Monthly Archives: August 2009

2009 Season, Offense

Leyland says Tigers didn’t swing at enough first pitches

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During Jim Leyland’s post game presser, he made some interesting comments regarding the Tigers approach against Josh Beckett. Leyland thought the Tigers weren’t aggressive enough on first pitches and settled for too many first pitch strikes. The actual quote was:

“That just makes it easy for him,” Leyland said. “I know how good he is. I know it’s not that easy. But for you to get a guy like him, he basically is going to come right at you. He has very good stuff, and then, he’s a very intelligent pitcher. He’s going to come at you, and if he can get you to stand there and take a strike-one fastball, that’s really playing into his hand.”

It wasn’t really a take I expected (and not just because I spent a chunk of my recap praising the Tigers for making Beckett throw more than 5 pitches per plate appearance through the first 4 innings) because the Tigers aren’t really noted for their patience at the plate.

Detroit ranks 7th in terms of percentage of pitches swung at (46.5%). They are often criticized for swinging at the first pitch too often and making too many quick outs. Their walk rate is middle of the pack. They have the fewest pitcher per plate appearance in the American League (3.75 and the league average is 3.84). Swinging the bats has never been a problem for the Tigers this year.

As for last night’s game Beckett recorded first pitch strikes on 19 of the 24 batters he faced. Here is the breakdown:

  • Called Strike: 12
  • Foul: 1
  • In Play – Out: 5
  • In Play – Hit: 1
  • Ball: 5

The Tigers actually only swung at 30% of the first pitches that Beckett threw. For the season they swing at 28% of first pitches, and the league average is 26%. Last night they had 1 favorable outcome out of the 7 times they swung at the first pitch. Maybe the Tigers get more hits the more they swing away at the first pitch against Beckett, and this is a VERY small sample. But looking at this I don’t see how you can say that the Tigers made things easy for Beckett by laying off the first pitch and if anything their uncharacteristic patience and ability to foul off pitches early in the game made Beckett work harder. And if anything, I think you just need to tip your cap to a very good pitcher.

Beck’s Blog: Leyland critiques approach

2009 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 8/12/09

Toledo 2 Syracuse 1
Mike Hessman was a triple short of the cycle. Brent Clevlen and Scott Sizemore each had 2 hits. Ruddy Lugo pitched 7 shut out innings and allowed just 5 hits and walks with 2 K’s. Casey Fien allowed a run on 2 hits in 2 innings with 3 K’s.

Erie 1 New Britain 4
Cale Iorg went 2 for 4 with a walk. Ramon Garcia allowed 4 runs, 2 earned, in 6 innings. Robbie Weinhardt pitched 2 scoreless innings with 2 K’s.

Lakeland 7 Clearwater 1
This was the completion of a suspended game from early July. Audy Ciriaco homered and singled. Jeramy Laster tripled and singled. Lauren Gagnier pitched a complte game and the only run was unearned. He notched 8 K’s and allowed just 5 hits and 2 walks.

West Michigan 4 Dayton 5 (12 innings)
Mike Gosse, Avasail Garcia, and Luis Palacios all had 2 hits. Billy Nowlin doubled for the only Caps extra base hit of the night. Adam Wilk has been one of the bright spots from this year’s draft and he threw another 5 innings allowing just 1 run on 5 hits and a walk in 5 innings with 4 K’s. In 10 starts between Oneonta and West Michigan he has a 1.49 ERA and a 51/7 K/BB ratio in 54.1 innings.

Oneonta PPD

GCL Yankees 8 GCL Tigers 2
Gary Perinar walked 6 in 3.1 no hit innings. He allowed 2 runs and fanned 3. Giovany Soto was lit up for 7 hits and 3 walks in 2.2 innings.

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.113: Tigers at Red Sox

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PREGAME: For everyone expecting fireworks tonight I think you’ll be disappointed. Yes, there is considerable hate and vitriol between the fan bases today, but Jim Leyland and Terry Francona have likely spoken to each other and their teams and have no interest in seeing this continue. Throw in the fact that the umpires are likely on high alert and warnings and ejections would come quickly and most likely nothing happens tonight.

Not to mention the fact that Zach Miner who pitched 2 innings on Monday night is the emergency starter. And Freddy Dolsi who was recalled to take Chris Lambert’s spot pitched 2 innings last night. And Leyland would probably like to give Fu-Te Ni another night off. And the Tigers just don’t have a lot of pitching options at this point.

Oh, and Miguel Cabrera is out of the lineup tonight with Marcus Thames taking his spot in the lineup and Carlos Guillen taking his spot in the field (*gasp*).

And Josh Beckett is starting for the Red Sox. Things certainly aren’t tilting the Tigers way heading into tonight’s game…then again how big would a win be tonight?

Detroit vs. Boston – August 12, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Well we knew this one was an uphill battle from the start. But through 4 innings I actually felt pretty good about things. Zach Miner wasn’t nibbling, and he was battling a small strike zone (more on this in a minute) and for those first 3 innings there were only 2 balls hit hard off of him – they both left the yard – but he wasn’t pitching bad. On the other side Josh Beckett was tossing a perfect game, but the Tigers were putting in good at-bats. After 4 innings Beckett had thrown 69 pitches, and he’d only allowed one batter, meaning the Tigers were averaging over 5 pitchers per plate appearance.

A Carlos Guillen lead off homer in the 5th and I started to dream a little. What if the bullpen can hold them at 3 or 4 runs the rest of the game? What if they chase Beckett by the 7th? Could they get a bloop and a blast and tie it?

Then the bottom of the 5th happened.

It was a brutal, miserable, Metrodome type of inning. With 2 outs the Sox posted a double, then a single. And Miner was done at that point, having gone an inning farther than I thought he would have. Freddy Dolsi got 2 strikes on Mike Lowell, sawed him off, but Lowell placed an infield single between the mound and second base. Then there was a walk. Another single loaded the bases for Varitek who then “walked.”

Freddy Dolsi walks Jason Varitek
Freddy Dolsi "walks" Jason Varitek

I mentioned a small strike zone earlier. Here is the gameday image of the “walk” to Jason Varitek. I really don’t know what else Dolsi could have done in that at-bat, but in the end it ended up an RBI for Varitek. Now the small zone wasn’t just an issue for the Tigers, it was pretty uniformly small for both teams. The biggest squeezing just happened to come at the worst possible time for the Tigers.

After the walk things got really ugly. There was a passed ball. And another error. And a reminder why Guillen no longer plays first base. And there were more hits. And then the game was practically over and you just hoped nobody got hurt.

  • The Tigers didn’t strand any runners in scoring position tonight
  • They only had to cobble together 8 innings from their pen
  • Fernando Rodney and Brandon Lyon are both fresh and ready to go tomorrow
  • Marcus Thames homered.

See. There was lots of good news.

Uncategorized

Game 2009.112: Fallout

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Yes, the ejection of Porcello greatly impacted the outcome of the game, and yes I’ve already ripped into the umpires for the ejection. But the umpires did not cost the Tigers the game, nor did Kevin Youkilis and his hissy fit. Regardless, the Tigers will be feeling the repercussions of this game for the rest of the series.

The umpiring was atrocious the whole night and it didn’t just go against the Tigers. In fact it led to the Tigers offensive outburst in the first. Guillen got away with intereference on his take out slide breaking up a double play in the first. Then the Tigers were gifted a caught stealing in the 2nd (leading to the ejection of Terry Francona) where Lambert was handed an out because he wasn’t capable of notching one on his own. The strike zone was a complete and utter joke (11 Red Sox pitches out of the strike zone called strikes, 5 Tigers pitches out of the strike zone called strikes, 3 Tigers pitches in the zone called balls, 1 Red Sox pitch in the zone called a ball). It was just a horrible job of umpiring all the way around.

The Tigers offense struggled again despite the 5 runs. The 3 in the first came on 2 solid singles, a questionable HBP, an error, and a slide out of the baseline, and another solid single. The offense was then held to 2 hits until the 9th inning when they got to Papelbon for 2 runs.

Lambert was awful…again…and the only nice thing you can say is that he pitched 5 innings. He also became the first Tiger since Mel Rojas to give up at least 5 runs in consecutive relief outings. (Eulogio De La Cruz did it also…sort of…the first game was as a Tiger and the second game was a year later as a Marlin)

At least Alex Avila is still hitting. And Ordonez tripled in back to back games with assists from J.D. Drew.

Other fallout

As mentioned during the FS Detroit broadcast, the X-rays on Miguel Cabrera’s hand were negative, which is the good news. But according to Jim Leyland’s presser after the game Cabrera was pretty sore and is day to day. Also, Lambert was jettisoned and Freddy Dolsi was recalled. Dolsi pitched last night so I can’t see him giving the Tigers too many innings today. And then there is the issue of Armando Galarraga and the flu and who knows if he’ll be able to go tonight. Eddie Bonine pitched on Sunday so he wouldn’t be available as a spot starter.

2009 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 8/11/09

Toledo 0 Syracuse 5
Scott Sizemore, Dane Sardhina, and Mike Hessman had the only hits. Nate Bump went the distance (6 innings in this case) and allowed all 5 runs on 9 hits with 2 K’s and no walks.

Toledo 3 Syracuse 1
Brent Clevlen homered and singled. Dusty Ryan also homered. Scot Drucker pitched 5 innings allowing just an unearned run on 5 hits, no walks and 3 K’s.

Erie 5 New Britain 3
Casper Wells and Santo De Leon each doubled and singled. Brennan Boesch homered and walked. Deik Scram tripled. Thad Weber went 7.2 innings and allowed 2 runs on 6 hits, 1 walk, and 2 K’s.

Clearwater 3 Lakeland 9
Audy Ciriaco went 3 for 5 with a double. Devin Thomas also had 3 hits and added a walk. Jeramy Laster homered. Hernan Perez went 2 for 4 and drove in 3. Ryan Ketchner fanned 7 in 6 innings and allowed 3 runs (1 earned).

West Michigan 8 Dayton 4
Alden Carrithers was a homer short of the cycle. Billy Nowlin and Luis Salas each had 2 hits. Anthony Shawler fanned 6 and walked 2 in 4 innings of shut out ball.

Oneonta 4 State College 9
Rawley Bishop and Wade Gaynor singled and doubled. Jose Diaz allowed 4 runs on 7 hits, 2 walks, and no strike outs in 4.1 innings.

GCL Tigers 5 GCL Yankees 6
Elvin Soto went 3 for 4. Zach Samuels fanned 8 and walked none in 7 innings allowing 3 runs on 7 hits.

2009 Season

The brawl and umpire incompetence

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Rick Porcello should not have been ejected. Call it a homers take if you want, but he had no business being ejected. In fact if Kevin Youkilis wasn’t an immature moron and he hadn’t charged the mound, there would have been no ejection in the first place. So Youk charges the mound, and the Tigers starting pitcher gets tossed despite the fact that Tigers hitters had been plunked throughout the first 2 games of the series and no warnings had been issued.

That’s my take. Keith Law is at the game and had this to say:

This is Crawford’s second major incident of the month, after Friday’s egregious blown call and subsequent outburst against Arizona manager A.J. Hinch. While Crawford has yet to sink that low during this game — the night is still young as I type this — the crew’s decision to toss Porcello after he hit one batter with a three-run lead and no warning in effect was incompetence at best and cowing to a hostile Fenway crowd at worst. Crawford’s involvement in two on-field blowups, both featuring bad umpiring decisions, calls into question his fitness to umpire major league games, especially ones with playoff implications like Tuesday’s.

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2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.112: Tigers at Red Sox

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PREGAME: The Tigers look for an elusive road win once again, this time it will be against Junichi Tazawa making his first big league start. Tazawa will take on Rick Porcello who has already had one rough start against the Red Sox this year.

Tazawa is a righty, but he fared much better against lefties in his minor league stint. He fans 25% of lefties and only 20% of righties. Righties tag him for a 16% line drive rate and lefties are only at 10.6%.

The Tigers will hope to get Porcello through 6 innings which will be no small feat. Although the last time Edwin Jackson lasted only 4 innings, Porcello came back and gave the team 8 innings of work.

Your Adam Everett-less lineup is:

  1. Granderson, CF
  2. Polanco, 2B
  3. Thomas, LF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Guillen, DH
  6. Ordonez, RF
  7. Avila, C
  8. Inge, 3B
  9. Santiago, SS

Detroit vs. Boston – August 11, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.111: Tigers at Red Sox

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PREGAME: The Tigers once again venture out beyond the gated community at Montcalm and Witheral to slay road dragons. The Red Sox 35-17 home mark is pretty daunting, but the Sox are struggling and have dropped 6 games in a row and are now tied for the Wild Card with the Rangers.

The Tigers send out Edwin Jackson who pitched into the 9th inning his last time out. Jackson faced the Red Sox 4 times last year, but didn’t get a win despite the fact that 2 of his starts were quite impressive.

Brad Penny goes for the Red Sox tonight. He’s allowed at least 5 runs in 3 of his last 4 starts. The Tigers saw Penny once last year, and chased him in the 4th inning after 7 runs had scored.

Detroit vs. Boston – August 10, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: This one was a heartbreaker. Not because this was one of the games where the pitching match-up favored the Tigers, but because the Tigers played a pretty good game but just came up a run short despite the fact their starter only recorded 12 outs. They played good defense, they got some clutch hits, they hit the ball hard pretty consistently, but in the end they came up a run short, and left the tying run on 3rd and the go ahead run on 2nd in the 8th inning…

The Adam Everett at-bat was awful. One of the worst things I’ve ever seen with 3 swings at balls that weren’t even in the vicinity of the strike zone. Which begged the question as to why he wasn’t pinch hit for, and I can actually defend it. Everett is a bad hitter, but the Tigers didn’t need a hit. They needed somebody to put the ball in play. Aside from Polanco do you know who strikes out least frequently on the entire team? Adam Everett. That he failed so spectacularly and in the fashion he did was a surprise.

  • Everett had that awful at-bat, but he also played some terrific defense tonight and had a sacrifice bunt.
  • Jackson wasn’t good. He was hit hard and often and he threw a lot of pitches. I did like the one he planted in Youkilis’ ribs after Cabrera was hit the inning before.
  • Fu-Te Ni gave up a monster induced homer, but otherwise battled for 2 innings as he amassed 50 pitches.
  • Magglio Ordonez is ripping the ball all over the place and it’s nice to see even if it means the option vests.
  • Placido Polanco is ripping the ball all over the place and his average touched 280 after his 2 out rbi single
  • Zach Miner since July 1st has pitched 16.2 innings and allowed 11 runs, 11 walks, and 19 hits. His place on the team is befuddling to me right now.
2009 Season

Coming from behind

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I spent the last 4 days enjoying Up North Michigan, specifically the Petoskey area. I haven’t really seen Alex Avila do his thing yet, and I missed another Carl Pavano gem. I tried to keep up the best I could but I know I’m lagging behind so I’ll at least try and tie the score today.

Alex Avila

Speaking of Alex Avila, the kid had a mighty fine debut. After 2 games people are ready for him to have the starting job, relegate Gerald Laird to the bench, and make statue plans. I’m thrilled with his debut and I do think that Avila is the catcher of the future, but let’s not jump to too many conclusions after 2 games – except for the conclusion that Avila’s place in the organization isn’t based on nepotism.

I do like Leyland’s plan to have Avila start 40% of the time and I think that will benefit both catchers. His decision to do it based on his starting pitcher as opposed to the other team’s pitcher is a little curious though.

The Return of the Offense

I don’t know if it was just the homestand, favorable match-ups, regression, or luck, but the offense had itself a decent homestand. Averaging over 5 runs a game is a welcome change, and Pavano even pitched in one of those games. Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco, Carlos Guillen, Magglio Ordonez, and Miguel Cabrera all had positive weeks. You know, like they were supposed to be doing all season. The offense couldn’t come at a better time because of the…

Faltering Pitching

Tigers pitchers have allowed 55 runs over the last 8 games, the worst 8 game stretch of the season by far. Justin Verlander has been tagged for 5 runs in consecutive starts. Armando Galarraga has people questioning whether he’ll make his next start. Jarrod Washburn has seen the ball leave the yard with regularity (his home run/fly ball rate was ridiculously low before arriving here – instant regression). Is it a bad stretch or is the pitching fading? It’ll be tough to gauge over the next 4 games because…

Red Sox are next

The Red Sox are a team that is struggling. They were just swept by the Yankees are now tied with the Rangers in the Wild Card race. They are traditionally a good offensive team, but after scoring 18 runs against the Orioles they only plated 14 runs in their next 6 games. But like the Tigers they are a much better home team taking 2 of every 3 in Fenway and their slump could be cured with home cooking.

Links Galore

A bunch of stuff you should read and see from the last few days:

2009 Season, Statistics

The Sixth Inning – 2009 Edition

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Long time readers of this site remember a feature called the Inning Report. Reader Sam Hoff would break down the season into 18 game segments or “innings.” Why 18 game? Because there are 9 18 game segments in a season. Friday night’s game against the Twins completed the sixty inning. Sam is still putting these together, but he’s posting them on his site this season. So click through to read The Sixth Inning is over with games through last Friday.

The Tigers posted a 10-8 record in the sixth inning despite being outscored by 4 runs. The pitching has been remarkably consistent throughout the season, never allowing more than 86 runs in these 18 game stretches. The fluctuations in the records come down mostly to the offense and the performance in close games.

The bullpen were the stars in this segment with Brandon Lyon not allowing a run and Ryan Perry and fu-Te Ni posting WHIPs under 1.10.

Carlos Guillen’s return to the lineup bolstered the DH spot while Miguel Cabrera, Curtis Granderson, and Placico Polanco had spans that were much more reminiscent of their career numbers.

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.109: Twins at Tigers

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PREGAME: Normally when Justin Verlander takes the mound I like the Tigers chances of winning. But he hasn’t yet faced the unstoppable force that is Carl Pavano. In an effort to irritate Tigers fans everywhere the Twins acquired Pavano in a waiver trade and inserted him into the rotation.

After Pavano stymied the Tigers for a 3rd time last weekend, he lowered his ERA against Detroit to 1.93. He has a 6.16 ERA in the rest of his starts.

Verlander is coming off another dominating 7 inning shut out performance. Those 7 innings came after a 5 run first inning though.

Minnesota vs. Detroit – August 8, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday