Catalanotto poised to enter AL batting race
Once again, a discarded Tiger does good. Catalanotto is hitting .341 and is only 10 AB’s shy of qualifying for the hitting title. Once he qualifies he’ll only trail Ichiro and Roberto Alomar.

Russ, while I agree with your main point about Higgy not being a MVP caliber player, I think you’ve over estimated the Juan Gonzalez protection effect. At your suggestion, I took a look at the statistics from last year and I found Bobby was much more productive when Juan was not in the lineup.

Now does this data tell us that Bobby is a better hitter without Juan? Hardly. Plus it does nothing to explain Higgy’s dropoff this year. I just mostly felt the need to not give Juan credit for anything positive that happened in Detroit.

Mariners 16, Tigers 1 Someone apparently tipped off the Mariners on how to tell Lima Time

Redman to get first start
Mark Redman has been activated from the DL and is slated to start on Thursday. CJ Nitkowski was outrighted to Toledo.

Way back in April, ESPN’s Power Alley had the Tigers ranked 27th. The little comment they included for the Tigers was:

At the time I thought that was a little harsh. Unfortunately CJ has lived down to this expectation. It is pretty sad when on a team as bad as the Tigers, one player stands out as the worst. Before getting shelled again today, CJ had allowed 78 (not counting 7 intentional walks) baserunners in 45 1/3 innings pitched. How does this guy stay with the team? Because the other left handed bullpen options are Heath Murray and Matt Perisho. It speaks volumes about the lack of direction this team has when you build a park like Comerica, and don’t have the foresight to have some left handed pitching.

Sweeney suspended for 10 games, Fick for eight
I guess causing a melee and throwing your helmet at someone with their back turned is only worth 2 games. Oh yeah, and Weaver got fined also for being attacked. And it took them a whole week to come up with this?

Cj Nitkowksi has decided to stop updating his site. Not a big deal, but I do like the section on his Teammates because he lists nicknames also. Let’s hear it for Juan “Cool Ass” Encarnacion.

The Tigers ended their 6 game losing streak by beating Texas 7-3 last night. The Tigers really did do some things right last night

• Another strong performance by Adam Pettyjohn, who is still looking for his first win.
• Some great at-bats took place in the 8th inning. Fick showed considerable patience fouling off several pitches before driving a double over Gabe Kapler’s head in center. Clark also did a fine job of 2-strike hitting by shortening his swing and lining a single to the opposite field.
• Damion Easley broke a 5 game hitless streak with a solo home run

Whenever I think about how bad the Tigers are this season, at least they aren’t Texas. The Rangers are 0-7 this year against the Tigers.

So who is Luis Pineda?
While everybody was focusing on the lack of offense, nobody noticed that the Tigers optioned Kevin Tolar back to Toledo and brought up Luis Pineda. According to baseballprospectus.com, he is a character and a fellow countryman of Jose Lima. The good news is he’s only 23. The bad news is that he has already been released by two teams.

At least Garner changed up the lineup yesterday. Macias led off, followed by Fick, Higginson, and Clark. I know this isn’t much, and they still lost yesterday, but I’m just looking for anything positive. Oh yeah, and Nate Cornejo was called up. Cornejo is 16-3 this year as he split time between Double A Erie and Triple A Toledo. It is expected that Chris Holt will be removed from the rotation. To make room for Cornejo, Heath Murray was sent to Toledo.

Hall of Fame announces sweeping changes
All major leaguers who played ten or more years are now elligible.

The Tigers have managed to tie a 33 year old record for futility. They are the first team since the 1968 Dodgers to score one run in five straight games. Keep in mind that 1968 is generally regarded as the year-of-the-pitcher. The league average ERA that year was 2.99. This season only 5 pitchers have an ERA better than that. Also, Carl Yastremski led the AL in batting with a .301 average. So the Dodgers inability to score could be attributed to times when they were playing. What’s the Tiger’s excuse?

The Tigers have highlighted the fact that there are two components of hitting. One, is the actual mechanics of the swing. Things like bat speed and power. The majority of Tiger players do all right with this component. The second component is hitting approach and plate discipline. Here is where the Tigers are glaringly deficient. Higginson, Clark, and Fick seem to be the only hitters on the Tigers who consistently don’t look confused at the plate. Coincidentally, they also lead the team in OPS (.849, .936, and .907 respectively). This poor approach is why the Tigers haven’t been able to have any individuals sustain long hot streaks.

We are constantly reminded by Tiger announcers that they are a fastball hitting team. My question is, “What team doesn’t hit the fastball well?” These are major league players, they should all be able to hit the fastball. What seperates the good hitters from the bad ones is what they do with the other pitches. And again, this all comes back to plate discipline. Most of the Tigers (Easley, Encarnacion, Cruz, Magee, Simon…) are hitting from behind in the count because they don’t show any patience early in the AB. It is fine to be a fastball hitter if you can consistently get 2-0 and 3-1 counts.

Furthermore, many of the Tigers don’t know what to do in certain situations. Easley has no business hitting second because of his inability to advance a runner from second with nobody out. On several occasions over the last 2 weeks, Easley was up with Cedeno on second and nobody out. Easley fell behind in the count, and ended up pulling the ball to shortstop. Essentially wasting the AB. I understand trying to drive the ball early in the count, but if you have 2 strikes just hit it the other way and get the man to third.

So who’s fault is this? Is it Madlock’s? He seems to have a knack for making adjustments in guys swings, but the plate discipline is still a mess. Is it Garner’s? I have a hard time believing that the coaches aren’t preaching these things. Is it the scouting team? The Tigers do look confused a lot at the plate, but they look confused lots of other places as well. Or is it the players?