2011 Season, Game Post

Game 2011.23: Mariners at Tigers

43 Comments

Welcome to contest Tuesday.  First one ever, hopefully not the last.  Today’s prize is a Tigers History Newspaper courtesy of Anydate.com.  The contest is simple, please guess tonight’s:

– winning pitcher;
– score;
– home run hitters (if any);
– save (if any);
– and Clown Show Ratio.

The winner will be selected on most correct answers, with weight distributed in accordance with how the categories were laid out above (winning pitcher is most important, Clown Show Ratio is least important.  Really, it’s unimportant.  If you don’t know what CSR is, leave it blank, and I’ll wait for Coleman to fill everyone in).  And please visit our friends over at Anydate.com so that they’ll do this again soon.

King Felix is the reigning AL Cy Young winner and he’s pretty darn good.  Even with an uncharacteristic shellacking in Toronto three starts ago in which he gave up 7 runs in 6 innings, he’s posting a 3.38 ERA for 2011 (that’s 1.88 if you remove the Tor game).  He hasn’t allowed more than 2 ER in any other game this season.  But that’s earned runs.  The swiss cheese behind him is allowing an unearned run per game, and I’m certain that the Tigers will have similar opportunities tonight.  Against King Felix, they’ll have to take advantage when they can.

Phil Coke takes the hill for the Tigers today.  PC got hit pretty hard last time out (6 runs, 6 hits, 4 BB in 3 2/3), but 4 of those runs were unearned.  Which means that his two previous salty starts coupled with his 2 1/3 innings out of the pen have left him with great April numbers.  A 1.27 WHIP and 2.75 ERA will certainly earn him better than a 1-3 record in subsequent months.  Coke’s biggest flaw has been the base on balls, as he’s already walked 10 in 17 1/3 as a starter this year.  Curiously, he walks lefties at twice the rate as righties, but that’s likely just a sampling error at this point in the season.  Mariners lead the majors with 90 walks…so keep an eye on this.

Today’s fun fact – the Tigers are 109-62 at home (.637) since the start of the 2009 season.  Only the Yankees are better at home in the AL since then.

Tonight’s not how I would do it lineup is:

1. AJax – CF
2. Will Rhymes – 2B
3. Magglio Ordonez – DH
4. Miguel Cabrera – 1B
5. Brennan Boesch – RF
6. Ryan Raburn – LF
7. Jhonny Peralta – SS
8. Alex Avila – C
9. Brandon Inge – 3B

(This is how I would do it – Jackson, Rayburn, Boesch, Cabrera, Avila, Ordonez, Peralta, Inge, Rhymes.  But at least now we get a difficult L/R match-up at the bottom of the lineup which will certainly perplex Eric Wedge in the 8th inning.)

43 thoughts on “Game 2011.23: Mariners at Tigers”

  1. I like the “this is how I would do it” lineup way better than the one from Smoke on the Brain!

  2. – winning pitcher: Coke
    – score: 5-2 Detroit
    – home run hitters : Peralta, Raburn.
    – save (if any): None
    – and Clown Show Ratio: 1.0

  3. – winning pitcher; Coke
    – score; 2-5 Tigers win
    – home run hitters (if any); Raburn
    – save (if any); Papa Grande
    – and Clown Show Ratio; ??? 42/1.

  4. -winning pitcher: Valverde
    -score DET 4 SEA 3
    -HR: None
    -save: none
    CSR: 000 (no clowns today)

    I’m actually in the process of writing up a definition of the all-important CSR statistic so stat tuned.

  6. We’ll take entries through the 2nd. If a pitcher gets knocked out or HR gets hit, we’ll deal with it on an ad-hoc basis.

    1. I’m appointing TSE as the official arbitrator should a contest dispute arise.

  13. I’m with K.I.D. on moving Boesch to the 3rd spot, even more so after the R3L3O-fail by Mendozlio.

  15. How we got 1 run:

    Send 5 batters to the plate, and scratch one run out of no outs, runners on 2nd and 3rd.

    How they got 1:

    Hit it at Rayburn (sic.)

  16. Frightening thought: Rayburn is Smokey’s go-to guy for late inning defensive replacement

  24. And then we bring in this joker to not throw strikes, and some bonehead decides to have an error. This is a classic meltdown game, isn’t it?

  27. Ideally when V-Mart comes back Boesch moves up to 3rd, V-Mart bats 5th, and Mendozlio bats…10th

      1. Smokey will use V-Mart A’s DH only when he first comes back, which means Omir will stay a bit, which means Raburn is the starting 2B and Rhymes is a hen in the mud. (If it were up to me, I’d find an excuse to send Mendozlio to the 15-day).

Comments are closed.