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  • Tigers Minor League Wrap 6/24/07

    Indianapolis 6 Toledo 7
    It was a walk off win for the Mud Hens with Jack Hannahan singling home 2 runs with 2 outs and the bases loaded. Mike Hessman hit his 22nd homer and Ryan Raburn added 2 doubles. Virgil Vasquez was knocked around for 6 runs on 8 hits, 2 walks, and only 1 strikeout in 6 2/3 innings.

    Trenton 3 Erie 5
    Mike Hollimon was 2 for 4 with a homer. Clete Thomas and Matt Joyce also had 2 hit games. Matt Righter started and allowed 3 runs on 3 hits and 2 walks in 4 innings. Kevin Ardoin pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings of relief.

    Brevard County 9 Lakeland 3
    Wilkin Ramirez homered and walked. Joel Roa added 2 hits, and that was about it for the offense. Kyle Sleeth allowed 4 runs, 3 earned, in 4 innings.

    West Michigan 4 Dayton 0
    Scott Sizemore was 3 for 3 with 2 doubles and a walk. Matt O’Brien pitched 7 shut out innings on 5 hits, 1 walk, and 3 K’s. Casey Fien pitched 2 hitless innings for his 4th save.

    Tri-City 6 Oneonta 3
    Ronnie Bourquin and Casper Wells each had 2 hits. Alfredo Figaro allowed 6 runs on 7 hits in 5 1/3 innings.

    GCL Tigers – DNP

  • Game 74: Tigers at Braves

    PREGAME: The Tigers and Braves take center stage on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. This hasn’t worked too well this year, and with tonight’s tilt coming at the end of a 9 game road trip it wouldn’t surprise me to see the team struggle.

    For the Tigers it will be Andrew Miller who looks to hold down an offense that has mustered 1 run in the last 4 games. Hopefully that number stays meager for at least one more night.

    The Tigers will be opposed by Chuck James. James has decent peripherals, but a propensit for allowing the long ball with 14 in 81 innings.

    Omar Infante will start in center and leadoff against the lefthander. Interesting to note that despite plans to get Craig Monroe into the lineup in NL parks by having him man centerfield on occasion, that never came to fruition.

    For more see: DET @ ATL, Sunday, June 24, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

    Game Time 8:05

  • The 4th inning

    Billfer note: Commenter Sam has been breaking the season down into 18 game chunks – because 18 games is 1/9th of the season. So each chunk is an inning of the season you see? He’s been leaving these in the comments, and really it deserves more. So without further ado: The 4th inning by Sam.

    The 4th Inning is over.

    Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record so far in each Inning:

    Inn	W-L	RS-RA	HR-SB-AVG/OBA/SLG	ST-W-L-IP-ERA	RE-W-L-S-ERA
1	10-8	86-79	17-9-235/313/380	5-2-110.2-3.66	5-6-8-4.68
2	13-5	112-97	23-10-308/377/518	9-3-102.1-4.84	4-2-8-5.03
3	7-11	110-96	26-7-310/364/517	7-7-110.2-3.99	0-4-3-7.80
4	13-5	136-75	20-5-324/390/508	13-4-103-4.37	0-1-2-3.47

    I have added stats to each inning. ST is the starters, RE is relievers. I will talk more about the pitching later.

    The offense averaged 7.6 runs/game. They hit double digits 5 times (15,15,12,11,10). Magglio hit 1-18-.476/.558/.635 (7 doubles). Sheff was 5-19-.385/.474/.708. Guillen was a quiet 5-15-.319/.373/.702. INGE was 3-18-.364/.446/.600 as he should thank God he broke his toe which kept him from over striding. Heck even Neifi was over .200 (.217/.280/.261). The only issue is the Monroe/Thames twins who were a combined 2-13-.230/.256/.356. Their AB’s were limited by a lot of games in NL parks.

    I was surprised as anyone by the relievers having a better ERA than the starters. It is kind of funny how the pen had 0 wins (only 1 loss) and 2 saves. In the First inning the pen had 11 out of 18 decisions and 8 saves. The last reliever to get a win was Jose Mesa on May 5 against KC (43 games ago). Another interesting note is that after playing extra innings in 7 of their first 20 games, the Tigers haven’t played one since.

    The starter’s ERA was negatively effected by Nate’s performance in Texas on June 5 (6er with no outs). Take away that performance and the starters had a 3.84 era. Verlander led the starters (3-0-1.23). Bonderman was 4-0 but had a 5.70 era. Durbin was 2-2-4.30. Maroth was 2-0 with a 4.24 era but had 32 runners in 17 innings (with 0 Hrs). Andrew Miller split his 2 starts with a 5.56 era.

    Out of the pen the Tigers got perfect performances from unlikely sources as Seay, Miner, DLC, and Lopez combined for 12 scoreless innings. Grilli had a 2.08 era in 13 innings. The only relievers over 5 were Ledezma (5.14 in 7 innings) and Rodney (8.10 in 6.1 innings allowing 14 runners!!)

    As you can see a 13-5 inning is an impressive performance. The run differential is staggering. The next inning will feature a 13 game homestand with tougher competition (but the Tigers have been better on the road). 10-12 wins in the 5th inning would make me happy.

  • links for 2007-06-24

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap 6/23/07

    Indianapolis 3 Toledo 4
    Ramon Santiago has been hitting well lately and added a 4 for 4 night. Chris Shelton hit his 6th homer. Corey Hamman started and allowed 1 run on 4 hits, 1 walk, and 4 K’s.

    Trenton 2 Erie 7
    Clete Thomas was 3 for 4 with a homer and a walk plus 3 stolen bases. Jackson Melian had 2 homers and a walk. Eddie Bonine allowed just an unearned run on 3 hits and no walks over 7 innings. Zach Miner made his second rehab appearance and allowed a run on 2 hits and a walk in 1 inning. Randor Bierd added a scoreless inning.

    Brevard County 5 Lakeland 13
    A whole lot of offense in this one with Max Leon, Mike Hernandez, and Ryan Roberson all with 3 hit games. Wilkin Ramirez homered, singled, and walked and is now hitting 275/308/439. Cameron Maybin doulbed and walked twice. Angel Castro allowed 10 hits and 3 walks for 5 runs in 6 innings.

    West Michigan 4 Dayton 3
    Gorkys Hernandez and Lou Ott each had 3 hits. James Skelton continued his hot hitting with 2 hits. Ramon Garcia allowed 2 runs on 5 hits, a walk, and 6 K’s. Ed Clelland pitched 3 hitless innings of relief for the win.

    Oneonta 3 Tri-City 2
    Mike Sullivan and Chris Carlson each doubles, singled, and walked. Kody Kaiser was finally held hitless with an 0 for 5 4 K night. Guillermo Moscoso fanned 5 while allowed 2 runs on 4 hits and a walk in 4 2/3 innings. Noah Krol went 1 1/3 with a K for his second save.

    GCL Tigers 3 GCL Indians 4
    I think Brent Clevlen should be ready to rejoin Toledo soon.. He doubled and homered. Roger Tomas and Kyle Peter each had 2 hits.

  • Game 73: Tigers at Braves

    PREGAME: And all of a sudden the Tigers have a 5 game win streak. What may be most remarkable, and some kind of record, is that in each of those games, the Tigers have had an inning in which they’ve batted around (or Tiger’d around as my 6 year old son calls it). Five straight games sending 9 men to the plate in an inning.

    Today is a Fox “National” game in which only a quarter of the country gets it. That quarter will get to see Justin Verlander in his 2nd game removed from his no hitter.

    The Tigers will be opposed by Kyle Davies. Davies has a 5.65 ERA. He’s allowed 10 homers in 71 2/3 innings and he walks a batter every other inning.

    For more relevant stats: DET @ ATL, Saturday, June 23, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

    Game time 3:55

    POSTGAME    : After spending the last month bludgeoning teams into submission, the Tigers tore a page out of the 2006 playbook. A solo homer backed a great starting effort while the bullpen made a narrow margin stand up.

    It was the first game the Tigers have won this year when they’ve scored fewer than 3 runs. They won 10 such games last year, and 6 at this point in the season. Then again, the Tigers offense has only failed to muster 2 or fewer runs 11 times this year. Last year it happened 38 times, and 17 at this point in the season.

    Justin Verlander has turned himself into the strikeout pitcher that we all thought he could be with 29K’s in his last 22 innings. Like the no-hitter, he had command of 3 pitches, and against a struggling offense he had an easy time of it.

    Tim Byrdak surrendered a leadoff double, but retired the next batter and Fernando Rodney retired the next two batters without drama. Todd Jones pitched well in the 9th keeping the ball on the edges of the strike zone and the only blemish was a 2 out full count walk to Andruw Jones. That’s 4 routine nights from the pen in a row, and the results is a 6 game winning streak.

    Tigers 2 Braves 1

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap – 6/22/07

    Indianapolis 5 Toledo 6 11 innings
    Jack Hannahan pounded 2 homers and Timo Perez went 3 for 5. Jon Connolly was bumped up to Toledo and allowed 2 runs in 5 innings on 3 hits, 2 walks, and 5 K’s.

    Trenton 9 Erie 6
    Jackson Melian hit a 3 run homer and walked. Andres Torres added a triple and a walk. Jair Jurrjens was knocked around for 8 hits and 6 runs in 4 innings. He walked 3 and fanned 3. Roman Colon, assigned to Erie following his suspension, pitched 2 innings allowing 2 hits and a walk.

    Lakeland Tampa suspended
    They only got 2 innings in before suspending this one. Chris Cody made his Hi A debut and allwed 2 runs on 3 hits. He was opposed by “starter” Kevin Whelan who the Tigers sent to the Yankees in the Sheffield trade.

    West Michigan 4 Dayton 3
    Ryan Strieby hit his 7th homer. Jeramy Laster, Scott Sizemore, and Audy Ciriaco all had multi-hit games. Jeff Gerbe allowed 6 hits and 2 walks while fanning 4 over 7 innings.

    Tri-City 1 Oneonta 3
    Kody Kaiser added 2 more doubles. Chris Carlson and Cory Middleton had the only other hits. Mark Brackman pitched 4 innings of shutout ball allowing only 3 hits. Jose Fragoso followed that with 1 run on 2 hits and 5 K’s over 4 innings.

    GCL Tigers 10 GCL Yankees 0
    This one was called after 5 due to rain. Brent Clevlen finally got going with a 3 for 3 effort. Carlos Ramirez and Roger Tomas were a triple short of the cycle and Hayden Parrott was 2 for 2. Twenty year old Luis Marte allowed just 2 hits over 5 innings while fanning 6.

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  • Rotation straightened out – Andrew Miller stays

    The Tigers have made some decisions on their rotation. Dave Dombrowski was on WXYT and said that Andrew Miller will remain in the starting rotation and Chad Durbin will move to the bullpen when Nate Robertson returns next week.

    I certainly understand the desire to keep Miller in the rotation, he’s been quite good and quite frankly probably give the team the best chance to win right now. But I can’t help thinking back to last year when we kept hearing about how Justin Verlander had such a dramatic increase in innings. And remember how he had ot miss starts and he admitted to being fatigued? Well Verlander had those issues after a full season of professional ball. Miller doesn’t even have that.

    I assume that Miller has an innings limit this year. I’ve asked the Tigers what Miller’s workload ceiling is, and they haven’t provided any information. I’ve also heard no mention of this from the beat writers. So I can’t believe that Andrew Miller is going to be in the rotation for the rest of the season.

    Plus, I’d like to see Miller continue to work on his change-up in the minors, where he can work on it. Jeremy bonderman was rushed to the big leagues because there was no one else, and every year we hear how he needs to work on his change-up. Now in his 4th year he finally appears to have it. Why not give Miller the time to work on it now so he can be a dominant force next year?

    I can understand the reasoning that Miller might as well throw those innings where he can help the team most. And I don’t think it’s been a bad idea at all to have him up here help when the injuries mounted. But the Tigers have gotten past that. They aren’t in a mode of desperation as is evident by the fact they traded 2 starting pitchers (I know Ledezma was pitching out of the pen, but the Tigers admitted they saw his future as a starter) this week. They can afford to let Miller develop and to not overwork him. I just don’t understand why they aren’t using that luxury.

  • Game 72: Tigers at Braves

    PREGAME: Kenny Rogers returns from the disabled list and will be taking on John Smoltz.

    Game Time: 7:35

    POSTGAME:
    This game was just a real pleasure to watch. A couple of pitchers on top of their games, except that the Tigers managed to dissect John Smoltz while the Braves couldn’t solve Kenny Rogers.

    It took Smoltz only 34 pitches to make it through the order the first time. He was wicked with even Placido Polanco swinging and missing at a ball that broke a foot off the plate. But then the second time through the Tigers were able to hang in and see a few more pitches. They didn’t have great results, but it took Smoltz 51 pitches to get through the order the second time. The Tigers had some exteneded at-bats including a 9 pitch effort by Sheffield.

    Now the third time through the Tigers had put it together. Starting with Curtis Granderson they went single-single-pop out-dingle-double-double-walk-single. This offense still continues to amaze me.

    Kenny picked up right where he left off. I was a little surprised to see him lifted as early as he was, but the bullpen came through again. Three innings with only a walk allowed from Jason Grilli, Bobby Seay, and Eulogio De La Cruz was quite impressive – even against a team who is struggling at the dish.

    Tigers 5 Braves 0

  • Maroth traded, probably?

    So Ken Rosenthal says Mike Maroth was traded to the Cardinals. The Tigers deny the story. Then the St. Louis Post Dispatch says that league sources confirmed the rumor. According to the article it was for a player to be named later. The old PTBNL makes it hard to evaluate the trade. But I’ll update as more info becomes available.

    This really doesn’t come as a surprise, it was more a matter of what they got in return.

    I feel for Maroth who became the odd man out in a rotation crunch. He suffered through baseball hell in 2003, missed out on being on the playoff roster due to his injury, and now he’s going from a first place team to a team that is 5 games under .500. I wish Mike the best of luck with the Cards.

    UPDATE:
    A couple notes on PTBNL: The transaction has to be completed within 6 months. So it wouldn’t be a recent draft pick, because they can’t be traded for 12 months after signing (it could be someone drafted last year). It could be a player currently on the disabled list. DL’s players can’t be traded without permission from the league, but they can be included as PTBNL. This could give some credibility to the Braden Looper being said player because he’s currently on the 15 day DL.

    UPDATE: Tiger players have confirmed that Mike Maroth has been traded.

    UPDATE: It will be a minor leaguer. The teams have agreed on a list of potentials and the Tigers will make their selection later this summer.

    I’ll reserve judgement on this trade until we find out who the PTBNL is. I’d caution that just because it is a PTBNL doesn’t mean that it won’t be someone of value. It won’t be a premiere prospect of course, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it be someone near the bottom of the BA top 10 prospect list either.

    Now the deal does nothing to help with the bullpen, but I really do think the Tigers are still waiting to see if Eulogio De La Cruz can be helpful and if Fernando Rodney can regain 2006 form. There’s still plenty of time until the trade deadline if those options don’t work, and the Tigers have been lockstep with the Indians and holding on to the wild card lead so there’s no need to panic.

  • links for 2007-06-22

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap – 6/22/07

    toledo 3 Ottawa 4 10 innings
    Jack Hannahan was a triple short of the cycle and added a walk. Chris Shelton doubled and singled. Ron Chiavacci went 8 innings and allowed 3 runs on 5 hits, 2 walks and 4 K’s.

    Altoona 3 Erie 12
    Nate Robertson made his rehab start and pitched a no-hitter for 6 innings. He threw 72 pitches with 1 walk and 6 K’s. I know it was less competition and results don’t always correlate to stuff, but I’m thinking something was working for him today. Mike Hollimon doubled, tripled, and walked twice.

    Altoona 1 Erie 2
    Dallas Trahern went the distance, with the distance being 7 innings in a double header. He allowed 1 run on 5 hits, 3 walks and 4 K’s. Mike Hollimon pushed his season line to 274/394/469 with a double and a walk.

    Lakeland 6 Tamnpa 7
    Wil Rhymes and Max Leon both had 3 hit games. Wilkin Ramirez hit his 8th homer, and it was off of Anthony Claggett. Claggett you may remember was one of the 3 pitchers sent to the Yankees for Gary Sheffield. Burke Badenhop allowed 6 runs, 4 of which were earned, on 5 hits and 3 walks in 4 1/3 innings.

    West Michigan 7 Dayton 6
    James Skelton and Audy Ciriaco each homered for the Whitecaps. Michael Bertram doubled, tripled, and singled. Duane Below allowed no runs on 3 hits, 2 walks, and 8 K’s over 5 innings.

    Oneonta 8 Lowell 13
    Michael Sullivan had 3 hits, as did Jorge Patino. Sendy Vasquez came off of his illegal substance suspension and allowed 8 runs on 5 hits and 6 walks in 3 innings.

    GCL Yankees 0 GCL Tigers 3
    Hayden Parrott was 3 for 4. Wade Lamont – Gene’s son – singled and homered. Roger Tomas was 3 for 3. Elezar Aponte pitched 7 shutout innings allowing just 3 hits and walk while fanning 6.

    Minors News

    The Tigers formally announced the signing of 17 players fro this year’s draft as well as 2 undrafted free agents. These aren’t really surprises, because many of these players have been playing. Charlie Furbush (4), Devin Thomas (7), and Justin Henry (9) are the only 3 picks from the first 10 rounds to have signed at this point.