2011 Season, Game Post

Game 2011.54: Twins at Tigers

46 Comments

The Twins.  We all know what happens when we play the Twins:  balls are lost in the lights, infield squibs take strange hops, umpires don’t see batters hit with pitches, etc.  Yesterday, luck was finally reversed, as the umpires reversed a fan interference call that gave the Tigers the winning run, and detonated Ron Gardenhire’s head.  The Twins are officially having an awful year.

Tonight Mad Max Scherzer steps up for the Tigers.  His last outing was rather forgettable.  At least I wish it were.  Not to worry, though:  that was actually his evil twin, Matt Scherzer.  You can tell because the twin has the blue eye on the left side.  Or wait, is that Max?  Anyway, the Twins will be without their leading hitter, Jason Kubel.  Those Twins, with the .237 team average, without their leading hitter in the lineup, do you hear what I’m saying Max?

Lefty Brian Duensing takes the mound for the Twins.  Duensing pitched 2 innings against Detroit on May 10 following the hail storm delay, and gave up 2 runs, 2 hits and 4 walks.  He throws a lot of off-speed stuff, and I’m sure the Tiger plan of attack will be to take a lot of pitches, right? Right?

  • Answer: 1
  • Question:  How many hits does Raburn have at Comerica in May?

Today’s Player of the Pre-Game:  Miguel Cabrera

The state of Florida has returned Mr. Cabrera’s driver’s license, and he celebrates by driving in a few runs.

Today’s Everyday-Except-Today Lineup:

  1. Austin Jackson CF
  2. Casper Wells RF
  3. Brennan Boesch DH
  4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
  5. Victor Martinez C
  6. Jhonny Peralta SS
  7. Brandon Inge 3B
  8. Ryan Raburn LF
  9. Danny Worth 2B

46 thoughts on “Game 2011.54: Twins at Tigers”

  1. I see Leyland’s “He’s my regular secondbaseman” is playing left tonight. Rayburn is 2 for 16 vs Duensing by the way.

    1. Raburn does have a career .840 OPS vs LHP. That’s actually pretty good. He needs to start hitting with Ordonez is coming back soon. Raburn might get the short end of the stick. Can he sent be sent down to the minors? Anyone?

      1. Decent AB there by Raburn. He got to see 10 pitches and he didn’t strikeout. Maybe next ab is even better.

      2. I think Rayburn’s OPS vs LH must all come after the All-Star break. Every year he is just crap in the first half, then he hits like crazy and everybody thinks he has finally figured it out, only to fall back again. It makes no sense, but there it is.

  3. There are actually two more questions to the Answer above:

    Question 2: How many extra base hits does Rayburn have this month
    Question 3: How many walks does Rayburn have this month

  5. How was that not an error by Raburn? Scherzer should have 3 unearned runs, but thanks to Leyland’s line-up, Raburn’s crappy defense, and the idiot official scorer, they are all earned.

  10. Figures, I stopped watching the game 15 minutes ago and Now we are up 4-3. I’ll have the DVR take me back in time so I can watch it.

  12. Time to Slamma Slama and get the run back.

    I like the earlier version of Mad Max better than the recent version of Bad Max.

  13. I was just about to say that Scherzer threw a nice game. Then the wild pitch, then the 2 run shot. That got ugly faster than I could type.

    1. 4 runs in 6 innings isn’t a nice game. He should have been gone after the Span hit, if not sooner.

      1. IMO, 3 of those runs should be unearned thanks to Raburn. 1st misplay put a guy in scoring position. Then had he caught that flyball hit to him, Morneau wouldn’t of batted and hit a HR that inning.

  14. What the heck is going on with Max? He has been awful in his last two starts. Anybody else thinking he was left in a little too long tonight? Let’s hope the bats can bail him out…

    1. Smokey asleep at the switch, because, after all, Scherzer hadn’t got his 100 pitches in yet.

      1. Right. However, if Scherzer had made it to the 8th, Leyland would have to bring in the closer, regardless of how dominant Max had been.

  15. Max might actually just be a 6-inning starter. His 7th-inning + numbers are awful. Either that, or it’s the evil twin again (not to be confused with the Evil Twins).

  17. With cabrera on 2nd, we need Rayburn’s snd extra base hit of the month or two singles to get the go-ahead run in.

    1. The odds of Raburn getting a hit there = odds that Kevin is watching the Tigers game instead of the Mavs

  18. Do I dare to say Inge may be on a bit of a roll? He seems to have abandoned the idea of swinging for the fences, and is being more selective with pitches. I could easily handle a .250 Inge who gets a bunch of singles and walks.

    Oh, and I really enjoy watching Boesch run the bases.

    2. With 1 HR this year, maybe Inge finally decided to give up on the “Babe” thing.

      1. My wife is subjected to my Tigers rants, and she’s heard this one many times at this point. With Inge’s quickness, he could be a highly valuable part of the lineup if he could simply put the ball in play reliably. When he takes those big swooping chops, he rarely watches the ball to the bathead, and often comes through the zone about half a second late. And he can’t lay off the high stuff because he’s committed. I want to see him up there twitching like a crack addict on a hair trigger whipping his little bat around like it’s a willow switch. Instead, he looks like a toddler lugging a 2 by 4.

        1. Well, never say never I guess, but I don’t have much hope. I mean, he’s 34 years old and many a better player than Inge have been unable to make adjustments that late in their career.

    1. Mostly, I’ve been listening to the radio guys tonight — sounds like the home plate ump is having a rough night.

  20. Can Al-B-KK keep this up, or do scouts eventually find a chink in his repertoire?

  25. Wow….good win…had flashbacks to Todd Jones with Benoit in there…Also wondering what the heck is going on with Max…14 runs in his last two outings…ouch…

  26. Well, a win is a win, but you can’t get away with this kind of stuff against any half-way decent team. Chalk this one up to the Twins bullpen as much as anything else.

  27. 4-0 vs the Twinkies so far – obviously a good strategy to continue beating divisional teams… a .500 record against every non-AL Central team and winning 60-65% against AL Central teams could win the division this year.

    1. Could be nail biting finish in September, as the last 3 games of the season are at Home vs Cleveland.

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