Archive for the '2007 Tigers' Category

The Tigers jumped out to a quick 6-0 lead by the third inning and it looked like we were going to have a repeat of the last night’s game.  The bad news is, the Cardinals made a game of it and even though the Tigers added two more runs, the Cardinals made a one run game out of it.  The good news is, the Tigers held on to win the game.

Nate Robertson had a solid start and he gave up two runs in five innings.  The pen didn’t do quite as well.  Wil Ledezma gave up two runs and Tim Byrdak gave up one before the game entered the ninth with a three run lead.  Todd Jones then gave up two runs in the ninth before buckling down with two runners on, finishing up the Cardinals and picking up the save.

Ivan Rodriguez had a huge three run homer in the win.  Sean Casey had another nice game and he went two for four with a run and Gary Sheffield belted his eighth homerun of the season.

Justin Verlander gets the start tomorrow and the Tigers try to finish up the sweep.  Brad Thompson will be the Tigers opposition.  I like our chances with his matchup.

Andrew Miller had about as good of a first major league start as you could ask.  He gave up four hits and three walks with two strikeouts in six shutout innings.  Probably the most surprising thing about his start was his groundball to flyball ration (7 groundballs versus 9 flyballs) considering Miller is a pretty extreme ground ball pitcher.  I didn’t get a chance to watch the game and unfortunately they’re not replaying the game so I can’t tape it so I’m not quite sure what happened there.  Anyway, he kept the Cards off the board, which is the important thing.

With the Cardinals on the field, Sean Casey must have thought it was the World Series again because he killed the ball.  He went four for five with both two runs and two RBIs.  Placido Polanco doubled three times and drove in three while Gary Sheffield and Magglio Ordonez each went yard in the 14-4 win.  The only Tiger regular who didn’t get a hit in the game was Craig Monroe and the only Tiger starter that didn’t score a run was Ivan Rodriguez.

The Indians won as well so the Tigers still sit a game out of first place.  Still, at 25-16, they have the third best record in the American League.  Tomorrow, it’ll be Nate Robertson going up against Anthony Reyes and it’s a night game.  I like that matchup and hopefully the Tigers will avenge their 2006 World Series game one loss to Reyes by knocking him out of the game early.

Wil Ledezma had a tough time last night in the Tigers 4-2 loss to the Red Sox.  The end result was a series sweep and a series loss.  Ledezma came into the sixth inning with two runners on and he allowed one of the runs that went to Durbin to score.   He then gave up a two run homer to Eric Hinske in the seventh that sealed the game.  Speaking of Hinske, he made an awesome catch in the fifth inning in the corner to rob Mike Rabelo of a hit.

Curtis Granderson picked up two more hits and both were doubles.  Rabelo had a nice game with two hits and he also had the out stolen from him by Hinske.  Brandon Inge hit one just off the top of the Green Monster and it was the seventh time he’s gone yard this year.

Next up is interleague play, with a rematch of last year’s World Series between the Cardinals and the Tigers.  All eyes will be on Andrew Miller because he makes his first major league start of his career.  Braden Looper, who’s been the Cardinals best starter so far this year, takes the mound for the Cardinals.

I didn’t expect to say this, but Zach Miner and Julian Tavarez locked up today and had quite the pitchers duel in the Tigers 2-1 loss to the Red Sox.  Miner was called up this morning to replace a sick Mike Maroth and despite struggling most of the season at Triple A, he gave the Tigers a chance to win today.  He gave up two runs (one earned) on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.  Even more impressive was Tim Byrdak, who struck out five of the six batters he faced in two perfect innings.  Even Jose Mesa got a couple of guys out.

Unfortuately, the hitting wasn’t there.  Placido Polanco drove in the only run for the Tigers and in total, there were just four hits and all of them were singles. 

We’ve still got one more game tonight and it’s Chad Durbin throwing against Curt Schilling.  It’s hard to believe that Durbin is 3-1 with his numbers but he has been pretty good in three of his last four starts.  And the Tigers have won the game five out of the seven times he’s taken the mound, which isn’t all bad.  Not too bad for a stopgap fifth starter.

I picked this up from Mack Avenue Tigers.  The bad news is, Jeremy Bonderman hit the DL.  The interesting news is, Andrew Miller is going to start in his place.  Miller threw eight solid innings in his Erie debut lastweek so we’ll see how he does in his first major league start of his career.  Miller has the stuff, including a wicked slider, and he’s an extreme ground ball pitcher so hopefully the infield defense is up for the task on Friday.

You can file this away as a mundane stat, but at this point in time, Gary Sheffield has more runs (33) then he does hits (32).  Rickie Weeks is the only hitter who’s close who’s near the top of the leader list.  He has 30 runs and 33 hits. 

That reminds me of one of favorite players as a teenager, Jim Walewander.  While he never really took off, he made his mark on the 1987 team when he was used a lot as a pinch runner.  He finished the season with just 13 hits but he scored 24 runs.  In fact, he’d get almost three times as many at bats in 1988, and he’d only score 23 times.  That 1988 season would cost him because he finished his career with 52 hits and 50 runs.  And in 1987, he was used a pinch runner fourteen times and he scored runs in ten of those instances.

The Tigers had their third game postponed tonight.  The game will be made up tomorrow with a double header.  Game one will be at 12:35 (nine, since I’ll get to watch it) with game two coming at the normal 7:05 time slot.  The only downer is this game was supposed to be on ESPN and the national coverage would have been nice.

Every week, Beyond the Boxscore publishes some very interesting awards and in this weeks edition, Curtis Granderson walks away with the Harmon Killebrew batting average is for wussies award.  Granderson has a decent .280 batting average yet he’s been very productive because he’s drawn his share of walks and gotten his share of extra base hits.  The end result is a .920 OPS, which puts him near the top of the list for centerfielders in the American League.

It was the Magglio Ordonez and Justin Verlander show today.  Justin Verlander gave up an early run in the first inning but held the Red Sox scoreless until he gave up a solo homerun to Kevin Youkilis in the eighth inning.  And Magglio Ordonez gave the Tigers all of the offense they’d need with a three run homer in the third inning.  Brandon Inge also went yard in the third inning with a solo shot and Gary Sheffield singled, drew a walk and scored twice in the 7-2 win.

Verlander struck out a season high seven batters in his third straight win.  He didn’t give up a single free pass and he gave up just six hits in what was probably Verlander’s best start since he threw seven shutout innings back in early April.

Tomorrow, it’ll be the two back end starters going head to head with Mike Maroth taking on Julian Tavarez.  Even in Tavarez’ one win, he didn’t look all that great so I like our chances in this one if Mike Maroth can hold the Red Sox in check.

Tom Stanton’s latest book, Ty and the Babe, was released today.  I had a chance to read it while we were on vacation and I loved and if you have any interest in Ty Cobb, this is a must read because it’s dispels some of the myths that are out there about Cobb.  If you want more information on the book, you can check out Billfer’s review and I also had a chance to interview Mr. Stanton and you’ll find that at the Hardball Times tomorrow.  And in addition, you can check out Tom Stanton’s website because he’s blogging about his road show and it’s a fun read.

Things started off well enough.  Curtis Granderson hit a solo homerun in the top of the third inning to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead but from then on, the Tigers didn’t put up much of a fight at the plate and the game will go in the record books as the first complete game of Daisuke Matsuzaka’s major league career.  Granderson was the only Tiger to pick up two hits and nobody earned a free pass in this one. 

Magglio Ordonez did hit his nineteenth double, which ties him with Chase Utley for the lead in both leagues.  His previous career high was in 2002 with the White Sox when he hit 47.

Nate Robertson took it on the chin and he dropped to 3-3 on the season.  He gave up three runs on eleven hits. Tim Byrdak made his Tiger debut and he threw two scoreless frames but Bobby Seay wasn’t as luck and he gave up four runs in just the one inning he worked.

Tomorrow, it’ll be Tim Wakefield going up against Justin Verlander.  Everytime I see Wakefield’s name, I think of the game he threw against the Tigers way back in 2004 when the Tigers hit six homeruns against him yet Wakefield still picked up the win because Nate Robertson was pummelled.

More fun from the Tigers Press Pass for today’s game.  Magglio Ordonez leads all active players with a career .411 OBP and .611 slugging percentage against Red Sox pitching in his career.  Of course he’s never faced Dice-K before so we’ll see how that goes.  Ordonez is also second among active players with a .358 batting average at Fenway Park.

The Tigers aren’t settling for the singles this year.  They lead the American League with 11 triples and 135 extra base hits this season.  They’re second in the AL with 84 doubles and fourth with 40 homeruns. 

Nate Robertson, tonight’s starter, has done particularly well against David Ortiz.  While the sample size is small, Ortiz has just one hit off of Robertson in fourteen at bats.  The only pitcher who Ortiz hits worse against (and who he has at least 15 plate appearances) is Ricardo Rincon.

As expected, Virgil Vasquez was sent back down to Toledo and left handed reliever Tim Byrdak was called up in his place.  Byrdak has struck out 25 in 20 innings so hopefully this will give the Tigers another quality left handed option out of the pen.

Dave Dombrowski made a trip over the weekend to see how the White Caps pitchers were doing.  While this isn’t too amazing, I was interested to note that the White Caps play in Fifth Third Ballpark.  Which I guess is different from Fifth Third Field, which is the home of the Toledo Mudhens and then there’s the Fifth Third Field that the Reds Low A affiliate plays in at Dayton.  Does Fifth Third Bank have a handle on anymore midwest minor league ball parks out there?   I guess there’s no rule against them having multiple stadiums under sponsorship, but it’s pretty confusing.  Then again, I always used to get Fulton County Stadium and County Stadium mixed up quite a bit.

Alright, I’ve been throwing around ideas in my head regarding this for a while and I think I’m going to finally pull the trigger.  Beginning next Monday, May 21, I’m going to start a ten day Tiger triva challenge.  Basically how it’s going to work is, I’ll be posting a question at the top of an hour at some point between noon and ten pm of that given day.  You then have one hour to send an email (I’ll provide the address) with the answer to the question as well as a mention of your favorite Tiger site (excluding mine, although we all know there’s better one’s out there).  This will go on through Friday, then we’ll skip the weekend and start back up the following business week and that’ll make up the ten days.  Whoever answers the most questions wins the prize, and if there’s a tie, then we’ll have a sudden death playoff the following week.

I kept flipping on prize ideas and I was set on adding to the winners baseball library, but then I figured that everyone’s reading habits aren’t the same as mine so I got to thinking what everyone would want.  I came to the conclusion that cash would be the best prize so first place not only gets bragging rights, but they also walk away with $50.

Rule number one (and bear with me ) is if you’re a Tiger blogger, you’re not allowed to take part in the contest.  Now that may seem a bit cruel, but bear with me because you have a role in this as well.  I know this will be impossible to enforce, but I’m hoping all of the Tiger bloggers to the honor system because they can win some cash too.  Basically, the favorite Tiger site of the winner also walks away with $50 so there’s something in it for all of the Tiger bloggers out there.  Plus you get bragging rights because you can say you have the most knowledgeable fans. 

That’s it in a nutshell. If you have any questions, send me an email or post a comment because we have a week to hash things out.  Also, this is a precursor to something I have planned this offseason so hopefully it works out.

It would have made a great story.  Jeremy Bonderman misses his start and sleeper prospect Virgil Vasquez comes in and makes the best of his chance in his major league debut.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be and Vasquez was knocked around for six innings and he didn’t finish the third inning.  Even worse, all three Tiger relievers who came into the game gave up at least three runs each.  This game checked in at over 3:30 and unless you were a Twins fan, it wasn’t very exciting.  As you can see from the Win Probability gragh, this game was pretty much over by the fourth inning.

Magglio Ordonez hit homerun number seven and his RBI total is now up to 34.  That’s good for second in the American League and Ordonez is slowly creeping up to Alex Rodriguez at 39. 

Hopefully the pitching comes around because we’ll need it with four games at Fenway Park.  Record wise, the Tigers and Red Sox are the two best teams in the American League so this should be a pretty publicized battle.  Nate Robertson will take the mound tonight and the Tigers will see Daisuke Matsuzaka for the first time.  Wednesday’s game is on ESPN and all four games are evening games.  Once I get the press pass, I’ll flip through it and let you know if there’s anything interesting in there.  Also, I’m hoping to give you the details on the trivia contest I’m going to start, most likely next week.

Virgil Vasquez is going to make his major league debut tomorrow and while he may be on the big league team for all of one day, it’s probably worth taking a look at where this sleeper came from.  Vasquez was drafted by the Tigers in the seventh round of the 2003 draft out of UC Santa Barbara and he made his minor league debut that season with Oneota.  While he was hit hard in eleven starts (6.92 ERA), he carried what he learned there into his first full season with the White Caps in 2004.  He finished the season 14-6 in 27 starts and he had an impressive 120/34 strikeout to walk ratio in 168 1/3 innings.

2005 was a mixed bag.  He pitched pretty well for Lakeland to start the season, but when he was bumped up to Erie, he got knocked around.  The end result was a 2-8 record with a 5.27 ERA in 15 starts at Double A.  Last year though, he threw a lot better in his second stint with the Seawolves.  His walk rate was up but it was still a very respectable 2.59/9 innings but his strikeout rate was also up.

This year, Vasquez got off to a rough start at Toledo and he was hit hard in his first two starts.  Since then, he’s been on fire though and the end result is 50 strikeouts in 40 2/3 innings with only ten walks.  Now we’ll get to see what he can do at the big league level and he has a tough task handling a pretty rough middle of the Twins lineup.

***UPDATE***

I forgot to mention that Virgil Vasquez will not only get the start tomorrow, but it’ll be on the spotlight because the Tigers are on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN. 

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.  The website problems began popping up about the first of the month when I began noticing posting problems and some of the other writers in both networks began writing to me about wordpress accessibility problems.  It seemed to get worse before it got better and the end result was almost a two week shut down. 

It didn’t help things that I was on vacation in the Caribbean this past week.  I figured I could sneak out of town, access the net and keep up with things while on the cruise and nobody would be the wiser but it wasn’t to be.  I didn’t want to advertise the fact that I’d be gone for over a week because my house isn’t too hard to track down but by last weekend, I knew I had a full blown problem on my hands.

The good news is, things should be pretty much fixed.  So over the next couple of days, everyone in the Baseball Historians and Minor League Blogs network should be back to work.

The vacation was fun.  Probably the coolest part was a helicopter ride over Grand Cayman.  If you ever want the experience of a lifetime and you’re in Grand Cayman, be sure to book a ride with Cayman Island Helicopters.  The pilot was awesome and very entertaining and you’ll see everything from sting ray city to some sharks out in the water.  We were on a Disney cruise and the boy had a great time too.  He even went parasailing for the first time while his old man worried about him while in the boat.

And while I’ve been gone, the Tigers have continued their tear.  At 23-12, they sit a top the Central and they’re behind just the Red Sox for the best record in the American League.  Eleven wins in twelve games will do that for you and I’ll be taking a look at that run as well as tomorrow’s starter, Virgil Vasquez, who will make his major league debut tomorrow in place of Jeremy Bonderman.

I’ve got some other cool stuff coming up as well.  On Wednesday, I’ll be posting my interview with Tom Stanton on his new book, Ty and the Babe.  It was a fantastic read and if you’ve ever thought negatively (as a person, you can’t argue with what he did on the field) of Ty Cobb, you’ll rethink things after reading this fantastic piece of work.  The book comes out Tuesday and Mr. Stanton will be making an extensive circuit in the area so be sure to check out his website and stop by one of his signings to say hello.

The Tigers are still winning while I’m still having problems.  I’m still having some WordPress/hosting problems I’m trying to get resolved and in the meantime, I limited to these quick bursts for fear I might lose all of my work.  Anyway, they’ve promised to resolve things this week so when I start writing more, it means things are fixed.  Thanks for your patience.

I’m having some network/wordpress problems that are affecting all of the Baseball Historians and Minor League Blogs sites so I’m going to get this in while I still can.  Tigers won their fifth straight with good games by Justin Verlander and Carlos Guillen.   It’ll be Mike Maroth against Odalis Perez and while the Tigers still trail the Indians by a half game, they have a nice two and a half game cushion over third place Minnesota.

Now this is what we expected from Mr. Sheffield.  On a day where a lot of the hitters were off, Gary Sheffield put the team on his back and went four for four with a homerun and he drove in two of the Tigers three runs.  No other Tigers had more then one hit, but the one by Craig Monroe ended up being the difference maker.  His solo homerun put the Tigers ahead by the score of 3-2, and that would be the final.

Nate Robertson had another really nice start.  He gave up two runs on seven hits and three walks with three strikeouts.  Jason Grilli finished the seventh inning and got the final out while Fernando Rodney and Todd Jones each threw a scoreless inning to close things out.

With the four game winning streak, the Tigers now site for the moment in second place, a game back of the Indians.  Tomorrow is an off day and then it’s three against the Royals with Justin Verlander and Brian Bannister throwing in the opener.

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