2009 Season, AL Central

Perusing the AL Central

9 Comments

The Tigers are welcoming back Jeremy Bonderman, but they aren’t the only team in the AL Central to be making some significant roster changes. Here’s a brief look at some intra-divisional goings on:

  • Fausto Carmona dominated the Tigers earlier this season. The Tigers have the distinction of being one of the few teams he’s dominated. He’s now been sent down to Rookie ball . The guy taking his place on the roster is fairly significant as it is Travis Hafner returning from injury. Hafner doesn’t have much of a breaking ball though so Tomo Ohka will take his place in the rotation for the time being
  • The Royals are losing on a regular basis now and are on the brink of 5th place. They hold a narrow half game lead over the Indians and the 2 teams will go head to head this week. That the Indians are hanging in despite having Grady Sizemore, Rafael Betancourt, Asdrubal Cabrera, Anthony Reyes, Scott Lewis, and I think Cory Snyder on the DL. And Jake Westbrook is expected back soon.
  • Speaking of the Royals they DFA’d Horacio Ramirez and have brought up Luke Hochevar. Too little too late?
  • The White Sox called up Gordan Beckham to try and provide some offense.
  • Taking a look at the standings, the Tigers are up 3.5 games over the second place team and 7 over the last team. So things are still tight. And if you look at the Indians, they’ve had to play 36 games against the AL East and only 3 against the AL West. Meanwhile the Tigers are 10 games over .500 against the West and 6 games under against the East.
  • The other thing that jumps out is the Twins record on the road. They are 7-18 away from the Metrodome.

9 thoughts on “Perusing the AL Central”

  1. What is it? 20 out of our next 26 games are on the road?Hopefully we’ll do well against the NL and Chi Sox. I’m hoping we can get 3. As long as Verlander and Jackson continue rocking it, and the White Sox hit .215!!!!!!! at home it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

    The Indian’s thing is interesting I didn’t realize that. I still saw/see them as making a push within the next few months.

    And of course the Twinkies use their park to their advantage – its been that way for years – although most not usually this much of a difference.

    One thing that sticks out to me a bit is that the AL West is 7 games over .500 against the AL East

    ATM –

    AL East vs AL Central – Al East is +23
    AL East vs AL West – AL East is -7
    AL Central vs AL West – AL Central is +6

    So against non division opponents

    AL East +16
    AL Central -17
    AL West +1

  4. Jamie Walker and Jason Grilli have both been released. Just for kicks, who do you want: Walker, Grilli, or Lyon? I think I stick with Lyon.

  5. The key to success will be dominating the other teams in the Central, which no team has done yet. The Silly Season (IL play) probably won’t help, because, if trends hold, everybody plays “well” against NL teams – when done, the standings will look much the same as they do after Thursday’s games finish. When the Tigers start to catch up on games vs. the East, they will lose some ground (Tampa Bay, Toronto, Boston and New York are all better teams). They need to minimize the damage as much as possible by beefing up the offense. Tiger pitching is very good, but not good enough to hold those teams to 3 runs or less very often.

  6. Like the Contreras (0-5, 8.19 ERA) vs Bonderman match-up.

    Bonderman hasn’t pitched in a MLB game for a year, while Contreras hasn’t pitched like a MLB pitcher for a year.

  7. Leyland really needs to start letting the pitchers bat and DH for Sardhina when he catches.

  8. Even though they are not hitting well right now, the fact that they have finally learned patience at the plate is paying off.

  9. Galarraga seems to have the same disease that Verlander had last year: he gets ahead of the batter but then can’t put him away.

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