Monthly Archives: September 2009

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.142: Blue Jays at Tigers

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PREGAME: I was worried last night. The Tigers lost 5 in a row and not even the backwards post could fix things. But this morning I’m at ease. I see that Amber Grand is singing the National Anthem. This is in the bank. No worries. If it seems strange to put the fates of a team in a pennant race on the vocal chords of the National Anthem singer, well then you just don’t understand baseball.

Rick Porcello and Ricky Romero reprise their debut match-up from the first week of the season. But it doesn’t matter because Amber Grand is singing the National Anthem.

Your “Amber Grand is singing the National Anthem so the batting order is largely irrelevant” lineup is:

  1. Raburn, LF
  2. Polanco, 2B
  3. Ordonez, RF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Thames, DH
  6. Inge, 3B
  7. Granderson, CF
  8. Laird, C
  9. Everett, SS

Toronto vs. Detroit – September 13, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: How ’bout that National Anthem? Money. Money I say. Sure, Porcello pitched pretty good (although he did allow quite a few balls in the air for the 2nd game in a row). And the Tigers hit the ball pretty well up and down the lineup. And the bullpen faced 9 guys and recorded 9 outs (it did take 2 GIDPs but I’m not complaining). But how about that National Anthem?

  • Magglio Ordonez had 3 hits and has pushed his average up to .294
  • Gerald Laird had a couple of big hits, which is nice because he doesn’t get a lot of hits.
  • Brandon Inge seemed to be making a concentrated effort to go up the middle and to the opposite field, and he got himself a couple hits.
  • Cabrera with an infield single and a stolen base. Typical day for the speedster.
  • The Tigers played some nice defense with Ryan Raburn getting it started in the 1st with a nice play going into the wall. Eeverett and Inge also made some nice picks on the left side of the infield.
2009 Season

Reliever Roulette

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It can’t be a good feeling for Jim Leyland when ever he ambles out to the mound and points towards the bullpen. It doesn’t seem to matter lately who gets the call, they will invariably allow more baserunners than outs. The numbers posted by the pen during the 5 game losing streak are simply staggering.

In the 5 game skid the bullpen has been called on to pitch 14 1/3 innings in 18 “calls to the pen.” Over those 14 1/3 innings they have allowed 23 hits, 12 walks, and 18 runs. Five of those hits have left the park. Only 8 hitters have gone down on strikes. It is simply amazing that they could perform so poorly as a group. They had to face 79 batters to record those 43 outs – and the last out came on a pickoff where Fu-Te Ni didn’t throw a pitch.

After the Royals series I laid some of the blame on the starters not working deep enough into games and thus exposing the less dependable members of the relief corps to high leverage innings. But in Saturday night’s game Jackson got the ball to Brandon Lyon – who picked up the blown save a wild pitch. And then a tie game was handed over to Fernando Rodney – and he allowed a 2 out 2 run homer. It doesn’t matter who comes trotting out, they are going to allow baserunners.

Of those 18 calls to the pen, the incoming reliever was charged with at least 1 run 10 different times. Miner, Bonine, Perry, Seay, Galarraga, it doesn’t matter. They’ve all been charged with runs in the last week. Ni is the only one to see his ERA unblemished and he even walked one of the 2 batters he faced.

Until the bullpen gets out of its collective funk the starters will need to find a way to pitch deeper and the offense will need to find a way to put games out of reach (in a favorable way). Neither of those events have been occurring and thus you have a losing streak.

2009 Season, Game Post

sregiT ta syaJ eulB :141.9002 emaG

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PREGAME: It’s a 4 game losing streak, and thus the backwards post. I’ve invoked this with other Tigers 4 game losing streaks in the past, and we’ve yet to see it flip to 5 games. Let’s hope the mojo keeps working. (the Twins lost by the way).

Edwin Jackson gets to play the role of stopper, and not just the role of stopping the the losing, but stopping the short outings of starters and getting into a favorable Seay-Lyon set up. Jackson went 8 innings his last time out, I’d take 7 with no complaints.

Scott Richmond will try to play the role of non-descript starter who the Tigers struggle against. Actually, Richmond’s peripherals are pretty solid but he has allowed 21 runs over his last 4 starts. He is allowing 1.5 homers per 9, but the Tigers have only mustered a single Ryan Raburn homer in this 4 game skid.

Your “it’s a right handed starter for a change” lineup is:

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

POSTGAME: Yeah. I’ve got nothing. Commence hand wringing.

The offense did something against a starter for a change, but did nothing after knocking said starter out of the game. The Tigers got a starter to go deep in a game, but not with a high degree of effectiveness. The Tigers got to hand the game over to the late inning specialists and avoid the seedy underbelly of middle relief, but both Lyon and Rodney faltered. Crap.

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.140: Blue Jays at Tigers

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PREGAME: There was a time when the Blue Jays looked like they may be a surprise team. That was April when they took 3 of 4 from the Tigers and generally were winning with regularity. They even spent 44 days in 1st place. They played a lot of AL Central teams back then and there may be a chance that had something to do with it. The Jays are now 14 games below .500.

Tonight Toronto sends out the mustachioed Brian Tallet. He’s left handed. And he has a 5.31 ERA.

The Tigers send out there own trusty southpaw, Nate Robertson. If Nate’s pitching, I’ll be there. Through scheduling quirks, I will be at this Robertson start, and I was at the last one, and I was at the one before that too.

Your “I hope the top of the order is productive” lineup is:

  1. Raburn, LF
  2. Polanco, 2B
  3. Ordonez, RF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Thames, DH
  6. Inge, 3B
  7. Granderson, CF
  8. Laird, C
  9. Everett, SS

Toronto vs. Detroit – September 11, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Brian freakin’ Tallet . The Tigers fanned as many times as they got hits against Tallet. Tallet. Put this in the Bruce Chen disappointing offensive performance bucket. And I just don’t get it. Raburn is hitting. Thames is swinging the bat well. Maggs is up to .290. The Tigers have some guys hitting lefties well, but the team is still struggling at the dish.

I’ll give them credit for making things interesting in the 7th and 8th innings. They strung hits together, and Thames had himself one heck of a sac fly with the bases juiced. A sterling defensive inning in the top of the 8th and it felt like stuff was starting to lean in the Tigers favor, but the threat ended on a foul pop-up off the bat of Polanco and that was that.

Of course the offensive had to pick up 5 runs in the late innings just to tie the score as Nate Robertson was awful and channeled his inner Dontrelle and eventually left with a groin injury. His first 2 outings were very encouraging. This one the stadium gun had him at 85/86 (haven’t checked gameday yet), and Nate doesn’t really have a strong 85/86mph pitch.

Galarraga started off great and retired the first 5 guys he faced before reverting to Galarraga form. Ryan Perry didn’t help the matter. Runs just kept getting piled on.

Ugh.

The Tigers haven’t lost more than 4 in a row this season. It will be up to Edwin Jackson to get deep into the game and stop the slide and once again take command of their September.

2009 Season

About that sweep

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There is so much not to like about a sweep at the hands of the Royals. The Tigers had a chance to really lock down the AL Central this week, but instead they managed to play some of their worst baseball of the season. There is reason to be frustrated with the offense, and we’ll cover that in a minute, but the bigger issue in this series was on the run prevention side of things.

It is easy to point to the bullpen as a major problem this series. The team did blow 2 late inning leads and the pen turned a 1 run game into a 5 run game. They issued too many walks to a team that  doesn’t walk (7 pen issued walks and a HBP in the 3 games). Thursday game they allowed 2 homers. Zach Miner continued his seesaw season and followed up several good and important outings against Cleveland and Tampa Bay by getting shelled. In general there was nothing good to say, even about arms like Seay, Rodney, and Ni who have been reliable for the most part this year. Their failures were glaring and significant, but it wasn’t all the pen.

Tigers starters threw 299 pitches in the the 3 games, and yet the faced exactly one batter after the 6th inning (Rick Porcello allowing a single to Yuniesky Betancourt). Porcello was efficient, but not particularly effective. Justin Verlander held the Royals to 1 run, but it wasn’t easy and he rang up 112 pitches in 6 innings. Jarrod Washburn just got hammered and allowed 10 baserunners in 5 innings and could have easily allowed more than the 3 runs that crossed the plate.

And then there was the outfield defense in the first game in which every ball turned into an adventure. Run prevention all around was not good this series, and probably the biggest reason for the sweep. But the offense isn’t immune from criticism.

Getting shut down by Tejeda didn’t bother me. He’s pitched well this year and his stuff was nasty on Wednesday. The offense didn’t get shutdown by Lenny DiNardo as they got to him for 7 hits and 3 walks in 5 inning, and they added 8 more hits against the Royals bullpen. That they hit into 5 double plays was more a matter of freakish happenstance than anything else (yes, the Tigers hit into lots of double plays anyways but 5 qualifies as freakish).

My bigger issue was the Tigers not beating up on Bruce Chen and the tattered Royals bullpen with more voracity. This is a team that used to feast on left handers and now they tend to fester. And with the Blue Jays throwing 3 southpaws at the Tigers this weekend that is troublesome.

You don’t get swept by a bad team without multiple things going wrong. In one way or another the Tigers completely collapsed for 3 games. Maybe it was the 400 people in the stands each night, or a let down after 3 breathtaking games in Tampa. The good news is that the lead in the Central is still safe, but the Tigers did waste a tremendous opportunity this week.

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.139: Tigers at Rays

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PREGAME: Afternoon tilt today as Jarrod Washburn gives his bum knee a test against Lenny Dinardo. Dinardo hasn’t made a start this year, but he’s hardly a rookie. He’ll turn 30 next week and has spent 5 years banging around primarily as a reliever for the A’s and Red Sox. He’s had impressive numbers at AAA this year with only 5 homers allowed in 151 innings.

PennantRaceIsOnYour wilkin-ized lineup is:

  1. Raburn, CF
  2. Polanco, 2B
  3. Ordonez, RF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Thames, DH
  6. Ramirez, LF
  7. Inge, 3B
  8. Laird, C
  9. Everett, SS

Detroit vs. Kansas City – September 10, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

2009 Season, Injuries

Pitch f/x is encouraged by Bonderman

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Jeremy Bonderman has had a very long road back from the surgery he underwent to correct thoracic compression outlet syndrome. There was hope he’d be back in the rotation this year, but his spring became very extended and he didn’t make his first appearance until June 8th – and he was crushed. It was back to the minors and more rest and rehab, but with the rosters expanded Bonderman is back as a reliever, and the pitch f/x data is promising…so far.

When Bonderman made his June start, his pitches didn’t behave in the way they had in the past. His velocity was down. His fastball didn’t have the same arm side run. His slider wasn’t as tight and was more of a sweeping pitch. The particulars (via Brooks Baseball) were:

Pitch Count Speed Horiz Move Vert Move
FF 48 89.59 -6.66 8.71
FT 5 89.16 -8.16 6.25
SL 22 82.44 1.32 3.25
CH 10 83.69 -7.13 8.32

 

Let’s fast forward to his latest 2 outings. The results have certainly been better, but what about the stuff?

Pitch Count Speed Horiz Move Vert Move
FF 23 91.60 -9.00 8.55
FT 3 91.03 -10.02 6.31
SL 10 84.13 -0.87 1.57

 

We see that his velocity is up about 2mph across the board. The fastball has a couple more inches of arm side run and the slider has an inch and a half more drop. This all seems to be good and much more in line with Bonderman’s past pitch f/x numbers.

I’m going to skip the 2008 numbers where he was clearly hurting and couldn’t maintain his velocity. This clouded pitch classification data greatly. Instead I’ll put the numbers from 2007 up. These were harvested from Fangraphs.

Pitch Count Speed Horiz Move Vert Move
FF   92.1 -8.6 7.7
FT   88 -10.7 9.8
SL   84.1 0.5 1.6
CH   84.2 -8 8.3

 

The pitches from September (granted there are only 36 of them) look much more like the pitches from 2007 than the pitches from the June start. And yes, small sample sirens should be going off. And this is far from an ideal analysis. I’m certain there are pitch classification issues that are especially prevalent between the two seam (FT) and four seam (FF) fastballs. Plus the system was relatively new in 2007 and still being calibrated. Still, the results from this cursory analysis are encouraging.

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.138: Tigers at Royals

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PREGAME: Justin Verlander takes the mound tonight for the Tigers sitting at 222 strikeouts for the season. That ranks as the 11th best single season mark in Tigers history. If things go as planned tonight he should at least get to 9th and if he’s feeling frisky he has an outside shot of moving into 7th or 8th.

Strikeouts – Tigers Single Season Leaders

Rank Player   SO   Year
1. Mickey Lolich   308   1971
2. Denny McLain   280   1968
3. Hal Newhouser   275   1946
4. Mickey Lolich   271   1969
5. Mickey Lolich   250   1972
6. Joe Coleman   236   1971
7. Jack Morris   232   1983
8. Mickey Lolich   230   1970
9. Mickey Lolich   226   1965
10. Jack Morris   223   1986

(from baseball-reference.com)

Robinson Tejeda makes the start for the Royals. Tejeda has only made 1 start this year (and only 1 last year) and he 1 hit the Angels for 5.1 innings of shut out ball. He has 61 K’s in 47.1 innings this year which is really good. Between Tejeda and Verlander there could be a stiff breeze tonight.

Detroit vs. Kansas City – September 9, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.137: Tigers at Royals

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PREGAME: Sorry for the lack of blogging this weekend. I went up north for a few days and my internet connectivity was severely limited. I was able to get the game posts up, and that was about it. I didn’t miss much did I?

Rick Porcello gets his chance to keep the winning streak alive as the Tigers are 6-for-September. I’ve gotten used to the magic number trickling down each day, and yesterday that didn’t happen. Two such days would threaten to disrupt my good mood.

Bruce Chen starts for the Royals. Chen started once against the Tigers and they torched him for 7 runs and chased him in the 5th inning. He also faced them in relief and fanned 3 in 2 innings allowing just an unearned run. I’m hoping for more of the former than the latter.

Detroit vs. Kansas City – September 8, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: All good things must come to an end, but they shouldn’t come to an end when you’re playing a last place team, and you have a 3 run lead. But come to an end they did on the backs of some adventurous outfield defense and some control issues in the bullpen.

Clete Thomas missed a foul ball in the corner that would have preserved a 1 run lead which would become a 1 run deficit. Ryan Raburn misjudged a fly ball and played it into a double. Bobby Seay hit a guy. Jeremy Bonderman walked Yuniesky Betancourt. Yep.

The Tigers got some timely hits but didn’t really crush the ball. Marcus Thames had an infield single. Aubrey Huff blooped one just over the infield. But 5 runs should have been enough.

Rick Porcello didn’t have his characteristic ground ball inducing repertoire working. Too many of the balls were hit well to the outfield. It happens.

  • Raburn did have the one misplay in the outfield, but he also did have 3 hits, including a homer. He also threw out a guy at the plate and made a very nice running catch to end an inning and leave the bases loaded. His positives far outweighed the one negative.
  • Thames with a sacrifice fly, and the Tigers are finding out how to score runnners from third with less than 2 outs.
  • Nate Robertson being used out of the bullpen was odd. The Tigers had burned through both lefties which I get, but why not activate Clay Rapada as a 3rd lefty?
2009 Season

Rodney suspended 3 games

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I’m getting the impression that Bob Watson doesn’t actually review any incidents. Or if he does review it the incident doesn’t actually correlate with the punishment. It’s like he has a roulette wheel that he spins to levy the punishment. In this case Fernando Rodney was suspended 3 games and fined for chucking the ball into the stands on Friday night.

I’ll be the first to admit it was a dumb move on the part of Rodney, and one that should be punished. Rodney didn’t not throw the ball at anyone in particular and he did not throw it with intent to injure. He threw it in frustration skyward and ultimately hit the press box.

I understand that players can’t be taking out their frustrations with a baseball and this is especially true when the ball is directed towards the fans. But a 3 game punishment is excessive and potentially impactful of a pennant race. Earlier this year Bobby Jenks threw a ball at a batter, admitted to throwing the ball at a batter, and received no punishment. I understand the rules for on field personnel and fans need to be different, but intent and potential consequences need to be weighed in both cases.

Hopefully the Rodney appeals(UPDATE: He will). I understand MLB’s sensitivity around the issue, especially in light of the minor league brawl last year where a ball was used as a weapon and it went into the stands. But this was a completely different set of circumstances.

Links

links for 2009-09-07

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Uncategorized

Game 2009.136: Tigers at Rays

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PREGAME: The Tigers having assured back to back winning road series will work on back to back sweeps and continue an undefeated September. Everything about that sentence made me happy, other than its run on nature.

The big story is Edwin Jackson’s return to Tampa. Jackson has not had the same sharpness he had in the first half.

It will be big league debut day for Wade Davis. Let’s hope they make it uncomfortable for him the way they did to Carlos Carrasco.