2006 Season

Series Wrap: Tigers at Royals

The Tigers managed to pull off a sweep of the Royals, despite some rough starts by the rotation. With the exception of Justin Verlander’s series opening shut out, the rest of the starters were knocked around. Fortunately the Tigers were playing the Royals, where if you have outs left you always have a chance.

Still, the success that a team like the Royals had against the Tigers staff is disconcerting to say the least. Now that the rotation has made quite a few starts, have the scouting reports caught up to them? Did new patterns brought in by Chuck Hernandez and Kenny Rogers throw opposing teams off, but now they’ve got the memo? Or is it simply a regression to the mean because they had been pitching so good for so long? Only time will tell. Onto the stats…

Tigers Royals
Wins 4 0
Offense
Runs 35 16
BA .338 .279
OBP .409 .324
SLG .580 .413
HR 10 9
SB/CS 1/1 0/2
Pitching
BB/9 2.5 4.3
K/9 5.3 6.3
ERA 4.00 8.00

Stuff of Note

  • Games with lots of lead changes, or with dramatic come from behind scenarios are always fun from a win probability perspective. Yesterday’s graph is a thing of beauty for Tiger fans. Craig Monroe, he of the not-making-an-out-and-hitting-the-go-ahead-homer, picked up 48.5% WPA.
  • In the midst of a discussion about the merits of on base percentage, the Tigers post a .409 and scored oodles of runs. In all fairness they did everything well from an offensive perspective in this series. And, well, it was the Royals.
  • And to further emphasize the merits of OBP, 76 of the team’s 157 at-bats came with runners on base.
  • Seven of the team’s ten homers came from the 7-8-9 hitters.
  • Placido Polanco fanned 5 times in the series. Prior to heading to Kansas City he had struck out 6 times all season.

Series Studs

  • Curtis Granderson hit 444/524/722 and drove in 7 timely runs.
  • Omar Infante got the chance, or should I say earned the chance, to play in all 4 games of the series. He hit 438/500/812 including his first two homers of the season.
  • Marcus Thames continues to do a ton in limited time. He posted 400/538/1.100 numbers.
  • Craig Monroe also had a nice series, including a perfect game on get away day. He reached base 10 times over the 4 games and raised his OBP from .264 to .295.
  • Roman Colon’s overall number aren’t overwhelming, but his role was significant. He kept the Tigers in the game on no notice yesterday and got them into the 7th inning.
  • Justin Verlander was spectacular in the series opener and recorded his first complete game and shut out. He allowed only 5 hits while striking out 7.
  • Joel Zumaya made two appearances totaling 3 1/3 innings. He allowed 4 baserunners but struck out 5 and picked up a win.

And those who struggled

  • Mike Maroth, limited by injury, was torched for 6 runs and recorded a lone out.
  • Kenny Rogers gave up 4 homers to a weak hitting Royals team. Rogers and Jeremy Bonderman both allowed 10 hits in their outings.
  • Chris Shelton only managed a 2 for 13 series whlie striking out 5 times.