PREGAME: Nothing like an afternoon game after a 16 inning bout, but the Tigers play at 4p on the 4th on Fox Saturday Baseball. Happy 4th of July to everyone as Edwin Jackson matches up with Francisco Liriano. Both managers will look to these gentleman to provide some innings with both bullpen’s taxed. The Tigers at least have everyone except Joel Zumaya and Freddy Dolsi available, not sure about the Twins situation.
Liriano still hasn’t put things together since his Tommy John surgery. He’s fanning 8 per 9 innings, but he has 42 walks and 12 homers in 89.2 innings. He faced the Tigers earlier in the year though and went 7.1 innings in his best start (Game Score 68) of the season.
Jackson had fought his control a little bit in June before turning in a 7 inning, no walk performance against Houston. Jackson has only gone past 100 pitches once in his last 4 starts so Jim might lean on him a bit today.
Detroit vs. Minnesota – July 4, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
POSTGAME: The first 2 games of this series have lived up to the hype. But the Tigers only came out on top once. Sadly I don’t know what was the bigger surprise yesterday, the offensive outburst of Magglio Ordonez or the offensive outburst of Nick Punto.
The Ordonez homer was particularly impressive, because unlike his homer against the Cubs on a hanger, he drilled a fastball over 400 feet to the pull field. Dumb luck or a reason to be encouraged? Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled for Maggs and hope it is a sign of things to come, but a little bit of skepticisim is warranted as well.
Edwin Jackson was bit by walks again, and too often he’d get ahead 0-2 and then nibble his way to a 6 pitch at-bat. Either he wasn’t as aggressive as he usually is, or he just flat out didn’t have the command.
Brandon Inge and Curtis Granderson both fanned 3 times today. Blech.
Good news to start the afternoon! Chisox lose 6-4 at KC. KC rallied from a 3-0 deficit to cool down the Fightin’ Ozzies. It just went final moments ago, so we have a chance to pick up a game on out two closest pursuers today. Let’s go Edwin, give us an eight-inning, one run run allowed outing today. Even with our anemic bats that should be enough. There’s a good chance to make it a great day in Tiger Land.
Just saw the final line myself, now hopefully the Tigers don’t take it as a chance to take a breather. We need to win this series in the Dome, and today would be the day to do just that.
Whoever scheduled an afternoon game on the 4th of July in the Helldome needs to be fired.
Maggs got s hit!!!
Through three innings —
Jackson — 60 pitches — 29 strikes, 31 balls.
Ouch. Good news is that he hasn’t allowed anyone to score. Bad news is the bullpen is going to have to play a large part in this game.
Yeah he is struggling.
And now he gave up a home run.
Goddamn Liriano struggles much of the season but has his two best starts against the Tigers. I just knew this would happen.
The rest of the Tigers hate E-jax. So whenever he takes the mound they all agree to turn-in a day of horrible offensive production.
That’s the only possible explanation.
Wow, Chris. You always seem to know things are going to happen. Here’s what I want. Send me a list of all the game outcomes for the rest of the year, and then I won’t have to bother watching the Tigers play.
MAGGLIO!!!!!
He’s back!
More like “he just bought another two weeks”.
That’s just silly. There is still half of a season left.
Maggs’ BA is .003 behind potential “all-star” Inge. This piling on Maggs stuff is ridiculous. He’s been a great Tiger and certainly deserves more respect than many fans are giving him.
Carlos Delgado was “finished” the first half of last year too…
His OBP is .30 less and his slugging percentage is almost .200 points lower than Inge’s. BAtting average is a pretty useless statistic if you think about it. Anyway, the problem people here have with ordonez is that nobody wants him to get the milestones that guarantee the next two years at about 18 million per. His production does not warrant that.
Batting Average is still a good stat…to call it “useless” is silly. Your other differences are all true, but he’s been a good Tiger and has a great chance of recovering. I wasn’t making a comparison between he and Brandon, only pointing out that for as “bad” as he’s been, it hasn’t been THAT bad. Further, he’s not even close to some other, well-payed, current and former members of our club in their “bad” years. People are totally losing their perspective on this, particularly given that you CANNOT cut guys to avoid paying them an option. The Tigers INTENDED to pay him his entire contract when they signed him. Have we forgotten that he (and Pudge also) was more than fair by including clauses to protect the club against his previous injuries?? He’s kept his end of the bargain and you can’t just throw a guy overboard because he gets off to a bad start this season and you don’t want to pay him any more. A guy with his track record has an excellent chance of a great second half and beyond.
Go Maggs!
I cannot believe that just happened.
Wow, yes, 3 run home run by Maggs..YEah
Maggs with a big-boy hit!
Gotta go with Bobby Seay right here.
EJ no don’t walk both of them!!!
I just HATE Morneau
Come on Seay. That was horrible.
More NOOOOO
Why do we keep letting Morneau hit? WALK THE BEAST.
Come on. Now we are in bad shape.
We would murder the Twinkies if they didn’t have Morneau, Crede (?!) and Punto (?!)
The idea is we tie it up here, make this one go 16 innings also, and tomorrow they will be begging us to beat them in 9…
Why does Leyland keep running Seay out there against the twins? They own him, and Ni was available from what I understood.
Because Seay has been lights out this year. The real question is why he insists on runnign lefthanders against Mauer and Morneau when they hit them just as well as they hit right handers.
Well as far as Inge/Ordonez comparisons, even if their offensive starts were similar, and their contracts were identical, and they were the same age, Inge is more valuable because of the defense.
One big problem with Inge– he is the Opposite Day, billfer-Backwards-Headline Joe Crede.
He does ridiculously badly against the Twins, all the time. Like a career slugging % of a Pineapple-ish .337…(maybe he’s The Coconut)…29 walks vs 101 Ks…9 HR 32 RBI in 116 games…maybe instead of resting him to get him ready for the Twins the move should have been to rest him against the Twins.
Nevermind that very last point. The Twins are Inge’s 2nd worst team…but his worst is the A’s…
Another great start by Jackson wasted. This trend is just becoming absurd…
I recall when Robertson couldn’t get run support a few years ago when he was actually pitching good. Is this dejavu all over again with Jackson. I sure hope not.