Yearly Archives: 2007

2007 Season, Game Post

Game 34: Tigers at Twins

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PREGAME: Ahh, the Metrodome. Yeah.

Anyways, tonight we have ourselves a rematch of a couple of lefties. The first time Mike Maroth and Johan Santana hooked up the Tigers got the upper hand with some homers by Magglio Ordonez and Marcus Thames. Brandon Inge got the last big fly with a walk off homer off of Jesse Crain.

The Twins will be without Joe Mauer who is on the DL. And Luis Castillo has some sore legs and took the day off yesterday.

Game Time 8:10pm

POSTGAME: There’s just something about taking a game from Johan Santana. Not in the “I hate him” sort of way, but more in the “how are we going to win this game?” sort of way.

Much like the last time they hooked up, the Tigers made Santana throw a lot of pitches the first time through the lineup. Then the second time they started jumping on the first pitch fastballs. The damage was limited, thanks in part to a couple sweet plays by Jason Kubel, but it was enough as Mike Maroth managed to allow only 1 run in his best outing of the year.

It seemed like the Tigers were the beneficiary of the metrodome more than the Twins for a change. Both triples (Guillen and Granderson) were turf induced, and Guillen’s RBI single probably doesn’t make it through on grass either.

And not to be cynical or anything, but as it gets into the late innings does anyone else think of the term “insurance runs” and think they are really “Rodney runs.” Things continue to be a struggle for him.

2007 Season, Injuries, Minors

Virgil Vasquez to start on Sunday

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With Jeremy Bonderman’s finger still causing problems, Virgil Vasquez will take the mound on Sunday Night Baseball. Vasquez has been Mack Avenue Tigers‘ guy to take over Durbin’s spot in the rotation.

Vasquez has been quite solid in his last 5 outings accumulating 31 innings and 41 K’s against 6 walks. He’s only allowed 5 earned runs over that stretch.

The move probably won’t be come official until Sunday, because it will mean removing a member of the bullpen – presumably Aquilino Lopez – to make room.

As for Bonderman, hopefully this is only a one start deal. Right now we’re at the nuisance stage of the injury, and I’d just assume not see it get worse.

2007 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/10/07

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Toledo 2 Rochester 1
Ryan Raburn picked up a double for one of the Hens 3 hits. Chris Shelton continues to struggle with 3 K’s as part of an 0 for 4 night. Yorman Bazardo pitched 8 shut out innings. It was kind of a weird stat line with only 2 hits, but with 5 walks and 6 K’s. Usually that means a 6th inning departure because of pitch count be made it through 8 on 107.

Erie – DNP

Lakeland – DNP

West Michigan – DNP

UPDATE: Sorry about disseminating bad information. I checked milb.com this morning quickly, and for each of the other leagues it said there was no scoreboard. It seemed fishy, but I was in a hurry and didn’t probe deeper. All the stats are in the comments. Thanks to Mike G for picking up the slack.

2007 Season, Game Post

Game 33: Mariners at Tigers

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PREGAME: I guess it’s just time to start another 8 game winning streak. The pitching match-up certainly looks favorable with Jeff Weaver taking on Justin Verlander.

Weaver has made 5 starts and only lasted 17 1/3 innings. But they’ve been productive innings (for the other team) with 29 runs allowed. Of course, the Tigers seem to struggle against Weaver. His ERA against the Tigers is 2.53 in 3 starts, and that doesn’t even include the post season last year.

On the other side is Justin Verlander, who for only the 4th time this year won’t be facing the Royals.

Game Time 1:05

2007 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/9/07

Toledo 11 Rochester 9
Jack Hannahan had 3 hits and a walk and Timo Perez continues to swing a hot bat with a double. Ryan Raburn and Mike Hessman each homered. Chris Shelton managed a double and a walk. Dennis Tankersley allowed 5 runs in 5 1/3 innings. Preston Larrison surrendered 4 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks without getting an out.

Erie 5 Altoona 1
It was a 3rd straight gem for Eulogio De La Cruz who pitched 7 innings allowing only 2 hits. He walked 2, fanned 8, and surrendered a homer. Mike Hollimon doulbed and homered and Kody Kirkland went deep as well.

Lakeland 3 Daytona 5
Wilkin Ramirez doubled and tripled for the Flying Tigers. Justin Justice, Wil Rhymes, and Ryan Roberson all homered. Lucas French pitched 6 shut out innings allowing only 4 hits while fanning 9.

Cedar Rapids 9 West Michigan 2
Brandon Timm had 3 hits, and that was pretty much the offense. Lauren Gagnier allowed 10 hits for 7 runs in 5 1/3 innings.

2007 Season, Game Post

Game 32: Mariners at Tigers

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PREGAME: An interesting blurb on ESPN.com this morning cited that the Tigers, the current owners of an 8 game winning streak, haven’t won 9 games in a row since 1984. To keep the streak alive they are going to rely on Nate Robertson to do battle with Cha Seung Baek.

Game time barring rain delays is 7:05pm

POSTGAME: Eh, what are ya gonna do? This game started out great with the Tigers connecting for runs in each of the first 2 innings on a leadoff homer and triple. Meanwhile Nate Robertson retired the first 7 Mariners with ease. Next thing you know the Tigers get stuck on the 3 hit mark while Seattle connects for 10 hits off of Nate Robertson. A poor showing by Jason Grilli pretty much ensured the Tigers weren’t coming back in this one.

  • When Jose Guillen took Nate Robertson deep to take the lead, it was only the 3rd tater that Nate had allowed this year.
  • It seemed pretty clear that the Tigers as a team had a game plan to jump on first pitch fastballs. It appeared to be a decent strategy generating a number of hard hit balls. Trouble was that only a few of them fell for hits. I don’t think this was the team reverting back to their old ways of being overagressive, I think it was by design.
  • Placido Polanco swung and missed twice last night. You just know something wasn’t right.
  • Inge had 2 hits last night pushing his average to .200. Exciting? No. But at least all the starters are off the interstate.

Mariners 9 Tigers 2

Links

links for 2007-05-09

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2007 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/8/07

Toledo 5 Rochester 6
Timo Perez homered and doubled and Ryan Raburn added 2 doubles. Ron Chiavacci allowed 2 earned runs (5 total runs) over 6 innings with 6 K’s and no walks.

Erie 3 Altoona 4
Jackson Melian had 2 hits to lead the offense. Jeff Larish doubled and drove in all 3 runs. Jair Jurrjens allowed 3 runs over 6 innings with 5 strikeouts and 1 walk.

Jupiter 7 Lakeland 7 (11th inning in progress)
Wilkin Ramirez doubled, homered, and walked. Burke Badenhop allowed 1 run on 6 hits over 7 innings.

Cedar Rapids 2 West Michigan 1
Brennan Boesch had 2 hits and Scott Sizemore tripled. Jonah Nickerson pitched a complete game allowing 2 runs on 5 h its, no walks, and 9 K’s.

2007 Season, Players

Guess the pitcher

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Do you want to play a game?

In classic Rob Neyer style, let’s do a little Player A vs Player B

Both performances are from relief pitchers prior to their 29th birthday. Both players had pretty uninspiring starts to their careers, bouncing between the majors and minors. But player B had a pretty clear advantage with the exception that he walked a couple more batters.

Player A is former Tiger lefty Jamie Walker. Walker was signed as a minor league free agent by Detroit after toiling in the minors for 3 years following his age 26 season. Walker of course went on to be a mainstay in the Tigers bullpen before heading to Baltimore and he’s one of the arms the Tigers are probably missing this year.

Player B is current Tiger lefty Bobby Seay. Seay was signed by the Tigers as a minor league free agent prior to the 2006 season after several short stints in the majors. The most recent having come in Colorado where he surrendered 11 runs in 11 2/3 innings on 3 homers.

Seay is going to be called on to help fill the void left by the departure of Walker and the injury to Joel Zumaya. So far this year he has been up to the task allowing only 6 baserunners in 9 2/3 innings. He has a decent career strikeout rate and has done a decent job keeping the ball in the park. Plus he halved his walk rate last year for Toledo.

Now I don’t mean to imply that Walker’s success will predict success for Seay. Afterall, there wasn’t a whole lot to like about Walker’s numbers and there are probably far more pitchers who had similar numbers and failed than who went on to get $12 million contracts. Plus I cherry-picked the stats I wanted. But I just wanted to point out that Seay has some favorable indicators and could be come a valuable member of the pen.

2007 Season, Game Post

Game 31: Mariners at Tigers

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PREGAME: The Tigers return home riding a 7 game winning streak. In fact, no Detroit team has lost since April 30th when the Red Wings dropped a game to the Sharks.

Jeremy Bonderman takes the mound with a little extra rest taken to heal a blister. It sounds like the blister effects him primarily on his 2 seam fastball. If we’re seeing lots of groundballs tonight that means he’s probably feeling okay.

The Tigers will be opposed by lefty Horacio Ramirez. With the southpaw on the mound Omar Infante will get the start in centerfield and Pudge Rodriguez will lead off. Sean Casey, who is 5 for 13 with a homer off Ramirez will get the start at first. Ramirez’s strikeout and walk rates aren’t particularly impressive, but he has kept the ball in the park with only 2 homers in 20.3 innings this year.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME Seven in a row is good, but 8 is great.

  • The bottom of the order came up big going 7 for 10 with 7 RBI. Monroe and Inge took a while to get going, but along with Omar Infante they carried the offense today.
  • I watched this game and I still can’t figure out how Bonderman surrendered 5 runs. He had the slider working and was locating his fastball well as evidenced by the 7 K’s and 2 BB’s. Of the 7 hits he allowed 3 were of the infield variety and 2 of them could have been double plays if they hadn’t been hit so weakly.
  • Now there is no doubting the Sexson homer. Bonderman tried to sneak in a fastball on the inner part of the plate while ahead in the count. In retrospect it was a bad move, but I understand the thinking. It was reasonable to expect Sexson to be looking for the slider away, and an inside fastball could have frozen him. It didn’t hit and ended up in the seats.
  • Bobby Seay was pretty awesome. Fernando Rodney not as much. Thank goodness for the offense.
  • Todd Jones actually pitched pretty well, but got some huge help from his corner outfielders who both made web-gem type catches. I’ve ragged on Ordonez for not going after balls before, but I have to commend him on this one. Good thing he made the catch though or the tying run is in scoring position.

Tigers 9, Mariners 7