Game 161: Royals at Tigers

PREGAME: I’ll get this up nice and early today in case anybody cares to comments on the Twins/White Sox game this afternoon.

As for the Comerica Park match-up it will be bullpen mishmash day. Zach Miner will take the ball for Detroit. He hasn’t thrown more than 40 pitches in a game since August 18th, and he threw 2 1/3 innings on Wednesday, so it will be interesting to see how long Leyland will let him go.

For the Royals, they will use Ambirorix Burgos who will be making his first career start after 126 relief appearances over the last 2 years.

It’s cold, rainy, and generally miserable today. But I don’t think there’s anyway Detroit wants a double header tomorrow so they’ll play it one way or another.

Game Time 7:05

UPDATE: Twins go down to the White Sox. The Magic Number is at 1. I’m sure the Royals would just assume not be part of 3 clinching celebrations in a one week span, but for everyone’s sanity please take care of this tonight.

POSTGAME: This is becoming unnecessarily stressful. I actually missed the first 4 innings of this game due to another commitment, but when you’re starting pitcher lasts 1/3 of an inning, it certainly doesn’t bode well. After Andrew Miller through 56 pitches (that seems like a lot for a guy that prized but circumstances certainly weren’t favorable), Jason Grilli and Chad Durbin pitched 5 2/3 innings allowing only 1 run. The offense tried clawing back, but like Thursday the deficit proved to be too much.

The one question is have is, where is Jordan Tata? I thought Leyland may be saving him to pitch in Bonderman’s spot today, but given how last night transpired it became pretty clear Jeremy would make his start.

55 thoughts on “Game 161: Royals at Tigers”

  1. Today certainly has the potential to be the day we fall out of first: at Comerica you have Miner on short rest backed by a pen depleted by last night’s 11 innings, and at the Metrodome you’ve got a goofy 11 am start after a night game (blame Michigan-Minnesota), which is presumably why the Sox are sending out an extreme JV lineup — Brian Anderson hitting 2nd (no that’s not a misprint), and days off for Konerko, Thome, Dye, and Pierzynski. I never thought I’d be pining to see that SOB Pierzynski in the lineup, but there it is.

    So far looks like the Sox are getting a lot of chances off of Garza but they can’t close the deal….big surprise. As I speak, there’s a Ross Gload double to drive one in — finally a run after 6 hits, 3 of them doubles, through 2-1/3.

    Go Sox!

  2. Wow, I had seen the game updates on MLB.com, but hadn’t seen just what an awful lineup that Ozzie put out there today. Hey, whatever works . . .

  3. 4-0 for the White Sox is looking pretty dang good right now. Wouldn’t it be cool to see Miner go out there and pitch a gem to give the Tigers a chance for the win today?

    Isn’t there a time limit for the White Sox/Twins tilt? If the game is not finished by a certain time they have to stop where they are and finish it tomorrow (I know I read something like that a month ago or so). They need time to put down the football turf and get the bleachers set up.

    Anyone know the details?

  4. 6-0 Who sox, B9 Maybe we could help ourselves tonight. I have MLB extra inning and they are done with Tiger games this year. I really wanted to watch. Looks like it the radio and game day.
    Who is left to pitch tonight after Minor? Miller and Rodney?. I hope we can pound out a win tonight and be done with it.

    Last night should be a very valuable lesson for these guys.

  5. Seriously, have the Twins EVER gone out 1-2-3 in the 9th? It’s obviously a case of only remembering the ones that give you heartburn, but these guys seem unstoppable when they’re behind after 8.

    The state of our pen tonight is definitely a concern….I still can’t fathom what must have been going through Leyland’s mind last night to pull Ledezma. Have I missed a revelation in today’s coverage?

  6. Wow, Chisox are really helping us out this weekend. Now Tigs need to take advantage and clinch the division tonite.

  7. Twins Lose! Tigers Magic Number at 1. We can clinch the Division tonight. It could be said Detroit doesn’t deserve to win the Division if they get swept by Kansas City at home.

  8. The Twins have their work cut out for them. They need to beat the White Sox tomorrow and hope that Kansas City completes a clean sweep of Detroit and wins the next two. Twins fans start booking your flight to New York. It’d be great to have the Twins beat New York and Detroit beat Oakland and then have Detroit play Minnesota for the ALCS. We might have a chance with home field advantage.

  9. Win it tonight and now! Then we can have Durbin or even Maroth start tomorrow and eat that day

  10. Last night, Jim Price made a good point when he said Ledemza only has good two pitches, so by the 3rd time through the lineup, he starts to get pounded. He may be better as a reliever than a starter.

  11. Theres no way we lose this series in KC. Our pitching is rediculously deep that we arent playing anymore post season starters really though…

    Hey, check out this blog if your a tigers fan, theres some good tigers videos on it, and if you’ve been to a game ull prolly rocognize the beat’em up tigers bum…haha

    http://detroitsportskingdom.blogspot.com/

  12. I think that everyone here firmly believes that the odds of the Tigers winning one of the next two games against Kansas City are far greater than the Twinkies losing tomorrow.

    Therefore, (gosh did I just write ‘therefore’ in a blog comment?) the Tigers should just get the inevitable over with tonight with a Dubya (that’s ‘W’ for Win 😉 ) and have the next couple of days to prepare for the A’s. 🙂

  13. It would be nice to give Maroth the start tomorrow–even if it’s only for 3 or 4 innings. He deserves to be recognized for his contributions to the team–both on and off the field.

  14. I think it would be great if Maroth did get the nod tomorrow for a couple innings or so. It’s pretty cool that he will be travelling with the team during the playoffs. He deserves that much.

    Wonder how late this game will start? The baseball gods are making Tiger fans extend their wait to be Division Champs. Oh well, we’ve waited 19 years, what’s a few hours right?

  15. Silver lining: Given that Miner went 2+ innings three days ago, I’m sure Leyland was going to be cobbling together nine innings of pitching anyway. So if the games gets played sporadically due to the rain, it could work to our advantage.

    On the other hand, it seems like we’ve lost the last couple games involving rain delays.

  16. 4-0 Kansas City. Wow. Do these guys really want to get the Wild Card. They have to blow the next two and hope Minnesota wins.

  17. Miner came out a lot quicker than I expecte, but a good decision the way he was being knocked around already and the chance to clinch division. Now can we avoid burning the pen, and get some of those runs back?

  18. The case could be made that if the Kansas City Royals sweep the Tigers on Detroit’s home field, then they don’t deserve to win the Division.

  19. HAHAHA! I just checked the score here for the first time.

    Well, at least we have the whole game left to come back.

    Good god. Can we please clinch something!!!!!

    And watch it Alan…I got into a peck of trouble making a similar comment last night.

  20. I dont understand the whole they dont deserve to win the divsion talk. What does that even mean? The team that wins the division deserves it.

    No reason to stress about these games…they do not mean anything right now. Playing with the knowledge that you can lose and still be in the playoffs changes the entire equation. I am sure the Tigers dont care whether they play the Yankees or the A’s in the 1st round. You are going to have to beat the yankees to get to the world series.

  21. J, I think saying that we’re going to have to play the Yankees to get to the world series is just is no less ridiculous than the issue of deserving to win the division. The Yanks could very well lose to Minnie.

    These games DO matter and of course the Tigers care and personally I think getting Oakland at home instead of the Yanks on the road is important.

    NICE! Too bad Stairs isn’t on the playoff roster.

  22. I will rephrase the word “deserve” to say that they sure wouldn’t look like a Divisional Champ if they got swept at home by a team in the Division that is in last place and has lost 100 games. The same could be said of the Twins performance right now. We’ll see who blinks first.

  23. Joey,

    Stairs not being able to be on the playoff squad must be a Yankee rule. I mean if you could pick up players after deadlines and use them in the post season, the Yankees would always be padding their line up because they can AFFORD ANYBODY.

  24. Would it be possible for Billfer to filter any comment using the word “deserve”? People tend to use it to mean “playing not to the level at which I generally imagine a playoff team.” And people who read it seem only to understand it to mean “fraudulent.” The result is some pretty tedious reading for all of us.

  25. Oooh, the tension mounts. The Tigers are chipping their way back into the game. Wouldn’t it be sweet if they came all the way back and won it? Kind of a microcosm of this year. Just when you think the Tigers will never win again, they go and prove you wrong.

    I hope every team we face (I want there to be more than just one) takes us lightly. It will be their last mistake of the season.

  26. Hear, hear. I second the call for a moratorium on all discussions of deservedness…and so much the better if the filter can be expanded to catch “the Tigers should have traded for Soriano/Abreu”, which I believe made a repeat engagement last night or today.

  27. The Tigers just really stink right now. Couldn’t we have rolled out a real pitcher tonight?

  28. my bright point was that we didn’t, Cameron. While it looks like we wasted the heck out of the bullpen, at least nearly 5 innings — if leyland takes miner over miller — of today’s pitching staff were pitched by guys who won’t be playing next week. No use blowing your bullpen in a blowout.

    My question is, did Miner or Miller make a worse case of themselves tonight?

  29. So I guess Bondo is a go for tomorrow? Maybe he can roll another 8 inning start and give the team a break.

    It really shouldnt be this hard.

  30. I agree with JoeyC…winning the division does matter. The Twins could easily beat NY.

    Plus, if we play the Yankees, we likely would play Minnesota if we beat NY, and they would have home field in the g%^-d&*% Hanky Dome.

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