2010 Season, Game Post

Game 2010.008: Royals at Tigers

62 Comments

PREGAME: Dontrelle Willis and Brian Bannister today. The second turn through the rotation hasn’t been a lot of fun so far. Can Dontrelle Willis right the ship? Can the Tigers finally figure out why Brian Bannister dominates them with such regularity. Come back at 1:05 pm for the most dramatic rose ceremony ever!

Kansas City Royals at Detroit Tigers – April 13, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

POSTGAME: For about six innings this game looked about as dramatic as a rose ceremony. Then things got better. Dontrelle Willis fought through 5 tedious innings as the Royals ran up his pitch count. Brian Bannister cruised through 6 innings only allowing a couple singles and walks. Then the seventh inning stretch happened. And billfer saw it was good. When Gerald Laird doubled and Roman Colon came in, that’s when I knew there was a chance.

  • Scott Sizemore ripped the ball each time up. His hardest hit ball was the out he made as he hit an opposite field line drive to the warning track.
  • Miguel Cabrera made his second error in as many games after looking great in the first two series.
  • I continue to be impressed by Ryan Perry, Joel Zumaya, and Brandon Inge this season.
  • Carlos Guillen is trying to catch up to Maggs and Miggy. Very few complaints about him swinging on the first pitch after a 4 pitch bases loaded walk. He was ready for his pitch and he ripped it. Let’s remember this the next time someone makes an out on a first pitch.
  • More on Dontrelle here.
  • And the post game interviews courtesy of FS Detroit.

62 thoughts on “Game 2010.008: Royals at Tigers”

    1. Remember 2006. We couldn’t win even one game against them in the last series of the season to win the Division.

  2. keeping dontrelle was a mistake. much like last year we are not winning the games we need to win. we need to win this game.

    1. The most annoying part about losing games we need to win is that the majority of them are against the Royals.

    2. May be a little premature to call keeping Willis a mistake, or to call this a “must-win.”

      1. People are being pretty dramatic and critical around here. Let’s all relax and let them play 20 games or so before we start freaking out.

  3. I like Johnny Damon and all, but any time he wants to get a hit would be great. He’s hitting .125, which is Gerald Laird territory (well, Laird’s actually at .053, but it’s at least TRENDING higher)…

  4. I would like to see Laird & Avila platooned day on day off for the rest of the month and then give the staters role to the one who earned it.

  5. How long will JL stick with Damon before he sits him and gives one of the young guys a chance?

    1. Damon will hit. Personally, I am more worried about the pitching at this point. It’s been decent, but not nearly as effecient as it should be.

  7. Are you kidding me?!?!? Willis has thrown 87 pitches through four innings. That about proves my point.

  8. Scott Podsednick is absolutely killing us this year. Coming into the game he was batting .563 against us (good thing he’s only 1-2 today, it actually LOWERS his batting average) with a .632 OBP. Fortunately (silver lining) all of hits are singles, so he’s only OPSing 1.194. Oh yeah, 3 steals also.

    Meanwhile our 3-4-5 hitters just coughed up an 8-pitch inning for Bannister, who’s at 48 pitches through 4.

  9. Yeah, it’s probably time to pull the D-Train. Doesn’t have it today.

    Dunno who Smokey is supposed to run out there, but whatever…

  10. The KC Royals are quickly gaining on the Minnesota Twins as “most hated division rival” in my book. They have been a thorn in our side (and hardly anybody else’s) since the final weekend of the 2006 season, especially here in Detroit. Billy Butler looks like the best hitter in baseball vs. us and Podsednik is continuing his Tiger killer ways. Add to that Bannister who always dominates our hitters and I’m glad we don’t see these guys again until June (after tomorrow).

  11. I think Inge has been doing so well this season because nobody wants to walk him and have to deal with Laird with men on base…

    1. It looks like Bannister just realized hmm, Inge, then Laird…thus the 4-pitch walk…

  12. Two questions:
    1) is the time stamp for the posts here 1 hour behind for everyone, or just me.
    2) how do you set it up to have an icon for your posts?

    thanks

    1. 1) The server is set to central time.

      2) It’s a wordpress blog. Go to WordPress.com and register an account; you can do it there. (or at least that worked for me)

  14. This just shows that Bannister was really dealing today. This lineup can hit. Look for Damon to work a walk here.

  15. Bases loaded, Cabrera up, and Farnsworth taking the mound…I can think of worse situations…

  19. Aaaaaand, that’s why I love playing KC. Six frames of zeroes, and then the sweet smell of the bullpen. I love their Pujols-like approach with Miggy too; no matter what, just effing walk the guy.

  21. That was nice–Carlos figures he’s getting one right over the plate after the 4-pitch walk and he just smoked the thing.

    1. Where are all the guys complaining about first-pitch swinging after a walk?

      1. I WILL complain about Laird 1st-pitch swinging. Maggs, Miggs, Carlos, even Inge, sure, go for it. But the fact that Laird has the lowest pitch/plate appearance number on the team is quite annoying.

  22. The Tigers have got to quit getting behind because they won’t be able to mount big comebacks against the better teams.

    1. The Tigers need to quit playing afternoon games too. It messes up my siesta time.

  24. KC team RISP: 2-10

    Det team RISP: 4-8 (which means it was 4-6 until the 8th…)

    1. We’ll take the ugly ones with the pretty ones……..they all count the same in the W column!

    1. Zumbayaya called them hawk wins in the after-game interview. He must of meant vulture wins.

  29. Woo hoo! Another improbable win. We looked dead out there thru six innings, dare I say like we didn’t want to be out there. However, as someone pointed out earlier, Bannister can pitch. Its getting to the point where I’d almost rather face Greinke than Bannister, especially in a day game (just look up Bannister’s daytime splits). Thank goodness for Ramon Colon and the rest of the flammable KC bullpen. They are still dangerously close to passing the Twins as most hated division rival(in my eyes). Billy Butler makes me break out into hives whenever he hits in a clutch situation vs. the Tigers. DeJesus and Podsednik are no picnics either. Hopefully young Ricky can throw a gem for us tomorrow and get us this series. Go TIgers! That seventh inning made my Tuesday.

  30. IMO, Bannister was getting lucky too. His pitches didn’t have much velocity or movement. He was hanging pitches, but all we did was hit lazy fly balls. When someone pitches like that, they’ll usually be giving up 5+ runs. Willis wasn’t good either, but he got what he deserved. Our pen was pretty good and there’s was a steaming pile of dog crap, so we deserved to win this one.

  31. I think he was actually saying that he had Hawkwind, the British 70’s pre-punk band, and no doubt one of his Guitar Hero specialties.

    1. Coleman is right, the team always wins after Zumaya forces them to listen to Space Ritual in its entirety before a game. Including all the spoken word interludes from astral poet Bob Calvert and the thirteen minute version of Born to Go.

      Whatever works.

      1. The problem is the starters clearly will have none of it, and have their own pre-game music.

        Perhaps Johnny Damon–since he is apparently now in charge of The Intangible–can suggest some compromise music. For example, I think we might be able to interest Verlander in a bit of Ace Of Spades.

        1. You are right. The reason Lemmy left Hawkwind to form Motorhead was because they weren’t intense enough. The same can be said of Verlander, he just does not want it bad enough. Perhaps some No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith will do the trick. Make it happen Johnny.

  32. Another offensive bailout…That was great! If only our pitchers could come around to the fun!

  33. Billfer, to answer your question at the game – your site looks great on the iPad! Enjoyed sharing the game with you. Go Tigers!

  35. Anybody else tired of radio callers going on about “They haven’t played anybody yet”? When did we get so choosy? A win is a win – let’s just enjoy them for now.

    1. Longball, Im not tired of it because I have heard it a lot, its because its really true. KC and the Injuns are at best the bottom third of the league, closer to the bottom 10%. I love the wins, and wins are wins but we have a big roadie coming up. We need to see what we can do against the better teams, Hopefully we are just playing to the level of the talent and getting going. I hope that this roadie will bring the team together for the season and get them all focused.

      Lets hope the starting pitching does a little better in the early innings

      Steve

  36. I thought this would be Cabrera’s department, but Inge looks like Babe Ruth when he runs.

  37. Inge doesn’t need to run; he can tag up on 3rd on a sac fly, dive, and slide home safely, all without taking a step.

    And he pilots the team plane.

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