PREGAME: The Tigers welcome in an AL East opponent in late August in a game with playoff implications for both teams, and it’s a very wet Friday night and the Tigers send out there prize prospect and first round pick. Reminds me of a similar game from 2007. This though instead of Andrew Miller it is Rick Porcello, and instead of the Yankees it is the Twins. And I’m not at this game and I doubt it ends at 3:30am.
Porcello kinda got clobbered by the A’s of all teams. Prior to that he had been pretty good shutting down Seattle, Baltimore, and the Indians and taking down Kevin Youkilis.
Garza has quality starts in 4 of his last 6 outings and he’s pretty good. Granderson and Polanco are a combined 1 for 22 with 1 walk off of Garza, so table setting may proove to be an issue.
The lineup:
- Granderson, CF
- Polanco, 2B
- Ordonez, RF
- Cabrera, 1B
- Huff, DH
- Guillen, LF
- Inge, 3B
- Laird, C
- Everett, SS
Tampa Bay vs. Detroit – August 28, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
POSTGAME: For those that don’t frequent the comments, Coleman has dubbed the guys at the bottom of the order the BOOBs (bottom of the order boys). The BOOBs were big tonight. Inge got things going with a homer, and Gerald Laird and Adam Everett had back to back doubles to drive in runs in the big 4th inning. In the end the BOOBs drove in 5 of the 6 runs and had 5 of the 8 hits.
Rick Porcello was wonderful and had to pitch around some poor defense. He had 2 men on in the first without a ball reaching the infield dirt, but back to back K’s ended the threat. In the end he had 5 k’s and allowed just 4 hits. He also topped 100 pitches for the first time this season.
The bullpen was on their way to a perfect showing until a pinch hit Gabe Kapler homer with 2 outs in the 9th made things a little more interesting, but Fernando Rodney finished things off with a strike out (after the requisite walk).
- Aubrey Huff started a rally instead of ending one when he drew the walk in the 4th inning. He also nearly hit his first homer as a Tiger but it hooked foul.
- Granderson had 2 hits and built on a road trip that saw him have success. Grandy hasn’t been able to get hot for more than 3-4 games at a time this year and hopefully he can really heat up heading into September.
Were gonna go with our no offense line-up tonight. Everett, Laird, Huff, and a 1 for 22 starting two. Balls.
I suppose Billfer meant to say it’s the Rays, rather than the Twins. I still get Garza’s team mixed up sometimes, too.
nice start???? how bout a little defense please
great pitch that he just called a ball two pitches before! this time a K
3 weakly hit ground balls = 2 baserunners
some serious pitching in that half..wow
in Ananhiem watching Huff hit PB, he hit about 20 bombs into the seats and crushed it all three batting practices…in the games he was obviously, awful
And they say Ben Wallace is a great free throw shooter in practice…
On Gameday at least there have been more called strikes out of the strike zone than in it
And maybe it turns out Shaq is good at F T in practice too, we’ll never know
They actually do say he hits around 80% in practice, which is incredible considering his career free throw percentage is 41.8%.
in all three Angel games the Tigers got the starting pitcher into 100 pitches by the 5th inning in each game. I think it helped win two of those games …lots of grinding out at bats…today 23 pitches in the first is more of the same ..hopefully they can continue to drive pitch counts up with good at bats..
Maybe in practice they don’t make stand back behind the line….
I hope we can chase Garza early; as good as he’s pitching Porcello is heading for a 5th inning exit
Biiiinngeeee!!!1
INKge!!!
Is this his first post-tat HR?
how can you hit a guy hitting a buck and a half ….wow
Not saying it was intentional, but he had pinpoint control prior to that pitch. I tend to get suspicious when a pitcher hits a guy with a fastball right after he gives up a homer.
Pretty sure it was intentional. He was glaring at Inge while running the basepaths. Also, Inge looked back at the catcher as if something was said.
Any known bad blood between Garza and Inge from his Twins days?
Best #*%!! .237 strikeout machine hitter in baseball!!
If Porcello retaliates this will get interesting. 1st game of a 4 game series.
those tattos weighting him down !!! 2 E’s already ….ball should have been caught though but
I would have given that error to Cabrera. That ball went under his glove before it bounced.
The Not-Satanic-Really, Not At All-Rays don’t have any potential mound-chargers as intimidating as Youkilis and Porcello seemed to handle him fine…I say there is nothing to retaliate for though…
I’m more worried about Porcello hitting another guy and then getting the reputation around the league as a head hunter. As young as he is, the umps squeezing him on the inside corner might make him reluctant to pitch inside.
Hopefully he learned his lesson and if he wants to hit a guy he will wait until the 6th when it’s not as obvious.
Crawford had some words for Cabrera after that bunt, and it looked like he was saying something to Miggy from the dugout, too. This series could get very interesting…
Cabrera had his non-bag foot in the baseline and didn’t give Crawford a path. I don’t think it was intentional and I think Crawford was more upset with Bucknor.
I think he was complaining that Cabrera was blocking the base so he couldn’t hit the front of it. I don’t even know if thats a rule that you can’t do that. Fielders block the plate/base all the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_%28baseball%29
As good as Cabreras fielding has been in some ways there have been several “soft errors” on Inge and a couple on Everett that a lot of 1B might have handled…
That one should have been on Cabrera. He didn’t even get glove on it. Not a good throw, but not worthy of an error for Inge either.
The 6th would be a fine time since he’ll be over his pitch limit by then anyway
It seems that the Tigers position players are more interested in running up Porcello’s pitch count than Garza’s. They saw a lot of pitches that first inning, but man, not good since then.
5 pitch inning ,guess I shouldda kept my mouth shut about the “grinding out at bat compliment”
I think Inge got 6 pitches in his HR AB
I think part of it is the wet ball the infielders are fielding. Inge’s throw and Laird’s bobble could be explained that way.
If the non-Diablo Rays really want to be “interesting” let’s see what Inkge gets his next AB
I’m geussing curve balls that don’t hang, and lots of them.
Coleman, what is Garza’s pitch count at?
come on Lamont!!!!!!!!!!!
Bah… it looked like Huff could have scored pretty easily on that one.
thank you….. they thought Laird popped to the catcher but it carried too far!!
Garza is at 59, but he just missed badly on 4 straight fastballs so pitch count ain’t his only problem
Laird is his problem.
BOOBs are his problem!
Everett and Laird just hit back to back doubles. Lets all take that in for a second.
now thats! what we are talking about!!
Needless to say this game is a 100% Bottom Of the Order Boys gem!
That’s a lot of doubles…
Is this the Tigers???? Good start! Hope Porcello settles in and holds it!!!
Ha, I’m slow on the draw today. Obviously though Garza has a big problem handling B.O.O.B.s…
Garza is a very emotional pitcher and it is biting him in the a**
attaboy “Kid”
Man. That is some serious doo doo he’s been pitching out of each inning. Nice work, Rick.
There must be a RBI store some where and Huff purchased 73 of them
Looks like Porcello is going to hit the magic 100 count.
I think this means his arm is going to fall off.
at least! I’m suprised Smokey didn’t carry him off!
I’d be interested to know how many multi-hit games Laird has this year…
That’s his 2nd since the All Star break per Jason Beck’s twitter
And that would be one less than I had expected.
Did that guy really have a tatoo of a baseball on his scalp?
Anyone know if they had the coin tosses to determine home field advantage if there is a tie between us and the Twins or Whitesox?
first criteria to break the tie I believe is best record in Division games
I think if there is a tie they have a Youk Toss to determine home field
Sweet, The rookie comes through again!!!!
good day at Comerica !!!
The dreaded 7-1 spots in the order accounted for 7 or the 8 hits and all 6 RBI. Will wonders never cease.
Huff ‘N Puff 0-3 with a walk. Can we just release the guy and call up Dane Sardhina?
Little much dontcha think? Huff’ll get it going again, he is a very good hitter.
And the Yankees just walked off against the White Sox.
See ya!!! A walk-off home run for Robinson Crusoe.
Even better, the Yankees get a 3-run 10th inning HR. Sox Lose!
You can put it on the board….
YESSSSSSSSSSS
Ah, scooped by “Big Celery” Billfer!
Nathan was one very generous corner call from loading the bases with 2 outs in the 9th, but he got the call and there is a new 2nd place team in the Central.
Twins beat Texas 3-2. Say hello to the new second place team in the Central.
They scare me much more than the Chi Sox.
Still I think there is an excellent chance we will win this division this year.
The Sockpuppets pitching is inconsistent and their defense is pretty bad. I think that will do them in in the end. Over the last few years the Twins have been able to turn it up a notch late in the season, so if that holds true again this year they are the real concern for the Tigers. However, the Tigs shouldn’t be looking over their shoulder; just concentrate on one game at a time and don’t worry about what the other teams are doing.
Lots of celery = fast fingers.
Or it equals a strong jaw, occupied fingers and a good budget.
Inge and Laird may be liabilities in the field, but we can’t afford not to have their bats in the lineup…
Total bases today, by batting order:
1-3: 3
4-6: 1
7-9: 10
hard to beat a team when the BOOBs score 10 TB…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNDlf6hA6TY
It’s old but, at 51 seconds I almost died from laughter.
LMAO
-Sam
Twins get all the breaks. They have had, I think, four series with the Royals, and they have yet to face Grenke. That is typical of stupid Twins luck.
If you get a chance, check out Nathan’s called 3rd to get the k for the final out. Easily the worst call I’ve seen this year. Easily.
Yep. Haven’t seen it yet, but was reading that in other forums, too.
Just saw billfer’s post, sorry for the redundancy, but it was that bad.
1st tiebreaker in the event of a Tigers-Twins-White Sox dead heat will be an Inge-Morneau-Thome home run derby