After winning their first three spring games, the Tigers have now dropped their last three with the last one being an 11-10 loss to the Astros.  Ivan Rodriguez and Wilkin Ramirez both homered and Placido Polanco and Freddy Guzman had three hits a piece.  Magglio Ordonez pitched in with two RBIs despite not getting a hit.

Nate Robertson threw three shutout frames in a nice start but it went downhill from there.  Todd Jones gave six runs in his one inning while Macay McBride gave up four.

This afternoon, the Tigers play split squad games with Justin Verlander getting the start against the Phillies and Yorman Bazardo pitching against the Pirates.

Brandon Inge has always been one of my favorite players but you wonder how many fans he’s going to keep if he doesn’t keep quiet.  He’s not helping his trade situation any and now he’s saying that, while he doesn’t want to catch, he actually does.  Or at least he’s willing to.  Also, Matt Mantei has ended his comeback attempt and he’s going to call it a day after another injury.

Also some book news.  I got two boxes yesterday and it turned out to be both my copies of Baseball Prospectus 2008and the 2008 edition of the ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia. I started flipping through both but that’s over 2,400 pages of baseball. Now I just have to make room for them on my shelf. My copy of the Bill James Goldmine is on the way. And with all of the baseball books I’ve been reading, I think I’m going to start a new blog about baseball books. Hopefully I’ll get it ramped up before the start of the season.

Finally, Tigers Corner 2008 is out.  I got to work with a lot of great people on this and I think the final product turned out to be a success.  You’ll notice some familiar names in the table of contents (not just mine) including several local bloggers.  Being on the inside of the process for a book like this was definitely a learning experience and if you ever plan on putting together a book like this, drop me a line because I can tell you both some of the pitfalls as well as the many pros.

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