2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.121: Tigers at A’s

79 Comments

PREGAME: The Tigers start their last left coast swing and they do it in Oakland where the Tigers haven’t been particularly impressive, save for 2 games in October, 2006.

Edwin Jackson slogged through a victory against the Royals last Saturday. He wasn’t especially crisp, but he got plenty of run support for a change. Really, out of Jackson’s last 4 starts only the one against Baltimore would you really call strong.

Gio Gonzalez is on the mound for the A’s. The lefty took the loss when the two team’s hooked up in July. His game log shows someone who a)rarely pitches through the 7th inning and b)seems to be really good or really bad. He strikes out a batter an inning, but he walks one every other inning and has allowed 8 homers in 56 innings. In 67 PAs lefties are OPS over 1.100 against him, bolstered by a freaky .459 BABIP

Detroit vs. Oakland – August 21, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

79 thoughts on “Game 2009.121: Tigers at A’s”

  1. With those stats, Gonzalez may no-hit us tonight… I am hoping we break this tread of losing favorable pitching match-ups.

    1. Gonzalez has had some very good games where he’s shut teams down. He held Baltimore and Texas scoreless in back to back starts and he only allowed 1 run to the Yankees (in Yankee Stadium) in 6.2 innings. He’s got legit stuff, it just doesn’t always show up.

  4. Raburn’s obviously a #3 hitter, I don’t know why it took Smokey so long to figure out…

    1. That’s Rayburn, with the Y.

      Y is for Yuck.

      edit- didn’t mean to post this comment under here.

  5. Well it would be nice to get a sweep here and put some breathing room between us and the wsox

    Coleman I think you said you were a left coaster are you attending tonight. I looked in the crowd of 46 people and did not see anyone looking close to your avatar

    1. I need to start heading down to Oaktown when the Tigs are in town, no one is ever there!

  8. That’s why you don’t bring the infield in in the 2nd inning.

    I hated that move!

    You made Cust a 350 hitter against a drawn in infield!

    1. I agree. Does Leyland have that little confidence in his offense that he’s pulling the infield in with a 1-0 lead in the second inning? Wow. I know I bag on the offense, but for the manager of the team to signal that clearly to his team that he has such little confidence in his offense is really shocking.

  11. Brutal defense from Raburn……….again. I know he hit a HR already but he just cost us a run by not getting to a mile-high pop fly to shallow left field. In fact the whole team has apparently decided its Christmas in Oakland tonight. Raburn,. Laird, and now Jackson trying to pick off the speedy Jack Cust. Unbelievable.

    “Merry Christmas Oakland! We refuse to win on the road, take this one from us please. You see Oakland A’s, the White Sox have already lost and we like the drama of a close division race. We refuse to win when they lose unless they are 2 games or closer.” This is how I imagine the thoughts of Tiger’s players dance through their heads in games like this. Absolutely brutal second inning. I am surprised Oakland only got one run out of those three gifts. I guess we’re going to have to really load the A’s Christmas tree with more presents. The Tigers are pi$%&ng me off already and its only the second inning. Just play like a major league team guys, I don’t think I’m asking too much of you.

  15. Just checkin in to see who dogged Raburn and we got that 2nd HR out of him. He did kind of butcher that play in the field, but he’s forgiven now.

    1. I was one of the posters who dogged Raburn after that pop fly. Its great that he’s homered twice tonight, but he cost us a game this week vs. Kansas City with his brutal defense and he is primarily responsible for Oakland having their lone run thus far. That was not a difficult play. I don’t know why he got a late jump, but he clearly is not a natural fielder. He has been bad at third, and bad in LF this year. He doesn’t hit with enough power or a high enough average to be an everyday DH. He needs to improve his defense greatly if he wants to stick around in the coming years as a utility player.

  18. Good news, the White Sox lost at home to Baltimore and KC got a run in the bottom of the 9th vs. the Twins to force extra innings.

  20. Side note on the Twins/Royals game. I love what Trey Hillman has done twice in this game. In the 8th with the Twins leading by one and Span at second base with two out he intentionally walked Mauer to get to Kubel, and then he did it again woith two outs and the bases empty in the top of the 10th. He’s not going to let Mauer beat him.

  21. Steve–I couldn’t make tonight but I’m there tomorrow, maybe Sunday. Maybe I’ll change my avatar to be more recognizable…or change my appearance to be more avatar-like.

  22. That was an iffy called third on Marcus. Edwin is not getting those calls from the home plate ump.

    1. With the naked eye I thought Barton was safe, but the replay confirmed it was a good call by the home plate ump. I watch almost every Tiger game but I don’t recall seeing this home plate umpire. Does anyone know if he is a rookie big league ump?

  26. Does anyone know what happened in KC? ESPN is showing a 4-4 final after 10 innings??!! I checked Gametracker and it showed neither side scoring in the tenth? WTH??!!

  28. Orlando Cabrera hit a 2-out triple in the top of the 10th. Teahen hit a bullet with 2 on and 2-out in the bottom of the 10th, but it was right at Span in RF.

    1. That’s weird because ESPN gametracker showed Minnesota going 1-2-Mauer intentional walk-3 in the 10th. Oh well. Let’s take care of our business in Oakland and keep the dreaded Twins 6.5 back.

    1. Smokey doesn’t ever ever ever ever ever pinch hit for a guy because he is struggling as a hitter….only only only only to go left right or right left… Right or wrong he is totally consistent at it since he has managed Detroit…

  37. Off topic, but when you draft a guy to be a closer (Brad Zeigler) and it’s August and he’s pitching in the sixth inning…not so good.

  38. Anybody notice how quickly Cabrera was running for that foul ball? That guy had some steam!

  40. Jackson is at 99 pitches thru 6 innings. We should be able to get one more out of him.

  42. Van Slyke should’ve held Miguel at first when he saw how hard that ball came off the wall combined with Cabrera’s lack of speed. We need runs and or baserunners, no need to to try and stretch that one even though the majority of major leaguers make it to second on a ball hit that far.

  43. Was that play at second close or is Cabrera out of his mind?

    EDIT: Never mind, just saw Jerry’s comment regarding “off-the-wall”. Gotta like the aggressiveness, I suppose.

    1. As soon as I saw that ball richochet hard off the wall right to the center fielder, I knew Miggy was a dead duck. It wasn’t close.

    1. no that was Miggy running as fast as he can…he just looks like that. He broke hard about 10 feet around the bag, it looked like, but the speed didn’t change that much. His eyes did light up when that ball bounced right to the fielder like it did

  47. what a horrible break there,,,that was a bullit to right ….gimme a break. Another Sweeny diving catch… runners were going on the pitch

    1. Yeah that was atough break for Huff. He hit that ball right on the screws, and I jumped out of my seat thinking it was a RBI single to right when it left his bat.

  52. 3.5 game lead. Rodney has been absolutely huge this year…

    Let’s win this series because I’m not confident at all about the Angels series… ChiSox have a tough stretch coming up too though.

  53. Good win. Rodney came through again, albeit with a little help from Polanco. I like that Rodney went after the Oakland hitters tonight. No walks, no falling behind 3-0 or 3-1 to hittters. Good stuff tonight. Clete with another clutch knock, it is really easy to like that kid. He plays good defense and has gotten some timely hits for us this year (grand slam vs. the Angels, the walk-off HR vs. BALT, yesterday’s walk-off single, and of course tonight’s clutch knock to give us that very important 3rd run).

  54. Ryan Raburn and Clete Thomas would like to stay on the roster. Kinda funny that, all things being equal, Huff would probably be the one shipped out right now.

  55. To say the White Sox upcoming schedule is brutal may not quite do it justice- you’d be hard pressed to schedule 15 games in a row that are harder- It’d be nice if the Tigers could get on a roll, because after playing Baltimore, the White Sox have 11 of their next 15 against either New York or Boston, and 3 others on the road against the Twins, with a make up game at Wrigley.

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