Today the Tigers look to continue unbeaten at home, as Phil Coke gets his 1st start of the season (and only 2nd of his career) against Bruce Chen and the Royals. Whether or not Coke adjusts to the starting role will likely have a big effect on how this season plays out, and whether or not any of the young prospects get called up during the season.
Bruce Chen has a mixed history against the Tigers. Last season he was 2-1 with a 6.30 ERA (with 12 walks in 20 innings). Luckily Miguel Cabrera is fine after his run-in yesterday with the tarp: in 14 career ABs vs Chen he is hitting .571 with 3 HRs. Chen will find some relief further down in the order–Inge has 1 hit in 21 career ABs vs Chen.
Expect the Tigers to take a patient approach at the plate with Chen. In fact, the Tigers have been uncharacteristically patient this season as a whole, and surprisingly lead the league in Pitches per Plate Appearance with 4.13 led by Wee Willie Rhymes (4.69).
Today marks the first appearance of The Ghost in the starting lineup:
- Austin Jackson CF
- Will Rymes, 2B
- Maggio Ordonez DH
- Miguel Cabrera 1B
- Victor Martinez C
- Ryan Raburn LF
- Jhonny Peralta SS
- Brandon Inge 3B
- Casper Wells RF
According to Rod, Leyland said he was comfortable with a bunch of guys in the lineup who have bad stats vs Chen (see Inge numbers above) “because they’re due.” So there we go, the first 2011 appearance of the He’s Due strategy.
No doubt to be followed shortly by the Crazy Idea strategy.
Smokey has got to go……the sooner the better. He is a bumbling idiot when it comes to putting together the best line-up possible.
Gameday is reporting an “automatic ball.” What happened?
Coke touched his mouth while he was on the rubber.
Eek…. 3 Walks already in this game for Coke and that last one couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Two walks this inning lead to two runs….
Coke said the other day that it was difficult adjusting to the bullpen after starting in ST. I guess he is having difficulty adjusting to starting now after being in the bullpen.
I would imagine it would be difficult for him to transition. It makes me wonder more why Leyland brought him out of the bullpen for a couple games. Wouldn’t that just screw with his psyche?
I was surprised by that. Let me re-phrase that: I wasn’t really surprised, but I did think it was a bad idea.
Another called 3rd strike outside the strike zone for Cabrera; I think that’s the 3rd this season. Why no love from the umps for Miguel?
Solid inning by Coke, now it’s time for the bats to wake up.
On the bright side, now the hitters are even MORE DUE
Coke got a break there – a 6 pitch inning.
Austin Jackson is about 40 more bad at-bats from being benched and/or getting refresher course in Toledo.
Something tells me that ain’t gonna happen. Remember 2nd Half Boesch last year?
On a seperate note, not that I want to question our manager’s decision making 😉 , but why is the RH batting Wells hitting ninth and the LH hitting Rhymes batting 2nd against a LH starter? Is it a balanced lineup thing, or what?
I’m thinking Will Rhymes will be jumping on a bus to Toledo by the end of next week if he doesn’t start hitting, and on the return trip will be Scott Sizemore.
Well, it seems that our Tigers have, once again, been fooled thus far by the fire ball throwing “Cy” Chen. Old Bruce has been found totally resistable by more than 10 different teams over 13 years, he’s established an ERA just under 5.0, a WHIP of 1.4 and he’s holding the Tigs to just one hit after 3. Hmmmm.
Yeah, this is getting ridiculous. He has been lit so far this year and our batters can’t even touch him…
The “because they’re due” line up strategy is working out just as planned so far.
I disagree. I think the Tigers’ strategy is to lull Mr. Chen into a false sense of security and then …whammo.
Of course, the “delayed whammo” strategy. What was I thinking?
They are waiting until they have accumulated maximum Due-ness
Actually looking back at Chen’s numbers last season, we may be in for a long day (by which I mean a very short day).
Batting avg vs Chen as game progresses:
Pitch 1-25 .331
Pitch 26-50 .238
Pitch 51-75 .186
Pitch 76-100 .264
So it looks like the key with Chen is to hit him early. Oops.
Yes, and we can all rest easy knowing that our batting coach made certain that our guys understood Cy Chen’s history. Well, ok that did not happen — clearly that did not happen.
Rhymes was due.
And Ordonez. Unfortunately, so was Gene Lamont.
This is where Leyland really shines, in arguing against the BS calls against us. The umpire blew that call, the catcher has no basis for establishing an out when he made no attempt to make a tag after blocking the plate and still never establishing control of the baseball ’til Rhymes passed through. The umpire should have done nothing and wait to see who makes the next move, and a truly great one of a kind baseball play is now ruined because the umpire had to act when he had no basis for acting. At least Leyland was on top of it, so at least we have that moment.
JHONNY!!! — He must’ve been at maximum due ness.
Inge has reached mid season form: 3 ABs and 3 timely K’s.
“Tigers threaten but do not score.” A familiar refrain
Rocket Raburn! At least we get the big 0 off the board
well the Tigers are STILL DUE, which of course will be encouraging to Smokey as he pencils in the lineup tomorrow……at least Inge and Jackson stayed on track to strike out 100000000000000 times this year…….(that would be added together)
Does someone want to tell Maggs that it’s not 2007 anymore?
Ordonez first pitch OPS since 2007
2007 1.326
2008 .684
2009 .881
2010 .615
(his double earlier in the game is going to cost us about 20 more ABs like the 8th inning one tonight)