Swept. At home. Tied for 2nd place. Ugh.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I took a late lunch and went down to catch a couple innings of the game with friends and coworkers Missy and Jim (they were hoping for a blog mention). A gorgeous day, $5 seats, and Justin Verlander on the mound just sounded too appetizing to miss. Unfortunately the White Sox did the feasting. We were only able stay for 3 innings, but that was long enough to see Verlander’s day end.
I’m not going to try and spin this win into something positive. But that won’t stop me from sharing some thoughts, reflections, and facts:
- In the first inning the Tigers “manufactured” a run. Placido Polanco and Ivan Rodriguez did their jobs to get Curtis Granderson in from second base. Something the team struggled to do in the last couple games. Now the run ended up being inconsequential, but we didn’t know that at the time.
- Justin Verlander is bound to struggle, he’s a rookie. Every starter is going to have days like this. Let’s just hope that this one was more the exception.
- The Tigers mustered 13 hits off of Jon Garland. It took them 3 starts to do that last year. Hopefully he doesn’t “own them” anymore. There are enough White Sox pitchers that do that.
- The Tigers two lefty pen arms combined to throw 87 pitches today. Here’s hoping Kenny Rogers can go deep enough to get the ball to Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney tomorrow night.
- Even though they didn’t come all the way back, getting the score from 9-1 to 10-8 was still impressive. Despite the bullpen’s struggles, the Tigers still found themselves with a chance in their last at-bat.
- I still like Jim Thome better as a Phillie. At least Chris Shelton kept ahead of Thome in the triple crown chase. As of this writing, 3 players have 6 or more home runs. All 3 are from the AL Central (Travis Hafner is the 3rd). That’s not bad for a division that is known for its pitching.
I don’t think the sweep is devastating, but it sure is disappointing. The fact that the Tigers sit at 5-4 is still a positive, and it makes those wins over weaker opponents last week that much more important.
I had a feeling this might happen today. The White Sox are very disciplined hitting team. The real test will be how Verlander absorbs this experience, studies film and performs next time against the Sox. Can’t wait for the Indians series to see us bounce back!
Also, did you see former Tigers farmhand Cody Ross had a 7 rbi day?! I always liked him…a Higginson type player…without the large contract.
Took the day off to go to the game with my family. Perfect weather. Unfortunate result. Two-out runs by White Sox killed us. A couple questionable calls by the third base coach. Prefer that we be agressive going for home with two outs and conservative with one out–the opposite of what happened today.
I understand the frustration, but it really comes down to the fact that one throw was on the money and the other was way off. I’m sure the coach weighed a plethora of factors in the split second before he made the calls.
Billfer, I agree with all your observations.
Verlander is going to take his lumps this season, and we shouldn’t fret too much over it. The bottom line here is that we just got swept by the world champs and their big offseason acquisition was on absolute fire. Bring Thome to town when he’s not hittting everything he sees out of the park, and we might have a different outcome.
Today’s big gaffe, in my oppinion, was Seay getting two outs in the 8th and then putting the 9th hitter Anderson and an ice-cold Pods on base with a walk and an HBP. That brought up Iguchi and Thome and Konerko and of course all hell broke lose. I don’t know why they didn’t just go right at Anderson.
Oh and just to nitpick…
Granderson needs to stop trying to make throws to the plate. In two games he let 3 runners advance to second on ill-advised throws to home. All three runners ended up scoring. He really doesn’t have much of an arm so the chances of reward are far outweighed by the damage done allowing those runners to advance.
Is it me or does Leyland not believe much in pinch-hitting. I know he likes to play his players and show confidence in them but i have noticed a few key situations where it would have been appropriate…
9th inning with 2 out, Granderson, rookie who strikes out and has been struggling at plate last few games and the tigers down by 4 with bases loaded….why not bring in Marcus Thames who has hit well so far with 2 homers in like 13 at bats.
I was really hoping to make a statement vs. white sox, and at very least win one of the close games….they have the talent, just need that winning edge.
it aint ’93, its all about the Old English D.
Follow-up on the calls by the third base coach (Gene Lamont):
1) On the first call, Guillen was only half way down the line when the catcher caught the ball. He would have been out even with a bad throw. This was just a really bad decision–especially with only one out
2) On the second call, there were two outs. Let’s say the next batter is a .300 hitter. Was there at least 30% chance the runner would score?
I realize, these are tough calls by the third base coach–but there also extremely important ones. The first call was bad judgement; the second was just bad strategy. Hopefully, this won’t be a pattern.