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John Beamer looks for consistency, or lack of consistency in enhanced gameday readings at various parks.
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Carroll comments on Zumaya’s injury. It could be 15 days or a lot more. The bigger issue is finding out what caused it and preventing a recurrence in a joint that is now damaged.
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A look at run efficiency and it’s impact on total run scoring
Yearly Archives: 2007
Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/7/07
Toledo 9 Rochester 4
Chris Shelton’s slide continues with an 0 for 3. Ryan Raburn went 2 for 3 with a homer and Jack Hannahan drove in 4 on 2 hits. Virgil Vasquez allowed 3 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks over 5 2/3 innings. He did fan 9.
Erie 0 Altoona 4
With only 4 hits for the Seawolves there isn’t much offense to report. Dallas Trahern pitched a strong game allowing 8 hits and no walks over 8 innings with 5 K’s.
Jupiter 4 Lakeland 0
Justin Justice drew 2 walks to pace the Lakeland attack. Cameron Maybin was 1 for 4. Andrew Miller allowed 3 runs, 1 earned, over 7 innings behind 6 hits, and 4 walks. He fanned 5 and induced 14 groundball outs.
Burlington 1 West Michigan 6
Gorkys Hernandez went 3 for 4 with a double and a stolen base. Ryan Strieby and Santo De Leon each had 2 hits. James Skelton doubled twice and added a single pushing his average to 358. Chris Cody went 8 innings and allowed only 1 run on 4 hits and 5 K’s.
Minors News
Andres Torres was named Eastern League player of the week
Joel Zumaya out 3 months
The news wasn’t good out of New York this afternoon. Joel Zumaya, who injured his hand warming up Saturday night, has a ruptured tendon in the middle finger on his throwing hand. It will require surgery which Zumaya will have performed by Dr. Charles Monroe on Thursday. Zumaya is expected to miss 12 weeks.
Getting by for a couple weeks is a lot different than having to cope for half of a season. Rodney is certainly capable of picking up a good deal of the slack, but who picks up Rodney’s slack? With the combination of set-up men Jim Leyland could either double up their innings on a given night, or have them each pitch one inning shortening the game to six innings. That luxury is gone now.
Jose Mesa will be called on, as will the lefty duo of Wil Ledezma and Bobby Seay who will likely see more LOOGY situations.
I’d expect that the Tigers will not rely on Aquilino Lopez and will either a)reach down to the minors and select one of their starting pitchers (like Virgil Vasquez or Zach Miner) or look to acquire another arm.
The other possible side effect of this is that Jim Leyland stays with his starters deeper into games. The additional workload on each starter would probably amount to no more than 5-6 innings total. As long as it doesn’t invoke pitch counts of 120+ regularly that wouldn’t be so bad.
The longer term ramifications aren’t as pleasant to think about. The middle finger is the last part of the pitcher’s body to have contact with the baseball. Any lack of feel or confidence could be devastating. This isn’t a shoulder which exists to generate a ton of torque, this is the delicate part. I’m neither a doctor nor a pitcher, but I fear that coming back from this particular injury will be much more difficult than just having the doctor go in and fix it up.
Game 30: Tigers at Royals
PREGAME: The Tigers are looking for their second series sweep in a row and to build on a 6 game win streak. They’ll be sending out Chad Durbin, who is looking to rebound after spending the better part of his last start looking for the plate. Durbin walked 6 in 3 2/3 innings in his last start.
He’ll be taking on Zach Grienke who was pretty impressive in 3 of his starts in which he combined to allow 2 earned runs in 20 innings. But in his other 3 starts he allowed 14 runs in 10 2/3 innings. One of those was against the Tigers in which he didn’t make it out of the first inning and he racked up 49 pitches.
Game Time 2:10
Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/5/07
Toledo 4 Columbus 7
Ryan Raburn led the way with a single, a homer, and a walk. Timo Perez added a double and home run as well. Yorman Bazardo surrendered 5 runs in 6 innings on 7 hits, 1 walk, and 1 strike out.
Harrisburg 4 Erie 5
Andres Torres continues his tear with 3 hits including his first homer of the year. Mike Hollimon and Jeff Larish added 2 hits each as well. Eddie Bonine allowed 2 runs on 7 hits and no walks over 6 innings to go along with 4 K’s.
Jupiter 8 Lakeland 7
Mike Hernandez was a homer away from the cycle while Wil Rhymes and Justin Justice added 3 hits each. Cameron Maybin was 2 for 5 and Ovandy Suero added his 20th stolen base. Eleazar Aponte took the loss giving up 5 runs on 8 hits and 2 walks in 5 1/3 innings.
Burlington 1 West Michigan 5
Deik Scram had 2 triples and a double to push his line to 328/423/443. Ryan Strieby added 2 hits and a walk. Angel Castro allowed a single run over 7 innings on just 5 hits.
Zumaya to the DL
Joel Zumaya has been placed on the 15 day disabled list. It appears that he dislocated a finger on his throwing hand while warming up. Aquilino Lopez had a very short sojurn with Toledo and has been recalled.
Unlike the Jose Mesa injury, this one is going to sting. Fortunately, Fernando Rodney seems to have corrected his earlier problems. This will mean more high leverage situations for both lefties, Wil Ledezma and Bobby Seay, as well as Jose Mesa. I’d anticipate seeing Jim Leyland playing the platoon advantages more often now without Zumaya available to shut down the 8th inning.
links for 2007-05-06
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It’s about time ya hippie!
Plus, the rotation is shuffled giving Bondo more time for his blister to heal
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Apparently the whole team got haircuts
Game 29: Tigers at Royals
PREGAME: My buddy Russ said I shouldn’t write about the Tigers 5 game winning streak, so I won’t.
Tonight it will be a battle of southpaws with Mike Maroth taking on Odalis Perez.
Perez has been pretty consistently not-bad this year. He’s allowed either 3 or 4 runs in each start, and pitched 5 to 6 innings in every start but one.
Game Time 7:10pm
Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/4/07
Scranton 4 Toledo 6
Toledo managed 6 runs on only 3 hits. Brent Clevlen led the way with a double, a walk, and 2 RBI. Dennis Tankersley allowed 4 runs, 3 earned, over 7 innings.
Harrisburg 0, Erie 2
Andres Torres had 2 hits and a walk. Eulogio De La Cruz pitched a complete game, 2 hit shutout, with 10 K’s.
Lakeland 10 Dunedin 6
Ovandy Suero picked up 3 hits, and surprisingly didn’t steal a base. Cameron Maybin tripled and walked. Lucas French allowed 3 runs in 5 innings.
Burlington 4 West Michigan 9
Ryan Strieby had 3 hits, including his 3rd homer, and added a walk. Santo De Leon also added 3 hits pushing his average to .300. Gorkys Hernandez and Audy Ciriaco each had 2 hits. Lauren Gagnier allowed 4 runs on 4 hits and 3 walks over 6 innings.
links for 2007-05-05
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Want all the Tigers minor league stats in one place? Matt has it covered.
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A comparison of this year to last year. The thing to remember is context. Run scoring is down this year, so even though the Tigers are scoring runs at about the same rate, the offensive is actually performing better than last year. By the same token, o
Game 28: Tigers at Royals
PREGAME: The Tigers make their second trip to Kansas City already this season.
In the series opener they’ll face Brian Bannister. Bannister has made 2 starts this year, and he allowed 4 runs (3 earned) in each start. He did rack up some big pitch totals with 82 in 4 1/3 in his first start and 99 in 6 2/3 in the 2nd.
The Tigers will send out Justin Verlander. Verlander has a 1.36 career ERA over 33 innings against the Royals.
Game Time 8:10pm
Friday Happy Hour
Not a whole lot of news today, with the exception of Jose Mesa probably being reinstated from the DL and Aquilino Lopez heading back to Toledo. With that in mind I thought I’d post a place to go open mike.
Talk about what you want. One possible topic:
What rule change would you like major league baseball to make?