Archive for the '2008 Tigers' Category

For the second time this season, the Tigers have put up 19 runs as they demolished the Twins 19-3.  The Tigers had all nineteen runs by the fifth inning so it looked like they might leap over that 20 run mark but not tonight.  Magglio Ordonez belted two homers, drove in six and scored four times to lead the way while Placido Polanco had a team high four hits with an RBI and four runs.  Every Tiger starter had a hit and Carlos Guillen was the only starter who didn’t score a run.  Ivan Rodriguez was the only Tiger starter not to drive in a run.

Nate Robertson put together a solid start and he benefited greatly from all of the offense. He improved to 2-5 and he gave up three runs on seven hits and two walks with four strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings.  Aquilino Lopez threw 2 2/3 shutout innings to close out the game.

The rubber game is tomorrow afternoon.  It’ll be Justin Verlander going up against converted starter Glen Perkins. 

The Tigers finished off a series that saw them pile on 30 runs over the Mariners this week.  If anything, this was a series that Tigers needed to turn things around.  The Mariners had as bad of a record as the Tigers at the time and we were also missing Erik Bedard and Felix Hernandez.  It wasn’t always pretty, but the Tigers got the job done and now they ride a three game winning streak into a home series against the Twins this weekend.

Brandon Inge didn’t put the Tigers on the board but he opened the game up with a three run blast in the second inning.  Matt Joyce chipped in with a two run shot and he now has five on the season since getting called up.  Gary Sheffield had a team high three hits to go along with two runs while Magglio Ordonez doubled twice and drove in two.  In all, eight of the Tigers thirteen hits were for extra bases.

Jeremy Bonderman put together a nice start and he’s now 3-4.  He gave up two runs on eight hits and two walks with two strikeouts in six innings.  Freddy Dolsi threw three perfect innings and he picked up his first career save.

The White Sox and Indians are tied 1-1 and if Chicago wins, it’ll be their eighth straight.  Everyone else outside of Detroit has had a tough few games so while the Tigers have made up no ground on the White Sox, they’re close to leaping over the Royals to move into fourth place.

Tomorrow, it’ll be Armando Galarraga going up against Kevin Slowey.  It sure would be nice to keep this winning streak going.

Denny Bautista is going to spend some time with the Hens beginning Saturday for his rehab assignment.  The bullpen has been a pleasant surprise but it sure would be nice to get the fireballer back in there.

It’s been a while since the Tigers won back to back games but they got it done tonight, topping Seattle 9-4.  They scored two in the second and then they piled it on in the third with seven.  It was somewhat disconcerting that they didn’t score after that but it was more then enough for the win.

Marcus Thames had the big hit of the game with a grand slam in that big third inning.  Every Tiger starter got a hit and five had a pair.  Brandon Inge had a nice game with a double, triple, two RBIs and a run while Placido Polanco doubled, singled and scored a run

Kenny Rogers picked up the win despite a mediocre start.  He gave up four runs on eight hits and three walks with two strikeouts.  Zach Miner did a nice job with 2 2/3 shutout innings

The Tigers go for the sweep tomorrow afternoon.  It’ll be Jeremy Bonderman taking on Miguel Batista.

It was also decided that Dontrelle Willis would rejoin the Tigers but he’ll spend some time in the pen.  It was also timely that Clay Rapada hit the disabled list because that’s how the Tigers freed up a spot to make room for Willie.  Armando Galarraga will remain in the rotation for the time being.

In a game that was way more interesting then it needed to be, the Tigers put one in the win column against the Mariners tonight.  The Tigers took an 11-1 lead into the seventh inning only to see it turn into a 12-8 win.  They needed Todd Jones to get a double play in the ninth to get out of what was already a four run inning by the Mariners.

Justin Verlander looked like his old self today.  He gave up just one run on four hits and a walk with seven strikeouts.  The pen didn’t do a great job but they had plenty of runs to work with. 

Four homeruns provided a bulk of the Tigers offense.  Magglio Ordonez, Edgar Renteria, Curtis Granderson and Carlos Guillen all went deep.  Renteria came within a double of hitting of rthe cycle and he finished with five RBIs.  The only Tiger regular who didn’t get a hit was Matt Joyce and even he reached base with a walk.

Jason Grilli has been shooting his mouth off about the Tigers having poor chemistry and Jim Leyland fired back with some explitives.  It’d be nice if the team could use this to get a charge.

Tomorrow, it’ll be Kenny Rogers going up against Jarrod Washburn.  It’s bad when you have a guy like Washburn with around a 5.50 ERA and your starter has an ERA over one point higher.  Hopefully Kenny can find his form tomorrow night.

Jacque Jones has a new home as he was signed to a minor league contract by the Florida Marlins.  Who would have thought back in March that a move from Detroit to Florida would have put a player from a last place team to a last place team.  He’ll start out in extended spring training but he’s expected to be in a Marlins uniform by the end of the week.  It’ll be interesting to see if a change of scenery helps out Jones.

I’m watching the Cubs/Astros game and I was interested in seeing Tim Byrdak getting some time on the mound.  Talk about an odd stat line.  In 9 2/3 innings up until tonight, he has a 1.552 WHIP, yet he hasn’t been credited with an earned run.  And his control problems folowed him to Houston and he has a 3/8 strikeout to walk ratio although two of those walks were intentional.  He’s doing his job against lefties though.  Probably the most interesting stat line is when he goes to a 3-0 count.  It’s a small sample size, but all four batters who have gone to 3-0 against him have drawn a walk.  And when he goes to a three ball count, hitters have an .818 OBP against him.

While the bullpen hasn’t been a huge problem this year, it’s nice to see that Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney are both making their way back.  Both will throw during extended spring training this week and it’ll be interesting to see where they’re both at.

Jim Leyland’s words, not mine.  Looks like Leyland and the front office don’t have the day off while the team does.

Just one day after the Tigers snapped their five game losing streak, they go and suffer another shutout.  At least this time it was against a future Hall of Famer as Randy Johnson and the D-Backs pen held the Tigers to just seven hits.  Placido Polanco and Edgar Renteria both had a pair while Miguel Cabrera had a tough time with three strikeouts, although he did belt a double.

Magglio Ordonez’ 180 errorless game streak came to an end today.  He also went 0 for 4 and he grounded into a double play.  At .307, he’s the only Tiger regular who’s now above .280 so the Tigers team batting average has definitely been in a free fall the past couple of weeks.  Combine this with a league worst 4.94 ERA (this may be before today’s game) and it makes for an ugly combination.

Speaking of pitching, Nate Robertson held the Diamondbacks scoreless through the first four frames but then gave up a pair in both the fifht and sixth innings.   The end result is Robertson’s ERA is still over 6.00 where it’s been since his very first start.  Zach Miner threw two scoreless frames and he struck out two but all that did was keep the game close.

The Tigers get a day off and then Seattle rolles into town.  The Mariners are a half game ahead of the Tigers for the worst team in the American League so who ever loses the series will be in the cellar.  And the Tigers have to be concerned because the While Sox have rattled off five straight wins.  The days of saying, “Well, they’re bad but they’re only three out” are over.  The Tigers are now 6 1/2 games back of first and they’re 4 1/2 games back of the Twins in fourth place. 

The Tigers latest slide continued as they dropped their fifth straight game.  Curtis Granderson drove home Edgar Renteria on a sac. fly in the third and then Miguel Cabrera drove in two with his seventh run of the season.  Unfortunately, it went down hill from there.  Eric Byrnes took Jeremy Bonderman deep in the fifth to make it 3-1 and then he and Zach Miner combined to give up three in the seventh to make it a 4-3 loss.  The game winner scored on a Carlos Guillen throwing error.  I didn’t see the game so I don’t know what happened, but it’s his fifth error since taking over at third base.

Errors don’t always tell the whole story, but Guillen’s other numbers aren’t encouraging at third either.  If you’re a fan of Revised Zone Rating, Guillen ranks pretty far down the list of AL thirdbasemen with a .643 RZR.  Only three other third basemen with at least 100 innings have a lower RZR then Guillen and ironically, one of them is Miguel Cabrera.  Only Morgan Ensberg and Mike Lamb have lower ratings then the two Tigers.  Brandon Inge has the third best RZR of third basemen with at least 100 innings and he also hadn’t made an error.

So the question is, what’s the lesser of three evils.  It looks like Guillen and Cabrera are a wash at best but you’d have to hope that Guillen would improve over time.  Brandon Inge is by far the superior fielder, but then you have his bat in the lineup.  Best case scenario is Gary Sheffield can play most of the rest of the season in left, and that would allow Guillen and Cabrera to swap time at DH, allowing Brandon Inge to get as much time at the hot corner as possible while still keeping the Tigers best bats in the order.

Jeremy Bonderman walked four and struck out five so his strikeout to walk imbalance is still there.  At least he threw six solid innings.  You can fault him, Miner and Guillen for the three runs in the seventh but I think this one falls on the offense.  Once again they scored some runs early, but couldn’t finish and provide the kill.

Tonight it’ll be Armando Galarraga going up against rookie sensation Max Scherzer.  Scherzer has an 18/3 strikeout to walk ratio and the way the Tigers have been hitting, this could be an ugly game if they don’t pick their spots.  Should be a fun game to watch because Scherzer is one of those promising future stars.

This time it was Luke Hochevar who made the Tigers look feeble at the plate.  The end result is the Tigers third straight loss and it’s their ninth loss in eleven games since sweeping the Yankees in the Bronx a couple of weeks ago.  The Tigers managed just six singles and the only hitter with a pair was Miguel Cabrera.  Magglio Ordonez singled but that was pretty much negated because he grounded into a double play.  The only other hitter to reach base twice other then Cabrera was Curtis Granderson, who singled and drew a walk.

Justin Verlander picked up just his second quality start of the season but because of the lack of offense, it turned into his fourth straight loss.  He gave up just two runs on six hits with three walks and three strikeouts.  I still don’t know what’s wrong with Justin.  His walk rate is up and his strikeout rate is down.  That’s usually a deadly combination.  And while he didn’t give up any yesterday, he’s also on pace to give up more homeruns.  If we didn’t need a turnaround so badly, I’d say we give him some extra rest.

Sparky Anderson always said it’s tough to judge a team until 40 games are in the bag and that’s where the Tigers are at right now.  Unfortunately, it’s not pretty and they’re eight game below .500 with a 16-24 record.  Only the Mariners have a worse record in the American League.  Still, they’re just five games out first place so if they can put together a seven of ten streak or something along those lines, they could see a pop in the standings.  And the Indians just moved into first place so that cream has finally risen to the top.

It’s get away day so we have an afternoon game.  Kenny Rogers gets the ball for the Tigers and he’ll face Gil Meche.  Neither have had a good start to the season so we’ll see which one turns it around today.

The Tigers are 16-23 with just one game left to the quarter point of the season.  The Tigers got their share of base runners with nine hits and four walks but they hit into two double plays and they stranded nine men.  Matt Joyce belted his second homer of the season and Carlos Guillen doubled home Placido Polanco for the Tigers only two runs of the game in the 3-2 loss.

Nate Robertson had his best start of the season go to waste.  He gave up just two runs on ten hits without a walk and he struck out two in seven innings.  He needed just 82 pitches to get through those seven frames.

Francisco Cruceta got off to a nice start in the eighth inning when he got the first two batters but he gave up a double to Jose Guillen and a then he walked Brett Butler.  Mark Teahen then hit one up the middle and while Edgar Renteria made a nice play to get there, he did this goofy backhanded flip that was no where close to the bag.  This allowed Guillen to scamper home for what would eventually be the game winning run.  It’s a catch-22.  He could have held on and had no chance of getting the out, yet held the bases loaded.  Instead, he took the chance to get out of the inning and it backfired.

On Sunday, I talked about how Magglio Ordonez seems to be one of the big drives in the Tigers wins.  He finished zero for four and of course the Tigers lost. 

Justin Verlander gets the nod tomorrow and he’ll face rookie Luke Hochevar.  I’m interested in seeing how this number one draft pick throws and it’d be nice if Justin Verlander can turn his season around.

The Tigers game was one of three in the midwest (as well as several minor league games) to get rained out today.  No replacement date has been set.  Too bad the Yankees didn’t have the day off tomorrow like the Tigers or they could have made it up then.  If you want your Tigers fix, head on over to the 1968 Tigers site to see how they’re doing early on.

It’ll be a nice two day break for the Tigers though as they get set for a week long road trip beginning in Kansas City.  Nate Robertson is listed as the expected starter after he missed his start this afternoon so Jim Leyland isn’t going to mess with the rotation.  The red hot Zach Greinke will get the nod for the Royals.

The Tigers finished with a split of their two games with the Yankees.  Friday was a typical Todd Jones nailbiter while yesterdays game was a beatdown that saw Jeremy Bonderman struggle again.  This is his fourth start where he’s walked more then he’s struck out where as last year, he did it just twice all season.  Bobby Seay pitched three scoreless frames but he allowed an inherited runner to score while Francisco Cruceta threw two scoreless innings to close things out.  He struck out two and he’s holding lefthanders to a .100 batting average against (1 fo 10).

It’s nice to see Magglio Ordonez heating up.  After starting the season 11 for 47 with a .234 batting average in his first twelve games, he’s gone 34 for 96 (.354) since.  He’s hitting left handed pitching at a .444 clip so that’s been a help too.  It also seems like as Magglio goes, so does the Tigers.  In their 16 wins, he’s hitting .422/.493/.719 but in their 22 losses, he’s hitting .228/.291/.329.  Also encouraging is he’s hit much better at home (.372/.405/.615) so if he can keep that up, the Tigers might be able to even up that home record when they get back into town.

The Tigers haven’t made an error since Monday when Edgar Renteria made a pair of errors in the Tigers loss to the Red Sox.  Carlos Guillen hasn’t made an error since that disaster of a game against the Twins last Sunday.  I got a few questions about the flip between Guillen and Miguel Cabrera and while I haven’t finished my homework, I did find some interesting things on Bill James Online.  The past two years, Edgar Renteria has been one of the best players at shortstop going to his left (up the middle) but one of the worst going to his right.  Carlos Guillen, while somewhat more mediocre as a fielder, showed more strength going to his right then to his left.  That doesn’t bode well for balls hit between the two because that gap is playing to both fielders’ weakness.  Granted, third is a different play then shortstop so time will tell. 

I’m interested in checking out the Red Sox/Twins game tonight.  It’s still hard to believe that even after a tough week, the Tigers are still just 3 1/2 games back.  A series win this week over the Royals means they’ll head into the Diamondbacks series in fourth place instead of last.  I know that shouldn’t mean much but it hurts that much more seeing the Tigers down there in the cellar.  We got way to used to that prior to 2006.

The Tigers lost two different four runs leads and needed to come back in the ninth inning against Jonathan Papelbon to end their five game losing streak tonight.  The game winning hit was a texas league single off the bat of Placido Polanco and it also happened to be his fifth hit of the ballgame. 

The Tigers racked up eighteen hits in this one.  Magglio Ordonez and Gary Sheffield had three hits each while Carlos Guillen, Ivan Rodriguez and Matt Joyce had two a piece.  Joyce drove in his first run, scored his first run and picked up his first all in one game.

Armando Galarraga was cruising in this one until the fourth inning when the flood gates opened.  He gave up five runs in 5 1/3 innings and both Zach Miner and Francisco Cruceta gave up two a piece.  Todd Jones picked up the win with a shaky but scoreless ninth inning.

The Tigers can salvage a split tomorrow.  It’ll be Josh Beckett going up against Justin Verlander in the series finale.

Tim Wakefield had a pretty good start, huh?  The Tigers were held to a mere three hits in their 5-0 loss to the Red Sox and they made Tim Wakefield look like a Cy Young candidate.  Unlike last night, they didn’t even get the walks to go with the lack of hits.  Ivan Rodriguez doubled and Curtis Granderson and Carlos Guillen both singled and that was it.  It’s the fifth time this year the Tigers have been shut out.

Nate Robertson didn’t gave a great start either and he fell to 1-4.  He gave up four runs on ten hits and two walks with four strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings.  Freddy Dolsi made his major league debut and he gave up a solo homer to Manny Ramirez on his very first pitch.  Welcome to the bigs Freddy.  Dolsi was called up when Denny Bautista hit the disabled list.

Armando Galarraga will try to break the streak tomorrow night.  The Red Sox will throw Clay Buchholz.

It seems like it’s feast or famine for this year’s Tigers and at least the last four games, it’s been a famine.  The Tigers followed up nine walks with just three hits and the end result was eleven men left on base in a 6-3 loss to the Red Sox.  Gary Sheffield drew three of those walks and Marcus Thames had the big hit for the Tigers with a two run single that capped off a two run seventh inning. 

I’m not a huge fan of the lineup changes, but at the end of the day, lineup construction has just a small effect on a given game.  I know Gary Sheffield has a sub-.200 batting average, but he has a team high 20 walks.  Then again, the guy who replaced him in the three spot, Carlos Guillen, is right behind him with eighteen.  What I thought would have made more sense would have been to drop Granderson and his 1.192 OPS down and then move Placido Polanco and Carlos Guillen into the 1/2 slots.  The problem then is, you don’t want to drop Granderson all the way to sixth.  I’ll have to run the numbers in the lineup calculator when I get a chance to see what the numbers say make the most sense.  It was interesting seeing Ivan Rodriguez hitting behind Matt Joyce though.

And have you noticed Granderson has struck out just six times with ten walks in his twelve games back.  Not too shabby.  It’s also funny that he’s just one homer back of the team lead after missing all of that time.

Matt Joyce drew a walk in his first big league plate appearance but finished the game 0 for 2.  It’ll be interesting to see if he gets the start tonight with knuckleballer Tim Wakefield on the mound.

Jeremy Bonderman fell to 2-3 and he made two big mistakes (homeruns to Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis.  Clay Rapada and Todd Jones also gave up runs that didn’t help out the cause.

Nate Robertson gets the nod tonight.  He’s coming off of his first win of the season, but he’s given up at least four runs in all six of his starts this season.  Despite the struggles, he leads the Tigers with 27 strikeouts and he’s only walked nine but hitters have a .294 batting average against him.

The Jacque Jones era ended with a whimper today as the Tigers designated him for assignment after a tough first month to the season.  He was hitting a tepid .165/.244/.253 and with the lack of power, the Tigers must have felt it was time to cut bait.  The bad thing is, he did this bad against righties because he was given just four plate appearances (all strikeouts) against left handed pitching.  Not that this means anything, but historically, Jones has done well in April.  His career line is .287/.341/.450 and that includes this past April that really brought those numbers down.

Matthew Joyce gets the nod and he was kind of at the right place at the right time.  The Tigers twelfth round draft pick in 2005 out of Florida Southern, Joyce tore up the New York-Penn League (.332/.394/.453 in 247 at bats) in his first minor league.  Since then, he had struggled up until this past season.  He put up mediocre numbers in West Michigan in 2006 and then he skipped Lakeland to play at Erie last year where once again he seemed over his head.  This year he seemed to put it together and at Toledo, he was hitting .299/.367/.526 and he already has five homers.  He’s hitting .304 against right handed pitching and it was the left handed bat that probably caught people’s eye when it came time to decide who got the nod.

Joyce is 0 for 2 with a walk tonight as the Tigers are down 4-1.  I’d be nice if he could help the Tigers get something done against Dice-K here.

What a nice start.  Curtis Granderson led off the game with his fifth homerun of the season and then the first five Tigers who came up to bat all came around to score in a six run first inning.  Kenny Rogers was given a six run lead but unfortunately, he and the bullpen couldn’t hang on as the Twins rallied for one in the fourth, two in the fifth and then four in the seventh to complete the improbable comeback.

Just to put it in perspective using win probability added, the Tigers had a 90% chance of winning the game after the top of the first inning alone.  The odds went all the way to 96.7% when Kenny Rogers struck out the first two batters in the fourth inning.  A double and a single later, and it popped to just 92.1%.  Even after the RBI double in the seventh inning, the Tigers still had a 61% chance of winning but the two run single by Joe Mauer off of Bobby Seay was the nail in the coffin that flipped the game from the Tigers being the favorites to the Twins being the favorites.  Win Probability Added has it’s fault, but the two run single by Mauer was definitely a big hit and it’s reflected as much using WPA.

Zach Miner took the loss despite those two runs coming with Bobby Seay on the mound.  Francisco Cruceta did it again with a shutout ninth in which he struck out two and got two ground ball outs.  So far so good, it’d just be nice to use him a high leverage situtation to test his mettle.

The three loses push the Tigers into last place and the Twins, who have now won five straight, find themselves in first place.  Still, just three games seperate first and last place so the standings could look very different this time next week.

Unfortunately, the Tigers have a tough week.  They’re at home, but they start with four games against the Red Sox.  Game one is tomorrow.  Denny Bautista hit the disabled list this weekend with a short shoulder so that hurts.  Hopefully Cruceta can step in and pick up the slack in his abscence, although it’d be nice to have both of those guys as an option.

The Tigers swept the Yankees.  I missed how long it’s been, but I thought they said the last time the Tigers swept the Yankees in Yankee Stadium was some time in the 1950s.  This game didn’t get off to a good start though.  Nate Robertson walked Johnny Damon, gave up a single to Derek Jeter and then served up a three run bomb to Bobby Abreu.  Three batters up in the first and three runs but he recovered nicely to pick up his first win of the season.  He gave up another run in the fifth on a Shelly Duncan single but the Tigers answered with two in the sixth and two in the seventh to finish with an 8-4 win.

Zach Miner threw 2 1/3 innings of shutout relief and his ERA is now below eight.  Francisco Cruceta then made his Tiger debut in the ninth.  He walked the leadoff hitter then on an odd play, Shelly Duncan lined it to Guillen, who couldn’t handle it.  Fortunately, Abreu thought Guillen initially caught it and those lost steps allowed Guillen to recover and get the fielders choice at second base.  A ground out and a line out later, and the Tigers had the sweep.

It was the Miguel Cabrera and Ramon Santiago show.  Cabrera homered, tripled, drove in three and drew a walk.  Santiago double, tripled, scored a run and drove in two.  Eight of the Tigers eleven hits were for extra bases in this one.

The White Sox were idle so the Tigers are now just a game and a half back of first place and one game below .500.  Next up are the Twins and it’ll be Scott Baker going up against Armando Galarraga in the opener.  The only day game in this series will be Sunday.

The Tigers took their second straight game over the Yankees tonight in a 6-2 win and Placido Polanco drove home two of the Tigers six runs on a pair of solo homers.  Marcus Thames also went yard and he belted his second homer of the season, a two run shot in the fifth inning.

Jeremy Bonderman had one of his better starts to the season and he improved to 2-2.  He gave up two runs on five hits and two walks with a strikeout in 7 2/3 innings.  Clay Rapada continued his solid work out of the pen and he got the final four batters out to close out the game.  He has yet to give up a run in his seven innings of work and at least so far, Tim Byrdak is long forgotten.

The Tigers made a move today as they sent Jason Grilli to the Rockies for minor league hurler Zachary Simons.  The right hander has fourteen strikeouts 13 1/3 innings this year for the Rockies High A affliate and he looks like a converted starter.  Last year he repeated Low A and struck out 64 and walked 31 in 70 2/3 innings.  He’s hardly a top prospect but this was more of a roster move because the Tigers are making room for Francisco Cruceta, who’s been nothing short of awesome this season.  He has 15 strikeouts and three walks in seven innings but walks are a concern.  He has major league stuff, but he’s been mired in Triple A since 2004 so it’ll be interesting to see if he can finally put it together.

The Tigers go for the sweep tomorrow.  Nate Robertson gets the nod against Ian Kennedy.  Then it’s off to Minnesota for a three game set against the Twins.

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