2008 Season, Game Post

Game 24: Angels at Tigers

79 Comments

PREGAME: The Tigers once again welcome in a team coming in from Fenway Park. But while the Rangers had just been swept, the Angels took 2 of 3 from the Red Sox.

The Tigers send out no-luck Nate Robertson. Robertson has been the one guy in the rotation who hasn’t been plagued by walks. He’s fanned 21 while only walking 6. But the trouble is guys are hitting line drives (27.9%) nearly as often as they are hitting grounders (30.9%). Plus Robertson is only stranding 58% of runners so the result is a 7.48 ERA.

The Tigers will be taking on Ervin Santana. Santana has been tough this year and has a 2.67 ERA through his first 4 starts. He’s been killing right handed hitters to the tune of a .128 BAA with only 2 extra base hits.

One thing to watch in this series are the starter’s pitch counts for Detroit. The Angels actually see fewer pitchers per plate appearance than anyone else in the AL and are near the bottom in walks. They just hit the snot out of the ball instead.

LAA @ DET, Friday, April 25, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: Sometimes you play a pretty good game, but still come up short. The Tigers got a solid start, some good bullpen work, played some nice defense, generated some scoring chances, worked long at-bats, but they still fell to the Angels 4-3.

Robertson breezed through the first 3 innings. He doubled his pitch count with a 4 run fourth inning. Then retired the next 9 batters on 25 pitches with only one ball leaving the infield. I was actually surprised to see him lifted at only 89 pitches. He was sharp, continually getting first pitch strikes and throwing 65% of his pitches in the zone.

The offense tried to grind out at-bats. Miguel Cabrera and Brandon Inge each had 10 pitch at-bats. But they just couldn’t get the big hit. Gary Sheffield took one to the wall with the bases loaded. Pudge Rodriguez ripped a line drive that was right at Casey Kotchman with 2 men on. The only really bad plate appearance of the night came when Ordonez popped to first on the first pitch with the bases loaded in the 6th. The Tigers only picked up 1 run from the loaded-no out scenario and that proved to be the difference.

Angels 4 Tigers 3

79 thoughts on “Game 24: Angels at Tigers”

  1. Regardless on how well the Angles hit & score on Nate Robinson, I would consider it a sucessful outing if he can make just it into the 7th inning.

  2. Hey Bilfer,

    Saw the thread about you being on DFN, found your blog….IT IS INCREDIBLE…It’s got to be the best team-oriented sports blog on the ‘net.

  3. I have a question- I forget the posters’ name, but the last couple (?) seasons there was a poster who would calculate the Tigers stats, broken down into what they called “innings”, each “inning” being 18 games.

    Well, we past the 18 game mark, and I may have missed it, but I don’t think it was posted. Did I just miss it? Does anyone know if that poster is still around?

    Just curious. I liked reading those posts.

  6. Eek. Despite his shoulder woes, I bet he bats third, and looks like a fool against Santana in the process.

  7. You would be right, Brian. Tonight’s lineup:

    Granderson, CF
    Polanco, 2B
    Sheffield, DH
    Ordonez, RF
    Cabrera, 1B
    Jones, LF
    Renteria, SS
    Rodriguez, C
    Inge, 3B

  8. Jason, that poster is named Sam. I can’t recall seeing him yet this season, but you’re right: those posts are darn good.

  9. For all you locals — what’s up with the weather? Is this game gonna happen tonight?

    (Also, not sure about this, but I think the poster, Sam, who breaks down the innings, is female Sam — short for Samantha maybe? — again could be way off, but that’s how I thought I remembered those posts)

  10. So far, so good with the weather. We had a really cloudy patch about an hour ago which should be hitting detroit right around game time. Wind gusts up to 20mph

  11. Just a quick comment on the “no-luck” Nate Robertson quip: Robertson’s got an ERA of 7.48. I agree that there’s luck involved in his 0-2 record….but it’s GOOD luck. He should be 0-4 right now.

    (However, I’m partial to Nate personally because he was the only player I know who had the balls to call the steroid hysteria a “publicity stunt”, telling WJR radio that MLB releasing info on Paul Byrd’s use of HGH right before he pitched in the ALCS that it was clearly MLB throwing one of its own to the wolves, all for a little bit more play on CNN and FOXNews. ‘Course, all he was doing was just stating the obvious….but everybody else was too busy tsk-tsk-ing and wagging their fingers to realize that they were being had. He called it what it was.)

  12. Are we looking at a rain delay? MLB.tv isn’t putting the game up, but I don’t see anything on the radar.

  13. I remember heading to LA last year when we were looking great, but the Angels swept us. Roberston pithed one of those horrific games, so I’m hoping history doesn’t repeat itself.

  14. And the game’s underway on time, yay! I have a feeling the Angels are going to be a bit tougher than the Rangers.

    Hubby and sons are at the game tonight, so I’m hoping extra hard for a Tiger win.

  18. Good first couple innings for Nate. Let’s see him get through the 4th, where he always seems to run into problems.

  23. That pitch was a foot inside and Guerrero kept it fair. Incredible. Hard to blame Nate for that one, but the 4th inning gets him again.

  24. (Good call Brian P.)

    So Nate had a line-drive double, a line-drive out to third, and then a home run crushed to the seats in left field. Down 2-0.

    My thoughts? Just bad “luck”. Tigers starting pitchers are the greatest, Chuck Hernandez should get a lifetime contract.

  28. His in-game E.R.A. thus far: 9.00.

    Just luck. If only the Tigers hitters had scored 5 runs in the first three innings, he’d be in line for a win!

    (President of the Fans for Chuck Hernandez.)

  31. T Smith wrote: “What is it with Nate Roberston and the 4th inning?”

    The same thing that’s with him in innings 1, 2, 3, and 5: he’s not good. (Note that innings 6, 7, 8, and 9 weren’t included because he never lasts that long. Who knows, though: maybe he’d turn into Johan Santana then!)

  32. With Nate, he doesn’t have the stuff to get guys out the second time through the lineup. Maybe he needs a new pitch, that slop he tries to toss at every righty seems easy to lay off.

  33. Curtis, I think I love you.

    It’s like the Tigers are trying to be courteous, saying “No, you guys score first. Really, we don’t mind. We’ll get our runs later.” Let’s hope they’re right.

  35. I can always gauge my confidence in a victory by what I’m paying more attention to: the score or the opposing pitcher’s pitch count.

    Santana’s at 64.

    It’s not a very good sign when your only hope lies on a vague chance of running into a weak reliever.

  36. Here’s what we need to do:

    Start Robertson. When the 4th inning comes, take Jacques Jones out of the game and put Nate in left. Bring in a reliever to pitch one inning. Then put Nate back in for the 5th and insert Marcus Thames in left.

  37. Mark in Chicago wrote: Here’s what we need to do:

    Start Robertson. When the 4th inning comes, take Jacques Jones out of the game and put Nate in left. Bring in a reliever to pitch one inning. Then put Nate back in for the 5th and insert Marcus Thames in left.

    All that would do is transfer the suck-i-tude to the fifth. It’s like my ol’ Uncle Earnest used to say, “You can take the sucky pitcher off the mound but you can’t take the suckiness out of the pitcher. Especially when it’s Nate Robertson. He sucks.”

  38. If Nate can take care of the bottom of the order in the seventh, then it should be considered a decent outing. It only looks ugly because of the bad fourth.

  39. Shields probably isn’t available for the Angels tonight, so the Tigers should have some openings before KRod comes in.

  40. Brian P:

    This reminds me of the poker movie ‘Maverick’, where this punk gambler goes, “I don’t think that hand should count. My mind wasn’t in the game.”

    You can’t just magically erase a bunch of line drives and a Guererro monster home run.

    “If only we could take away 754 of those home runs, Hank Aaron would’ve just been another anonymous player.”

    (I think if you just arbitrarily erased the worst inning from ANY start for any pitcher, he’d walk away with a win and a sparkling E.R.A.)

  43. But my point is, four runs through seven (possibly even eight) from the back end of your rotation can’t be considered a failure.

  44. What a disappointing result with 0 outs and bases jammed. JJ doesn’t inspire much fear coming after Maggs and Miggs.

  46. I don’t care what the score is, seeing any of our starters in the 7th is a welcome change.

  47. Big picture, *IF* Nate can get through another inning+, he will have done a solid job.

    He hasn’t allowed any runs since the Tigers scored, letting the offense get the team back in the game. Yes the 4th inning was ugly, but the Angles guys get paid too, and they’re a pretty good team. They were going to score a few runs, what does it matter if they socred them in a bunch or in separate innings?

  48. agreed, compared to the struggles of say Bonderman and Rogers, Robertson is the least troublesome, since it seems its just one inning that always plagued him, whereas the other two haven’t been able to find the plate.

  49. David,

    By that logic a 1 for 3 night is terrific, since a .333 average would certainly rank in the top 10 in the league. Also , Nate did not actually give up 5.14 runs, he gave up 4, so projecting his ERA from a 7 inning game doesn’t mean anything.

    Nate’s WHIP for this game is 1.0, which is outstanding. His batting avg. against is .231, also very good. These are small samples and not accurately representative of Nate’s performance.

    One bad inning, yes. But solid overall against a good offensive club.

  52. Mark in Chicago,

    If we’re going to start qualifying every little thing, then I could say that the Angels were total hacks, swinging at the first pitch countless times when Robertson was clearly not throwing strikes when they actually, ya know, let him pitch.

    (And for the record….the earned run average is, well, an AVERAGE. When Johan Santana has an E.R.A. of 2.80 per nine innings, that doesn’t mean that he only pitched nine innings.)

    I might end up eating my words about Nate, and I’ll concede that this wasn’t a horrible start by any standard (and it’s a GREAT start compared to every other Tiger start this season save for Guererro’s).

  57. David,

    My point wasn’t actually to qualify anything, it was to illustrate that looking at an average (whether it’s ERA, WHIP or BAA, etc.) with such a small sample size isn’t really instructive. So I agree with your point that looking at the Angels tendency to hack tonight doesn’t really tell us much about their performance either.

    I guess I just don’t think Nate’s start was horrible (as you have said also), nor do I think it was great (as you have said). Our opinions just seem to differ on where in between those descirptions Nate’s performance belongs. Admittedly, I’ve seen so much putrid starting pitching around here lately, Nate is starting to look a little like Sandy Koufax.

  58. Too bad they gave Sheffield the money for next year, because they could consider dumping him if they only had one year left. Guillen/Cabrera need to shuffle 1B/DH.

  61. Not quite sure how you can take Cabs out of the game at that point, unless it was mainly concern with his hand.

  67. Kathy wrote: “The need for speed, David.”

    Rayburn has a grand total of 4 steals and a whopping 2 triples in 74 career games. If the Tigers need speed….they might want to take a second look.

  68. maybe im crazy but IMO a lot of teams would take a 4 ER in 7 IP from their 4th starter, thats just how i looked at it

  74. Unless I missed something, why has no one mentioned Robertson being yanked from the game after the 7th when he’d retired 10 hitters in a row and had thrown 89 pitches? Am I missing something? Did our bullpen not pitch just below 50% of the innings against the Rangers and could use a night when the starter goes 8+? The Angels showed a lack of patience late in the game against Nate (6 pitch 7th inning) and he was cruising. These things drive me out of my mind. No reason to go to the bullpen to start the 8th. Have Bautista be up and come in if someone reaches against Nate, but how you don’t let him start the inning is beyond me.

  75. Oh man DavidBrennan, you are totally right! We have the worst fifth starter in the AL by far! Obviously we should blame all our woes on the guy who is the lowest paid regular starter rather than the fact that all the big guns have been average so far. Clearly I blame Nate Robertson for this team’s start rather than the fact that Verlander, Bonderman and Rogers haven’t gotten close to the 7th inning yet, or that Willis has zero control right now. If only we could be rid of that damn terrible Robertson!

    Idiot.

  76. Joe – please no name calling. There are times that people are just looking to be confrontational and get a rise.

  77. As for breaking things down by 18 game stretches, it is Sam that does it. Sam will be doing it starting with the 2nd inning. He could have done the first inning, or we could have all just looked at the stats after 18 games. It’ll be back.

  78. I won’t do individual players, but as a team, pitching wise, the “first inning” of the season was like this:

    6-12, 5.70 ERA, 158 IP, 158 H, 112 R, 100 ER, 100 K, 88 BB, 16 HR, 1.56 WHIP.

    Hitting-wise:

    .262/.343/.404 for a .747 OPS, 160 H, 38 Doubles, 2 Triples, 15 HR, 74 RS, 103 K, 72 BB, 6 HBP, 25 GIDP, 10/10 in stolen bases.

  79. Argh. Nice night but frustrating. Just one of those days in baseball. Onward and upward.

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