2007 Season, Game Post

Game 48: Indians at Tigers

53 Comments

PREGAME: The Tigers are on pseudo national TV today. It’s one of Fox’s games of the week, but once again it is the 3rd game on the schedule. It’s really ashame when there are 2 very good teams and a very good pitching match-up with C.C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander going at it.

The weather has been sketchy today, so hopefully they can get it in.

Game Time 3:55pm

POSTGAME: Ugh. Not so much the final outcome, but the fact that the injury count for the day matched the runs on the board. I guess in some warped way it’s a good thing the Tigers didn’t score more. The rest of the day is just so much more frustrating than the final score in this one.

  • There was really only one hard hit ball off of Verlander. However, he was working behind in the count and 4 walks and a hit batsman helped chase him an inning earlier than his counterpart Sabathia. The Tigers had a few more hard hit balls, but Sabathia didn’t issue the free passes and kept his pitch count low.
  • Even still, Verlander comes back to start the 7th inning if Jhonny Peralta doesn’t poke that single over Guillen’s head. It extended the inning 2 more batters and pushed his pitch count from 96 to over 100.
  • Not sure what the official scorer was thinking on the Omar Infante error/triple. Yes the ball was hit a long ways, but Infante got back in time and the ball hit him in the glove. That catch has to be made, and no way do you score that a hit when it was the first of the game.
  • Nice game today by Marcus Thames. I can’t believe how far the broken bat homer went, and he added a sharp double as well.
  • Not a nice game today by Infante. He looked horrible at the plate, and of course had the aforementioned drop in centerfield. Not really what you want to see when you hear that your starting second baseman has a strained oblique.
  • And of course the bullpen. As nice as it would be to have Leyland leave his starters out there another inning, he can’t do it with the pitch counts they’ve been running up. A combination of Seay/Byrdak/Grilli in the 7-8 innings of close games could make for a long couple of weeks. I don’t fault any of those guys especially. It’s just not what anybody pictured for the pen.
  • Of course Grilli might not be a part of that picture. After the homer he took a liner off the leg adding injury to insult. I know Grilli is a popular whipping boy, and I’ve even taken part to an extent. But things are getting very thin.

53 thoughts on “Game 48: Indians at Tigers”

  1. Looks the tarp is off the field and the players are getting into position. Guess we’ll be underway on time today, yay. Eat’em up TIgers!

  3. Another shakey first inning for a Tiger starter. We need a ground ball.

  4. My husband just made the observation that Trot Nixon wears his mascara a little heavy. 🙂

  5. Verlander needs to come inside some. Robertson didn’t do it at all yesterday.

  7. Just so you all know, Jim Price and Dan Dickerson just reported that the team was not able to take batting or fielding practice before the game.

  8. It didn’t seem to hurt Thames. How often do you see a broken-bat homer? Woot!

  10. I don’t know why Leyland did’nt have Omar bunt in this tight game.

  28. Strained Oblique, because it is on the side and front of the abdomen is used every time you rotate or bend the spine forward is very painful and generally takes several weeks to heal. Albert Pujols was sidelined on the DL all of last June I believe.

    Let’skeep are fingers crossed.

  34. I wonder if Poly has been hurting previous to today. He hasn’t been his usual self at the plate, although he did hit the double.

  39. I think Leyland’s going to have to start biting the bullet and letting his starters throw more pitches. This bullpen freaking stinks!

  40. I hope Grilli is OK, but I don’t see anything from him so far this season.

  41. The Polanco injury would explain a lot. He has not been his usual self at the plate over the last few games.

  42. I could say something about Cleveland possible doing us a favor but I won’t. Bad girl!!!!

  44. The irony is painful: This year’s Tigers are last year’s Indians. Lots of talent, lots of expectations, lots of injuries.

  45. Cleveland has a great team and they’re healthy. We have a great team, but we’re not healthy. The Polonco injury worries me the most.

  47. We could not hold the lead today. We get 1 in the bottom of the 2nd. The Tribe gets 2 in the top of the 3rd. We go up 3-2 in the bottom of the 6th and the Tribe ties it in the top of the 7th and goes on to score 3 more for the win in the 8th.

    How many guys did we leave in scoring position? It seemed like there were about 3 innings in a row where we stranded someone in scoring position.

    I knew with Verlander’s high pitch count that he wouldn’t be going 7 or 8 innings and with our beleaguered bullpen we would need every run we could manage to push across the plate.

    Grr! Frustrating game especially with Girlie Grilli giving up the two-run shot and then getting whacked in the knee for his troubles by the next batter.

  48. This is going to be a long couple of weeks. I know we all get on people like Mesa and Grilli, etc, but that is because they’re failing in the positions we expected them to pitch in (6th-ish innings) and now they’re going to be the bridge to Jones. Yikes.

    It’s important to just weather the storm right now. Hopefully the offense doesn’t slump (Magg’s is due to slow down) during this stretch.

    And Monroe and Inge are killing the bottom of the order. I’d rather see Verlander bat for himself half the time.

  49. I was thinking about this tonight, and I really think to save the bullpen, the Tigers should strongly consider moving Chad Durbin into the ‘pen.

    Early in the season I was tough on Durbin and wanted him removed from the starting rotation, but he’s impressed me his last few outings. So much so that he is actually one of the only pitchers I would trust in the bullpen. As I wrote tonight, I would shift Durbin to the pen to strengthen it, and as soon as Roman Colon is ready after rehabbing his surgically repaired neck, I’d move him back up as well. With Durbin, Miner, and potentially Colon in the bullpen, it has a new look, a nice mix of hard and soft tossers, and can help the Tigers get by until Rodney and Zumaya return.

    As for Durbin’s spot in the rotation, move in Andrew Miller. You don’t lose much strength in the rotation and the Tigers bullpen is instantly stronger.

    -Scott

  50. I like Scott’s idea, does anyone know Roman Colon’s status?

    Also, “Detroit its ninth blown save of the season, tied for the American League lead pending Saturday night’s games.”

    Very discouraging, if this doesn’t change the tigers may become last years White Sox or Indians.

  51. You bring up a good point on Infante’s play in CF, scored a triple.
    In many cases, the scoring has been veeery generous as Monroe, Guillen & Inge (2 in BoSox series) have also received some favorable scoring decisions in recent weeks. I was watching the Cubs game in LA late Friday night, and Soriano butchered a ball in left, but did not receive an error (scored a double).
    These are anecdotal, of course, but also suspicious.
    Is there any way to research whether scoring has become more favorable to fielders / i.e.: less likely to award an error??

  52. It’s good that Sean Casey’s still wasting at bats so we can keep Thames out of the lineup. At least he’s a “nice guy”.

  53. I don’t think Colon’s close to coming back. 2) Anderw Miller is not MLB ready. I don’t want him up and getting shelled against the AL. Let’s not forget he faced the Cardinals, who, at the time, were last in the MLB runs scored. Not exactly the ’27 Yankees he faced.

Comments are closed.