113 thoughts on “Game 59: Tigers at A’s”

  4. Nate’s got this one in the bag. They shouldn’t even bother playing, so clear is his supremacy over the A’s.

  5. I am ecstatic that Santiago is in the lineup. No disrespect for Edgar intended, of course.

    Come on, Ramon, it’s your time to shine!

    Can I call him Pool Boy? Just a Seinfeld thing. Don’t want that one guy coming after me.

    Yeah, no edits. Now we’ll see how well Mr. Smarty Pants Dave BW does, without an EDIT button.

    No pressure, Dave.

  6. wow, i just skimmed through the last 100 or so posts from last night after i took off. chris, sean, t, you guys are hard core, that was a work of art.

    at some point all this mojo has to bring us a win, no?

  10. Rod just explained that, at the MLB level, confidence is the most important thing Talent, I guess, is of secondary impact

  11. The outcome of the game is not in doubt. The only question is how are the Tigers going to lose today? Is it going to be:

    1) No clutch hitting
    2) Very little hitting to begine with
    3) Another shutout
    4) Poor defense/ defensive mistakes that lead to big innings for the opposition
    5) Poor starting pitching– Nate gets raked
    6) Bullpen fails again

    My bet is it will be a combination of 1,3 & 5

  12. I’m glad Santiago is in the lineup. Disrespect to Renteria clearly intended. And offense. And other bad things.

  13. Why in the hell is Leyland DH-ing Larish again? This is the stupidest thing to do if you want a guy who is new to the bigs to feel comfortable. Let him play 1st so he can relax at the plate knowing that he’s contributing in the field…… Dahhh

  14. I understand Larish is DH becuase his glovework makes Gil Cabrera look like Vic Power.

  17. Well, Ramon Santiago already has more total bases than Gonorrhea has had in the last week…

  18. This is going to be fun. Apparently I’m going to accomplish nothing for the next couple of hours…

  21. Hey where are you guys monitoring this game from (assuming you’re not actually watching it)? I’m watching the RealTime ESPN updates, which make Gil Cabrera look like Vince Coleman. I’m all about similes today, aren’t I?

  22. Chris in D — As a grad student, I think it’s obvious that I have no obligations to prevent me from watching a game at 4 PM

  25. Were those “good” or “bad” flyball outs for Nate? You know what I’m getting at.

  26. Cool thanks, Sean. The ESPN one is so slow it’s giving me “live” updates from Ty Cobb’s big league debut. In case you were interested, Ty is 1-2 with a triple.

  27. OK it’s becoming obvious they are *not* scoring off of Douchehurler today. The only hope is an acute case of gout to get him off the mound.

  29. OK, back to work for a while. No sense getting fired over a game like this.

  32. Oh, it’s all part of the plan, Sean. We will lull him into a sense of security and then… ummm… a double play or something, probably

  34. Well Sean, you left at the right time, one run for the A’s. That should be enough.

  35. OK check that. You trade a run for two outs there. Of course with the way DD has been trading lately, they might have traded 3 runs for one out and a baserunner to be named later.

  36. Tigers must be excited to come home, the game hasn’t even lasted an hour yet and it is half way done.

  37. Very typical Nate, I see. You want to be mad at him, but you can’t be. He didn’t put the goose egg up for the Tigers.

  38. This may be the least exciting game of the whole year. And that’s saying something.

  41. The time to strike is now, 2 on, 1 out. There won’t be another chance once the A’s bullpen is in. No credit to them.

  46. Oh, that was awful, Larish. I would have preferred a strikeout. I think this one’s a wrap.

  47. Pretty swift to have Larish at #5 anyway. I sure hope we see more of this.

  48. Yeah, Dave, it wwas boring, and now it might get boring again. It’s like a ghost town here. From what I hear, we are replicating the atmosphere at the ball park itself.

  49. What a surprise, 6th inning HR off fly ball Nate with pitch count in the 90’s.

  51. I was not watching the game because I did not realize it was on. Now I have turned it off. Watching the A’s pitcher melt down in the 6th, and the Tigers total inability to take advantage was once again sickening to behold. Of course, the A’s leadoff hitter in the bottom hits a home run………a team that does not hit home runs.

    I wonder how men like Rod and Mario maintain their professional composure. I would not be able to do that.

    This team just stinks……but thanks anyway, Billfer, for giving me somewhere to say so. Better than just holding it in all the time. I am disabled and out of work, so I see every game. I really wish now that I had not become such a Tigers fan. My wife died, my mother died, my brother died…..I ended up in the hospital for a long time with a permanent condition. And the one distraction is this …….and it isn’t their losing that hurts. It is that they are just incompetent baseball players. (Not all, of course….) But on the whole they just play badly…..VERY BADLY. Not major league quality at all.

  53. Saints be praised! Pudge drew a walk!? Douchehurler must be wild this afternoon.

  54. Keep your head up, Sky. Pudge drawing a walk proves that miracles do happen…

  55. And Santiago gets on base again. Now is where Raburn grounds into a DP.

  56. Well, Sky, I’m considering getting more interested in the Chicago Cubs, myself.

  57. Sean: I’ve had my eye on the Nippon Ham Fighters for a while now. I may jump ship soon.

  58. What I tell you about Santiago? That guy should really play more often.

  59. Santiago plays more often, Renteria plays less often…I don’t see a downside here.

  60. Ryan’s going yard, I can feel it. The clown on the mound is getting tired.

  61. Wow. El Duch-que is throwing the ball all over the place. At least that prevents a double play grounder. Of course I’m sure Raburn could find a way to do it…

  63. Or strike out. Now it’s Grandy’s turn to whiff. No, scratch that. I’m going to put in the call here. 3 run jack.

  66. Oh I see how it is. Just because Granderson hits like .176 against lefties you want to make him face one? Bad form, Bob Geren, bad form.

  67. OK that’s it. I can’t take this anymore. Time to go find one of those suicide booths that they have in ‘Futurama’…

  68. Well… flying out with men on 2nd and 3rd and 2 outs isn’t so bad, when you think about it. It’s strategic, in a way. Like declining a penalty or something, right?

  69. This time is just horrible. I don’t understand how a ball-club with so many veteren players can look so lost on a baseball field. Jim Leyland needs to go. He can’t settle on a line-up. His “gut instincts” are just not working, and he can’t seem to get his starting pitching to pitch for him. This team is horrible.

  70. Go Nate! Leave some men on for the reliever, unless you’d prefer to give up another HR. Your choice.

  73. so glad i missed this mess to attend a ridiculously time-wasting town hall meeting at work.

    also, i hated how the one A’s announcer last night kept calling him “E-mail Brown”.

  75. Hey guys – I’ve been thinking about taking on a hobby with a better ROI than the Tigers. What do you know about self-flagellation?

  76. I think I need to go see the Tigs next time they play in Oakland (hopefully better) That stadium is EMPTY for every game!

    ok maybe I’ll wait til next year….

  77. i hope we have fossum signed up long term cause he has to get better than this. perhaps we can trade zoom to the marlins and get jones back…give him another $5 million and tell him we were wrong and feel he can hit now and of course he will.

  83. Casey Fossum is a AAAA pitcher. He stunk for the Red Sox years ago, he then stunk for the D backs, then the Rays. Problem is he’s always looked a TON worse than his numbers(career 5.47 era, 1.52 whip). I have absolutely no confidence that he’ll be effective.

    At least Cruceta had upside in that if he ever learned to command his stuff, he could be great….as for Fossum…..he’s a solid AAA pitcher, that’s his ceiling.

  84. Hey billfer – if you get around to it, can we have a “should Leyland be canned” thread for tomorrow’s off day? I’d like to hear everyone’s input, but I’m too depressed to work up an argument one way or the other today.

  85. So I just go to the box score online:


    IP H R ER BB K HR Season ERA
    C. Fossum 0.0 3 4 4 1 0 0 135.00

    Hurray!

    edit: bah, spacing doesn’t work properly.

  87. fossum and larish back to toledo…wonder whose confidence we can destroy now. we got the only triple a club with players that don’t want to be promoted.

  88. we got the only triple a club with players that don’t want to be promoted.

    Ha. There might be some truth to that. Toledo seems to be having a pretty exhilarating season. Good play at any level is more interesting than this, you know, whatever you call it from the Detroit Tigers.

    I think I’m running out of sarcasm and negativity.

  89. Come on, now, Sean. I bet if you really applied yourself you could come up with TONS more sarcasm and negativity. I believe you can. And since the Tigers have managed to underperform even my worst possible expectations, that’s all I really have to believe in anymore…

  90. I guess Fossum was Extra-Strength Cruceta Concentrate. Wonder who else blew up. I’m too tired to look it up.

  91. I’ll try to live up to your expectations, Mark. Ideally, the Tigers come back with a decent homestand to raise hopes again, then tank. This creates the ideal growing conditions for premium sarcasm and negativity.

    We’ve entered Marinersville. I can’t be funny in Marinersville.

  95. Thank god I went fishing instead of watching today’s game. What a nightmare. I had a much more enriching evening scraping off scales and scooping fish guts. My travels take me to Detroit this weekend. Anybody going to the games? I would rather wallow in misery with a fellow blogger than just mutter expletives to myself.

  96. Wow. You can tell I have become emotionally detached. I forgot – or maybe my brain protected me from the fact – that today’s game was in the afternoon. Never checked at work, got home and turned on the last out. Ugh.

    So many posts here say this “team” is terrible. But that’s the problem. All the offseason tweaking resulted in a group that is not a team. So sad, so disappointing.

  98. One thing that shocked me was Maggs’ throwing his batting helmet to the ground and throwing his bat. He just looked disgusted. Do we have a SS in Toledo who’s any good? With Ramon probably going on the DL that’s going to free up a spot for someone, unless they put Carlos back at SS. Larish looks awful at the plate imo and I don’t think playing 1st base would help. I never thought I’d say or even think this, but maybe we need a new manager.

  99. Kevin in Austin:

    As for you new hobby choice, I say branch out a little. Skydiving, rock climbing, maybe take a master sommelier course? I dunno. But self flaggelation is pretty much the same gig as following the Tigers.

  101. Time for everyone’s least favorite stat: This team is 138-145 since 8/1/06. And that’s including the playoff run. The manager is not getting anything out of previously talented players. He’s got to go. You can’t fire all the players, you can only fire the manager. I will always be grateful to Leyland for the ’06 season, but he can take his career .495 winning percentage and, stick it, well, somewhere this PG-13 site prevents me from saying where exactly.

  102. Stephen, this team has desensitized me too much to complain about your stat anymore.

  103. stephen

    i agree. the team cannot continue to resemble a poorly coached little league group without changes. right now almost every leyland interview and move is a further embarassment to the team in specific and major league baseball in general.

  104. Stephen,

    I understand the idea of having the Leyland replaced, but I don’t know what another manager could do to make this team play to its capability. You can’t say he has not tried anything. He has tried almost everything and nothing is working. The only thing I would do differently is to bench Rentarea more often, have Larish play 1st, and make Cabrera the DH. Besides that, I don’t know what another manager could do to improve the situation.

    But then again, if they are to make moves with the hope that it makes this team play better, then why not change managers with the hope that it will make a difference.

  105. Once again, once players start to tune out a manager, its uncommon to get them to tune in again.

    “There’s just times when things work until they don’t. When they stop working, one of the most difficult things is to try to recapture what had worked before,” Mark Cuban.

  106. “This is the single most disappointing Tigers team of my lifetime.”

    Easily…. Nothing even comes close.

    How does this team rank in terms of all-time busts? Are they more disapointing than the ’06 Cubs?

  107. That’s it! I’m calling it. 2008 season: Time of death – 5:30 pm, June 4, 2008.

    I know others have either already come to this or are still holding out hope. But for me, this season is toast. You can count me in favor of giving Leyland his walking papers.

  108. This is the Titanic, the Hindenburg, the Edsel. Their will be no jumping ship. Hail to the Red Wings and Bill Laimbeer for always having the girls ready to play.

  109. Stephan, this is the most disappointing season of any Tiger fan ever. By the way,Ty Cobb stole home twice in 1915 during this very week of the baseball season.

  110. I missed the injury to Santiago. That’s a blow to the team, no joke. It might have a silver lining, as these things sometimes do. But the underutilization (is that even a word?) of Santiago is yet another item in Leyland’s big barrel of bad moves in 2008.

    Santiago doesn’t seem to get a lot of respect from Tigers fans. Maybe that’s justified. But when you put up decent numbers and come through a ridiculously good percentage of the time in limited play, in my opinion you get more of a chance. If it’s working, go with it until it stops working.

  111. Sean I have always been a Santiago booster and feel that he needs to play more often. I am bummed about the injury but I’m basically numb right now.

    ron nice shout-out to the Shock, hopefully they will give us something to cheer about this year. The games are fun too, except for having to drive out to the Palace.

  113. Dombrowski and Leland need to go . . . and next time Ilitch writes such a ridiculous contract like the one w/Cabrera, maybe he should consider adding a performance clause . . . it’s simple . . . they don’t produce, they don’t get paid.

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