Blog

PREGAME: The Tigers look to extend their winning streak to 4 games tonight and they’ll send Jeremy Bonderman to the mound to do it.

Bonderman is coming off the stellar 8 inning shut out performance from Sunday night. He hasn’t faced Boston this year, but he did out duel Curt Schilling last year in Boston. It was a great win, but also the game that cost the Tigers Placido Polanco.

Kason Gabbard will be making his 3rd start of the season. He has struck out more than a batter an inning in that sting, but he has also walked 10 in his last 2 starts.

BOS @ DET, Saturday, July 7, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME Didn’t it have to be number 7 Pudge Rodriguez with the walk off double on 7/7/07? Just a tremendous game tonight, and unlike the extra innings Cleveland game the good guys won.

• It’s pretty remarkable that the Tigers held the Red Sox scoreless for 12 innings. Bonderman and the Tigers bullpen turned in an incredible effort. If it weren’t for that pesky first inning.
• Although it’s hard to comment too much on it because we didn’t see it. Instead we were held captive by Fox’s national coverage.
• I’m tickled for Craig Monroe. He picked up Marcus Thames and knocked in 2 runs. He also laid down a nice sacrifice bunt in the 10th inning. Sure he popped up in the 11th with the bases loaded, but he was hardly alone.
• I was really rooting for the Tigers to score the winner off of Okajima. The symmetry of the Tigers cashing in on the guy that kept Bondo out of the All Star game on a night when Bondo started would have been sweet. Oh well. I guess we’ll just have to settle for scoring off of Jonathan Papelbon instead.
• The Tigers were flirting with disaster walking Ortiz to get to Manny that many times, but it paid off.
• Big time props to the whole cast of characters in the pen. Todd Jones has been great on this homestand and even had success in the 2nd inning of work tonight.
• The only downside is that the Tigers will trot out the B lineup tomorrow. Pudge will certainly get the day off, and Placido Polanco is day to day with an oblique issue. At least they’ve already taken the series.

Tigers 3, Red Sox 2

PREGAME: Both the Tigers and Red Sox spent yesterday thumping their opponents. The Sox are coming off a sweep of the Devil Rays and carry a 4 game winning streak into tonight’s tilt.

The Tigers managed to take only 1 of the 4 games the two teams played in Boston, and will hope to head into the All Star Break by winning back to back series.

Tonight will feature Andrew Miller taking on Julian Tavarez. The Tigers were handled by Tavarez who had been struggling at the time when the two team met up in May. In his last 7 starts Tavarez has posted a 3.48 ERA with a decent walk rate but pedestrian K-rate. He hasn’t allowed a homer in his last 4 starts.

The Tigers will send out Andrew Miller. Miller was knocked around in his last start, but showed a little more than that. He mixed in more off speed pitches and induced some swings and misses. In the end though, 6 of the 8 baserunners he allowed crossed the plate.

The only lineup note I know at the moment is that Mike Rabelo will start in lieu of Pudge Rodriguez. Not sure who will be starting in left field tonight: it will be Marcus Thames. And as a final note, Vance Wilson was transferred to the 60 day DL to make room for Ryan Raburn.

BOS @ DET, Friday, July 6, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: I’ve been critical of the Tigers decision to keep Andrew Miller in the rotation because I’ve felt that he needed more time to develop his secondary pitches. I wanted him to explode on the scene like Justin Verlander did last year and be dominating. Tonight is a glimpse of what I was hoping for. This was by far his best start as he shut down an offense that is good even without Big Papi. He used his breaking pitches and change to fan Manny Ramirez a couple times which was probably the most impressive part.

If he can pitch that well, or even close to that well on a consistent basis I’ll be more than happy to be wrong.

The other big performer was Marcus Thames who hit 3 balls far enough to be homers, but only one of them was the right direction. Fortunately it was the one with the bases loaded as Thames was the 5th different Tiger to hit a slam this year.

• How about Placido Polanco running hard on a pop-up with 2 outs in the 8th inning of a 7 run game and legging out a double?
• The Tigers looked miserable the first time through the order with only one ball making it to the outfield. But the next couple times the Tigers were ripping the ball all over the park.
• Miller did get some help with a remarkable throw from Granderson and tag by Rabelo. He kept the throw low, but it never bounced and Rabelo was able to catch it clean.
• I don’t mind Gene Lamont sending Mike Rabelo on the play he was thrown out on. I think that Lamont has really been a little too conservative this year and in those 2 out situations I’m in the camp of making the other team make the play.

PREGAME: For the first time in 3 series the Tigers enter the last game of a set without the risk of being swept. It sure would be nice to pick up a win today, and a series win before Boston comes to town.

There is quite the pitching match-up this afternoon as 2 All Stars, C.C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander face off.

Game Time 1:05pm

CLE @ DET, Thursday, July 5, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: And what do you know, the Tigers have won 3 of their last 4. It’s amazing how 2 little wins can change the mood. Then again, 2 little losses to the Rangers pretty much wiped out all the good will of an 8-1 road trip.

The Tigers put a thumping on the Tribe and have now won 4 of the last 5 after dropping the first 5 to the Indians.

Sabathia clearly didn’t have it today. He was wild in the first inning and was leaving the ball up in the zone. Fortunately he never settled in, and the Tigers kept the pressure on until Sabathia had hurled 87 pitches in 4 innings.

Justin Verlander was mostly dominant, including a streak of 4 straight strike outs in the 4th and 5th innings. He also didn’t walk anyone, marking his first game with out a free pass since May 15th

• Magglio Ordonez had his first big game in awhile. His 3 hits pushed him back ahead of Ichiro for the batting title. His RBI was the first since June 22nd and the double was the first since June 19th.
• Bonus Maggs info: he’s one walk short of matching his total from last season.
• Placido Polanco was using a new bat today, and was good enough for 3 hits including a homer.
• Craig Monroe got a hit. It was a bloop hit, but there was considerable relief on his part – and a little bit of justice after he hit the ball very well his first time up. Of course Marcus Thames reached base twice and was subbed out for defensive purposes in the 5th inning. No word yet on if Thames or Monroe will start tomorrow.

Tigers 12, Indians 3

PREGAME: Happy 4th of July. The Tigers kick off the second half of the season tonight.

It’ll be Jake Westbrook and Kenny Rogers on the mound.

CLE @ DET, Tuesday, July 4, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05 pm

POSTGAME: Now that I’m back in town, I’ll comment on the last 2 games.

First of all the extra inning loss was a heart breaker, but I thought it was a fascinating game to watch. There was the Hafner/Pudge interference/not in the batters box debate which FSN captured brilliantly. There was the Betancourt issue and again FSN picking it up right away (were they tipped as well?). There was the back and forth of the game. There was a clinic in the advantages and disadvantages of playing no-doubles-depth. But in the end the Tigers lost a tough one so you look for someone to blame.

The bullpen is a typical culprit, but they collectively did pretty well save for 2 homers. Jose Capellan looked awesome for the first 5 batters he faced, and really if Carlos Guillen had come through in the 10th that 11th inning homer would have never happened.

So is it Guillen’s fault? He didn’t have the best at-bat but did deliver a bases loaded single earlier in the game so it’s hard to not call him clutch. With some other non-clutch performances by the rest of the offense maybe they aren’t in extra innings in the first place.

But even then, the Tigers hitters blasted some balls that just turned into outs. Magglio Ordonez had an awesome at-bat that ended in a deep drive to left center. Curtis Granderson hit a rocket to the wall to start the 10th. Pudge Rodriguez hit a deep drive that landed just foul. It’s not like they were flailing hopelessly.

In the end it was just a loss. Nobody was to blame. Of course it’s easier to say that 24 hours later after a win…

Of course tonight’s game was better – they won. The offense had 14 baserunners so that seemed to be back to normal. Kenny Rogers was good enough, and the bullpen was good enough as well.

As was the case with the bullpen, there was some good and bad. Jason Grilli comes into a pressure situation, gets out of the inning unscathed, and then walks the lead-off batter the next inning. Macay McBride then doesn’t do his job giving up an opposite field homer on a 2-2 count. Miner got in a little trouble, but didn’t really get hit hard, and ultimately didn’t allow a run thanks to a great play by Brandon Inge.

The best of the pen though was Todd Jones who recorded his 3rd straight 1-2-3 outing.

• How much fun is Comerica Park where you can get back to back triples? Love the triple.
• Carlos Guillen really brought the glove tonight making 2 great plays on the back hand. He routinely makes the tough plays but can’t make the routine ones. It makes me wonder if moving to first would really help him.
• Speaking of defense Marcus Thames made a very nice diving play. I guess Craig Monroe finally managed to play his way out of the lineup, at least in the short term.
• I had a real good feeling about this game early on when Travis Hafner wasn’t able to score on a ground rule double. Somehow the ball bounced over the highest fence. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a ball bounce over the fence in triplesville.

Tigers 6 Indians 4

PREGAME: The Tigers will see if their 1-0 Sunday night victory will spark something else for the homestand which has been lackluster to say the least. They’ll also try to even the score against the Indians who won the first 5 match-ups of the season before Detroit took the last 2 in Cleveland.

Tonight feature Paul Byrd. The last time the Tigers faced Byrd they knocked out 9 hits and 4 runs, but came up short.

The reason they came up short was because Nate Robertson gave up 5 runs on 3 homers. Nate will be starting again tonight for the Tigers. He is coming off a strong return from the DL in which he allowed 1 run on 4 hits in 5 1/3 innings. Fatigue was his biggest opponent his last time out, this time it will be Victor Martinez.

CLE @ DET, Tuesday, July 3, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05 pm