Well, the Tigers go for their first hit since I took over responsibility for the game threads.
Tonight’s contest features JV versus James Shields. James Shields has not been good as of late. In his last 10 starts he’s allowed at least 3 runs in every start, and has only reached the seventh three times with a cool 5.61 ERA and 1.52 WHIP. Let’s hope that we earn a few more of the “Hs” from that equation. The Rays game day notes mention that Shields’ 9 losses are T-5th in the AL, “two off the league lead.” There’s some optimism for you.
On the other hand, a few of the Tigers hitters he’ll face are still figuring out how to get to the ballpark, so it should make for an interesting game. It was all doom and gloom in Motown this morning, but what do you expect when you get no-no’d by Matt Garza. JV is 7-1 in his last 9 starts. Checking the opposing starters over the next five days (Niemann, Price, Lester, Matsuzaka, Buchholz), there is little margin for error in JVs performance tonight.
Leave it to Carlos to remind us that we have to play nine hard innings.
Man down. Man down.
That turf is just too dangerous to play on.
Congrats to Wee Willie Rhymes, 1st ML hit
Rhymes is our hit leader so far this week!
JV is fastball happy. When is he gonna learn???
Cabrera had to go there…best chance to score. Gonna be a long 2nd half friends.
oooooh, you got the vaunted blue box for your posts like billfer used to have.
nice.
Cabrera had to try to score there – I just don’t see Avila picking him up there
Well, I’ll be damned. Sizemore gets a hit.
Setting up the inevitable R3L2O Fail…sigh…
that was some serious fail there.
I’m not a fair weather fan and I hate when people are, but, I don’t know how much of the rest of this season I can watch. I mean, I just don’t know when the runs are going to come from. This is getting brutal.
That’s part of the game.
It’s only the bottom of the 5th. There’s still time.
look! runs!! two of them!!
Somebody chomping on the rally celery?
guess not
I hope Brennan can do something here.
Ugh.
By “do something here”, did you mean THIS MONTH?
Brennan can’t see the ball. I think they need to send him down for awhile to get his bat going again.
nah, he just needs to get out of his slump. He’s got to learn to do it at this level.
And the Shields >/= 3 runs allowed per game streak is gone. I’ll take the blame on that one too.
I blame the split-squad Spring Training line-up that we’re using.
I’ll take it though. I love watching the Tigers even when we’re not matching up well.
If the wins weren’t so great, the losses wouldn’t be so bad.
Tell me Mr. X – do you prefer radio or tv?
TV
, but I don’t care much for Mario and Rod
Have they checked his arm slot?
Raburn never took the bat off his shoulder. At least Brennan swung
Just keep throwin those high fastballs. The news is spreading.
Wish we had Benoit.
Radio used to have a guy that said, “he stood there like a house by the side of the road…that was caught by a fan from Kentwood, MI”
Now they have a guy that says “wow!…it’s the art of pitching…wow!!”
attaboy Lamont!
now walk Cabrera you MF’rs
Nice at-bat Damon!
Fail
Oh no. The sky is most certainly falling
Cabrera got down that line pretty fast.
he was out anyway, but he looked like greased lightning.
Dude, he did not look like greased lightning. He look like a chunky guy running as fast he could. More like pork lightning.
Before anyone jumps on me, not hating on Cabrera, he should be MVP. But speed down the line is not one of his many, many assets.
But Mr. X, kudos on finding a silver lining in a crushing game-ending double play!
thanks
heartbreaking.
That was a real bummer and a microcosm of our season. Great game and I like Rhymes. Play the kids, sign some FAs in the winter and mash in 2011.
Steve
If a 5′ 8′ 27-year-old rookie infielder is our bright spot, god help us.
Agreed. The idea that patching up the team at this point with the addition of rentals like say Lilly and/or Dunn, is a cruel joke. There are just too many holes. Anyway the cost in prospects would be prohibitive. Now if they could get somebody to bite on some of the 9-member Mendoza clan that keeps being shuffled in and oiut of the lineup on a daily basis, maybe I could get behind that. However, I’m guessing no other team is interested.
Wow.
God that sucked. Leave it to the Tigers to see 34 pitches in an inning and not get a run.
I like that the Rays broadcasting team is interview Joyce as if he’s the hero when he botched that ball in the corner.
he tippy-toed.
Definitely, he got a case of the wall yips.
That hissing sound you hear is the air going out of the balloon.
Sorry to react so negatively, but the walkoff R3L2O Fail to me is like when you make your last bit of coffee in the morning, go to pour a bit of milk in it, and a couple of solid chunks go “plop.”
I so wanted to win this game so I could say “Redemption”. Sigh…………..
By the way that milk thing really happened to me.
Always check the expiration date. When the meat turns green, don’t eat that either.
I’m a bachelor too – it can be tough sometimes.
I feel sick and it’s not just from the fumes of oil running through my city.
Love TB’s defense. They have a bunch of guys hitting under .250 in that line-up, but they steal runs on the bases, and with the leather.
That play by Longoria was fabulous.
For some reason it looks like they feel they can run on the Tigers this series. Probably more of the same tomorrow.
misery.
What makes me a little happy is that we just helped put Boston further behind in the wild card race. They’re 5.5 games behind TB now. If the Tigers don’t win the Central, then I at least want us to play spoiler to teams like Boston and the White Sox. We have 14 games to play against the White Sox, so it ain’t over yet.
I blame Raburn.
Because, that’s always a safe bet. Besides, if he hadn’t whiffed with Cabrera on 3rd with 1 out, Cabrera would have either scored or not been so desperate as to try to score on the wild pitch, and therefore would’ve been less fatigued for his last AB…thanks a lot, Raburn
In a cruel irony I’m watching Aubrey Huff bat right now–the .306 19HR 60RBI good glove in LF Aubrey Huff, not the Aubrey Huff who led the ’09 Fail.
Oh, I hate to even hear his name, but they sure love him out west. God, what a total failure that was for us.
Wait a minute, that’s Huff’s line right now? Holy cow this is a cruel game.
I know that it always seems worse for the team that you follow, my buddy the Twins fans carries on as if they are the Bad News Bears. But man, it sure does seem like we haven’t caught a break in a while.
That’s OK, it was worse earlier when Huff’s teammate Ham Sandwich Renteria was tearing the cover off the ball…but then, it seems, he started celebrating at the buffet table.
Although I do feel queasy when I hear Giants fans yell, “Huff Daddy!!!”
Ok, don’t get me wrong, I love me some JV…most of the time. Also I realize that, coming off an efficient complete game effort, this might not be the best time to mention this but, if you haven’t already, I suggest taking a listen to the last podcast they did over at Daily Fungo: http://www.dailyfungo.com/2010/07/23/the-detroit-tigers-podcast-119-talking-tigers-with-lynn-henning/
Spoiler warning, it features DTW favorite Lynn Henning. I don’t agree with everything he writes, but he’s got some insightful things to say about our “Ace” and his maturity. Last nights fiasco with Crawford’s inevitable steal of 3rd with the Pena shift only adds to the evidence.