Dontrelle Willis shines, Magglio Ordoñez makes history, the Tigers take their first series of the year against the Minnesota Twins. Any way you slice it this game was a heck of a lot of fun.
Willis walked the second batter he faced, and the last one. In between he was mixing pitches and speeds and mixing up the Twins to the tune of 6 strike outs and 6 innings of shut out baseball. We shouldn’t draw too many conclusions in April, but Willis has been good more than he’s been bad this season. Against the Twins he was very good, not lucky, not pitching on the edge, just plain old good.
And then you have Magglio Ordoñez making history and becoming just the 6th Venezulean to reach 2000 career hits. He joins fellow country men Luis Aparicio, Omar Vizquel, Andres Galarraga, Dave Concepcion, and Bobby Abreu.
You have the Tigers manufacturing a run in the first inning against a pitcher who has had their number. Single-steal-error-sacrifice fly and the Tigers had all the runs they’d need.
Then there is the bullpen with Joel Zumaya dominating again for 2 innings. The signature moment was a 3 pitch strikeout of Joe Mauer. And Jose Valverde picking up his seventh save.
And in the end you have a series win against a divisional foe. Good times.
The whole game was a highlight reel. So many tremendous things happening in one game.
Laird’s hit, Jackson’s no-strikeout streak.
Yeah! Jackson on a non-K tear. Thats a bigger deal than an arbitrary milestone for Maggs.
That was a good series, but my boys are ready for a re-match!
Where did all the OBP come from? Second in the AL in OBP at .362 (Yankees .363) and second in walks with 99 (Twins 107). If they can keep getting on base at something like this rate the relative shortage of homeruns won’t be a big deal.
Could it all be Johnny Damons influence/example? Did they just see someone else with the Old English “D” on his hat take a walk to first and think “That’s a good idea. Maybe I could do that, too”?
They’ve been #2 in AVG and OBP in the AL almost the entire season, nothing new there 😉
It’s coming from the top of the order. A quick look at our 1-2 hitters vs 2009 OBP:
.327 Granderson
.331 Polanco
.394 Jackson
.412 Damon
Big thanks to the NY Yankees.
We padded our walk stats vs some horrific bullpens.
Hits too. BA should drop as they start playing teams with better pitching and that OBP will come down to earth. The offense is currently outperforming realistic expectations while the starting pitching has mostly been the opposite. Hopefully that will pick up soon. Thank goodness for the bullpen, but I doubt they can maintain their current effectiveness over the long haul if the workload doesn’t ease up. I’m also worried about the defense – last in the league right now with 21 Es (the Twins have 4).
Good point by Mr X. on the Yankees
By all accounts Grandy (still a Fav) is still not hitting lefties, why they would trade Jackson for Grandy is not really a mystery to me. It looks like we have a better younger cheaper player right out of the (dont kill me on the better, Jax is better in most depts except HR Power)
Johnny Damon did not sign with the Yanks and now we have a good veteran player who is really really contributing and showing the way to the young guys. Kind of the Kenny Rogers feel only with some serious rings to show for his years.
I miss E-Jax a little but the others will come around and with Bondo and D-Train looking decent we still look good from that trade.
I was really concerned about hits and runs (still am a little) and thought the pitching would be great, well I was a little wrong on both but happy to be were we are today.
Billfer thanks for hosting another year, I have been swamped at work and not on as much as I would like to be, so I really appreciate the time and effort you put in every day. I was in the D all last week – Right in the middle of the roadie, next trip is July 4 and seeing 4 games out of the 6 days we are there.
Lets go beat up some Angels tonight
Steve
PS The baseball Angels, not the ones from heaven
PS No edit button (is this coming), but I meant to say It is a mystery why they would trade.