2008 Season, Game Post, Injuries, Roster Management

Game 62: Indians at Tigers

106 Comments

PREGAME:: The Tigers are going for something rare, back to back wins. They did it once on the 9 game road trip and, well that’s it. Today it is replacement starters, turned regular starters, Jeremy Sowers and Armando Galarraga.

The Tigers have a 1 game winning streak on Sundays this year.

Renteria remains in the leadoff role, but Granderson returns to the lineup in the 9 spot. Clevlen starts in right field with Raburn sitting today and Ordonez DH’ing.

Also, the club has activated Clay Rapada who will assume Bonderman’s place on the 25 man roster.

CLE @ DET, Sunday, June 8, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

GameTime 1:05

POSTGAME: Wow. That was a pretty complete effort. Some early offense. Some add on runs. Some two-out hitting. A nice starting pitching effort. Good bullpen-ing, save for those 3 batters that Zach Miner put on base (which just made getting out of the inning all the more exciting).

Placido Polanco snapped a mini-slump with a couple hits. Miguel Cabrera built on his big RBI last night by knocking in the first run of the game today and adding a double. Man it would be nice if he really got going. And Granderson even homered off a left hander.

Galarraga threw strikes, and did so consistently up until he fell 1 out shy of a quality start after a couple walks. Casey Fossum shaved over 100 points off his ERA and Todd Jones had a 1-2-3 9th inning.

I’m not going to make too big of a deal when a win moved you to “only” 10 games below .500. But a win is a win.

106 thoughts on “Game 62: Indians at Tigers”

  2. Today’s lineup:

    E. Renteria ss
    P. Polanco 2b
    M. Thames lf
    M. Ordonez dh
    M. Cabrera 1b
    C. Guillen 3b
    I. Rodriguez c
    B. Clevlen rf
    C. Granderson cf

  3. The question is, after their big orgasm in the eighth inning yesterday will they fall into a drowsy stupor for the next 18 innings? That has been the pattern so far this year.

    I’d really like to see them be able to score in more than 1 or two innings a game, even if it is only 1 or 2 runs a pop. For all the big innings, they have put up ay too many zeros this year.

  6. Sowers tried to play it safe by throwing Polanco inside fastballs, and it backfired for a double.

    Does Sowers even have a breaking pitch? He just gave Thames an easy walk. Throwing high fastballs to Thames is only going to work if you mix outside curves or something into the sequence.

  8. I don’t mean to belabor this, but Sowers sucks. Yeah, dude, throw Cabrera a changeup down the middle.

    Cabrera single makes it 1-0 Tigers

  9. Galarraga is cruising through this lineup, though pretty much every pitch to Dellucci was off other than the last one.

  10. OMG Sowers threw a curveball!!! He’s just full of tricks.

    The fact that he struck out Rodriguez is an indication of how much Pudge is slumping right now — he should have been able to hammer that pitch.

  11. Granderson homers off a lefty! 2-0 Tigers

    Mario just referred to Rod as “lovely”, and Rod giggled like a schoolgirl.

  16. Rod says Galarraga threw a first pitch strike to 8 of the first nine hitters, then threw a first pitch ball to 8 of the next nine hitters…he says “that is a whole lot different”…thanks Rod

  17. On the radio side, ever notice Jim Price will say “nice area” about where their contest participant is from no matter what, as in…

    Dan: And today’s “Murray Discount Auto Home Run Giveaway” contestant is Jerry Brown from Jackson State Penitentiary.

    Jim: Nice area.

    Dan: Yeah, says here he’s currently serving eight consecutive life sentences with no chance for parole.

  20. If they keep this up, Lord Stanley will have to be given credit for their resurgence.

  21. Galarraga’s command has just fallen apart this inning. He just can’t hit Pudge’s spots

  23. hey if you are wathcing on MBL is that Leylands dad sitting behind the RH batter in the first row?????

  25. Hey folks, I’m doing some research. It’s tedious, but I feel I owe it to the people.

    I’ve noticed that the Tigers, when they’re not busy having long losing streaks, are 25-15. For the 0-21 version of the Tigers, I was curious what each Tiger’s contribution was.

    Edgar Renteria: .155 0 HR 2 RBI .247/.155/.402

    (First in a series. More to come.)

    Hope you don’t mind the intrusion into the game thread. If you do, well, I’m not reading, so it’ll fall on deaf ears for a while. Just think of me as an irrelevant and annoying color commentator.

  28. Fossum gets through the seventh on five pitches. Way to make him work, Tribe.

  30. if this keeps up Fossum could lead the AL in ERA by the end of the day…down from 135.00

  31. THE 0-21 TIGERS

    Curtis Granderson: .179 3 HR 7 RBI (1 SB) .222/.250/.472

  34. Why in the name of all that is holy did Leyland take Fossum out in favor of Zach Effing Miner?

  36. THE 0-21 TIGERS

    Placido Polanco: .190 0 HR 1 RBI .210/,215/.425

  37. Even if they get out of this jam, this little scenario in the 8th is a microcosm of what is wrong with this team.

  40. story of the season wrong pitcher at the wrong time…it wasn’t like Fossum wasn’t on cruise control…nice move Jim

  42. Fossom had retired all 5 of the batters he’d faced, consecutively. Better get him the hell out of there!

  43. I don’t have any of the “numbers” that Leyland and Hernandez have, but why in the world would you ever take out a guy who has retired five in a row? Why not at least wait until they put a runner or two on base before making a move? Fossum had good stuff today.

  46. Dolsi, throwing at 97-98 mph, k’s two batters to get out of the inning. The crowd is cheering for him like a rock star.

  47. Dolsi doesn’t want to be the one going down when Zum/Rodney come back. That was pretty frickin sweet.

  48. YES way to go Dolsi.

    No wonder Jim Leyland is cautious about blaming his players. That was just a flat boneheaded move taking Fossom out. Inexcusable.

  50. THE 0-21 TIGERS

    Gary Sheffield (14 games): .184 0 HR 2 RBI (13 BB) .392/.237/.629

    Granderson was 14 games, too.

  53. the location on Freddy Solid’s last pitch was incredible. It reminds of Verlander throwing 100mph on the black against Texas in his first start in 2006. (yeah, I remember weird stuff).

    Good to see.

  56. funny Pudge didn’t go for that pitch..he always goes for that stuff out of the strikezone

  57. anyone else think a sac bunt from pudge would have been OK? or am i veering into crazyland in my desire to see this offense produce a few extra runs every now and again?

  58. THE O-21 TIGERS

    Carlos Guillen: .267 1 HR 5 RBI (6 2B, 11 BB) .402/.387/.789

  60. is this the first series in the AL Central they haven’t lost all year ???..haven’t won it yet. but haven’t lost it

  62. No, judpma, they won the first series against the Twins and tied another against Cleveland. There might have been a tie against the Twins, too, but I don’t remember.

    Someone should send a link to this thread to Fossum so he can print it out, as this may be the only time in his career that people have been upset when he’s been taken OUT of a game 🙂

  63. THE 0-21 TIGERS

    Magglio Ordonez: .253 1 HR 4 RBI (5 BB, 13 K) .299/.310/.609

  64. THE 0-21 TIGERS

    Miguel Cabrera: .183 2 HR 4 RBI (12 BB, 17 K) .310/.296/.606

  65. I actually like the Tigers chances against Cliff Lee tomorrow. If you look at his last 4 starts, you can see that the early season magic is gone. Perhaps the league has caught-up with is new cutter pitch and the Tiger hitters can be prepared for him. This team will probably need all the runs they can get given that Willis and his inability to command his pitches can make for a big lead by the Indians.

  66. THE 0-21 TIGERS

    Ivan Rodriguez: .183 0 HR 2 RBI (18 K) .217/.227/.444

  67. THE 0-21 TIGERS

    Brandon Inge (15 games): .250 3 HR 5 RBI (5 R, 13 K) .367/.525/.892

  69. “Why in the name of all that is holy did Leyland take Fossum out in favor of Zach Effing Miner?”

    This was just a classic case of a manager over-thinking the game. There was absolutely no reason to not let Fossum finish the inning. And Miner, of all people, has already seen action pretty damn recently. No way that he is going to be fresh. This move was just plain stupid.

    Dolsi really saved JL’s butt. I know he has given up couple of walk-off runs lately, but I think this guy is a keeper.

  70. THE 0-21 TIGERS

    Marcus Thames (11 games): 267 0 HR 2 RBI (9 K) .353/.300/.653

  71. I’d love to take credit for the Freddy Solid name, but Chris in Dallas came up with that one.

  72. THE 0-21 TIGERS

    Ramon Santiago (11 AB) .385/.545/.930
    Ryan Raburn (5 AB): .429/.400/.829
    Clete Thomas (18 AB): .450/.500/.950
    Matt Joyce (16 AB): .400/.875/1.275

  73. Ron

    I started with Edgar because he happened to be batting leadoff in the season opener. He does look like the worst when the Tigers are losing in droves, though.

    I’m sorry if these stats bothered you or anyone else. Just had a bee under my bonnet about some stuff I’ve been meaning to check out. They’re not meaningless stats, I don’t think, and some may find them to be of interest. It can’t be any worse than posts that just say “Woot!” or something similar… right?

  76. THE 0-21 TIGERS PITCHING

    ERA-WHIP-G-IP-H-R-ER-BB-K-HR

    3.00 1.67 Willis 2-9-3-3-3-12-3-0
    5.00 1.22 Galarraga 2-9-7-7-5-4-4-1
    5.26 1.38 Verlander 6-37.2-38-27-22-14-31-4
    5.40 1.89 Rogers 4-21.2-30-14-13-11-11-2
    5.84 1.70 Robertson 4-24.2-35-16-16-7-16 3
    6.45 1.61 Bonderman 4-22.1-24-16-16-12-13-6

    1.08 0.86 Seay 9-8.1-5-1-1-2-4-0
    1.59 1.24 Cruceta 6-5.2-5-2-1-2-6-0
    2.64 1.32 Lopez 9-13.2-17-4-4-1-10-1
    3.60 0.80 Jones 5=5=3=2=2=1=2=1
    4.50 2.24 Dolsi 5-4 -5-2-2-4-3-1
    4.50 3.00 Rapada 3-2-4-1-1-2-2-0
    5.69 2.21 Miner 6-6.1-9-6-4-5-5-0
    7.11 1.90 Bautista 5-6.1-8-5-5-4-4-1

    Again, 0-21 TIGERS means the Tigers during their 4 longest losing streaks to date.

    Fossum, Bazardo, and Beltran were left out of pitching for about the same reasons Larish and Jacque were left out of hitting.

  77. Woo-hoo, the Tigers won! Let’s hope the 4+ game losing streaks are in the past.

  78. mcb

    Sorry I missed you the first time, but now you have your Miner stat. Not so good.

  79. “65 and 35 to close out the season sounds good to me.”

    I’m setting my optimism ceiling at the same winning percentage the Tigers have managed when they’re not losing in bunches – that is, .634. That would be good for 89-73 and a “nice try” finish. Unless the AL Central becomes the 2006 NL Central, which could happen. But they’re going to have to start whupping their division rivals consistently to take advantage of that, one of a number of things I remain skeptical about.

  80. Don’t mind me, just more fun with statistics from baseball-reference. I didn’t get their “Top 5 Plays” in the box scores at first. When I did get it, I thought it might be fun to tote up the positive and negative big plays for each Tiger, derive a net result, and divide it by number of PA or IP. Unfortunately, defense is mostly excluded, so it’s mainly a hitting/pitching thing. I’m going to use the word “clutch” for lack of a better term, though it doesn’t have to do with late innings at all, necessarily. Just getting it done in the higher wWPA situations. I’ll leave out the scores and just rank top to bottom.

    TIGER CLUTCH GUYS THROUGH 61 GAMES

    Santiago (HITTING)
    Thames
    Ordonez
    Guillen
    Thomas
    Larish
    Inge
    Cabrera
    Granderson
    Polanco
    Joyce
    Renteria
    J. Jones
    Rodriguez
    Raburn
    Sheffield

    Rapada (PITCHING)
    T. Jones
    Grilli
    Galarraga
    Dolsi
    Bonderman
    Lopez
    Miner
    Seay
    Willis
    Beltran
    Verlander
    Robertson
    Cruceta
    Rogers
    Bautista

  81. Next, I’ll look into who is making the non-productive outs those innings where the Tigers score runs. Then I’ll revert to my non-statistical self until the Tigers reach .500.

  82. “…but they’re going to have to start whupping their division rivals consistently to take advantage of that”

    They will have to do that this week. They have one more game against the Indians, and then they have a 3 game home series against the hated White Sox. Tigers will have to pretty much win all 4 of those games before we can even consider their chances at getting back in contention. In other words, in order for us to consider the long-shot possibilities of Tigers winning the division, they have to overcome the long-shot probability of them winning these next 4 divisional games.

    … fat chance, given the pure ownage of the Tigers by the White Sox over this season and the past decade.

    Well, we have one thing going for us: no f-ing Gavin Floyd.

  83. “given the pure ownage of the Tigers by the White Sox”

    You’ve got that right, Chris. It’s pretty disgusting.

  84. Sean: I wasn’t killing the messenger. It was the message that was killing me. Thanks for all the tedious work.

  85. Yeah missing out on Floyd is a big plus for the ChiSox series. Who would’ve thunk it?

  86. Ron

    I misunderstood. Glad you weren’t really annoyed. Or not too much. Looking into that stuff turned up some surprises for me. Renteria’s line, and the fact that Leyland refused to plug in Santiago at least once in a while in the midst of all that suckitude, just blows me away.

  87. Chris, I don’t know if a player has ever gotten a nickname that stuck “in real life” though a weblog before, but you struck gold with Freddy Solid. I see it getting around. Might pop up in a Detroit newspaper pretty soon.

  88. Galarraga is pitching well enough to replace Bonderman, and I really think he will continue to. Now it’s up to Willis to replace Willis, and I’m not sure what the Tigers are going to do if he can’t.

  89. Sean: I’ve always wanted to make a contribution to popular culture. Anyway, I’m cautiously optimistic about Willis. He looked slightly better last time out, and the scouting report that Craig got from Oakland seemed to be not entirely negative about him. That gives me reason to hope. Galarraga has definitely exceeded my modest expectations for him. The thing I worry about is the fact he’s got a ridiculous .190 BABiP going right now. It’s almost impossible to keep that up. His K/BB and K/9 isn’t all that stellar and he walks a few too many. But results are results, and he’s done well.

  90. Closing the book on the 0-21 TIGERS with an all-in-one-place recap:

    Joyce (16 AB): .400/.875/1.275
    Thomas (18 AB): .450/.500/.950
    Santiago (11 AB) .385/.545/.930
    Inge (15 games): .250 3 HR 5 RBI (5 R, 13 K) .367/.525/.892
    Raburn (5 AB): .429/.400/.829
    Guillen: .267 1 HR 5 RBI (6 2B, 11 BB) .402/.387/.789
    Thames (11 games): 267 0 HR 2 RBI (9 K) .353/.300/.653
    Sheffield (14 games): .184 0 HR 2 RBI (13 BB) .392/.237/.629
    Ordonez: .253 1 HR 4 RBI (5 BB, 13 K) .299/.310/.609
    Cabrera: .183 2 HR 4 RBI (12 BB, 17 K) .310/.296/.606
    Granderson (14 games): .179 3 HR 7 RBI (1 SB) .222/.250/.472
    Rodriguez: .183 0 HR 2 RBI (18 K) .217/.227/.444
    Polanco: .190 0 HR 1 RBI .210/,215/.425
    Renteria: .155 0 HR 2 RBI .247/.155/.402

    One-third of the season to date is a long time to stink when the team needs someone to rise above it. I’m talking to you, Renteria, Polanco, Rodriguez, and Cabrera.

  91. Your powers of baseball-reference usage are above reproach, Sean. Good stuff. When you get a moment, see if you can find the stat for the number of times Renteria and Rodriguez have made me a) throw up in my mouth or b) mutter an obscenity. They have to be among the league leaders in those categories.

  92. The data are hopelessly muddled for these players, Chris, because of the many times you’re started to mutter an obscenity, only to be interrupted by throwing up in your mouth. According to baseball-reference, though, Renteria does have a slight edge in pPPA (pukers Puke Probability Added) when defense is taken into account.

  93. Due to yesterday’s storm, I will most likely be sans internet and cable tonight. I may not even be able to see the game, which makes me sad. Somehow you will all have to survive without my endless posts telling opposing pitchers that they suck and then explaining why it is that they suck. You guys are the real victims, here.

  94. Say it ain’t so, Dave! Seriously, though, I hope all is well. I’ve seen some of the footage of the storms out there in the Midwest and it looks pretty brutal.

  95. It wasn’t so bad in Metro Detroit, really — just a bunch of fallen trees. Unfortunately, even a strong breeze will knock out my Comcast for days at a time.

  97. Dave, your loss will be keenly felt. Who’s gonna tell me what inning it is and the score? Not these jamokes. I hope you’re back in the rotation soon.

  98. Sean gets the gold star for today for managing to work the word “jamoke” into a post. Well played, sir.

  99. Thanks for the link, Chris. Unfortunately, I don’t even know what UZR stands for. And there weren’t even any pictures there to look at. Dumb site…

  100. Thanks, Chris. I was going out on a limb there, since I wasn’t even sure how to spell it. Something an old boss used to say. Hated that guy. Cool word, though.

  101. UZR is Ultimate Zone Rating. High number good. Low number bad. I think that’s how it goes anyway. I’ve never been accused of being smart, though.

  102. OK, Ultimate Zone Rating. I was just kidding about the site, by the way. I looked around there, read some interesting excerpts from “The Book.” It has been years, centuries, since I did any real reading on baseball. It whetted my appetite. That’s all I need, another obsession.

  103. So, I go out of town for a few days and suddenly we win consecutive games, against a division opponent, no less? Alas, I see the White Sucks have won 6 straight. God how I hate Gavin Floyd and his preposterous .211 BABIP.

    I would give my left arm for a sweep of the Sucks the next three days, if only to hear the stunned silence from Hawk and DJ followed by the whining. It’s going to be brutal listening to these guys the next couple days.

  104. Mark: Apparently when you and I leave town it’s a good thing for the Tigers. Maybe we should just move for the rest of the season. Of course Floyd’s BABiP is ridiculous, but see my other post about Galarraga. .190? Are you freaking kidding? Armando might be living on borrowed time with that.

  105. Chris,

    I’m sure with Armando that he really *IS* that good. Floyd, on the other hand, sucks. He just does.

    I did see your point and conveniently left it out of my post. It’s absolutely valid, which is one of the reasons I wasn’t quite ready to name Galarraga the opening day starter for the next 10 years. I was getting the sense that some folks around here were talking him up like he’s the second coming of Walter Johnson.

    Anyway, we definitely should leave town more often, as the Tigers seem to relax and play better. Of course, on national TV tonight, what could possibly go wrong, given their track record?

  106. Opening Day starter? How about All Star game starter for the next 10 years. Let’s be realistic here. I like your thoughts on Floyd, Hawk and DJ, though I don’t think the word ‘suck’ is quite strong enough to describe my feelings on the group (particularly the last two). I’d say they’re irksome, or perhaps even nettlesome. Yes, I own a thesaurus…

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