The Detroit Tiger Weblog

Blog

  • Game 64: Brewers at Tigers

    PREGAME: I know I should probably write something about tonight’s match-up between Chris Capuano and Mike Maroth. Instead I’m still basking in the glow of yesterday’s events. The obsession has been fed by all the attention, both national and local. Claims that it was the greatest pitching performance many have ever seen kind of lends to the intrigue. Plus, unlike the Magglio Ordonez homer last year which was a specific moment that will never be forgotten, this was a novel. A page turner that you couldn’t put down for a little over 2 hours. You knew how you wanted it to end for the protagonist, and even if you were sure of the outcome, you wanted to see how the author brought the story to conclusion.

    Plus this was our guy. This wasn’t watching the last 3 outs from some other pitcher on some other team when ESPN breaks into coverage. Sure you root for them because you want to see history. But this was our history, with our team.

    Oh yeah, tonight’s game. Sorry, got carried away there. But one more thing…Craig Monroe didn’t field a single ball last night. Dude stood out there all night and he could have packed his glove full of stale bread to give the seagulls.

    Mike Maroth’s biggest bugaboo this year has been the home run. He’s allowed 15 in 66 innings and only made 3 starts – including his last one – in which someone didn’t trot around the bases. Too complicate matters, the Brewers are one home run off the lead in the National League.

    Neifi Perez starts at shortstop again, and he’s probably earned a little reprieve from being called Neifi $&#*@! Perez.

    Game Time 7:05

    POSTGAME    : Ugh. Rodney. The things is, this wasn’t bad Rodney tonight. Stick with me for a minute, while I’m still sick, I think I’m lucid enough for the moment. Bad Rodney is when he comes in and the count is already 2-0. Or when he gets ahead of a hitter, then throws 3 straight pitches no where near the strike zone. Rodney actually had control last night. Of his 21 pitches, 18 were strikes and all 3 balls went to Bill Hall who has implemented some kind of force field around the strike zone – just ask Justin Verlander. And even 2 of those balls to Hall were pretty good pitches, just off the plate on the outside. They were pitches that could have been tantalizing enough to Hall to swing at, or for the ump to call a strike. It didn’t happen though so with the payoff pitch he grooved a fastball down the middle and Hall grooved it over the bullpens.

    Is this the pitching equivalent of a slump. That you struggle and struggle, and then when you finally do something pretty well, your rocket off the bat finds someone’s glove? I know many of you think that’s probably crazy and that Rodney just sucks and I don’t have the energy, confidence, or evidence to refute you given his recent performances.

    • Mike Maroth allowed 13 runners in 7 innings, but only 1 scored. He was helped by some double plays and some bad baserunning. Yet he stuck around and ate up 7 innings. He also kept the ball in the park.
    • The Tigers offense wasn’t that bad. They had 12 baserunners of their own. The trouble was they were spread out, and only 2 of the hits were for extra bases. So while there were baserunners, they weren’t blowing a ton of scoring opportunities.

    I’m feeling a little better, so the minor league wraps should resume tonight.

  • Verlander says no-no

    Verlander's No-No
    Reuters
    I wish I could type up something poetic or dramatic or chuck full of literary goodness. I don’t really have that in me, and I don’t think I could muster it right now anyways. But watching this unfold was a thing of beauty. Justin Verlander was good in the first inning, and better in the 9th. His defense helped him of course, but with strikeouts accounting for 12 of the 27 outs, he certainly didn’t overtax them. A triple digit fastball, a sharp curve, and a masterful change-up had a pretty good Brewers offense shaking their heads after flailing helplessly at the plate.

    Selfishly, I could care less about the Tigers offense tonight. Brandon Inge was great again, and Curtis Granderson added his 13th triple (and only his 3rd at home), but mostly I just wanted to see Verlander take the mound. The 7th and 8th innings when the Tigers were up only served to help me catch my breath and sigh before moving back to the edge of my seat. I was doing the mental out count down starting in the 5th. “There’s number 14, half way home.” I cursed Bill Hall as he saw pitch after pitch and earned walk after walk. I was thinking that if anyone broke it up, it would be Hall – or worse yet he’d run Justin’s pitch count up too high to finish.

    And yet in the 8th inning when Hall walked, it was the much maligned Neifi Perez who cut down Hall at second base on a fabulous play before Placido Polanco turned over the double play, saving Justin a few more pitches, and a little more energy.

    Not that Justin needed more energy, he was feeding off the crowd that stood when Justin stood and didn’t sit down until they got in their cars to go home. Verlander reached back and hit 102 on the FSN gun at around pitch number 109. After hanging an 87mph curve on pitch number 111 he took a moment for a walk behind the mound. Dan Dickerson later asked if it was to soak in the moment, which was my first thought as well. But it was just so Verlander could harness his adrenaline before throwing pitch 112 which sealed history as it nestled into Magglio Ordonez’s glove. History. Awesome.

    Some other thoughts that didn’t fit in the narrative:

    • Magglio Ordonez who gets hammered for his defense, has really been pretty good this year and a diving grab rescued a liner from a fate on the turf. Probably the closest threat to a hit in the game.
    • I flipped on the radio in the 9th, and if you missed it Dan Dickerson was money. He conveyed the moment without spelling it all out. People knew the situation, they could hear the crowd. Jim Price pretty much stayed out of the way, and Dickerson carried us on the tension in his voice. I’m not saying this just because Dan’s been nice enough to do some interviews for the site, but he is a very very very good broadcaster.
    • I love watching the emotion from Dave Dombrowski, and I love the fact that he keeps score during a game. The fact he’s a fan, just like the rest of us, I find to be very endearing.
    • This was Pudge’s 2nd no hitter after catching Kenny Rogers perfect game in 1994.
    • This was home plate umpire Ron Kulpa’s first no hitter. I thought he was quite good, but a called 3rd strike to Craig Counsell to start the game appeared off the plate. That set up a pretty big strike zone that Verlander used to his advantage. And he threw the same pitch to Counsell in the 9th with the same result.

    A listing of all no-hitters.

  • Game 63: Brewers at Tigers

    PREGAME: Sixty-two down, one hundred to go. As quick as this season is zipping along, there is still a lot of baseball left to play. The last 100 starts with a home tilt against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers just never feel quite like an interleague game, probably due to all the times the Tigers played Cecil Cooper, Robin Yount, and Ben Oglivie in the 80’s.

    But tonight the Tigers and Justin Verlander will take on Jeff Suppan.

    Suppan has been pretty bad his last half dozen starts with a 5.59 ERA and he’s allowed 8 homers, 18 walks, and only 13 strikeouts.

    Verlander is coming off of 7 innings of shut out ball in Texas. Prior to that was his shellacking against the Indians. So there isn’t really a trend here, but on the whole Verlander has a 3.12 ERA for the season so there’s been more good than bad.

    In Baseball Prospectus today there was an article about wasted at-bats, or ABs by sub-replacement-level players. The Tigers have the smallest percentage of such at-bats on the season with only 4.2%. All those belong to Neifi Perez. I bring this up because he’s starting tonight for Carlos Guillen who is still hampered by his hamstring issue. Perez is 6 for 18 lifetime off of Suppan.

    Game Time 7:05

  • links for 2007-06-12

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap – 6/11/07

    Norfolk 6 Toledo 4
    Chris Shelton went yard for only the 4th time this season. Jack Hannahan and Ramon Santiago each had 2 hits. Dennis Tankersley allowed 6 runs in 5 1/3 innings of work. he walked 4 and allowed 8 hits. Eulogio De La Cruz pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings allowing only 2 hits. Another couple solid outings and he’ll be the next candidate in bullpen roulette.

    Erie – DNP

    Lakeland 2 Sarasota 12
    Ramon Garcia made his first start since last year. He was very good for West Michigan in the first half of the year before going down with injury. Tonight he allowed 7 runs on 8 hits in 2 1/3 innings of work. Michael Hernandez and Ovandy Suero each hit doubles.

    Great Lakes 5 West Michigan 4
    Deik Scram and Gorkys Hernandez each had 3 hits. Jonah Nickerson allowed 10 hits and 5 runs over 6 innings.

    Great Lakes West Michigan (in progress)

  • Comerica Hitters Park

    The Tigers offense has been getting all kinds of well deserved pub. They’re averaging 6 runs a game. Little did we know that their pitcher’s paradise has played as a hitters haven so far in 2007.

    Ever since Comerica Park opened in 2000 it has been cited as a pitcher’s park. While it did suppress run scoring a little, it’s always been possible for offenses to generate a decent batting average. Still, that spacious centerfield and deep left field have always suppressed homers. And when the left field fence was brought in it helped to even things out for the sluggers, but still it played to the pitcher’s advantage. Until this year.

    Park Factors help to provide context to offensive events by comparing the offensive events in a home stadium to those on the road. I calculated the 2007 factors using the method described in the Bill James Handbook. In the case of homers, you add all the homers hit by the Tigers and their opponents in Comerica Park and dividing by the number of at-bats between the 2 teams. That number is then divided by the same calculation for when the Tigers are on the road and playing in their opponents parks and the result is multiplied by 100. A value of 110 would mean that it is 10% easier to achieve the feat at home, where a figure below 100 means that the park suppresses the event.

    The table below shows the Comerica Park park factor for 2007, as well as the 2004-2006 seasons. The previous seasons were taken from the Bill James Handbook.

    		2007	04-06
Runs		110	 95
Hits		101	102
Doubles		102	 86
Triples		114	155
Homers		117	 86

    A couple things to note:

    • Comerica is widely regarded as a great doubles park, and that is largely unfounded. Even this year it is barely above neutral.
    • With batting average remaining pretty consistent, the increase in Comerica scoring has to be attributed to the increase in homers, and to a lesser extent doubles.
    • Triples are down, but they are a rare enough occurrence and it is early enough in the season that 2 or 3 triples could really swing this. I have full confidence that Comerica Park and Triplesville will still produce plenty of 3 baggers.
    • Related to triples, Curtis Granderson has single handedly impacted this metric with 10 of his 12 triples coming on the road.

    I don’t mean to diminish the quality of the offense by attributing it to Comerica Park. The team is still hitting 289/349/472 on the road so the offense is just flat out good. We’re still barely more than a third of the way through the season, so it remains to be seen how this will play out. But for a park that has always played big in the past, it sure is playing small now.

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap 6/10/07

    Norfolk 0 Toledo 1 (8th inning in progress)
    With The Sopranos about to start, I’m cheating and writing this one up before it ends. But really, you’re just wondering how Kenny Rogers did anyways. Rogers went 3 2/3 and allowed 3 hits, no runs, no walks, and fanned 2. Two of the hits were singles, and the other was a double. So as long as he feels okay tomorrow, he’ll likely make his next start at West Michigan this weekend. Chris Shelton had 2 doubles for the offense.

    New Hampshire 5 Erie 13
    Clete Thomas picked up 3 hits and Andres Torres doubled and tripled. Kody Kirkland continued his solid hitting with 2 more doubles today. Jon Connolly allowed 4 runs on 4 hits and 4 walks over 5 1/3 innings with 7 K’s.

    Lakeland 5 Sarasota 11 7th inning in progress
    Again, invoking The Sopranos rule here. Wilkin Ramirez knocked his 6th homer and added another hit. Lucas French was rocked for 7 runs on 3 homers in 5 1/3 innings. Paul Hammond allowed 4 runs, 3 earned, and retired nobody.

    West Michigan 2 Dayton 3 11 innings
    Only 5 singles for the Whitecaps offense today. Brennan Boesch had one of them plus 3 walks. Eleazar Aponte allowed 2 runs on 7 hits, 2 walks and 8 K’s over 6 innings.

  • links for 2007-06-10

  • Game 62: Mets at Tigers

    PREGAME: The Tigers will try and take the series today on the strength of Andrew Miller’s left arm. Last year’s first round draft choice will be making his second Major League start. Since his debut he’s been working on incorporating a change-up into the mix. He had it in his arsenal against St. Louis, but only threw it one time.

    The Tigers will be opposed by a guy with a little more experience in Tom Glavine. Glavine is the kind of guy that can give an aggressive team like the Tigers fits. He only strikes out 4.5 per 9 innings, but doesn’t walk many and induces lots of weak contact.

    Game Time 1:05pm

    POSTGAME: I was at a birthday party this afternoon, and just got done watching the game. Fifteen runs will cure a lot of ills, and for the second weekend in a row the Tigers closed out a series strong against a division leader.

    • Andrew Miller was solid. Not spectacular, not dominating, but definitely solid. I didn’t chart every pitch, but I only noticed one change-up, and that was to Wright in the first inning. Still, with his slider and some command of the fastball it will take him a long ways. He also showed quite a bit when pitching with adversity, and didn’t seem to rattle. That’s what I found most encouraging.
    • Tim McCllelland just called a pitch a strike. Seriously, why is he allowed to do this? Is it so he gets extra attention?
    • I had serious short term concerns when today’s 4-5 punch in the order became Marcus Thames and Omar Infante. Not to take anything away from either player, but they pale in comparison to Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen. Turned out to be not so much of an issue.
    • I still have longer term concerns with the health of those 2. Fortunately Maggs doesn’t sound too serious and was more precautionary. Guillen on the other hand? Hamstring spasm? I just don’t know. With the groin and now the hamstring these lingering type injuries are sure to take their toll.
    • Even though Thames final line wasn’t impressive, anyone notice him drive that ball to right center? And against Texas he shot the hole between first and second. Thames is going the other way, which should only help him.
    • Speaking of going the other way, Gary Sheffield made his first journey to Triplesville. He’s still swinging just as hard, but it seems much less pull intensive than earlier in the season. Just check out his 2 opposite field shots in Texas as further proof.
    • And with Sheff on 3rd after the triple, Rod Allen finally got his wish with the squeeze. And Rod even called it to. I know Rod calling the squeeze isn’t rare, but I’m glad he got it right this time.
    • And while it was an excellent bunt by Infante, how did he not get to 2nd? The Tigers have been racking up baserunning miscues at an alarming rate lately. Pudge didn’t know the number of outs and failed to score from second today. And in Texas there were a couple instances where guys didn’t score from 2nd on balls hit deep to right. I feel bad complaining about this offense, but I just want to see them get all the runs they deserve.
    • Oh Jason Grilli. You had been looking so good. And then some hits, and then over throwing, and then the wildness, and then the grooving of pitches. Shake it off Jason.
    • And Fernando. This is 4 straight appearances in which you’ve given up a run. Consistent yes. Good, no. Rodney is the key to the bullpen right now, and really until Joel Zumaya can come back. And a run a game isn’t going to cut it.
    • And those birds, I don’t know. I heard some theory on the radio about moths recently hatching and the seagulls eating moths. I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve had a number of moths in my yard this weekend.

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap 6/9/07

    Norfolk 2 Toledo 3 (11 innings)
    Ryan Raburn was a triple short of the cycle and Kevin Hooper added 3 hits. Jordan Tata pitched 5 shut out innings allowing 4 hits and 3 walks with 2 K’s.

    New Hampshire 7 Erie 2 (10 innings)
    Mike Hollimon doubled twice and is now hitting 261/379/435 on the season. Kody Kirkland added a couple of walks. Jeff Gerbe was solid in his AA debut with 2 runs allowed in 6 innings on 6 hits, 1 walk, and 4 K’s. Danny Zell and Matt Rusch combined to surrender 5 runs in the 10th inning.

    Lakeland 3 Brevard County 5
    Cameron Maybin picked up 2 hits and Wil Rhymes added a double. The Flying Tigers had 7 stolen bases. Burke Badenhop allowed 2 runs in 6 1/3 innings with 1 walk and 6 K’s.

    West Michigan 4 Dayton 2
    Chris Cody allowed 2 runs, 1 earned, over 7 innings. With all the pitching shuffles in the last week, I’m really surprised that Chris Cody wasn’t moved up a level. He has a 1.72 ERA and 83 K’s against 15 walks in 83 2/3 innings. Deik Scram had a single and 2 doubles. Brennan Boesch homered an singled.

    West Michigan 8 Dayton 3
    Deik Scram picked up 2 hits and a walk and is now hitting 345/423/473 on the season. Audy Ciriaco doubled and hit his 2nd homer of the season. Josh Rainwater went 6 innings and allowed 3 runs, 1 earned, on 5 hits, 4 walks,and 4 K’s.

  • Rogers to make rehab start on Sunday

    Kenny Rogers will make a rehab start for the Toledo Mud Hens on Sunday. This has been suspected for a few days, but it became official this afternoon. It’s probably not coincidence at all that he’ll be making the start the same day that Andrew Miller is starting in Detroit. That way, provided success in his rehab outings, Rogers can slide into that spot if Nate Robertson isn’t ready to go. Of course with an off day on Monday things could still be juggled.

  • Game 61: Mets at Tigers

    PREGAME: The Tigers look to rebound after an uncharacteristic offensive funk. In fact, it was their first shut out of the season.

    They’ll have their work cut out for them as they take on Oliver Perez. The 25 year old left hander is striking out nearly a batter an inning, and only walking a third that many. Plus, he’s gone 7 or more innings in 5 straight starts. The Tigers have stacked the lineup with righties with the exception of Sean Casey who is 11 for 24 lifetime off of Perez. Surprisingly, right handed batters have a lower batting average and the same on base percentage as lefties against Perez. However, they slug for about 50 points more than the left handed counterparts.

    Jeremy Bonderman has been pitching like a man on a mission since coming off the DL. He’s allowed only 3 earned runs over 21 innings spanning 3 starts. He’s also received a ton of run support, though he didn’t need it. In those 3 games the Tigers have plated 35 runs.

    Game Time 3:55

    POSTGAME: The bats came through for Jeremy Bonderman again, and he and the bullpen needed every last run. Regardless, it was nice to see the offense back again. It was a tiny strike zone, and the Tigers did a good job taking advantage of that working 5 walks off of Perez and one off of Guillermo Mota.

    • One day after I mention that Carlos Guillen doesn’t look quite right, he responds with a 3 run first inning tater and a ground rule double.
    • I don’t know if it was Perez’s control problems, Magglio Ordonez’s eye, or if the Mets noticed that Guillen had been struggling and were thus more tentative with Maggs. In any case he came up with 3 walks – and tacked on one more double.
    • Jeremy Bonderman looked great for much of the game. The first inning run was a fluke, and he responded well. He was efficient and had the Mets off balance. That’s what made the 7th inning so surprising.
    • The middle guys in the bullpen were good enough. That’s about all I’ll say. Wil Ledezma did get some big outs when he absolutely had to.
    • Todd Jones was making his first save appearance since the debacle in Cleveland – and he looked terrific. He threw strikes, and even picked up 2 K’s. Jones actually induced 4 outs that inning.

    This was a fun one, and even last night despite the results was a great game. It’s been a treat to watch these 2 teams these first 2 games.

    Tigers 8 Mets 7