2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.153: Tigers at White Sox

103 Comments

PREGAME: The Tigers enter into their final road series of the season. They’ll face a White Sox team who was eliminated from the division crown last night. They’ll face a White Sox team who was just swept by the Twins despite having Mark Buehrle and John Danks go in the series.

The Tigers send out Eddie Bonine. Bonine makes just his 3rd start of the season, but it his second against the White Sox. Back when the White Sox were hot on the Tigers tails Bonine was called on to pitch the backend of a double header and he held the sox Sox to 3 runs in 6 innings.

Jake Peavy makes just his second start since the trade that sent him from the Padres. In his first time out he allowed just 3 hits and 2 walks over 5 innings to the Royals, but 3 runs came around to score.

Detroit vs. Chi White Sox – September 25, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: I can’t really add much that won’t show up in a regular game story. Eddie Bonine allows 2 hits and takes a loss because the offense can’t get anything done. Heck the offense could barely put balls in play with 12 K’s. And Inge made an error. And Adam Everett was used as a pinch hitter for the designated hitter.

103 thoughts on “Game 2009.153: Tigers at White Sox”

  1. Is this the first time we have faced Peavy and any idea if we have players that have faced him before. It is bad enough when the Tigers see new call ups for the first time and do nothing let alone a vet like Peavy.

  2. didn’t throw one strike to Inge…..K

    just got back from three weeks in Michigan( no where near Detroit) ..glad to be back chatting with you all

  5. Our pitching is just so much better than last year…and it’s more or less the same guys (not to discount Lyon, who has been big)…

    Best offseason pickup: Knapp?

  7. That should have read “bullpen / 5th starter pitching,

    I was thrown off when my iPhone autocorrected bull pen to bull pen*s…no joking…

  8. Actually, I beg to differ.

    Please, PLEASE, may I differ? Thanks…

    Maggs, during his MVPish years, accomplished the GIDP at a prodigious, almost Pudge-level rate

  11. That almost startled me as much as the time my iPhone started autocompleting words in French–ah, yes, it has realized it’s owner is a man of culture, n’est-ce pas? Like I’d type “diffic-” and I’d get “difficile”..

    And then it kinda freaked me out, thinking it actually had different autocorrect personalities, so I long-tossed it into the Pacific and bought a new one…

    (I’m just being a jackanapes about the long-toss thing…and also my phone doesn’t know the word jackanapes, which I guessed on a lucky hunch but just had to test).

  13. Bonine is, um, half-decent so far…

    Hopefully the BOOBs will be a bit perkier next time through the line-up…then again, this is the ultimate compliment to Bonine–the team is hitting like Verlander is on the mound…

  20. Tejeda looked like Cy Young against the Tigers and he looks like Loretta Young against the Twikies…6 walks

  24. I hate it when a pitcher goes from throwing a no-hitter to giving up a home run. Inge didn’t help matters at all there. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if the offense had at least pushed across a couple runs instead of the ol’ GIDP.

  27. Nothing is more frustrating than when the offense refuses to show up.

    One bad pitch — literally — determines the game.

  28. Let’s not go into panic mode, yet. There’s still time. That said, I just gulped down a couple xanax.

  30. It’s a shame the Tigers hitters couldn’t support a gutty performance by Bonine. Up to the pen to keep any more runs off the board now.

  32. Yeah it’s pretty obvious Inge is horrible and the Twins will catch us…if only we had a 3rd baseman who was hitting .213 with no power we’d have a chance to compete with them…and his error clearly caused the home run pitch; in fact most home runs the Tigers have given up are actually Inge’s fault in some way.

    1. It’s not Inge’s fault the team can’t come up with a clutch hit. And to give Inge his due, his play last night may have been the difference between a win and a loss. Errors are also part of the game. The error hurt, but who cares if the team can’t score? You can’t win if you don’t plate any runs — regardless of the pitching and defense.

      Be that as it may, Inge is absolutely lost at the plate tonight. Some of his strike outs border on the absurd — amplified, of course, in games where the division/playoffs are on the line.

    2. By the way, aforementioned third-baseman is hitting in the .340s range with multiple clutch hits/game winning hits over the 15 game run stretch in which the Twins shrunk their lead from 7 games to 2 games.

      Just sayin’

      1. Are you talking about Buscher? (Tolbert is playing tonight).

        Combined they have 3 go-ahead hits for the entire season.

        Crede has 9 but he hasn’t played in weeks.

        Inge has 18.

        1. Oops… i keep thinkin’ Punto is playing 3rd… Dunno what his overall average is, but .213 sounds about right.

          But now that you mention it, Tolbert (frickin Tolbert!) hit a clutch home-run in in Twins first win over the panty hose, which I believe was the deciding factor the Twins win in that crucial first game …

  35. Coleman, no need to go into reality check mode. Let the poor guys vent. Can’t we just let perception be reality?

    1. My point isn’t that Inge had an alright night. He didn’t. But when you score 0 runs, it’s a bit silly to complain about the performance of the #7 hitter. The only guy hitting was the #2 hitter, and the #3 hitter was following up with GIDPs, and the #4 hitter did nothing. Ill take nothing from the 7-9 hitters over nothing from the 3-5 hitters every day.

  39. I don’t think we’ll get too many ABs vs Dotel…when a guy is throwing balls that Polanco won’t swing at he doesn’t last long

  42. An Inge error is kind of like a Cabrera GIDP…yeah it kinda bites but how much can you complain without being silly…

  43. The tigers have no MOJOE.You can’t have a team that doesn’t speak english good to win anything. They don’t have any leaders. There is no team RA-RA. How can 20 Latin players get excited about anything????????????????

    1. What? the Koreans and Japanese don’t speak any English and they were in the finals of the WBC…they looked excited too!

    2. I hope you’re joking. And if you are joking, its a stupid joke. And if you’re not joking, you are an idiot, good sir.

      1. I’m voting no joke because of the “can’t have a team that doesn’t speak english good to win anything.” Because that is kind of ironically funny, perhaps, if you are responding to something on the topic, or if you hadn’t just spoken of “mojoe” and “ra-ra” But…whatever.

        It’s only confusing because he violates some stupid prejudiced generalization basics. Because Latin players are supposed to be emotional and excitable, doesn’t he realize (and also, in that illogical way of prejudices, lazy).

        But I wasn’t going to say anything at first, because why encourage him…and yet he’s had a rough season in New York, and he was a Tiger for a while, so I figured oh, why not give Sheff a break?

    3. Ummm. We don’t do racism here. You can take that crap someplace else. Oh yeah, and you look like an idiot when you can’t formulate (make) a coherent (sensible) (not stupid) sentence.

      1. Good job–especially putting the key sentences at the front…I don’t know if he’ll be able to navigate the parentheses…

  45. “””.You can’t have a team that doesn’t speak any English good to win anything. “””

    I guess there is English, and again there is English!

  47. I worry less about the Tigers than I do about the Twins these days. We are who we thought we were.

    They are on a streak for the ages right now.

      1. Leyland never pinch hits for Inge. Ever.

        And over the course of the season this has probably worked out well for the smokey one…

        I’ll bet if you go back and look at the comments on the games where Inge had walkoff/game-winning hits they were preceded by “pinch-hit for Inge” pleas…so Leyland doesn’t dare now…

        1. I wouldn’t always advocate PH for Inge, except maybe in the 9th inning late in September when your only hope to get a W and stave off a teaming charging hard is the long ball, on a night where Inge risks taking home a sombrero.

          2. The 9th inning is the worst time to pinch hit for Inge…especially with Thames.

            2009 9th inning OPS:
            1.167 Guillen
            1.083 Inge
            .941 Granderson
            .802 Ordonez
            .694 Cabrera
            .655 Polanco
            .520 Thames

        2. To be clear:

          I’m not discounting Inge’s power or his occasional late-inning bomb. If you’re looking for a HR, and only a HR, odds still favor Thames hitting the long ball over Inge. Even so, I wouldn’t necessarily pitch hit for Inge in this situation, even given the odds, but there was just something sooooo circa 2008 about Inge’a approach at the plate tonight. Taking pitches right down the heart of the plate and check-swinging away. Sometimes a hitter just has an off night, and it looked like that kind of night for Inge tonight.

          Plus, the error may have got into his head a little bit.

          But maybe I’m just reading too much into it. The way all the Tigers were hitting tonight any one of them would have likely whiffed.

          1. Most likely to hit a home run (HR/PA %):

            1. Raburn (5.2%)
            2. Cabrera (4.9%)
            3. (tie) Inge (4.6%)
            3. (tie) Thames (4.6%)

            So Raburn would be a better choice than Thames…

  53. Well another tough loss where all we gave up was 2 freakin hits and still lose. I have said it before that if the Tigers don’t win the division you can pretty much lay the blame on the offense with another game in where they just can’t get it done. Peavy pitched well but they had chances to score and just didn’t ever get a big hit.

  54. Hey, glad everyone missed me. I’m not going to rail on inge, but the difference between him and the guy hitting .213 is about five million dollars and an inexplicable all star appearance. And adam everett batting for audrey hepburn really has to be the pinch hit of all time. Seriously, I know I will be making references to it when I’m 65. You have a roster of 33 and you pinch hit with the worst batter in the american league! That’s sort of awesome. I still say there’s no way the twins can take 3 out of 4 in detroit, which looks like the most likely scenario. I don’t want folks I’m only jumping in after a loss, tigers have impressed me this week. But losing with a two hitter with AE pinch hitting is depression city.

    1. “You have a roster of 33 and you pinch hit with the worst batter in the american league! ”

      Post of the night.

    2. “You have a roster of 33 and you pinch hit with the worst batter in the american league!”

      He’s far from that vs. LHP.

  55. I need some clarity on Granderson. I’m just mystified at his season. Need him to do something, anything.

  56. Billfer, I don’t see the relevance of that box score, but I’m at a blackberry so maybe I’m an idiot. I do want to say inge’s play last night was awesome, but the rotary phone where I’m staying precluded saying ‘ingetastic.’

    1. That’s the game where Inge stuck out 3 times (sound familiar?) then hit a 9th inning walk off grand slam…

      (and after the game gave props to Kirk Gibson, so extra credit for that).

  57. Ah Coleman, that was with the bases loaded when everyone knows Inge channels Pujols. Inge’s problem starts when the pitcher doesn’t have to give him a strike. And man, I don’t buy that game winning hit stat. You can not convince me a guy hitting .215 since may 1 and .205 last year is anybody’s definition of clutch.that’s like saying steve forbes was a legit presidential contender because he won the delaware primary in 1996.

    1. Well, first of all, my main point was that Leyland seems to buy it–when has he ever pinch hit for Inge?

      And Inge DOES fit some definitions of clutch, although obviously not yours, which seems too complicated for me, and involves removing certain months from statistics which is too much work for a lazy guy like me…

      There is a “there is no such thing as clutch situations” argument which throws out the whole idea of a “clutch” hitter; if that’s your point, then yeah, there’s something to that. But otherwise I can’t quite figure out what you WOULD call a clutch stat–I KNOW what his yearly/lifetime etc batting averages are, but the whole point of the “clutch” thing is that someone performs better than his usual same old when the game is on the line, so citing the players same old numbers doesn’t really answer the question.

    2. Inge has been the very definition of clutch this year. He has elevated his game in high leverage situations. He’s 16th in the majors in the Fangraphs stat called clutch which is a ratio of a player’s performance in high leverage situations to his performance in non-high leverage situations.

      Now that ratio is inflated by his dismal performance in most situations, but it is real.

      Personally I don’t think it is sustainable and I think it is more reasonable to expect him to perform at his overall numbers in all situations. But that doesn’t take away from what he’s done this year.

      1. That’s one of the Brandon En-Inge-mas: not just that he excels in high-leverage situations, but his pure crappiness in other situations. In fact I think you’re half-right in that the ratio is inflated by his dismal performance in most situations, but it’s almost more like there IS no average situation with him–his average is more a mix of good and crappy, not a standard level from which he occasionally varies.

        Last season he was a sad .205, .672 OPS, but even that doesn’t cover how bad he was in some situations. With runners on base he was actually a decent .243/.790. But with bases empty he was a mind-boggling .176/.584. (!)

        So I think he actually is a good clutch player. And, conversely, a far worse un-clutch player probably than even Stephen thinks…

        1. And I hit enter too soon, and left out his Low Leverage numbers from last year:

          .156 / .588

          My point–if I have one–is that it’s not just that he seems to do better in high leverage situations, but also that he seems to do more poorly than you would expect in low leverage situations, which is something slightly different.

    3. Edit: I spoke to soon. Any DE ’96 primary reference = post of the night. I don’t even care if it is accurate (is it?).

      How about Ahmadinejad on LKL tongiht? That’s a lot what I envision arguing with Ozzie Guillen would be like. “Leht mee esk jou a queestion umpire-guy. Jou know what a beisball striike ees? Haou meeny beisball stiikes jid jou know es bout? Me oyes cabron?”

  59. You know, call me old fashioned, but you’re never going to convince me that a guy who has one of the lowest batting averages of anyone playing throughout the decade and will become the Tigers all time strikeout leader in about half the at bats as the other folks on that list is anyone’s definition. But then again, you guys thought Inge should be an all star. You’re right Coleman, about isolating stats. But isn’t that what you’re doing with the clutch hit stat? Suffice to say, even including April Inge is hitting roughly .222 over the last two years. Don’t like batting average? How about his OPS career wise? Ill even let you throw out his catcher stats! Can we just agree Inge is a great fielder a significantly below average hitter at the corner? I’ve always said bat Inge ninth and we’re fine. Bat him seventh, you aint winning a pennant.

    1. “I’ve always said bat Inge ninth and we’re fine. Bat him seventh, you aint winning a pennant.”

      Ironically, we’ve done best as far as W/L in games where he has hit either 6th or 8th…

      And we’re GONNA win a pennant with him batting 5th, 6th, 7th, or 8th…

  60. Ah coleman, I am no match on a thumbs only device for your dexterity. You have already outflanked my argument. I retire for the night. The tigers are still winning this.

  61. The one thing I am certain of is the fact steve forbes won the delaware primary. It is a night I will never forget.

    1. I remember what a shock that was…Delaware! It’s still a state, and people live there and everything!

    1. You slept through this game? Blasphemous! How can you now tell your incredulous grandchildren of some bygone era, of a simpler time before the end of the Mayan calendar, when you actually witnessed Adam Everett pinch hit for the DH (and in lieu of 33 other qualified hitters on the bench) with a game on the line that may have determined the pennant?

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