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  • Game 26: Orioles at Tigers

    PREGAME: If the rain holds off it’ll be Chad Durbin and Adam Loewen.

    Durbin is coming off an outstanding effort against the White Sox on the road. Loewen, has been battling control issues with 5-7-5 walks in his last 3 games.

    Carlos Guillen gets his first night off and Neifi Perez will play shortstop with Omar Infante manning centerfield.

    Game time (theoretically) 7:05pm

    POSTGAME: After a couple of solid starts, Chad Durbin couldn’t find the strike zone with GPS. The Tigers were fortunate to still be in this game after 6 walks in 3 2/3 innings.

    Bobby Seay did a great job in relief not allowing a baserunner until he’d retired 7 straight.

    While Seay was great, Zumaya was outstanding. He gave up a run scoring single, but that was more a credit to Miguel Tejada. He went down and got a low fastball and bounced through the middle. There wasn’t really any solid contact and Joel had his heater and curve ball working – even throwing in an 88mph change up.

    Placido Polanco didn’t take well to that swing and miss last night, and responded with 4 hits. Brandon Inge had his 3rd straight day of decent at-bats. Gary Sheffield deserved better than an 0fer with several hard hit balls and one he just missed on.

    And with the surprise of all surprises, Sean Casey picked up a stolen base. His first since July 9th 2005.

    Tigers 5 Orioles 4

  • links for 2007-05-01

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap – 4/30/07

    Rochester 4 Toledo 1
    Jack Hannahan and Mike Hessman each had 2 hits. Chris Shelton struggled going 0 for 4 with 3 K’s. Brent Clevlen doubled and walked. Yorman Bazardo took the loss on a fine effort. He was 2 outs shy of a complete game an it only took him 100 pitches as he allowed 3 runs on 8 hits, 2 walks and 4 strikeouts.

    Erie – DNP

    Sarasota 7 Lakeland 2
    Justin Justice and Ryan Roberson each had 2 hits. Cameron Maybin doubled in 4 at-bats. Eleazar Aponte only lasted 4 innings before surrendering 4 runs on 9 hits, 2 walks, and 5 K’s.

    West Michigan 6 Kane County 1
    It was a balanced attack with every Whitecap batter picking up a hit and 6 of them having 2 hit games. Angel Castro allowed 1 run on 4 hits, 3 walks, and 3 strikeouts over 5 innings.

    Minors News

    The big news is the suspension of Lakeland Flying Tiger Sendy Vasquez. Vasquez will be out for 50 games for testing positive for a banned substance. Vasquez had a decent year for the Whitecaps in 2006 with a 2.97 ERA, but it’s hard to be a real prospect at age 24 in low A ball.

    Also of note, former Tiger Rule 5 pick Matt Roney was also suspended. He had been pitching in AAA in the Blue Jays organization.

  • Contacting Polanco

    This is something that I actually started tracking a few days ago, but Placido Polanco is off to quite the start this year making contact. Polanco has always been a tough strike out, and for his career he’s made contact with 91% of his swings. For some context, the average is 80%. But this year has been different for Polanco. Going into Monday’s game, Polanco was at 98% with only 3 swings and misses.

    Sean Forman, who has loads of data available at Baseball Reference provided a list of the top seasonal contact percentages for which there is data available.

    Wade Boggs and Marty Barrett are the only players to sustain that kind of contact rate over an entire season. But given Polanco’s history and approach it seems that he could hang with this group for awhile.

    Looking at the names on the list, a super high contact rate doesn’t really spell success, but these are pretty incredible regardless.

    Now as I was typing this up tonight, Polanco picked up just his 4th whiff of the season. That swing-and-miss broke a streak that, by my count, totaled 113 consecutive swings with contact. That dated back to an April 11th game, also with the Orioles. It’s a streak that was pretty much meaningless, yet amazing at the same time.

  • Game 25: Orioles at Tigers

    PREGAME: It’s a beautiful night here in Detroit and a pretty good pitching match-up.

    Daniel Cabrera stymied the Tigers the last time they met allowing only 2 runs and no walks as he pitched into the 8th.

    Jeremy Bonderman has pitched very well for most of the season, save for the first couple innings of his last start. He’s sporting a K/BB ratio of 29/4 which should have earned him a win or two at some point.

    Game Time 7:05pm

    UPDATE: Okay, 45 minutes after commenting on how nice it is it becomes really overcast. I need to pay attention to the weather. Is this the game where the Tigers come out gangbusters and put a bunch of runs on the board for Bonderman, only to have the game rained out before it becomes official?

    POSTGAME    : Bondo gets a win – in start in which he probably had the least command. Funny how baseball works out.

    Miguel Tejada provided the spark and Sheffield started the fire. (look at me with bad metaphors). With Tejada getting upset at an inside pitch, Daniel Cabrera retaliating against Sheffield (who went on to score), and then Bonderman re-retaliating against Tejada again, the Tigers got fired up.

    Sheffield and Magglio Ordonez were only retired one time between them. The combined to draw 4 of the Tigers 8 walks.

    And the bullpen made a lead stand up, without a lot of effort. Wil Ledezma put a couple runners on with walks, but a failed sacrifice and 2 caught stealings were a nightmare for those who are proponents of small ball.

    Fernando Rodney got the save in 2 1/3 innings with the only runner coming on an error by Brandon Inge.

  • links for 2007-04-30

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap – 4/29/07

    Rochester 9 Toledo 6
    Kevin Hooper went 4 for 5 with 2 doubles. Chris Shelton added 2 doubles and 2 walks and is now sporting a 301/422/458 line. Dennis Tankersley went 7 2/3 innings allowing 3 runs on 7 hits.

    Erie 1 Bowie 2
    Mike Hollimon walked twice. Despite a 242 batting average he has a 415 OBP and is slugging 452. Jon Connolly allowed 1 run on 3 hits over 5 innings.

    Sarasota 7 Lakeland 8
    Justin Justice homered and singled to raise his season line to 304/349/582. Cameron maybiin was 1 for 3 with 2 walks. Lucas French surrendered 4 unearned runs in 5 innings walking 1 and fanning 3.

    West Michigan 0 Peoria 4
    James Skelton was 3 for 3 with a walk. Deik Scram added 2 hits. Lauren Gagnier allowed 4 runs in 6 innings.

  • Game 24: Twins at Tigers

    PREGAME: The Tigers look to stave off the sweep and they’ll have their hands full with Johan Santana.

    He’ll be opposed by Mike Maroth. Maroth has struggled with consistency this year, and couldn’t make it the 5 innings to qualify for the win last week in LA.

    Maroth told Mario Impemba that he’s been struggling with his release point this year. Fortunately we can take a look at this. Maroth has 2 starts in enhanced GameDay parks.
    Mike Maroth Release Point
    He seems to have a almost a foot of variability laterally, and it seemed to be more pronounced in the Angels game.

    Game Time 1:05pm

    POSTGAME    : Today was pretty much the antithesis of yesterday’s effort. Win or lose, the Tigers played a much more complete game today. While Johan wasn’t Freakin’ Johan today, the Tigers played a part in that. They forced 114 pitches in only 6 innings, drawing 3 walks. And it’s not that Santana was wild (80 strikes vs. 34 balls), but the Tigers managed to hang around in at-bats long enough for something to happen. While they didn’t break through for many runs, they had Santana pitching from the stretch the whole game.

    Individually, Magglio Ordonez is as locked in as it gets. And Brandon Inge at least got a one day reprieve from his slump reaching base every time and of course knocking the walk-off homer. Hopefully it’s the beginning of something rather than a blip. It’s always nice to see a struggling player be the hero.

    Mike Maroth pitched his best game of the year, and with only 1 walk, seemed to regain some of his control.

    The bullpen did their job, although Joel Zumaya did allow 2 walks and a deep fly. At least no runs crossed the plate, and Zumaya retired some tough hitters. I still think there is something more than a confidence problem, but I’ll take the positive results.

    And as a final note, Placido Polanco was 6 for 6 in making contact on swings today pushing the streak to 105. (ed waffle note: My numbers are 3 pitches off of the numbers at Baseball Reference for the pitches Polanco has seen. One of those pitches was a strike. So this isn’t “official” but I’m working to clarify.)

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap – 4/28/07

    Rochester 3 Toledo 1
    Brent Clevlen tripled and walked, and that was the extent of the offense. Ron Chiavacci had a nice start going 6 1/3 innings allowing 7 hits and 3 runs while fanning 5.

    Erie 6 Bowie 2
    Jackson Melian and Brent Dlugach each homered amongst their 2 hits. Erie knocked out 3 triples, one each for Mike Hollimon, Kody Kirkland, and Dlugach. Eddie Bonine started and allowed only 5 hits and no walks while fanning 3 in 7 innings. The lone run he allowed came on a solo homer.

    Clearwater 7 Lakeland 1
    Cameron Maybin returned to the lineup after missing 2 games with back stiffness. He was 1 for 3 with a walk. Wilkin Ramirez was 2 for 4 with a stolen base. Burke Badenhop was knocked around for 7 hits, 2 walks, and 5 runs in 7 innings.

    West Michigan 2 Peoria 4
    Deik Scram and Audy Ciriaco each had 2 hits. Gorkys Hernandez was 1 for 5. Jonah Nickerson had a strong start allowing 3 runs on 5 hits. He allowed no walks while fanning 9 in 7 innings.

  • Game 23: Twins at Tigers

    PREGAME: The Tigers take on the Twins in an afternoon tilt today. The pitching match-up is Justin Verlander taking on Carlos Silva.

    Last year the Tigers rocked Silva, as did many teams. The torched him for 9 runs on 3 homers in 3 2/3 innings. Of course Silva has been much better this year not allowing more than 3 runs in any of his 4 starts.

    Verlander made 3 starts against the Twins last year, and allowed 2 run in 20 innings.

    And continuing the streak, Placido Polanco swung 7 times and made contact each time last night. By my count that is 95 straight swings with contact.

    Game Time 1:05

    POSTGAME    : I was out and about for most of this one, so I heard parts of the misery on the radio. I went back and watched parts of the game later at night, and it was still pretty brutal. Yuck.

  • links for 2007-04-28

  • Tigers Minor League Wrap – 4/27/2007

    Rochester 2 Toledo 6
    Mike Hessman and Jack Hannahan each went deep for the Mud Hens. Chris Shelton was 0 for 3 with a walk and his average has dipped to .289. Virgil Vasquez had another strong start allowing 2 runs on 7 hits and no walks while striking out 6.

    Erie 2 Bowie 3
    With only 4 hits, there isn’t much to speak of offensively. Brent Dlugach had one of the hits and walked twice. Eulogio De La Cruz had a strong outing going 8 innings and allowing 3 runs on 7 hits with no walks and 10 K’s.

    Clearwater 8 Lakeland 1
    Again, not much offense to speak of with only 4 hits. And Andrew Miller got knocked around as he battled control problems. He surrendered 10 hits and 4 walks for 8 runs in 4 2/3 innings. Cameron Maybin didn’t play for the 2nd straight game. I’ll try and find injury information.

    West Michigan 0 Peoria 1
    Kind of a running theme tonight, but not much offense to speak of. Louis Ott had 2 hits to lead the bats. On the other side Chris Cody was excellent again allowing 2 hits and 1 unearned run while fanning 6 in 7 innings.