The Tigers haven’t had so much fun in the newish CitiField and now they have to try and stave off a sweep at the hands of those dastardly New York Mets. Armando Galarraga wants you to forget his near perfect game and move on. The Mets are pitching a guy whose name I’m likely to misspell.
No graphic today as I’m jetting back from a hot and humid North Carolina.
a rare lead on the road………
what?? We scored a runner from 3rd with less than 2 outs?? I must be dreaming….or watching a different game……
And Ryan Raburn retakes the yellow jersey in the Tour de Mendoza
Excellent move with the double-steal by the way, props to Sir Puffalot
ahead on the road for a whole inning ..another rare feat!
And an encore…
this will ever be known as safe by a Gallaraga call…for Inge
Inge might have been out, but he was way safer than the Galarraga call
Danny is Worth more than Everett
Gee, nothing more fun than watching AL pitchers bat in interleague play, now THAT’s baseball…
OK, so maybe not as much fun as watching Laird hit into a DP with 2 on base
Raburns imitation of a real major league hitter looked pretty realistic those two at bats…………………….and Maggssssssssssssssssss ya!
Lard u could have a least helped the team by striking out there! or your usual pop up
ATTN; OUT OF MARKET FANS
The Tigers have FOUR nationally broadcast games this week!!
Yesterday on ESPN
Today & Tomorrow on MLB network channel
Sunday on TBSHD
This is the best baseball watchin week for me in a decade 🙂
Danny Worth looks ok to me!….pretty basic hitter , very good fielder……Chad who???
Well it’s a LHP so we need Laird in the with his robust sub .500 OPS vs LHP
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHhhhhhhhhhhhhh Oh well, the kid has had a good year so far, a mis judges flyball is OK
It’s not like Raburn wouldn’t be out there doing the same thing
Coleman your right, to me its just that a guy hitting 327 with HR’s and RBI’s looks better screwing up a flyball.
I have the Mets broadcast tonight and they were just saying what a great job Raburn did on the double play by charging it…………….
It’s funny, he has looked brutal at 3rd (remember the game he single-handedly booted with 3 errors), and occasionally goofy in left (although with a good arm), but 2nd seems to work much better for him, although it would seem like a waste of a good arm.
Wow how about that……….. a Dart from RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaburn
Rockin’ Ryan Raburn!
And with that shot RR reaches the peak of Mount Mendoza (he’s at exactly .200)
It really would be sweet if he got going, last year he played a little more steady, everyday type role. Maybe he needs to get more time. Question is where. How about a shot behind the plate, he already has a decent arm 😉
Laird wins!!!!
He’s probably p.o.ed though about Raburn batting in HIS spot.
If you told me before the series that we would go 1-2 (assuming we can hang on to the lead) and Verlander would get lit up, I would’ve been disappointed. But with the Twinkies getting swept by the Brew Crew, I’m pretty happy with potentially being 0.5 games out of first.
Randolph, With you on that, however the Who Sox are right on our tail.
Binge with an RBI. Not his usual K. Nice job.
Laird, well any way
I think this is all a setup to get Laird to hit into a DP.
I’m rooting for the infield popup
Haha, take that Mets, just TRY getting Laird to not popup, not so easy is it?
I was just looking at hitting stats for the last 4 weeks, and it’s amazing how well our 3-8 hitters have done (of course not all at the same time, because of platooning etc). Here are the 28-day OPS numbers:
3 .867 Ordonez
4 1.066 Cabrera
5 1.069 Boesch
6 .781 Guillen
7 .880 Inge
8 .871 Avila
If Inge and or Avila can keep it going for a while, I don’t see how we can’t put a lot of runs on the board.
Since Click will continue to get half the ABs at C, what is his OPS the last 4 weeks? (I shudder)
Well I’ll post it, and hopefully it doesn’t count as a profanity…
.536
that’s much higher than I thought it was….that’s only 270 below the stink line
Well, A little ugly but hey, they are on the board
Well, since Mr. Almost Perfect’s brush with fame, he has settled back down to being his normal No. 5 man 5-inning self.
To be fair, he went 6 innings tonight!
What I meant to say was he was his normal EFFECTIVE for 5 inning self – after that, not so much. Not that that is bad – 5 decent innings from your No. 5 starter is acceptable. This is probably closer to what he really is. The Almost Perfect Game was a real fluke – he’ll never come close to anything like that again.
Laird……you stink!
Bah…what the crap is going on with this team on the road?
Old school meltdown!
Coke…………………great job!
Phil Coke baby! Bags juiced and Ks the RBI leader and gets out of a jam.
Coke has onions.
Whew, somebody pour me a strong one please
By the way, what kid of an idiot would take out a guy who is 3-3 with a walk, in the sixth inning?
the old Zoom would have had a meltdown after those two bloop hits…..this years Zoom just buckled down and made good pitches
Boesch opposite field bash…the kids amazing!
I guess BB hasn’t got the memo that he is supposed to be regressing. Regress, I say!
Someone should get some sort of memo to CarLOB GIDPuillen
What is it with this team and making everything more difficult than it has to be on the road? Good crap…
Carlos….way to throw your bat at the ball in a key situation ,..How bout getting a pitch somewhere near the plate and try and hit it..hard
gosh these 9th innings are boring………………..
Another 1-2-3 ninth. Yawn.
It is really nice to have a good closer. I like not stressing out in the ninth.
V-money
all in all pretty big WIN…..in the grand scheme of things….even if Lard had a slightly off day!…..next game he is due!
Ha! Its getting to the point that Laird shouldn’t even play against lefty starters. Another 0-4 collar for Fat Boy. I’m sure Leyland will stay platoon him with the stellar explanation of him being “due” to go on a 5-for-20 “tear” anytime now,
Nothing cheap about that save. Valverde certainly earned it.
Raburn and Avila are starting to leave Laird in their Mendoza dust!
Avila has been disqualified from competition for having an abnormally high OBP while on probation
The previously much maligned (at the time of the signing) Valverde signing gets my mid-season vote for MLB’s best FA signing of this past off-season.
I’m fairly confident the Tigers would have ‘at least’ 6 fewer wins this year w/o Valverde.
A consistent/reliable closer is an integral part of a contender…
he’s been nothing short of “Jones’n”
While we are at it, let’s also talk about how good Phil Coke is. Dude has nerves of steel.
Coke has been very solid… and if Ni and Thomas were more reliable (especially Ni, who seems destined for Toledo), i’d try Coke as the 5th starter… if the Oliver experiment doesn’t work.
Thomas has eaten some innings and at times has been pretty good, but as it currently stands, Coke is the only reliable lefty coming out of the pen
whether JL makes it “official” or not, Avila needs to be the starting catcher… Laird’s defense can no longer be deemed superior to Avila’s… i’ve noticed some defensive miscues (by Laird) over the past few games (i.e. that ‘wild pitch’ from Bonine tonight… that’s pitch a catcher has to block, not flick the glove and try to scoop it)… a catcher hitting .300 is allowed a few occasional defensive lapses, not a guy hitting .176
Laird left 7 on base tonight – and had another night where even his outs contributed nothing.
Ol’ Smoky won’t want to “put any pressure” on a youngster like Avila. He’d rather try to win with what is essentialy a pitcher (Laird) hitting in the 8-hole every other game because it allows him to show off his superior managerial skills.
“See everybody, I win DESPITE having a catcher playing that is hitting .176 and has an OBP of less than .250”! This is what I imagine goes through the mind of Ol’ Smoky on nights where he jots the name “Laird” down on the lineup card. If only we had a reliable C at Toledo so that we could release this anchor from the 40-man roster.
Dombrowski, please find a reliable backup catcher for next season so that we no longer have to watch Laird hit one of his cans of corn to left field three times a night. This way Mr. Laird will have plenty of time to get into more brawls at Phoenix Sun’s games next winter. Enough already! How has this guy managed to keep his roster spot this long?
I think this is pretty close to right on Jerry and to add to the Leyland thinking…at the end of the season it will be Lairds fault he didn’t hit not Leylands for playing in in 100+ games. Accoarding to Jim “I can’t help it if players don’t produce!”
or maybe JL’s setting up a promotion for the recently drafted Patrick Leyland catching prospect the Tigers just signed…
i’m kidding, but i’m searching for the logic as to why Laird is anything but a backup catcher… yes, until recently Avila has not helped his cause much, but c’mon, when the Tigers get back to playing AL teams, they should DH for Laird and let their pitchers hit…
Truth be told, the Tigers did draft 3 catchers with their first 9 picks in this year’s draft – two others ahead of Patrick Leyland
On an interesting side note — Dane Sardhina homers for the Phillies
Avila has started 12 games this month, Laird has started 8.
And Aubrey Huff is hitting .305 with 12 HRs for SF and has earned the nickname “Huff Daddy.” If he had managed even a handful of HRs with Detroit we would have won the division.