2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.122: Tigers at A’s

55 Comments

PREGAME: The Tigers won a road game. Is it getting too greedy to want them to win 2 in a row? Tonight it will be Armando Galarraga taking on Trevor Cahill.

Cahill has some pretty brutal peripherals with 25 homers allowed in 139 innings, only 70 strikeouts, and 57 walks. He somehow has an ERA under 5. But the Tigers have made lesser pitchers look greater.

Galarraga has 2 starts against the A’s. The last one was pretty good and gave us reason to think that Galarraga was starting to bounce back as he limited Oakland to 1 run on 2 hits (but with 6 walks) in 6.1 innings. The one before that he didn’t make it out of the first inning…coincidentally that one was against Trevor Cahill

Detroit vs. Oakland – August 22, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

55 thoughts on “Game 2009.122: Tigers at A’s”

  1. Anyone watching the Lions game? Absolutely brutal… its 20-0 with 4:20 left in the FIRST QUARTER.

  3. The Lions have run into an inspired opponent. But if the season were starting Sunday I’d say the most viable starting QB is Drew Stanton…for the love of Stoney Case, that’s not a good thing. Maybe they can talk the Bengals out of JT O’Sullivan, he’s looking pretty good…

  4. well Grandy getting on is a sure a good sign

    edit: run scored from third ..less 2 outs…maybe its Christmas

  7. Cringe’s 2009 batting average of .240 should meet up with his lifetime batting average of .237 somewhere around the 8th inning. Inge is as Inge does.

    1. Sunday, 8th inning more than likely. He may just be able to hold it above .237 until next weekend.

  9. Barton hititng .167 and Pennington who is 2 for 19 and its 2-1 Oakland ,,,,guess you can’t walk people can you

  11. now at least things are back to normal ……runner on third less 2 outs no run…2-1 score THE story of the year

  13. Making it way too easy on Cahill. Through the first 3 innings the Tigers took 4 called strikes. Batters normally make contact on 82% of swings against Cahill, the Tigers are at 71% through 4 innings. And through 4 innings they have chased 4 pitches well out of the strike zone.

  17. It’s kind of sad when Cabrera hits the ball so damn hard and so damn far… and is held to a single.

    At least he didn’t go for two this time though…

    1. just like last night that ball gets out there in about 1.5 seconds and pounds off that wall…!!!

  21. Everyone quite complaining for a minute and check out tonight’s minor league wrap (which I’m still writing, but I wanted to publish it right away). Seriously. Do it. Pay attention to the part that is highlighted cuz that’s the most important part.

    1. Santiago was running on the play. I don’t think he saw the ball real well, thought it was going to be caught and got forced at second.

  27. Interesting move to walk Cust, who is a big time candidate to strikeout. Although, it does set up the double play.

    Hope it works.

  28. Nice job getting out of that jam.

    Let’s make it actually count for something and put some runs on the board.

  32. Miner never never never never never does well in these situations….poor managing………NEVER

    Rodney could go another …Lyon can actually pitch two days in a row Smokey…Same with Seay these are your 8 and 9 inning people …never is it Miner

  37. With the way Kennedy was hitting, Ni or Seay would’ve made sense to start the 9th. I don’t think anyone is surprised that Miner couldn’t get the job done.

  38. Will we ever win another road series in 2009? This team just can’t hit/score. I don’t know why tomorrow will be any diofferent. Tomko shut down a good Yankess lineup, God only knows what he’ll do to us tomorrow afternoon. It really is perplexing to be held to two runs or less 36 times this year. I know our lineup doesn’t compare to New York or Boston’s, but it really should be able to at least be a middle of the pack team in runs scored (currently 11th out of 14). If we were just average in scoring runs, say 7th in the league, we’d probably be 5.5 games up instead of 2.5 games. Even Huff seems to have caught whatever ails our hitters. I’d feel a lot better if we win tomorrow, but I’m not holding my breath.

  39. Here’s a story problem for math buffs.

    If Brandon Inge bats .237 over the course of a decade-long career and then bats .238 in 2009 including .222 since May 1 and is on track to become the Tigers all-time strikeout king in August of 2010, how many times will he be named an all-star?
    Please show work for full credit!

    Sorry, he is a great defensive 3rd baseman IF you can bat him 9th.

    1. I’m not much at math so I’ll leave that for others…instead I’ll look at the interesting logical proposition at the end…

      So are you saying he is a great defensive 3rd baseman if you can bat him 9th—but not otherwise? That would seem to be a strange logic, judging his defense based on his batting…yet the gold glove voters seem to do something similar (although that itself is often referred to as illogical). Of course your statement isn’t exclusive–so just because you say he is a great defensive 3rd baseman if you can bat him 9th doesn’t mean you are saying he is NOT a great defensive 3rd baseman if you bat him somewhere else.

      At any rate, no need to worry. I have done a lot of research, looked at rules, procedures, contracts, the whole bit, and it turns out that in fact they CAN bat him 9th, they just haven’t chosen yet to do so. So problem solved.

      1. Coleman, keep clinging to that go ahead stat like a man clinging to a buoy in a hurricane! That’s a pretty meaningless stat because it doesn’t suggest the pressure of this situation. I believe Inge is batting .185 with two outs and runners in scoring position is more relevant.
        Obviously, I’m not saying he can’t bat elsewhere. But if you have two guys sucking wind at #8 and #9, you can’t afford to have your third baseman batting below the Mendoza line for two months.

        1. Actually it isn’t meaningless. It’s not indicative of talent but it does indicate that Inge has picked his spots quite well to deliver the maximum impact this year. I’m not saying that Inge has done this on purpose. I’d say it is much more likely this is coincidence than a plan on Inge’s part.

          Fangraphs publishes a stat called “Clutch” and using win probability it looks at a players performance in high leverage situation relative to the same player’s performance in all other situations. A positive number means said player raises his game with more on the line and a negative number means a player performs worse. A high clutch number doesn’t indicate a good player, just one who does much better in high leverage situations.

          Inge is second on the team at .78 (and 11th in the AL). This is partly because of the stat that Coleman stated with all the go ahead hits. It’s also partly because of Inge’s overall numbers which Stephen cites that Inge doesn’t hit very good giving him a lower baseline overall.

    2. OK, obviously I already admitted I’m not a math buff, but here’s a story problem anyway for Stephen. If a team has a stat like this:

      Go-Ahead Hits: (hits where the team went from tied or behind to ahead)

      Brandon Inge – 16
      Miguel Cabrera – 13
      Curtis Granderson – 11
      Placido Polanco – 10
      Clete Thomas – 9
      Ryan Raburn – 9

      And the person at the top of the list is the team’s worst hitter, would the team have won more or fewer games without that player in the lineup?

      1. For whatever reason, Tiger fans love Inge. Maybe it’s because he’s a white guy who knows. But their love known no bounds and seemingly forgives the fact his batting average is one of the lowest in the majors for batters receiving 2000 plus at-bats this decade. Throw in the fact that he pouted like a two-year-old when they moved him back to catcher after acquiring a potential Hall of Famer. Love him if you want, but the guy has exactly one OPS season above 100. But that love isn’t based on the numbers

        1. Were you under the impression that most fans are rational or that they look at meaningful stats? He’s the type of player that casual fans (of any team) like — he plays almost every day, plays good defense, hits home runs, is home-grown, and is one of the only holdovers from when they sucked. It’s not really surprising.

          Inge is an average major league 3rd baseman when accounting for offense and defense combined — nothing more, nothing less.

  40. it would be interesting to find out if Miner has every, in his major league career, been used in a 9th inning relief role,………..what was Smokey Thinking????

  41. Leyland takes a lot of abuse, some of it justified, but bringing in Miner last night was good managing.

    Yes, he could have brought in Ni, Seay, Lyon or Rodney. But what he knew, though he wouldn’t, couldn’t ever say it, was that the Tigers were extremely unlikely to score again. They had scored in two separate innings already. The odds of them scoring in a 3rd would have to be considered infinitesimal. If he brings in those other pitchers and they are all successful for one inning each (no guarantee there by the way, but play along), guess what? You still get to Miner in the 13th. So you burn four pitchers for what would, inevitably, be the same result.

    So in his mind, the game was already lost. Why not bring Miner in and get it over with? He knows that he has a 5 inning pitcher going the next day and he will need the bullpen in what may end up a winnable game. Leyland knew that the Tigers couldn’t win last night. What he was trying to do was not lose today’s game at the same time. Yes, it sets him up for criticism, but it was the right thing to do from a longer term perspective.

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