to tonight. Of course 3 of those ground balls were mishandled (one by himself) and it probably cost him an inning of work due to the extra workload.

    Normally that’s a concern, but the bullpen pitched 4 innings of no hit ball and only allowed a walk and a hit batsman. Macay McBride came in and struck out the side in his inning of work.

    As for the offense, not a lot of extra base power, but they did continue to threaten. They just couldn’t push many men across. It happens. The only particularly frustrating spot was not scoring with runners at the corners and no one out.

    As for the weirdness, there was plenty and Beltre was in the middle of it all. On a check swing that went past Pudge, Beltre asked for the appeal and had it granted, and ruled in his favor as a swing allowing him to get to first. I don’t recall seeing that before.

    And then he stole second, prompting Pudge to get upset about Betancourt stepping in front of the plate and getting tossed. It was interference and it does get called on occasion (I think Pudge got that called against the Cardinals earlier this year). And Pudge did bump Winters, not aggressively mind you, but he did bump him so I won’t even dispute the ejection.

    As for the other weirdness, with the Beltre single, and then going to second, and then sliding past second, and then running towards left field while Carlos Guillen repeatedly tagged him, only to have Guillen later drop the ball, and have Richie Sexson come in to score, and have Beltre ruled safe, and then Marcus Thames calling for the appeal that Beltre missed second, and then Beltre being ruled out, and then the run scoring.

    I don’t know what to make of it except that Bruce Froemming must have left his heart and his judgement in San Francisco because Beltre did touch the base. Froemming even indicated he was safe during the play. And Guillen did tag Beltre. Eh, what are you going to do except maybe retire? I think Froemming managed to screw both teams on the same play.

  • links for 2007-07-12

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap 7/11/2007

    INT 7 PCL 5
    It was the AAA All Star game and Timo Perez walked away with MVP honors picking up 3 hits and 2 RBI. Mike Hessman chipped in with a homer.

    Eastern League AS Game – Fogged out

    Daytona 3 Lakeland 4
    Danny Worth went 2 for 4. Justin Justice was 3 for 4 with his 5th homer. Angel Castro allowed 2 runs on 9 hits, no walks, and 3 K’s in 7 innings.

    West Michigan – DNP

    Oneonta 4 State College 1
    Chris Calson doubled and homered. Justin Henry, Mike Sullivan, and Casper Wells all had 2 hit games. Alfredo Figaro pitched 7 shut out innings allowing 5 hits and 3 walks while fanning 3.

    GCL Tigers 5 GCL Blue Jays 2
    Roger Tomas banged out 3 doubles. Shawn Roof singled and added a walk. Brandon Johnson allowed 3 hits and 2 walks while fanning 5 en route to 6 1/3 innings of shut out ball.

  • Let’s talk about me

    With no baseball today, I wanted to do a little housekeeping and update you with some site news.

    Tweaking the look

    First of all I made a small tweak in the template. The content use to size down for an 800×600 resolution. This was kind of a pain in terms of the stylesheet and getting things to display properly. And today I noticed that in IE 6 the display was broken due to my post last night (but I can’t quite figure out why). So I checked my site stats and less than 5% of visitors are on monitors that small. So resizing is no more. You’re at a fixed width now which looks okay for 1024×768 resolutions and up. It will allow me to make the charts and tables a little bigger and easier to see. I hope I haven’t put anyone out by doing this.

    Paying the bills

    Second, I’ve added a couple more advertisements. I’m going to tweak the placements and watch performance. I don’t want to clutter the site too much with that stuff, and if there isn’t a worthwhile payout I’ll just take them down. But if you are in the market for tickets to sold out games, feel free to use the StubHub link or purchase from one of the sponsors on the side.

    You wanna hang out?

    Third, I was pondering a DTW and all other Tiger blog get together at Comerica Park. Many of us bloggers got together last year and had a great time. But I was wondering if there’s interest on the part of the readership here to do such a thing. If you’re interested leave a comment or use the contact form. You’re not committing to anything at this time, I just want to get a ballpark number of people interested in going to the ballpark.

    Delicious Links

    Fourth, for the last month or so you have probably noticed the link posts that come up a couple days a week. I’m using del.icio.us to help me out with it. When I see something I find interesting, I can quickly bookmark it. Then once a day del.icio.us will take all those bookmarks and create a post. I don’t get to provide a lot of context, but it is a really quick way for me to share stuff that I think you might find interesting. Plus, all those bookmarks are then available for everyone to view or search at del.icio.us/detroittigersweblog.

    You talkin’ to me?

    Finally I wanted to give a shout out to the most frequent commentors here. Your top 10 (not counting me of course):

    1. Adam (479)
    2. Kathy (473)
    3. Mike R (455)
    4. Anne (260)
    5. Joey C. (180)
    6. stephen (173)
    7. Kyle J (142)
    8. Dave Wagner (132)
    9. Kevin in Austin (126)
    10. David (124)

    Thanks to not only the top 10 here, but to everyone who helps keep the discussion flowing here. It’s a big help and motivation to me to have this much participation. While we don’t always agree, I appreciate the discussions and the fact that we can keep it civil. So thank you.

  • links for 2007-07-11