Archive for the '2004 Tigers' Category

For more reasons then just baseball, Memorial Day is a very important holiday. I personally salute all veterans, both past and present, along with our current troops defending our country here and overseas.

Memorial Day at one point used to represent the quarter point of the baseball season. Most teams played doubleheaders. Now, with the earlier start, it marks “sort of” the quarter point kind of like the All Star break now represents “sort of” the half way point.

It was a tough weekend for the Tigers as they got swept for only the second time all year. The Tigers kept each game close, but yesterday’s game might have been the most disappointing of the season.

Closer Ugueth Urbina was given a one run lead. He then gave up four hits and two walks, leading to a six run Orioles ninth inning. He only managed to get one out. In the process, his ERA rose from a nice 1.76 all the way to 5.17. A fine pitching performance by Mike Maroth went to waste.

The View From the Bleachers is having a Baseball Blog World Series, and he was nice enough to include my site. If you get a chance, head on over there and cast your vote.

Kansas City is on deck this afternoon. Hopefully they can turn things around.

That was the mantra of the Tigers yesterday. They had struggled against a poor team, and needed to bounce back. And they did, in a huge way. In all, they’d score 17 runs on 27 hits.

Stellar performance number 1 goes to Carlos Pena, who put up numbers you’d normally see on a console baseball game. 6 for 6, four runs, and five RBIs on two homeruns. That one game boosted his batting average from .204 all the way to .236.

Stellar performance number 2 goes to Omar Infante. Omar went four for four, with three double, two runs, and two RBIs. Not bad production from the eight and ninth spot.

Stellar performance number 3 goes to Alex Sanchez. Alex started the game four for four, then dropped off on his final two at bats. He finished four for six, with yet another multi-hit game.

Seven Tigers had multi-hit games. Five had three or more. Five had two or more RBIs. Six scored at least twice.

The honorable mention goes to Nate Robertson, who pitched five strong innings to pick up his fourth win. He left the game with a nice eight run cushion.

Tigers face Baltimore this weekend. Hopefully I’ll get my email fixed, and I’ll be able to square things away with the people who will be writing for the site to give everyone some more diverse readings. This email problem is more and more frustrating because it will start to work for a bit, and I think I’m out of the water, then it will start crashing again.

Kind of typical for sports teams around here. The Tigers clawed their way back up to around .500, and now they’ve dropped two in a row to one of the worst teams in baseball (record wise), the Royals. All this despite outhitting them 12-10.

One of the many surprises, but possibly the biggest, is Alex Sanchez. He again had a good game yesterday, going three for five. I am an OBP advocate, and Sanchez still isn’t drawing many walks. But in his defense, that bunt he has might actually make up for it. If someone has numbers on how effective that is when he does (bunting for a hit) and they’d be willing to share them with me, I’d appreciate it. But if it’s more then 40%, then I’ll take those odds. Bunt for the hit instead of going for the walk.

But his average is up to .361, and he’s had multihit games in five of the last six games.

The Tigers go this afternoon. Hopefully they avoid the sweep.

And for the people who wrote me about writing for the site, I’m still having problems with my email. Basically I can read email, but can’t send any. I did get one out yesterday, but it’s back to crashing IE, which I think is the problem. Thank you for your patience.

It looks like this latest attempt to garner some guest writers was more successful then the last one. For those of you who emailed me or left a comment, thank you for the interest. I’ll find a job for each of you, I’m just having problems with my email right now. Once I get it figured out, I’ll be in touch and explain how everything will work.

Tigers are down early to KC, 2-0.

I tried doing this at the beginning of the offseason, and it had moderate success, but I was wondering if anyone out there in cyberspace would like to write for the site. Steve B., who comments regularly and had one column up, was nice enough to volunteer last time, but due to computer issues, wasn’t able to write more regularly. I hope he’ll be willing to write again, but I’m also hoping to add more people. Basically I’d want volunteers for the following things:

Game Updates – Possibly the easiest, but the most time consuming, you’d be writing commentary on the Tigers as they play their season.

Minor League Update – Takes a little more digging, but I’d like something weekly or twice a week. Might be ideal for a Toledo resident.

AL Central Update – Weekly column. A little more broad of a subject, but I’d be looking for something once a week on the movers and shakers in the division.

And then maybe one or two additional weekly general columns. I’d then be able to focus a little more on the 1984 diary, possibly get my friend up and running on his Red’s blog, and pipe in with a weekly column of my own.

So, if any of this interests you, drop me a line. You get the benefit of having a modest number of people read your stuff, and if you ever decided to go off on your own, you’d have my full support in doing so.

For the third weekend in a row, the Tigers won their three game series. Twice against Texas and now against Seattle, the Tigers seem to be mired in this “just below .500” trend. They’re 9-10 this month, and site at 21-22 on the season. They also sit four games behing four different teams for the wild card spot. They’re also four games behind the division leading Twins and White Sox.

Playoffs you say? Isn’t that a bit optimistic? With this team, maybe. Dmitri Young’s recovery looks to be set back a little, and he’d be a big help. But what Dave Dombrowski could be thinking about is getting one more starting pitcher the rest of the way that could put us over the top. We know this team can hit, but outside of Maroth and Bonderman, I don’t have ton of confidence in their starters.

The other angle would be to stand pat, keep our prospects, and plan for the future. Most of this current team will remain intact next, so adding that last one or two pieces next year might be a better way to go.

I caught the very beginning of this one on the radio, and Dan Dickerson and Jim Price made a point to tell everyone that against Hudson, you had to take advantage of every opportunity. They left eight men on base, so they didn’t reall accomplish that, hence the loss.

Ten hits off of Tim Hudson is no small task. In fact, it’s the first time this year anyone has tagged Hudson for double digit hits. The Tigers just couldn’t capitalize on their chances though. Compound that with the game winning, eighth inning run scoring on a throwing error by Eric Munson, and you definitely have a game that got away. The 3-2 lead would stand, and the Tigers now drop to two games below .500 at the 40 game point.

Fortunately they head to Seattle, where they face a stuggling Mariners team. Walking away with two out of three would be nice.

Mike Maroth lost his first game in almost a month. Go back and reread that sentence, and keep in mind that this is a Tiger pitcher. You’ll then realize how much this team has really improved.

Homeruns were his archnemisis. Bobby Kielty had a career day, hitting two homeruns and driving in four. Jermaine Dye would get in on the action by hitting a solo shot himself.

The Tigers weren’t without opportunities in the 6-2 loss. They left eleven men on base, and drew five walks (no more by Sanchez). Brandon Inge poked his head back above .300 by going two for four.

The rubber game is this afternoon, as Gary Knotts throws against Tim Hudson. Hopefully the Tigers will be able to get the win and leave the first series on their road trip on a winning note.

This time, the Tigers didn’t let a good outing by Jeremy Bonderman go to waste. He pitched seven strong innings, giving up only four hits, three walks and one run, while striking out five. Jeremy now sits at 4-2, which is a fry cry from his 6-19 record last year.

Rondell White and Craig Monroe homered for Detroit, but the most suprising stat came from Alex Sanchez. He doubled his season walk total by drawing two walks.

With the win, the Tigers are back to .500, as they currently stand at 19-19. The Tigers didn’t win their 19th game last year until July 1.

Just a few quick notes. First off, and I heard this from someone so it’s second hand information, but WDFN gave credit for “breaking” the story that the Singing Hot Dog Vendor was silenced to someone over at the Detroit Sports Report on Tuesday. Of course this is hardly breaking news to those of you who frequent this site, because I talked about it late Friday.

Second, I have preliminary plans to make sure there’s a transition, but my wife is due basically any day now. So if you stop by and I haven’t updated, it’s not because I’m lazy (at least this time it isn’t), it’s because I can’t get at a computer. I do have a guest writer lined up, so hopefully there won’t be a noticable break.

The Tigers have somehow been playing a lot of short games, and this was no exception, clocking in at around two and a half hours. When three is the norm, it’s good to know the pitchers are working, and some of the rule changes are possibly speeding up the game.

Jason Johnson pulled his Dr. Jeckyl/Mr. Hyde routine by having a very impressive performance. His blister bothered him, so he came out after five, but he struck out seven. Three relievers shut down the Rangers the rest of the way so the Tigers could take home a 3-1 victory.

Omar Infante hit his second homer of the series. Looked like a carbon copy of his dinger on Friday. Alex Sanchez went 3 for 4.

I went to the game tonight and the Tigers won. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but the last time I saw the Tigers win was when Damion Easley hit for the cycle sometime in 2001. That’s 9 or 10 games. Some interesting notes on the game, but first I wanted to talk about something distressing that I heard.

A lot of you don’t know him by his first name, but it’s Charley. You’ve probably heard him on the radio, and some of you have even heard him on EA Sports MVP Baseball 2004 if you’ve played games in Detroit. Most of you know him as the singing hotdog guy. Charley sold us four hotdogs, and normally he’d sing in his opera style. But, he diplomatically told that he wasn’t allowed anymore.

Why would management want to mute Charley? I have no idea. Charley was true to his employer and nicely told everyone who asked that he wasn’t allowed to sing. Hopefully management will find the folly in this decision, and let Charley do his job the way he enjoys doing it.

We sat in a light rain from the fifth inning on, but three homers set the tone for this one. Back to back jacks by Infante and Inge, and then a two run shot by Pudge gave the Tigers a nice lead. Knotts had a no-hitter through four, but finally gave up a double to Teixeira. Yan finished the game out with four shutout innings to earn his second save.

Probably the strangest play took place in the eigth. Pudge hit a tough grounder to Blalock, who misplayed it and made a weird falling throw which took three bounces to get to Teixeira. Teixeira couldn’t get his glove on it and made a fumbling trap of the ball. The ump couldn’t see the fumble, so he called Pudge out. Tram came out, disputed the call, and after an appeal to the home plate umpire, the call was overturned and I-Rod got the single, and eventually scored.

I’ve never seen a call like that overturned. Good game though. The Tigers took the lead in the first, and never looked back.

This one only took 2:04 to finish, but when it was all said and done, the Tigers would send Oakland home with a loss. Mike Maroth, who we all remember lost 21 games last year, is now sitting at 4-1. His ERA isn’t anything stellar (4.86), but he’s getting the job done. But he was pretty specatular in the Tigers 3-1 win, as he went eight, gave up only five hits, and struck out four.

The Tiger’s bats got to former Tiger Mark Redman early. I-Rod hit a two run shot in the first, and then Rondell White drove in yet another run in the third. Redman would calm down and finish the game, but the three early runs were all the Tigers needed.

I’m supposed to go to the game tonight, so I’m hoping the rain holds. Gary Knotts makes his first start of the season, as he goes up against Joaquin Benoit and the Texas Rangers.

This one was all it was supposed to be. Jeremy Bonderman threw a great game, it just wasn’t enough. In the 2-1 loss, Jeremy went 7 innings, gave up only four hits and two runs, but walked five. Harden was equally impressive, going seven as well. He gave up seven hits, walked three, and struck out eight.

One quick look at the numbers, and it’s pretty encouraging that the Tigers top four hitters are all still hitting over .300. And this is a lineup without one of their best hitters, Dmitri Young. Last year at this time, I doubt if we had four guys hitting over .250. Pitching the last few days has been encouraging. Steve Colyer threw two shutout innings in a high leverage situation, so he’s now gone back to back with shutout two inning outings.

Thanks to everyone for emailing the poker sites they enjoy. I appreciate it, and I’ll be sure to check them out. Whether I actually go there and gamble is one thing, but I’ll be sure to at least check out all of the poker sites.

As an amateur stock investor, one of the things you always look for in a company is reliability and consistency in their earnings. You’d rather have a company with slowly growing earnings then one that makes money one year, and loses money the next.

This is somewhat in contrast to what happens to you if you gamble online. I have a friend who’s played, and he’s said some of the good hands he’ll see in a short amount of time are mind boggling. It’s like somehow the dealer is able to get everyone a better hand then they’d normally be able to get.

Now, what does all of this have to do with the Tigers? Compared to the stock example, the Tigers have hardly been consistent. Take last night’s extra inning 5-4 loss. Our bullpen, up until now, and with the exception of Jamie Walker and Urbina, has been horrible. Our starting pitching has been mediocre to bad. Yet last night, our bullpen pitched nine shutout innings (giving up only four hits). Nine innings!!?? And our league leading offense scored a measly four runs in almost the equivalent of two games.

The video poker comparison is kind of stretch, but this is how I compare last year to this year. Last year was a bad season. You couldn’t find the cards when you wanted too. Now, the cards are plenty, but because of bad pitching, you’re opponents are getting just as good, if not better cards. Makes for a tough gambling night.

But hopefully, the Tigers can bounce back this evening. I really like this pitching matchup, as it has two young potential stars going to head to head.

And one last comment on internet poker, if anyone knows a good Texas Hold’em site, where I can play and check things out before putting any real money down, I’d appreciate the reference. I’ve always done well in our little tournaments, and this would be the next step.

This was the first “normal” game the Tigers have played in a while. No football like scores. No double digit comeback. Just a great outing by Nate Robertson to give the Tigers the series win.

Maybe it’s just Anaheim, who shelled Nate in his last two outings. But yesterday, he struck out seven, and gave up only three hits in 7 2/3 innings.

The Tigers only managed six hits, but they made them count. Rondell White drove in two runs, and both Greg Norton and Alex Sanchez hit solo shots.

So now the Tigers come home. They get the day off today, face Oakland on Tuesday, and finish the weekend off against the Rangers. I have plans on going to the game on Friday, and I’m looking forward to it.

At around 10 pm, I turned off my little office TV and told my wife the Tigers were blowing out the Rangers by 10 runs. Two hours and a chick flick later, I hopped onto CBS Sportsline to see how my Yankee Fantasy players were doing, when I saw that the Rangers had tied the game up. The two teams combined for 18 runs in fifth inning.

Each team used seven pitchers in this one, and Urbina racked up his first loss of the season. In all, the game lasted just touch under four hours.

People also seem to be getting into the recent run by Texas, as they drew well over 40,000 people last night.

The Tigers have a shot this afternoon to take the series as Nate Robertson tried to bounce back from his recent woes.

Carlos Guillen went three for four and drove in four runs. More importantly, he had an RBI triple in the eighth to give the Tigers an 8-5 lead. An innocent enough, and at the time a somewhat meaningless run. But that would be the difference as the Rangers stormed back in the ninth on a shaky outing by Urbina. He did garner his third save, and he and Jamie Walker remain as our only effective relievers this season.

Barry Bonds has now reached base in 30 consecutive games, and Roger Clemens is 6-0 and looking like he’s 15 years younger then he really is. I got to see Roger Clemens throw two times last year, including one of his bids for 300 wins, and it was a special treat seeing possibly the greatest pitcher of all time.

You can say the same thing for Barry Bonds. He might have a few years left, but we’re basically seeing history being made.

At least they didn’t give up ten runs.

The Detroit Tigers lost their fourth in a row last night, and were swept by Anaheim, the first time they’ve been swept this season.

Jason Johnson went five innings, but his struggles came early. By the end of the third inning, the Tigers were already down 5-0. The good news is, the Tiger’s pen threw three shutout innings. Jamie Walker and Urbina have been our most effective relievers. Unfortunately, we can’t pitch them every day.

Rondell White hit his seventh homer of the season, and he accounted for two of the Tigers five hits.

Now, it’s on to Texas. They get today off, and then Jeremy Bonderman will start things off for Detroit.

For the first time this season, the Tigers have a losing record. This month and change start at or above mediocrity has to be one of their longest stretches in a long time, so it’s a victory of sorts. What’s discouraging is how bad the pitching has been of late.

For the seventh time this season, Detroit pitching has given up 10 or more runs in a game. We knew the staff wasn’t going to be great, but their ERA stood at 5.53 before last night’s game, so it’s probably up into the 5.7 range now. Nate Robertson, who looked simply awesome earlier in the year, is now getting shelled regularly. Nate Cornejo will be skipped in the rotation because he’s been the worst of the group, and his status is unclear.

The Angels got off to a good start in the game. By the end of the third, they’d have a six run lead. The Tigers did manage to hit three homeruns in this one, but it was too little, too late.

I want to wish Jay, the webguy over at Grousehouse Media who designed Tigerblog, a happy birthday. You can go wish him a happy birthday yourself if you want. Just click on the Grousehouse Media link, and his contact information is on the site.

The Tigers West Coast run got off to a rough start last night. They started out strong, getting out to a 6-2 lead, but three runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings by Anaheim put this one out of reach. When it was all said and done, the final would be 11-9, and the two teams would combine for 29 hits.

Five different Tigers had multi-hit games. Five different Angels had multi-hit games. But once again, not only was the starting pitching ineffective, but the bullpen couldn’t get anything done. Al Levine, who were paying good money for, now has an ERA of 6.75. And that’s for a reliever and doesn’t factor in inherited runners.

Tonight we’ll have Nate Robertson vs. Jarrod Washburn. Hopefully the Tigers can avoid their first three game losing streak of the year.

Congratulations for another fine season by the Red Wings. I know at this stage, if the Wings don’t bring home a cup, it seems like a disappointment, but a President’s Trophy is impressive. Assuming there’s even a hockey season next year, I think we’ll see some changes on the team. so this will probably turn out to be the last hurrah of the old guard that won us three cups.

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