2007 Season, Game Post

Game 60: Mets at Tigers

40 Comments

PREGAME: While not a big proponent of interleague, I’ll admit that I’m looking forward to this series. The New York Mets are a half game behind the San Diego Padres for the best record in the National League. This is one year after they ran away with the league crown before losing to the Cardinals in the NLCS. They’re also in a bit of a funk right now dropping 4 in a row.

The series will feature the top two triples machines in Jose Reyes and Curtis Granderson who have combined for 20 on the season.

The Tigers will face Jorge Sosa tonight who has been impressive in his first 6 starts. He’s picked up a quality start in 4 of his turns, and was one out shy in a 5th.

On the mound for the Tigers will be Chad Durbin. Durbin has been quite effective, and pitched well enough against Cleveland to pick up a win – with some offensive help. One recent trend I’d like to see reversed is that in each of his last 2 games he has walked 3 while only fanning 1.

On a related note, I did a couple interviews with Mets bloggers. One at MetsBlog.com and one at MetsToday.com.

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: I was thinking about writing a post about how the Tigers have been playing a lot of really long games this year. How their own offense, and more walks and thus pitches by the staff have routinely had games running over 3 hours. And then tonight, I got the kids in bed at the regular time and it was the 7th inning stretch.

It doesn’t happen often, but the Tigers offense was completely stymied tonight. Jorge Sosa was excellent, and he had some nice leather behind him as well. Even nights when they don’t plate a lot of runs, the Tigers have still typically been getting a lot of baserunners, but that wasn’t the case tonight at all. There just wasn’t much going on. One guy who is really struggling is Carlos Guillen. I don’t know if it is the lingering effects of the groin injury or not, but he looks extremely uncomfortable at the plate and fanned 3 times tonight. His average is under .300, which is unfamiliar territory for Guillen.

Sadly the offensive struggles cost Chad Durbin a win on a night he certainly pitched well enough to deserve it. He attacked the strike zone, and only a couple balls were hit hard off of him. Unfortunately those couple both ended up in the rightfield grandstand. The guy pitched 8+ innings on only 84 pitches. No wonder the game flew by.

Mets 3 Tigers 0

40 thoughts on “Game 60: Mets at Tigers”

  1. Good interviews. I would actually like to see that with some guys that run blogs of our interleague opponents. Like some Brewers blogs or whatnot.

  3. Billfer, I’m pretty geeked over this series, too. They are a great team and it will be interesting to see how the Tigers will respond. Go Tigers!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. Hi Tigers Fans,

    Is anyone going to one of the “Sheff’s kitchen” promotional games? My wife is a chef, and I really want one (or two) of the Tigers chef’s hats. I’d be willing to strike a deal if anyone is able to go to Comerica to pick up a pair for me.

    Thanks!

    Mark in SF
    mrcaccounts@gmail.com

  5. And Durbin pitches a 3-minute top of the first. Wow. So far so good. The Mets really have been in a funk.

    Speaking of in a funk, did anyone see Yahoo Sports MLB page today? Their top story was a comparison of the Mets’ “wondrous” closer Billy Wagner vs our “woeful” Todd Jones. Now wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute, they can’t bash Jones! Only WE can bash Jones! He may be a roller-coaster, but he’s OUR roller-coaster! Plus I bet Wagner wasn’t feeling so “wondrous” giving up the game-tying home run last night vs Philly.

  6. And oh yeah, I heard Leyland on 1270 this afternoon, saying Zumaya will be out the rest of the season. Has anyone heard this from some other source? I mean, Leyland should know what’s going on with his players, but I recall when Maroth went out last season, Leyland said he had counted him out for the entire season, so if he came back ealier than that, it was just a bonus. I wonder if he was speaking in that vein, or if this is definite, as in confirmed by doctors and team officials.

  8. Leyland did NOT say that Zumaya would miss the rest of the season. He said that there was no news on Zumaya, and that it was possible (as it has been all along) that he would miss the rest of the season. No news there.

  9. Googled Joel Zumaya and the reports are that Leland said he “might” be out all year but he’s scheduled to come back in August. He said he’d be happy if he came back in Aug or Sept….yeah, sorta in that vein.

  10. Ron Darling on the Mets broadcast says the key to Inge’s resurgence has been a shorter stroke brought about because he can’t fully stride into his trademark looping swing with the broken toe.

    If that’s the case, I’d be happy to go to coamerica and re-break the toe every couple of weeks if need be. I own a hammer.

  13. Hey Ben, I don’t mean to disagree, but it sounded like Leyland said Zumaya would be out, not “might be out”. Sharp and Foster were talking about it for the rest of their show. It still could be a “maybe”, in fact it probably is a “maybe” but that’s not what I heard Leyland say.

  14. Dude, this umpire needs to stop calling balls strikes. That’s two times Brandon didn’t strike out. Neither did Guillen.

  15. Anne- I didn’t listen to the show. I only read the AP article, so it’s possible that they left something out. However, there is nothing in the article that suggests anything has changed, and it includes the wonderful quote: “Leyland said there have been no setbacks and he has heard nothing from the team’s medical staff.” In short, either the AP reported poorly or he didn’t say that Zumaya “will be out.”
    http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AkVuiY_6_gUG3lRJzShl0OUZ0bYF?slug=ap-tigers-zumaya&prov=ap&type=lgns
    Also see http://blog.mlive.com/tigersinsider/2007/06/zumaya_done_for_the_season_not.html

  22. Well, with the Mets coming off 3 straight losses, they got their minds made up to stop the bleeding. We can still win, but it’s gonna be tough.

  25. Anne, remember when Polonco was interviewed last year after his shoulder injury and said he probably wouldn’t be back until the next year? I think sometimes Leland says things, like on the radio interview, out of pure frustration and sometimes thinking a little pessimistic. Of course, he says it’s realistic and he may be right. Ol Zoom might not be the same.

  26. My list of least favorite Umpires:

    Laz Diaz

    and now: INDRODUCING

    Marty Foster

  27. Some terrible calls. But you gotta admit, the Mets are a great team to give the Tigers a real challenge.

  28. 3 straight losses for Mets coming in on a short flight. Predictable loss.

    We’ve got Bonderman tomorrow to get a win. But this is 4 straight home losses.

  29. Sure is. I think Leyland feels bad for the fans when they continue to lose at home. All these sell out games. Fortunately, the fans aren’t complaining too much since we are still very competitive and can be the division leaders.

  30. So – did that guy really leave third base early?

    Not like it matters, but Leyland was pretty sure about it.

  31. I don’t know. I was looking at my computer screen and I kept waiting for them to replay it but I missed that, too. Jim Leyland sure was mad, though.

  32. They showed the split screen and it looked like it was fine. Gotta love Leyland’s fire though!

  35. They looked tired tonight…Sheffield grounded to short 3 times. They’ll be back tomorrow after some rest tonight.

  36. Back from the ballpark. I don’t know if it was jetlag or what, but it was like a little league game with all of those pop-ups! – not to mention the legally blind umpire. Frustrating. But a well deserved ovation for Durbin.

  37. I think we win tomorrow, but could very well lose on Sunday. Guys like Glavine seem to give us fits. Sosa wasn’t going to give in to any hitters tonight (large strike zone surely helped him and durbin out). I wasn’t too amped for this series. But I’m so excited to see Prince Fielder play in Detroit. It’d be real cool if it were at Tiger Stadium still, though.

    I saw a thing a couple years ago on Real Sports on HBO (Prince was still in the minors) talking about his relationship with his dad and how he and his mom don’t converse with his dad and how his dad’s in debt and gambles and a bunch of stuff (typical bad father stuff)…. then he said he used to hang around the clubhouse and when he was 16 years old took batting practice with the Tigers on an off day and promptly put one on the roof in LF.

  38. Yep, Mike R. I remember that story resurfacing when Prince began playing professional baseball. Even back then, folks new that kid had some pop in his bat.

  39. Instead of debating about having to choose between Maroth and Durbin when Rogers returns it now looks more like a choice of Durbin or Robertson (who is conveniently on the DL).

    The way Durbin is pitching I say it is an easy choice. Let the kid pitch his way out of the rotation.

  40. I have to agree with you on Guillen, Billfer. I mentioned this against the Rangers game and then he went and hit a homerun. I don’t know if his timing is off a bit, hurt and trying to play throught it, but he’s not the Carlos of last year. He does seem to be trying to step up defensively, though. Maybe in a mini-slump, I hope that’s all it is.

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