PREGAME: Please Tigers. Please show up tonight. Please Verlander, don’t crap out once again against an Indians team missing Hafner, Martinez, and Blake. Please offense, beat the stuffing out of Carmona. Please top of the order, drive in a run, or 12. I can’t take the sucking anymore.
Jeff Larish starts at third tonight and Matt Joyce bats 2nd. Polanco gets the night off and Santiago plays second.
CLE @ DET, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com
POSTGAME: The offense showed up. Seven runs should be enough. The bottom of the order continued to produce, and even Magglio Ordonez broke out of his slump. But the pitching, oh the pitching.
Verlander wasn’t good, again. It wasn’t the 7 hits as much as the leadoff walks and hit by pitches combined with the hits. And the fact he threw 115 pitches in 6 innings (which doesn’t bode well for his next start either).*
*And in case you’re keeping track of such things, Verlander threw 114 pitches in his last start. His average game score in subsequent starts when he throws 110-114 pitches is 45.2. Last night it was 43.
Gary glover was brought in, and promptly allowed a homer after a walk. I wanted bobby Seay at that point. Seay made me look smart when he had a scoreless inning in the 8th, but made me look dumb by allowing a couple hits (who would later come around to score) in the 9th.
Nice Verlander. Your offense gets back the run you give up in the first and you walk the next batter leading off.
Hmm, I believe that puts Inge back in 1st over Joyce for best with runner on 3rd < 2 outs.
Verlander just needs to throw strikes. Jeez. TOO MANY PITCHES. Somebody JINXED Joyce last night saying he had no GIDPs
shoppach has 11 homers…about 8 vs us…sucks
Both Maggs and Miggy are slumping big time…
I don’t know if I’ve ever hated a Tiger team as much as I do this one. If Illich decided to blow up the team this winter and dump $$, I wouldn’t mind it one bit. This team sucks and there is nothing there telling me that they won’t be just as aweful next year.
This is just horrible. I don’t know what to say except hi to everybody and misery loves company. I had a chance to go to the game tonight in a suite, but came home from moving my son to Ann Arbor (my 1st at college!) and was just too sad to drive downtown, and I didn’t figure the game would cheer me up any. Will try to go to my regular game on Friday but it’s getting hard to drag myself there. Sigh.
mcb: “Verlander just needs to throw strikes. Jeez. TOO MANY PITCHES. Somebody JINXED Joyce last night saying he had no GIDPs”
haha get your facts straight..I actually jinxed Joyce AND Inge, since I said Joyce had none and Inge only had one in > 250 AB.
I even had a strong enough jinx power to have Renteria getting WALKS in front of Inge so Inge could get his double-play too.
Just wanted to test my jinxing powers, you know, just to see how I matched up…
CIB:
know the feeling, sent my 1st off to Saginaw Valley State last weekend; went home and drank my *ss off; they’ll never know how much they meant to us until they ship their own 1st off in a few decades
Wow. Total madhouse here tonight. Motor City Madness!
I can now recite all 9 posts from memory.
Sean, apparently people have found better things to do. There IS life after Tigers baseball after all.
Vince in MN: “Sean, apparently people have found better things to do. There IS life after Tigers baseball after all.”
But I wonder if there is life after memorizing all the posts on here?
There’s just too much football excitement to get caught up in a team that is crapping the bed that already was soaked in crap. I mean, cmon we have to prepare ourselves for other disappointments at this point. It was fun while it lasted. If it wasn’t for all of us hilarious blogging nerds coming together everyday, we would have been relegated to watching Tigers games alone with only a cold, fatty ham sandwich to keep us company.
Better things to do? Perish the thought. Bite your your tongue, Vince. Or your fingers. Or that cold, fatty ham sandwich you secretly munch on while surreptitiously following Tigers games even now.
“The makeup of the guys in this clubhouse is that they can have a 10-game losing streak and put it all behind them,” said Shoppach.
The makeup of some other guys is that they can have a 7-game losing streak and never put it behind them.
“I felt the best that I have all year tonight. I had good stuff,” Verlander said. “It’s funny. I had nothing in Kansas City in my last start and won and tonight I lost.”
Well, you know, these are, like, the Indians, Justin. You had a 2008 4-game 5.84 ERA against them coming in.
“You can’t come off a 4-2 road trip and get swept at home. That’s not a good thing,” said Tigers manager Jim Leyland. “We are just not playing very good.”
Quite a few of those homestand buzzkills this season. Two series against the Twins on the heels of win streaks come to mind.
I was at this game last night. Pity me.
And Chris, you really, really need to learn how to spell “awful”.
btw, the most fun part of the night was when Betancourt came in. Watching his endless pre-pitch ritual is just hysterical:
“okay, make sure everything is tucked in right… stretch out for twenty seconds… toss the ball between hands several times… check the runner for at least ten seconds… stare at batter for so long that it invariably becomes awkward… PITCH… repeat”
Sean C: ““The makeup of the guys in this clubhouse is that they can have a 10-game losing streak and put it all behind them,” said Shoppach.”
I’m far from an Indians fan, but I think it is very admirable that they have the kind of trust and respect for each other that guys can have their makeup right in the clubhouse, and actually now that I think of it I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Grady Sizemore play with eyeliner on.
Dave BW: ““okay, make sure everything is tucked in right”
I think Betancourt’s weird rituals are just an expression of insecurity, which you would probably understand if you ever saw him when everything wasn’t tucked in right.
“You can’t come off a 4-2 road trip and get swept at home. That’s not a good thing,” said Tigers manager Jim Leyland. “We are just not playing very good.”
If we get a big enough sample size, do you think we can figure out the mad-lib-esque post game comment template Jim uses?
I don’t know if it was somebody in this blog, or a podcast i listened to, but somebody had the idea of posting the Tigers walks and strikeout numbers for this year on the board when they come to spring training next year.
Current Team Stats (league):
#5 in BBs (i want to say that either the starters or the relievers lead the league in this category)
#27 in Ks
#5 in Es
Coleman:
I’ve seen the guy pitch in person probably two dozen times, and he’s made me laugh out loud during every single one. When he’s staring at the batter, he always waits just… long… enough… to make you think/shout “COME ON!!!” despite the fact that the ritual is exactly the same every pitch. He’s brilliant.
The radio guys wouldn’t say, but why didn’t Granderson score on the ball the 3rd baseman waited for Joyce to tag for the third out? I hope he wasn’t doing the Sheff trot. And why didn’t Joyce go back to delay the tag? A chance to tie the game and somebody muffed it.
The Artist Formerly Known As Sean C. in Illinois sez:
It’s time for us to update our packaging. The most recent J.D. Power and Assoc. survey tell us that customers find the Sean C. in Illinois brand “bland,” “forgettable,” “where is Illinois? Is it by Chicago?” and “like, so yesterday.” In order to hold our market share of the uber-important 24-45 demographic, it’s time for a change.
For those of you who remember when it was still made by Nabisco, think of me as Post Shredded Wheat. Which will be my next name. Forget it. I called it.
Smoking Loon is a good wine.
What, someone already stole the name? Damn them.
Yes, unfortunately you were not the first to the punchbowl.
http://www.donandsons.com/threeloosescrews/smokingloon/
So Cleveland has won 10 in a row. Good for them. Personally, i am glad the Tigers are not exhibiting this kind of streak, as it only add to the frustration of, “where was this all year!?!”.
However, I do not wish to see us LOSE 10 in a row either. Let’s keep it respectable, guys.
RUNNERS LEFT ON BY STARTER / ALLOWED TO SCORE BY BULLPEN
Verlander 26/14 (54%)
Rogers 22/9 (41%)
Robertson 23/8 (35%)
Galarraga 15/4 (27%)
Bonderman 13/8 (62%)
Miner 4/1 (25%)
Bonine 5/0 (0%)
Willis 7/6 (86%)
Lambert 2/0 (0%)
TEAM 117/50 (43%)
Look at the numbers. Obviously, Verlander is next in line for a lengthy DL stint and/or rehab. Ominous.
2008 Tigers bullpen situations through 133 games, ranked by frequency:
Team behind, prevent more runs: 57
Hold 3+ run lead: 52
Hold 1-2 run lead: 34
Hold tie: 29
Smoking Loon,
Your bullpen figures would be more useful if you could tell us how many times the bullpen held a 1-2 run lead vs. how times they inherited that situation.
i.e., they came into the game with a 1-2 run lead 50 times and held the lead on 34 of those occassions.
Then, let’s compare to the rest of the league.
I’m not suggesting you do this, by the way, I think we all know what the numbers would look like.
More pitching/bullpen stuff.
BULLPEN AFTER 60 QUALITY STARTS (1 CG) IN 133 GAMES
Hold 3+ run lead: 92% success (33-3)
Hold 1-2 run lead: 47% success (9-10)
Hold tie: 38% success (6-10)
Team behind, prevent more runs: 29% success (2-5)
Overall after quality starts: 64% success (50-28)
BULLPEN AFTER 73 NON-QUALITY STARTS IN 133 GAMES
Hold 3+ run lead: 75% success (12-4)
Hold 1-2 run lead: 60% success (9-6)
Hold tie: 46% success (6-7)
Team behind, prevent more runs: 30% success (15-35)
Overall after non-quality starts: 45% success (42-52)
Overall bullpen success: 53% (92-80)
Bullpen success with 3+ run lead: 87% (45-7)
Bullpen success without a 3+ run lead: 39% (47-73)
Overall, team behind, prevent more runs: 30% success (17-40)
Overall, hold tie: 41% success (12-17)
Overall, hold 1-2 run lead: 53% success (18-16)
A word on starters: After 104 games they actually had a 47% quality start rate, the high water mark for the season.
Trivia: How many runs did the Tigers score in the first 3 games Kenny Rogers started?
Sean smoking in Loonieville (is that somewhere in Canada?),
Nice work on the bullpen stuff, I’ll have to go through it more carefully later.
Good trivia question, I’ll guess 2 total runs in those 3 games (I did not look anything up).
“Your bullpen figures would be more useful if you could tell us how many times the bullpen held a 1-2 run lead vs. how times they inherited that situation.”
Mark, I was only getting started, as you now see. But my “bullpen situations” include those inherited from both starters and other relievers, and are also affected by the Tigers offense changing the score. So there are many more situations than games here.
Good guess, Mark. I wouldn’t have guessed the answer, either, and it was fair of you not to look it up.
The answer is: 0. 27 innings of nothing.
Smo-Loo: “The Artist Formerly Known As Sean C. in Illinois sez:
It’s time for us to update our packaging…”
Does that go for Sean C Billups also? Are we supposed to be calling him Smoking Loon Billups now?
Coleman, naturally a well-known brand will attract imitators. You would have to speak with our legal department regarding our corporate stance on the myriad other so-called Sean C.’s out there.
Mark, forgot to mention: I’d love to know how that bullpen analysis would look in total MLB context. Too much work for one loon, especially one weakened by the tobacco habit. But some thoughts:
The “prevent” situation is obviously the toughest one to have success with. 50% would probably be an achievement.
It’s notable how little close action the Tigers bullpen has seen, relatively speaking. Close action being from a tie to a 2 run lead. Only 37% of situations. That says something, not sure what.
Chris: “Be your own loon.” Ha. That’s rich. I’m gonna sue the barstards, is what I’m gonna do.
They even stole the artwork from that empty bottle in my kitchen cupboard. Weird.
Anyone still tracking Jurrjens lately? He’s 2-5 with a 4.84 ERA since the All-Star break. His last 2 outings have really been a complete mess.
Renteria on the other hand has turned it around offensively. He has an .869 OPS so far this month.
Chief: Jurrjens has had a rough August (6.0 ERA or somesuch). Before declaring this trade a ‘win’ for the Tigers, consider that Jurrjens will likely still be playing baseball in 2013 when Edgar Renteria will be entering his first year of HoF eligibility.
For all I know Jurrjens will be the next Paul Wilson, Geremi Gonzales, Bill Pulsipher, ect…
In 2013, Renteria will still be going strong and getting closer to his 3,000 hit.