Just when the Tigers look defeated, beat up, and destined for a fight for last place, they put together a nice little string of games. The Tigers followed a five game losing streak with a win on get-away day from KC and a sweep of the Diamondbacks.
It started Friday night when the Tigers scratched out a 2-1 win in a pitcher’s duel. Jason Johnson pitched 8 innings of one hit ball. He only allowed one walk to go along with 6 K’s and made it through 24 outs on only 86 pitches. Johnson’s game score was 80 which places it in one of the top 20 AL games pitched this year. It was surprising that Tram went with Urbina in the 9th since Johnson had been so dominant and efficient. However, in going back and looking at some numbers, I think Trammell made the right move. Johnson breaks down tremendously after 90 pitches. This year after pitch 90, opponents are hitting .400/.441/.550 against Johnson. Because the Tigers were protecting a one run lead, it made sense to turn it over to the closer. Urbina fanned the first two before Steve Finley took Bobby Higginson to the wall for the final out.
Eric Munson won Saturday’s game with a dramatic walk-off homer into the camera stand in straightaway centerfield. The tremendous blast was measured at 457 feet, the longest in Comerica’s history. With Brandon Inge and Greg Norton on the DL, Munson is now the starting 3B again and hopefully this will be the beginning of good things for him.
However, Saturday’s game also featured Jeremy Bonderman trying to once again figure things out. And once again, it was an uneven performance from Jeremy. The 7 K’s in 7 innings were great, but the 5 walks were troubling. Also, he seemed to get rattled when the defense repeatedly broke down around him. Trammell stuck with Bonderman, even though he was struggling. Bonderman threw 118 pitches, his longest outing of the season. Following Bonderman’s last long outing (114 pitches on May 23rd) he combined for 5 1/3 innings and 14 runs in his subsequent 2 starts. It will be interesting to see what happens in Bonderman’s next start which will be in the thin air of Colorado.
Sunday had more drama as Carlos Pena finished the game with a 2-2 pitch that cleared the fence in right for a walk-off grand slam. And for the third time in as many days, the Tigers won a close one. The real story in this game was the bullpen. Danny Patterson came in with the bases loaded and no outs and closed the door inducing a double play and a pop out. This year the expected run value of an inning with the bases loaded and no outs is 2.26 runs. Essentially Patterson helped save the team 2.26 runs. Patterson was followed up by Jamie Walker who pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings. In fact, Walker and Patterson combined to get 12 outs on 39 pitches.
Maroth has now given up a homer in his last 5 starts. Maroth’s big struggle last year was the long ball as he allowed 34 in 193 innings. He’s improved this year to 13 dingers in 100 innings. While he hasn’t pitched bad in his last few starts, he hasn’t pitched particularly well either. With the expception of Sunday’s game, he has pitched well enough to keep his team in the game. Which, as a middle to back of the rotation guy, that is about what you’d expect.
I know that decisions always look better after a win, but I thought Trammell had a fine series managing. While I thought he stuck with Bonderman a little too long on Saturday, I understood his apprhension about turing to the bullpen. Though I questioned pulling Johnson at the time on Friday, in looking at the numbers it actually made sense. Plus, his use of the bullpen on Sunday (keeping Walker in longer than normal) I thought was another strong move. My favorite move of the weekend was when he decided not to have Higginson sacrifice Infante to 3rd in the 9th inning. You may remember a similar situation in Seattle earlier this year where he asked Higginson to sacrifice runners over late in a game that backfired. At least he’s learning from his mistakes.
I’d agree with some of the comments about Trammell’s bullpen management, but I am starting to tire of his National League small-ball on the basepaths. I don’t have my scorecard from yesterday’s game (so I may have a detail wrong), but Infante was caught stealing in the first. A pitch or two later, Guillen hit a hard double that could have scored Infante. Later in the game, there was another CS, but it may have been more appropriate late in a close game. We’re leading the majors in CSs, and our steal success percentage is 24th. We’ve got a lineup that’s been hitting the ball well and apparently doesn’t run well, so why are we trying to play small-ball early in games?
There may be better data to explain this — and the failures may just stick in my head more than the successes — but I think that Trammell needs to reconsider what we’re doing with our baserunners.
That said, it was a pretty magical weekend at the ballpark.