Archive for the '2007 Tigers' Category

Nate Robertson hit the DL with a tired arm.  Will Carroll didn’t mention anything about this so I’m not sure if it’s just that he’s been pitching like he’s hurt so they’re giving him some time off or that something is wrong and they’re checking it out.  Anyway, we should call Andrew Miller Mr Friday because he’s making his second career start tomorrow.  He’s been doing very well at Erie and he had that nice game for the Tigers a few weeks ago.  I’m going to get to watch most of this game too, unlike his last start, which I missed.

Chris brought up an interesting point in a comment to my last post.  Magglio Ordonez is on a wicked double pace (29) and even if he falls short of the record, 60 is well within his reach based on his start.  The last player to hit 60 doubles was Charlie Gehringer and Joe Medwick way back in 1936.  The Tiger team record is 63, which was set by Hank Greenberg in 1934.  The 1930s were the year of the double.  There have been six instances where a player has hit 60 doubles and five of those happened in the 1930s, including Earl Webb’s record 67 in 1931.

***UPDATE***

Scratch the Mr. Friday thing.  It looks like Miller is pitching on Sunday.

A lot of people asked me whether the Tigers made a good trade when they picked up Gary Sheffield and from the get go, I’d always given an emphatic yes.  Yeah, he had the rough April but Sheffield has always been able to rake and I knew it was just a matter of time before he got going.  In May, he picked things up and now in June, he’s looking like one of a few MVP candidates on the Tigers team.

Sheffield finished the day three for four with a two homeruns and five RBIs.  He’s raised his batting average up to .272 and OPS is now above .900 for the first time this year.  Hopefully it’s there to stay.

Curtis Granderson hit his tenth triple of the season last night.  He’d need nine more to just get into the top ten Tiger seasons (and it’s a list dominated by Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford), but that’s definitely within reach.  Only five hitters in the last 50 years have hit 20 triples in a season (Christian Guzman was the last back in 2000) and nobody has hit more then 21 (Lance Johnson in 1996 and Willie Wilson in 1985).  Kiki Cuyler was the last hitter to rack up 25 triples and that was way back in 1925 so Granderson has a chance to really do something special this year.

Lost in all of the offense was a great start by Justin Verlander.  He gave the Tigers seven innings and after some of the work the relievers got yesterday, this is just what the Tigers needed.  He gave up five hits and two walks with six strikeouts in seven innings and he improved to 5-2 on the season.

Tonight’s the rubber game and it’ll be Mike Maroth against Kameron Loe.  Loe’s had a tough time this season and he’s dropped his last five starts so hopefully this is another guy the Tigers can jump all over.

Nate Robertson had the worst start of his career last night in a tough loss.  He gave up five runs and he left a guy at third before getting pulled without getting a single batter out.  A sac. fly later with Jason Grilli on the mound and Robertson was tagged with six runs on six hits.  He saw his ERA balloon from 4.25 to 5.07 and he’s now falled to 4-6 on the season after a pretty nice April.

Give the bullpen some credit in this one because they at least gave the Tigers the chance to come back.  Grilli threw four shutout innings and Zach Miner pitched two.  Tim Byrdak threw a shutout seventh and it wasn’t until the eighth inning when the Rangers finally scored another run off of Fernando Rodney.

What was most disappointing was that this was a game the Tigers should have won because they were essentially going up against a Triple A pitcher.  And while they did knock John Rheinecker out early, it wasn’t enough to come back from that rough first inning.

Brandon Inge had a nice day at the plate. He went two for four with a homerun, two RBIs and two runs.  Gary Sheffield drew three walks, one of which was with the bases loaded and Omar Infante continued to hit the ball well by going two for four with a walk.  He’s now hitting .325 on the season and he gave Curtis Granderson a night off against the leftie starter.

Tonight, it’ll be Justin Verlander going up against Kevin Millwood and his 6.69 ERA.  I like our chances although Millwood has been pretty good against the Tigers in the past (45 2/3 inning, 3.15 ERA, 1.14 WHIP).

Tomorrow is the baseball draft and the first few rounds are going to be on ESPN2.  It’s the first time a portion of the draft has been televised and I’m interested in seeing what kind of analysis they’ll have.

And it took some work, but the 1967 AL Pennant Race site is up to date.  Tigers are in first, at least for the time being.  Although the Al Kaline injury is coming up later in the month and that puts a damper on things.

It looks like Tiger fans have been hitting the All Star ballot box.  Ivan Rodriguez leads all catchers, which isn’t a huge surprise but Placido Polanco has made some gains on Robinson Cano.  Probably the most surprising was Sean Casey, who’s in fifth place for first basemen.  He’s well back of the lead but just 23,000 votes behind fourth place Travis Hafner.  For all the details, be sure to check out the All Star Game Blog.

Jose Mesa was released today.  It says a lot because the Tigers pen had been doing pretty poorly so for them to but bait on him now goes a long way towards showing how poorly he pitched.  It’s also nice for Dombrowski to realize his mistake and cut bait.  Mesa shouldn’t have been signed but at least now he won’t be a poor option coming out of the pen.

In his place, Fernando Rodney was pulled off of the DL.  Hopefully Rodney can get back into his 2006 form, sans the walks.

The Tigers bounced back nicely after the rough ending to their game on Friday, and after winning their last two, they salvaged a split with the Indians.  They got it all this afternoon with a ton of hitting and some great pitching by Jeremy Bonderman.  Bondo gave up a two run homer in the first inning to the red hot Victor Martinez but then he didn’t give up his next hit until the seventh inning in the 9-2 win.  The win improves Bonderman’s record to a still perfect 5-0 and Bonderman is off to his best start to a season in his young career.

Gary Sheffield put the Tigers on the board in the first inning with a two run homer, his thirteenth long ball of the season.  He finished the game with two hits and a walk with three runs.  Ivan Rodriguez had another solid game with two singles and two runs while Craig Monroe doubled twice.  Even Sean Casey, who’s been red hot himself, went one for two with two RBIs.  Casey now has a ten game hitting streak that’s pushed his batting average from .248 to .282.  Of course he still hasn’t picked up that first homerun yet.

The Twins lost so the Tigers sit 2 1/2 games back of the Indians and three ahead of the Twins.  The Tigers have a day off tomorrow and they play in Texas against the Rangers on Tuesday.  The Rangers have the worst record in all of baseball so this is a series we have to take.  The Indians also play a last place team with a three game series against the Royals.  Nate Robertson gets the starter in the opener on Tuesday and he’ll face Vincente Padilla.

I bought a Tivo about a month ago and while it was more so we could tape my wife’s shows, I used it to tape this afternoon’s game.  I was able to cram all 3 1/2 hours of game (excluding that rain delay) into about an hour and a half of actual viewing time.  The only downer was, I had to be constantly on the remote and couldn’t do anything else.  Still, I’ll probably do this for the west coast games when I don’t stay up to watch the games.

Last year, from May 30 through June 14, Todd Jones had about as tough of a stretch as I’ve ever seen a closer have.  From that point on, he threw fairly well but during that stretch, four Tigers’ losses fell on his shoulders.  It looks like Todd Jones is going through a similar stretch beginning with May 28th’s game against the Rays.  I’m not quite sure why Jones was left in there other then that Leyland must have thought Jones was still his best option.  There’s not a lot of argument that the pen is in rough shape and until Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney come back, things will be dicey.  The best way to get back on track is to pick up a win tonight.

The Twins are getting hot and they now trail the Tigers by just one game in the loss column with the White Sox right on their heels.  If the Indians start rolling, those three teams could all be in the middle of the Wild Card race so like we all thought, it’s going ot be an interesting season in the Central.

Congratulations to freqent commenter Ryan Cassidy for winning the trivia challenge.  He chose Beck’s Blog as his favorite site and Jason Beck was nice enough to donate his winnings to charity.  Ryan won the contest by answering four of the ten questions correctly.

It’s Chad Durbin going up against Cliff Lee tonight.  They’ll be competing with the Pistons/Cavs game.

The baseball season is nearing the halfway point and that means the All Star Game.  While it’s not close to being what it once was, I always enjoy the game.  You always know there will be at least one Tiger on the team and this year is the first time in a long time that the Tigers’ manager is going to have a say in who makes the team.  So if a guy like Placido Polanco falls short in the voting, you know it’ll pretty much be a certainty that he’ll make the team as a reserve.

I always wonder how much sports betting there is on the All Star game.  I’m not a gambler, but one of the things I did as a kid was bet my mom on the game.  I’d always take the American League, and back then, they lost more times then not so I’d always be a nickel short come the next morning.  The one game I remember very well was the 1987 All Star Game, that was an exciting thirteen innings.  And they didn’t even run out of pitchers.

The Tigers four game losing streak came to an end last night as Gary Sheffield was the biggest of a large group of hitting stars in the teams 14-2 blowout win.  Sheffield belted two homers to bring his season total up to twelve and he drove in five runs.  His batting average has crept up to .262 but his OPS is up to .868, which is close to where he was at in 2005 before he had all the injuries.

In looking at his splits page, most of his production has come in the month of May where he’s hitting .314/.383/.647, which is what we’re paying him for.  He’s one of three Tigers who is averaging four or more pitches per plate appearance and he leads the team with 31 walks and he’s tied with Ordonez with 44 runs.  Not too shabby and it’s making for quite an impressive one/two punch with Sheffield and Ordonez in the middle of the lineup.

Jeremy Bonderman improved to 4-0 with another nice start.  He struck out eight and didn’t walk anyone.  Wil Ledezma also threw 2 2/2 impressive innings of mop up work to close out the game.

The rubber game is tonight.  Nate Robertson will take on an pretty impressive James Shields.  Scott Kazmir gets a lot of the attention in the Rays rotation but it’s been Shields who’s quietly put up some nice numbers.

Yeah, it’s been a few days.  I took the weekend off for a few reasons that range from a couple of deaths in the family to the Tigers just plain playing crappy against the Indians.  I went to one funeral home yesterday for the passing of a gentleman that I pretty much knew my entire life and there’s a funeral tomorrow for an uncle on my wife’s side.  Combine that with the sweep at the hand of the Indians and I didn’t have a lot of desire to post. 

Tigers are up 2-0 but the Rays have runners on second and third with one out.  I was at Tropicana Field last year and it was more of a transplant crowd.  There was maybe only 10,000 fans there for a Ray/Blue Jays game and most of the people I talked to were people in town for something else that had a free night and wanted to see some ball.  Then again, this is the team that played a series at a minor league park knowing it would really hurt their attendance too much.

Make that 2-1.

Jim Leyland defended his bullpen but basically got on his starters.  He basically blamed the poor pen work on the fact that the starters weren’t working deep enough and putting the relievers in a situtations that they shouldn’t be in.

Make that 2-2.

I have a confession to make.  Living in Detroit, I’ve been to probably somewhere between 150-200 Tiger games throughout my life.  Not a ton, but more then most.  The confession is, with the Tigers being so close, I’ve never set foot in a minor league stadium to see a minor league game.  I’m going to my first Friday night when the White Caps take on the Lugnuts in Lansing.  MSU is my old stomping ground and it’s always a bit nostalgic going over to Lansing, even though there are quite a few changes since I left there (almost 13 years ago).  I’ll probably do a special report of some kind either that night or the following morning over at Tigers Minors.

With the trivia challenge winding down, I’d rate it a moderate success.  I had a couple of complaints, some of which were valid but some of which were also people just not reading the rules.  I plan on doing something a bit bigger during the offseason, so if there’s something you liked or disliked, let me know.  I know the floating time of the question bothered people but this was done for a couple of different reasons ranging from a traffic grab to getting more people into it.  So let me know what you liked and what you didn’t because something bigger is coming.

Durbin got through the fourth and now the Tigers are batting in the fifth.  2-2 score.  Oops, Gary Sheffield just went yard.  3-2.

***UPDATE***

Bleh, the Rays scored two in the bottom of the ninth off of Todd Jones to win it.  The Indians are losing to Boston so hopefully we’ll stay just 2 1/2 back at the end of the night.

Jayson Stark recently put together a top ten underrated player list and the top of the list included guys like Roy Oswalt Trevor Hoffman and Jake Peavy.  I was a little surprised by Hanley Ramirez because he only has one previous full season under his belt but he did put up good numbers last year.

Anyway, Placido Polanco made the list at number seven.  He was sandwiched between Carl Crawford (and the Ty Cobb comparisons) and Kevin Youkillis.

And Stark has a new book.  Looks like a solid read.

Jason Beck reports that Fernando Rodney will be out for another game.  With both he and Joel Zumaya on the shelf, the pen is pretty thin.  Maybe we can get eight innings out of Robertson like we did from Bonderman yesterday and make the whole pen thing moot.

The Tigers made their best showing of the season on the Prospectus Hit List after winning five of their last six games.  The Indians sit just in front of them with the Mets and Red Sox rounding out the top four.  No other AL Central teams even made it into the top half. 

Cameron Maybin had a rough first couple of weeks at Lakeland, but since then he’s been pretty hot.  For the season, he’s hitting .321/.437/.481 and while the homeruns aren’t there, he’s been scoring runs like a mad man and he has 35 in just 44 games.  He’s 15 for 19 in stolen base attempts, and 14 of his hits have been for extra bases. 

The problem is, the Tigers now have some depth in centerfield.  While not the same caliber as Maybin, Gorkys Hernandez has put up very good numbers at West Michigan.  He’s five months younger then Maybin and he’s tearing up the Midwest league to the tune of .315/.379/.406 and like Maybin, the power isn’t there but a 26/13 strikeout to walk ratio isn’t that bad for a guy playing his first full season in the minors. 

You also have Maybin’s teammate, Ovandy Suero.  He leads the minor leagues with 35 stolen bases and while the kid has no pop (his ISO is .009), he’s a switch hitter who can fly.  Other then the complete lack of power, the knock on Suero is, while he’s hitting .291, he’s doing it as someone who will be turning 25 next month and is still playing High A ball.

And then there’s Brent Clevlen, although he’s once again strugging in at Toledo (.207/.296/.296).  Although he’s shown flashes, he’s probably pretty far down on the centerfield depth chart list.   Clevlen reminds me of Eric Munson.  He’ll give you flashes to let you know there’s something there, but you usually won’t be able to give the guy a chance because just as often, he’s not producing.

So you have two top prospects in Hernandez and Maybin and two fringe ones in Suero and Clevlen.  And we haven’t even gotten to the current Tiger centerfielder, Curtis Granderson, who has 30 extra base hits already this year and while Granderson is striking out like he did last year, you can live with those if he can keep up the .583 slugging percentage.  And Granderson is only 26 so he could be around for quite some time.

Bottom line, with all of the centerfielders, would you consider trading Cameron Maybin?  Just to speculate, the Reds are in last place so I have a feeling that Adam Dunn might be on the block.  If we could package Maybin and maybe Mike Maroth for Dunn, it would go a long way towards boosting the offense with Andrew Miller in the wings waiting for a spot on the rotation.  I’d like to see what Maybin can do in Double A though.  If he gets promoted this year and lights up Double A as a twenty year old, he’s probably a keeper.  But then there’s always the chance that Maybin’s trade value is as high as it’s ever been.

Jeremy Bonderman threw eight shutout innings and it was about as good of a start as you’d want from someone coming off of the disabled list.  He did walk a season high five and he gave up four hits with six strikeouts.  He was also very effecient and he needed only 95 pitches to get through those eight innings.

Of course all the run support was probably nice for him as well.  Carlos Guillen homered and drove in five runs while Magglio Ordonez continued to rake and he was four for four with three runs and three RBIs.  Gary Sheffield got in on the action and he hit homerun number nine on the season.

The Indians are up 5-0 early so if that lead holds, the Tigers will have a half game cushion going into their three game series with the Tribe.  Nate Robertson gets the start in the opener tomorrow night and he’ll go up against Paul Byrd, who’s been a surprise this year at 4-1 and he’s walked just three hitters in 45 2/3 innings.  It was nice listening to Ernie Harwell on the television and he’ll also be doing the game tomorrow.

The Tigers held off the Angels just long enough tonight to walk away with the win.  They were up 7-3 before Jose Mesa gave up a three run shot to make it a one run game.  Curtis Granderson hit a homerun to right field to give the Tigers a two run lead and they ended up needing that run because Todd Jones gave up a run in the ninth.

Chad Durbin picked up the win with five solid innings.  He gave up three runs on eight hits and one walk with three strikeouts.  Two of the eight hits he gave up went over the fence.

Magglio Ordonez hit two solo homeruns and he now has 42 RBIs on the season.  Granderson drove in three and scored two runs while Placido Polanco finished with two hits and two RBIs.

Jeremy Bonderman makes his return from the disabled list tomorrow and he’ll square up against Ervin Santana in an afternoon game.  The Indians are down by five runs so the Tigers will most likely move back into first place by a half game.

The Tigers three game winning streak came to an end in a 6-3 loss to the Angels. John Lackey threw a ton of pitches but he kept the Tigers in check and it wasn’t until he was gone that the Tigers started scoring runs.

In the meantime, Mike Maroth dropped his first start of the season. He gave up six runs on seven hits and two walks with four strikeouts and two of the seven hits went over the fence. Jason Grilli and Jose Mesa each pitched a scoreless inning to finish the game up.

Magglio Ordonez put the Tigers on the board with a solo homerun in the fourth and he also drove in a run in the ninth when he drew a bases loaded walk. Brandon Inge and Placido Polanco each had two hits and Sean Casey walked twice and he scored a run.

The Indians are tied with the Royal right now and the outcome of the that game will determine whether the Tigers start the day tomorrow down by a half game or a game and a half. Chad Durbin gets the start tomorrow and the Tigers will have to face a 5-0 Bartolo Colon. Colon hasn’t been great, but he’s been consistent and in only one of his six starts has he given up more then three runs.

The Tigers got it done for the third straight time in their series sweep over the Cardinals.  The final was 6-3 and it means that, assuming the Indians hold on to beat the Reds, that the Tigers will remain one game back in the loss column to the Indians.  At this point last year, they were 29-14 so they’re doing a good job of keeping up the same pace that they did last year.

Justin Verlander had another nice start and for the second straight start, he pitched into the eighth inning.  He improved to 5-1 and he gave up just two runs on five hits and a walk with three strikeouts in eight innings.  Prior to the season starting, I was asked whether Justin Verlander would win 15 games and I said no (I figured he’d be at 13 or 14).  While the season isn’t over and I still could be right, it’s one of the things where you also don’t mind being wrong about.

Sean Casey had another nice game.  He only finished with one hit but he drove in two and scored a run and he had a hit in each of the three games in the series.  Mike Rabelo also got had a nice day at the plate.  He went two for four with a run and an RBI and Brandon Inge hit his eighth homerun of the season.

Fernando Rodney got into trouble in the ninth, but Bobby Seay came in to get the final out and he picked up his first career save.  While Seay’s ERA looks high (and it is), it’s mostly because of one rough outing where he gave up four runs earlier in the week to Boston.  If you take that out, he’s having a pretty good season.

Next up is the Angels with John Lackey and Mike Maroth locking up on Tuesday.  Maroth is 3-0, but his strikeout to walk ratio (15/15) doesn’t impress.  Regardless, it’d be nice if he could push himself to 4-0 with a nice start tomorrow.

Tomorrow begins the Tiger Trivia Challenge.  I’ll probably repost the rules for those that missed it in the morning but once noon hits, it’s fair game.  Good luck to everyone and I appreciate all of the bloggers who have helped me promote the contest.  I’m hoping it’ll be fun for everyone.

First Inning has an interesting story on Andrew Miller.  They talk about what I’ve been mentioning, and that’s the fact that he’s an extreme ground ball pitcher and his two seemer and they try to draw some parallels to Roy Halladay and Brandon Webb.  Note that this was written prior to his first start on Friday.

Former Tiger closer (I say that with a chuckle) Troy Percival may be looking to come back after he retired this year.  He’s currently in a player development role with his former team, the Angels and if he did come back, it would be with the Angels.

While the Percival signing seemed decent at the time, it turned out pretty poorly because Percival was pretty ineffective when he pitched, and that wasn’t all that often, when he was with Detroit after signing a two year deal.  At one time though, he was one of the best closers in the game.

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