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It seemed so long ago since we started the season 4-0, yet it was only last week.

Last year, Jody Gerut had a pretty good rookie season. In 480 at bats, he hit .279/22/75. Not too shabby for a guy who essentially came out of nowhere. What’s telling are these numbers:

Against any team then the Tigers: 411 at bats, .277/15/48
Against the Tigers: 69 at bats, .290/7/27

That’s called dominating a team. And he got started in 2003 even better then he left off, as Jody Gerut went 5 for 5, with a homerun and three rbis in an Indians 10-3 rout of the Tigers last night.

Not too much to say about this one that’s good. I-Rod continue to hit well, and has his batting average up to .359. Craig Monroe continued to struggle throwing the ball, as he almost sent on into the stands behind the catcher on a throw to home plate. Nat Cornejo got shelled, giving up 14 hits in only five innings. Even Jamie Walker, the only Tiger pitcher to enter the game and not give up a run, struggled, giving up two hits and a walk in an inning.

And already, the Tigers pen, which wasn’t great to begin with, is being used quite a bit. Hopefully Maroth can go seven innings today to give them a break.

Ugueth Urbina made his Tiger debut last night, pitching the sixth inning. Hopefully we can say it was just rust, because he gave a run, two hits, and two walks in an inning. He did strike out two, so that’s encouraging.

A buddy of mine stopped by last night and we rolled a couple of games of Strat. I was getting pretty lucky with my rolls, and he was pretty unlucky. I haven’t bought the 2003 cards yet, so we were playing the 2002 Phillies against the Royals (I was the Royals). Paul Byrd gave up five runs in the first inning, and in the two games we played, Philly wasn’t able to score in either of the two games, so the Royals staff (Jeff Suppan started the second game) pitched 17 consecutive scoreless innings. I came back to win the first game 8-5, then trounced him in the second 8-0. Fun stuff though. He also brought by MVP Baseball 2004, which is a pretty incredible game.

1984 Diary is back tomorrow. And hopefully we’ll have some good news to report on the Tigers.

No other way to put it. And they lose their first series of the season. I guess if you’re going to have a bad day, it’s not a bad idea to have one when Roy Halladay is on top of his game. Had the pitchers done well, we would have still lost it.

And there’s two ways to look at their record. On the one hand, if you had told me they’d be 6-3 after nine games at the start of the season, I would have said it would be huge, and it is. On the down side, they’ve now lost 3 of 5. The one good thing about their recent streak is they’ve bounced back after every loss.

Nate Cornejo opens things up for the Tigers as they start a three game series at Jacobs Field. C.C. Sabathia will be throwing for the Indians, and he has a pretty good track record against the Indians, and he’s also been sharp in two starts this year. Hopefully the Tigers can get to him early, because the Indians pen has been, well, pretty bad.

I hope everyone had a good tax day. And here’s to hoping the Tigers can sweep the Indians.

And I’ll end this with what I thought was pretty funny. My buddy Jay, who’s responsible for the design of Tigerblog, thought that with the increase in people coming to the site, Tigerblog deserved it’s own merchandise. I don’t expect anyone to buy this stuff (except maybe as a joke), but you can check out the Tigerblog merchandise here.

Among all of the stories involved in the Tigers 6-2 start, Nate Robertson has to be the most unusual. This is a guy who seemed destined to, if not AAA, a season of long relief as a second left handed reliever behind Jamie Walker. He had just a decent enough spring to secure the fifth starter spot. This is also a guy who I couldn’t give away in Diamond Mind league.

And boy has he taken advantage of it. After pitching six shutout innings of relief, he pitched a nice game yesterday, going five innings, giving up only three hits, and striking out seven. After a total of 10 scoreless innings to start the season, the Jays finally got to Nate and he gave up a two run Reed Johnson homerun.

And that’s just the pitching. I felt the Tigers had to come out strong in this game to put Tuesday’s bad game behind them. And they did just that, scoring four runs off of Ted Lilly in the first inning. Lilly calmed down, but those four runs ended up being enough, and the Tigers walked away with a 5-3 win.

And this afternoon, we have a rematch of the season opener, as Roy Halladay goes up against Jason Johnson.

I also saw how Fox is really playing up the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry. Friday night they’re having a special prime time national telecast of the game.

And I mean that literally.

I didn’t listen to the game, but from the play by play, Vina made errors in the seventh and eighth inning, both of which led to unearned runs that would tie the game up. Then in the ninth, Craig Monroe made a throwing error that led to two runs that put the game away. I hate to say it, but this is the Tigers team of old, and this was the kind of stuff they were doing in spring training. I have a feeling Tram is going to have a little talk with the boys after this one.

Jeremy Bonderman appeared to pitch well in his second straight start, giving up 3 runs, 4 hits and walk, in six innings. Seven strikeouts brings his season total to 15 in 13 1/3 innings. I think he’s grown up since last year. You can’t argue with a 15:3 strikeout to walk ratio.

But, you can’t complain too much about a 5-2 start. Hopefully they’ll bounce back and play a good game tomorrow evening. Nate Robertson makes his first start of the season against Ted Lilly.

Tigerblog had another record day today with regard to traffic. It’s great to see people taking an interest in the site, and I appreciate everyone’s kind words. Most of the traffic today came from a well written piece by Josh Levin on Baseball Blogs at MSN.com’s Slate. You’ll see a lot of the regular names, and then, at the very bottom, I get a brief mention. Hopefully everyone who stopped by comes back as a regular reader.

I got my taxes done tonight. I know this is a family show, but I’m glad this shit is almost over. I was a little peeved that the Bush press conference pushed back “24” by an hour and a half.

One year ago today, I made my first post on this blog, so this is as good of a time to say I started things off. What started off as a side page on my fantasy baseball site has sort of grown on its on. What’s equally ironic is this post, the 200th, is also a mile stone. Thanks for everyone’s kind words over the past year.

And the Tigers kept things going, beating the Twins in 10 innings, 6-5. Mike Maroth threw a good game, and the bullpen had a nice effort down the stretch. Steve Colyer shut the Twins down in the tenth to earn his first win as a Tiger, and Craig Monroe had the game winning hit.

So the Tigers improve to 5-1, and Toronto comes into town for a three game series tomorrow. As always, we’ll have to take the season one game at a time, and we can’t take Toronto for granted, despite sweeping them last week. If they can take the series, and improve to 7-2, then we might be looking at a “for real” situation.

Unfortunately, Jason Johnson couldn’t follow up on his nice performance to open the season, and the Tigers dropped their first game of the season to the Twins, losing 10-5. The Tigers tried to mount a couple of comebacks, but fell a little short.

But, I’ll still take 4-1.

With April 15th this week, I’m going to try to write, but, like today, they’ll be pretty short. I’ll be back up to full speed probably even as early as Tuesday. At the very least, I’ll be sure to keep up with the 1984 Detroit Tigers Diary. No entry today because they had the day off on April 11th.

Have a Happy Easter.

If anyone can tell me what the Vegas odds were that the Tigers would be the last undefeated team in baseball, I’m sure it would be telling tale. Yes, it’s only four games into the season, but Toronto, who Detroit man handled in a three game series in their own box went on to beat Boston in “their” home opener yesterday.

Still, Tiger fans have to be realistic. Pat Caputo, the Oakland Press writer, who also has a radio show on AM 1270, knows more about baseball then anyone I know. And just on Sunday, six days ago, he predicted on his radio show that the Tigers would go 62-100.

Not to rain on everyone’s parade, but he could still be right. With Dmitri Young down, all it would take is something similar to happen to Vina, or Pudge, or White, to see things drop off pretty quick.

Not that I’m trying to be pessimistic, but the fans who now have taken a new interest in the Tigers shouldn’t neccesarily just give up on them if they drop off. They should enjoy the fact that Mike Ilitch said he’d make the team better, and he followed through. Maybe next year we add another guy (starting pitching) that puts us over the top. But for now, all we can do is enjoy what the Tigers are giving us, some plain old excitement.

The Tigers weren’t satisfied with six or seven runs. They had to do better. And they did. Down three to zero going into the sixth, the Tigers put together a nice four run rally to take the lead. Bobby Higginson came up huge with a two run double to give the Tigers the lead.

But the Twins weren’t done. Jacque Jones led off the seventh with a homerun to tie things up. So everything was tied going into the bottom of the seventh.

And then it happened again. An offensive explosion that would have been more rare in 2003 then even a win, the Tigers scored five runs to take the lead for good. Higginson capped off a huge day with a two run triple and finished the day with four rbis.

Cornejo pitched well over seven innings. He did give up two homeruns, but he struck out four. Without going back to check, that had to be close to his season high last year.

Colyer then came in and finished things off. He did give up a two run shot, but that wasn’t nearly enough to lose the game.

So the Tigers start the season 4-0. They’ve scored 30 runs. Last year, it wasn’t May 4th that they won their fourth game. And it took them 16 games to rack up thirty runs. The only other team that is undefeated in all of baseball is Anaheim.

What a great start. Words can’t even begin to describe it. After years of dissappointment, Tiger fans finally have something to cheer about, the basic fact that if you go to see them they play, they could win the game. It sounds simple, but it’s been lacking the last couple of years.

The 1984 Tigers, along with the 2004 Tigers, had the day off tomorrow, so the diary won’t be updated until Saturday.

The Tigers open up Comerica Park this afternoon against the Twins. The way everyone is talking, if they win this one, it wouldn’t surprise me if the fans storm the field. That’s how excited people are.

I also want to give a big thanks to the Detroit Tigers Weblog and Baseball Musings for the kind words about my 1984 Detroit Tigers Diary. They were both instrumental in making yesterday my best traffic day ever.

For those of you going to the game, have a blast.

Jeremy Bonderman got off to a rough start, giving up a three run homerun to Carlos Delgado in the first inning. It sounded (I listened to most of it on the radio) like it was going to be one of those games. Greg Myers doubled, but Bonderman struck Pond out and got Orlando Hudson to ground out.

If this were 2003, the game would have been over with after just half of an inning.

But something happened. Carlos Guillen reached base on a Carlos Delgado error, Higgy hit a sac fly to make it a two run game, and Craig Monroe drew a walk. Then, it happened.

Eric Munson hit a three shot to give the Tigers the lead. For good.

Jeremy Bonderman was rock solid after that first inning as he pitched four innings of no hit ball. Then in the sixth, the Tigers got a scare when Vernon Wells hit a liner up the middle, and nailed Bonderman in the foot/ankle area. He shook it off, threw some warm up pitches, but they took him out of the game. Hopefully he’s fine. Four different relievers came in to shut the Jays down the rest of the way, and the Tigers ended up with a 6-3 victory.

And with that, they play their home opener undefeated. The last time they won their first three games was 1985. The last time they won their first three road games was 1984. It took the Tigers 22 games in 2003 to win their third game. It took them 30 games to win their third road game.

I know the season is long, and you only have to look back to last year’s Kansas City Royals to see how a team that gets off to a hot start can drop off. But Tiger fans haven’t had a whole lot to cheer about the past several years. So far this week, they finally do.

Another seven runs, to go with twelve hits, and the Tiger’s are now 2-0 for the first time since … 1986. It wasn’t until their 19th game that they won their second. And it took them until the 8th game to score 14 runs.

Five different Tigers had a multi-hit game and no one Tiger drove in more then two runs. Carlos Guillen hit his first homer as a Tiger.

This was definitely a team affair, as everyone got involved in the scoring. Mike Maroth began to struggle in the fifth, and was taken out with the lead after only 70 pitches. The eventual 5th starter, Nate Robertson, came in and pitched extremely well, throwing four shutout innings and striking out seven to close out the game and earn the save.

The bad news is it looks like Dimtri Young broke his fibula. The official announcement was a non-displaced fracture, and I’m not quite sure what that means, but it’s not good. It’s unfortunate that our DH of all people would suffer a serious injury.

One more win, and the Tigers will open up Comerica Park undefeated.

Twenty four hours ago, had I predicted that the Tiger’s wouldn’t just win their first game, but that they’d take Roy Halladay deep three different times, driving him out of the game well behind on his home turf, where he’s owned the Tigers, you would have said I was nuts.

Had I further predicted that Jason Johnson, along with three relievers, would shutout the Jays, I probably would have been fit to be institutionalized.

And sometimes, reality is much more bizarre then fiction. Because that’s just what the Tigers did today. Ivan Rodriguez, Carlos Pena, and Rondell White all went yard, and Jason Johnson pitched 6 shutout innings, getting out of a couple of jams.

And with one game, like the Lions at the beginning of the year, people are excited. This probably doesn’t mean the Tigers will finish .500, but it’s something to build on. Some people say that you’re only as good as your last game. And if that’s the case, the Tigers are looking pretty good.

Last year, it took the Tigers seven games to score their seventh run.

And the last times the Tigers had a shutout on the season opener was before even I was born. Mickey Lolich, the MVP of the 1968 World Series, shut the Washington Senators out in the season opener for the Tigers. The year was 1970, and the Tigers went on to win 79 games.

And I’ll be posting the 1984 Tigers diary under a different category, so for those of you just coming to keep up on what that great Tiger team is up to, I’ll have a seperate link to that section.

The Tigers open up the season today at 1:05 and is the first game to kick off the day. The Tiger’s will face Roy Halladay, last year’s Cy Young winner, so it will be no small chore to get going on the right end of the win/loss column. Jason Johnson opens for Detroit.

If one wanted to, in this area, you could begin watching that game at 1 pm, and continue watching baseball (assuming they have cable), until approximately 1:30 am.

And of course I’ll be at work. Sigh.

For those of you who are fortunate enough to be at home watching the games, or even better, at a game, think of me while you’re having a beer. I envy you.

Nate Cornejo looked good when he started, keeping the ball away from the hitters, but eventually would give up 5 2/3 runs in 5 innings in the final game of the spring. The fact that the Yankees have already played two regular season games, and now had to come back and play Detroit in one final spring game, borders on the bizarre. In the end, they would play to a 7-7 ten inning tie.

Chris Shelton made the team, which I’m happy to see. The number one Rule 5 player taken from the Pirates, Shelton had an impressive spring, but looked to be set to go back to Pittsburgh, until Tram decided send backup catcher Mike DeFelice down to the minors.

But, the Tiger’s open up tomorrow. I’ll be at work, so I’ll miss all of it. Last year I was very sick the weekend before opening day (No really, I was sick), and took what will be tomorrow off last year. Being able to watch 3 different games was pretty cool (I don’t have MLB Ticket) and made the bed rest more tolerable.

And I missed the first few days, but I’ll catch up now. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 1984 Tigers, so as the Tigers go through their season, I’ll also be adding a diary of the last Championship team.

In a pretty unusual game, the Tigers lost to the Indians 13-11 this afternoon. Each team had 15 hits, and there were six errors (four by Detroit). And even though it’s April Fools and this sounds bizarre, but Ivan Rodriguez forgot/misplaced his catcher’s helmet, forcing Tram to move him to DH and reshuffle the lineup.

Nate Robertson threw a fair game, pitching six innings, giving up six hits and two walks, while striking out 5. He gave up four runs, but only one was earned. The pen struggle, as both Jamie Walker and Al Levine had rough outings.

The Tigers also made a trade today. I keep going back and forth on this one. I like Cody Ross, so I was disappointed. Then I figure, with the Tigers having quite a few options at the corner outfield spot, he is expendable. Then I flipped back again when I took a closer look at Steve Colyer, and didn’t neccesarily like what I saw. The only thing I can imagine is that Robertson is going to get the fifth spot in the rotation, so Tram wanted another left handed arm in the pen. Of course the Tigers will get a player to be named later, so it’s hard to tell until we find out who that is.

Greg Norton made the club. Norton can play both corner infield spots, and will be able to spot in the outfield. The downside to this is Chris Shelton now looks like a long shot, which is disappointing after the spring he’s had.

Although despite the victory, Jason Johnson left the game after only two innings with a blister. These things can linger (ask Josh Beckett), so stay tuned. Johnson is still set to pitch on Monday in the opener against the Blue Jays.

Bobby Higginson did the bulk of the damage today, hitting a grand slam in the fifth inning to give the Tigers the lead for good. Brian Schmack came in and pitched extremely well, throwing three perfect innings, and striking out four batters. It was also nice to see Danny Patterson back, as he pitched the eighth inning.

And three more Tigers were sent down to the minors. Erik Eckenstahler, Andres Torres, and Jason Smith will start the season down south. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Torres back up if Sanchez doesn’t show signs of improving.

For Tiger starters, this is the home stretch. The last time they get quality innings in a game that doesn’t count. And Nate Cornejo made them count, by throwing five innings, and only giving up one run (5 hits, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts). An impressive performance against basically the Phillies starting lineup.

These last few games, although they never show up in the standings, still remain pretty important. You get to see how the guys you expect to play and start throughout the season actually perform under game time pressures.

The baseball season kicked off this morning in Japan, with the Yankees going up against the Devil Rays. As we speak, the game is tied 2-2 in the top of the sixth. Jason Giambi hit the first homer of the season, and Toby Hall has a two run single. In fact I have the game on my little TV right now. A-Rod just doubled with nobody out.

Jeremy Bonderman, who looked very sharp when he started his spring season, has stuggled a little as of late. In five innings today, he gave up 7 hits (including a home run to Henry Mateo) and only struck out one batter in five innings, en route to a 3-2 loss to the Expos. With that loss, the Tigers will drop to 11-15 with six spring games left.

The rough skid (5-12 in their last 17) isn’t really encouraging. With the way the Tigers have started the last several years, a good start would be a big boost, both with the players confidence and to fan interest. But their recent struggles along with a tough first week and a half (6 games against Toronto with a three game series with the Twins sandwiched between) might mean more of the same this year.

In fact, I went back the last few years on Retrosheet to see how the Tigers started the season after 10 games, and he’s what I found:

2003 1-9
2002 0-10
2001 3-7
2000 4-6
1999 3-7
1998 3-7
1997 5-5

That’s a cumulative 19-51 record, and you have to go all the way back to 1997 just to get to a .500 start.

The Tiger’s also sent Franklyn German down to the Toledo, which based on how he pitched, wasn’t much of surprise. Last year at this time, I thought he’d have a shot at ROY, but it wasn’t to be.

It also appears that in the last few weeks, there’s been a consolidation for sorts in the baseball blog universe. Several writers have grouped up at All-Baseball, which orginally, and still is, the home of the Cub Reporter, an excellent Cubs blog. And The Hardball Times was started up, which includes Twin’s guru Aaron Gleeman. Both are great one stop sources with a wide range of baseball information.

I’m still not crazy about this deal, but at the time I wrote yesterday, I didn’t know about the deferals, so it’s not as much of a salary hit as I initially thought.

First off, the good. Urbina has 661 strikeouts and only 236 walks 563 2/3 career innings. That’s a pretty nice strikeout to walk ratio over a nine year career. But based on what I’m looking at on Baseball Prospectus, there has been a somewhat slight regression in both strikeouts per nine innings, and an increase in WHIP.

The bad news is, for a someone with the closer label, he lost 4 games last year, and blew 6 saves. That’s 8 games (two games he both blew the save and lost the game) where he was brought in to hold a lead, and didn’t. Fortunately in two of those blown saves, he also hung in there to pick up the win in the next inning.

The year before that, he lost six games, and blew six saves. Now I didn’t compare this to comparable relievers, but that’s a little disconcerting. I would have rather they went out and tried to spend this $3.5 million on an upgrade of a position player, as opposed to a pitcher who will probably pitcher somewhere around 60 innings this year.

With Estaban Yan struggling on Wednesday, and Nate Robertson throwing a mighty fine game yesterday, the race for that final spot in the rotation is still up for grabs.

Nate threw four solid innings. Although he did give up five hits, he also struck out six. The biggest thing in their favor is the fact that he’s a lefty, which means under most scenarios, he’ll make the team. It’s just whether he’ll be coming out of the pen or not.

I’m not as excited about the signing of Urbina, and I really hope they don’t throw a lot of money his way. Now I’ve never pitched, but paying a premium for a pitcher who comes into most games with no runners on base at the top of inning isn’t a good idea in my opinion. I know Rodney is hurt, but there’s no way Patterson couldn’t get the job done as well as anyone else. Urbina has lost 10 games the last two years. Not something you want to see from your closer.

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