I blame the bus.

The Tigers took the unusual step of going to Cleveland by bus instead of plane, and look what happened: a three-game sweep at the hands of the Indians.  So, yes, I’m throwing the bus under the bus.

Unfortunately, they will be taking the same bus back to Detroit to face the Yankees.  Or will they?  Does the bus drop them off and then wait 3 days, or does a different bus take them back?  Or might they go by bus, and return by plane? Details on this are frustratingly scarce.

Brandon Inge did not mention how the team got back to Detroit, but he did call a team meeting, which he referred to as a unifying meeting, and added “we are going to be a winning team.”

At any rate, the Yankees have been hot, winning 4 of their last 5, and the hottest of the hot has been none other than our old friend Curtis Granderson, who hit his 8th HR of the season yesterday.  Granderson credits his hitting coach, Kevin Long, with helping him refine his swing.

An intriguing match-up to watch will be Granderson vs Justin Verlander, who opens the series for Detroit.  They have faced each other once before, and Granderson has a HR in 4 ABs to show for it.  And that was with his old swing.

The Yankees send out a reanimated Bartolo Colon, taking the rotation spot of Phil Hughes, whose arm apparently died.  Colon did not pitch in 2010, added another 30 pounds or so to his already portly frame, and was signed by the Yankees in the spring.  Now what kind of message does that send to the youngsters out there?

Today’s Player of the Pre-Game:  Austin Jackson

Austin’s mission is to find a way to sneak in a bit of time with that Kevin Long guy.

Today’s Magglio’s-back lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Ramon Santiago 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

April clowns bring May frowns, as the old saying goes.

So what are the Tigers to do about their woeful offense?  Jim Leyland says that they have to concentrate better with 2 strikes.  Lynn Henning suggests they should offer some of their good pitching prospects to the Mets and replace Inge with David Wright.  Sure, Inge isn’t hitting, but he’s the number 9 hitter.  That tends to happen.  But when your number 3 hitter is hitting .159 with 1 RBI, now THAT’s a problem.  When your DH can’t get a ball out of the infield, that’s a problem.  He is the designated hitter.  He is designated to, you know, HIT.  This might not be as obvious as it seems, since the Tigers haven’t had a strong DH since Leyland has been managing the team.  He tends to use the DH spot as a place for semi-rest for the weary, instead of a place for a fearsome bat.

And as far as the concentrating with 2 strikes things goes, here are Ordonez’ ABs yesterday

• first pitch, ground out to 3rd
• first pitch, ground out to SS (runner left on 1st)
• first pitch, popup to 2nd (runner left on 2nd)
• 2-1 count, ground out to 2nd
• K, 3 pitches
• first pitch, ground out to 2nd (runner left on 1st)

The 3rd AB was particularly annoying.  Austin Jackson had a good AB and worked a walk after a 1-2 count (good concentration!), and Leyland had Rhymes bunt him to 2nd.  Really?  You really just wasted an out to move him to 2nd with Ordonez coming up?  Of course Ordonez grounded out, and Cabrera was intentionally walked.

For whatever reason, Ordonez is just not capable right now; it’s 2008 Gary Sheffield all over again.  He at least needs some time off.  I know Leyland is a players’ manager, and I know that this often pays off, but this can’t continue forever.  It’s not fair to Magglio. Magglio is still a fan favorite, but eventually he will be greeted with boos when he steps up to the plate, and he deserves better than that.

This afternoon, Phil Coke (1-4) takes on the undefeated Justin Masterson (5-0) as the Tigers try to avoid the back-to-back sweep.  And it looks like Maggs has the day off.  Finally.

Player of the Pre-Game:  Al Alburquerque

Yes, I know he will have the day off.  But lost in the loss yesterday was a completely dominating 3 innings by Captain Querque.  He threw strike after strike and slider after slider, and the Indians were helpless.  Not only did he strike out 6 of 9 batters (the last Tiger reliever to do that was Willie Hernandez), but the other 3 batters couldn’t get the ball out of the infield.  Good stuff.

Today’s sweep-stopping lineup:

1. Rhymes 2B
2. Santiago SS
3. Kelly RF
4. Cabrera 1B
5. Boesch DH
6. Raburn LF
7. Avila C
8. Inge 3B
9. Jackson CF

A walk-off.  Followed by a skate-off.  Harrumph.

At least it was a walk-off and not a WALK-off:  when the count went to 3 balls with the bases loaded you could almost see it coming.  In fact I even had renamed Joaquin Benoit in my head (Walk-in Benoit).  So, at least that was averted.  The bad news is that we are now on a 4-game losing streak.  I blame myself:  I didn’t have my customary Player of the Pre-Game.  Won’t happen again.

Another day, another chance to get back to that winning thing.  Justin couldn’t do it, Bad Brad couldn’t do it.  Max had winning by the tail, but it apparently injured itself doing the 7th-inning stretch and danced off to a Carlos Santana tune.  Today it is up to Rick Porcello to get the Tigers back on track.  Porcello was brilliant in his last outing against Seattle, and has always done well in his career vs Cleveland (4-0, .228), so hopefully the evening will be filled with the sound of groundballs.

Porcello will need to be good, since he is being opposed by Major-League-Debut-Guy, who consistently stymies Detroit’s offense.  Today’s MLDG is 22 year old righty Alex White, who was a freshman at North Carolina when they were recruiting Porcello (to put Porcello’s age in perspective). It will be up to the lineup to try to capitalize on their opportunities today.  The same lineup that had no trouble getting on base yesterday, but tended to get left there (10 LOBs)

Today’s Player of the Pre-Game: Alex Avila

Alex got his 18th RBI yesterday. We now have 19 RBI from the catcher position.  Last year we only had 55 for the entire season.  Avila’s .319 BA leads all AL catchers.  And he has been up 9 times with a runner on 3rd and less than 2 out, and has a walk, a single, a double, a triple, 2 sac flies, and 9 RBI to show for it.  So if we get that guy to 3rd today, Alex will get the run home.

Today’s same-as-yesterday lineup:

1. Jackson CF
2. Rhymes 2B
3. Ordonez DH
4. Cabrera 1B
5. Boesch RF
6. Raburn LF
7. Peralta SS
8. Avila C
9. Inge 3B

Tonight the Tigers try to stop their longest losing streak of the season at 3 when they take on the surprising Cleveland Indians.  The Tigers send Max Scherzer to the mound, which seems like a good plan to stop the losing, since Max so far this season has known only winning (4-0).  The key to Scherzer’s success has been that he has been able to locate his pitches well and not get behind in the count.  That may be a more difficult task against the Indians than it was against the free-swinging White Sox.

Jeanmar Gomez takes the mound for Cleveland for only his 2nd start of the season.  The first he only lasted 4 1/3 innings vs KC and gave up 9 hits.  More of that would be nice.

Of note is the fact that the Tigers went to Cleveland by bus–the Red Wings got dibs on the team plane.  Maybe this will allow each player to get in touch with his inner minor leaguer.

Ol’ Smokey managed the bus trip without throwing anybody under.  So the lineup will be what we’re used to.

It’s hard to get used to though:  we have a leadoff hitter who can’t get on base, a 3 hitter with 1 RBI, and the weakest top third of the lineup in the league, maybe in all of baseball.

Just a quick look at DET vs CLE top of the lineup OBP/OPS fills one with envy:

1 DET .223 .456   2 DET .300 .596   3 DET .312 .672

1 CLE .393 .971   2 CLE .318 .758    3 CLE .317 .747

Today’s nobody-under-the-bus lineup:

1. Jackson CF
2. Rhymes 2B
3. Ordonez DH
4. Cabrera 1B
5. Boesch RF
6. Raburn LF
7. Peralta SS
8. Avila C
9. Inge 3B

Welcome to double spillover contest Thursday.  We’re giving away this very cool Tigers History Newspaper (courtesy of Anydate.com) today.  The person who is closest to predicting the totals below will win.  I’m not making this dependent on picking a winning team because that’t not really working out for anyone.

– # of runs (both teams)
– # of hits (both teams); and
– # of HRs (both teams)

Michael Pineda scares me.  Very much so.  Kid has been sick, posting a 1.08 WHIP, 7.4 K/9 and 1.78 ERA in his first four major league starts.  He throws a mid 90’s four-seamer and two-seamer, and a very good slider which he throws almost 30% of the time.

The Tigers bats are ice cold.  No one has more than two hits in the series, and I’m not expecting much today.

Bad Brad Penny is gonna have to be our streak buster today.  He was phenomenal last time out allowing 0 hits (though 1 was charged against him) over 7 innings in a win over the White Sox. The Mariners have some pretty decent career numbers off of Penny including Kennedy .368 (7-19), Wilson .357 (5-14), and Suzuki and Olivo .400 (2-5).

Today’s Kelly friendly lineup where JL mistakenly inserted Santiago for Peralto even though he meant Santiago for Rhymes:

1. Jackson – CF
2. Santiago – SS
3. Ordonez – DH
4. Cabrera – 1B
5. Boesch – RF
6. Raburn – LF
7. Avila – C
8. Kelly – 3B
9. Rhymes – 2B

Fun Fact – the Tigers haven’t been swept in a series yet this year.

Welcome to a spillover of contest Tuesday.  Since there was not a winner yesterday (really, no one was close),

(yester)Today’s prize is a Tigers History Newspaper courtesy of Anydate.com.  The contest is simple, please guess tonight’s:

– winning team;
– number of Tigers hits;
– number of Mariners errors;
– the number that I’m thinking of right now; 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 team is most important, Clown Show Ratio is least important.  Really, it’s unimportant.  If you don’t know what CSR is, leave it blank, but know that Coleman is working in the definition).  And please visit our friends over at Anydate.com so that they’ll do this again soon.

Erik Bedard takes the mound tonight for Seattle in search of his: first win, first game without a HR allowed, first game without a walk allowed, and first game without at least 3 ER allowed.  Erik Bedard has not been good in 2011.  He was a walk machine against the Tigers last time out, and he’s shouldering a 1.98 WHIP and 7.71 ERA thus far.  He doesn’t throw very hard, he doesn’t have great control and he’s pretty wild.

Seattle missed JV last week, but they get him tonight.  JV is well, JV, and I expect him to dominate Seattle hitters.  Though Milton Bradley (.357 in 14 ABs) and Ichiro (.366 in 15 ABs) have had pretty good success against him.  JV notched his 1,000th K last time out, tying him for 14th on the Tigers all time list with none other than Joe Coleman. In a few games he should catch up to Frank Lary for 13th.  JV has not allowed more than 3 ER in any start this season, he’s made it into at least the 6th every time out and he’s averaging 7 1/3 innings per game.

Tonight’s Lhineup is:

1. Jackson CF
2. Raburn 2B
3. Ordonez DH
4. Cabrera 1B
5. Peralta SS
6. Boesch LF
7. Inge 3B
8. Avila C
9. Wells RF

Tonight’s fun fact: if Cabrera can score 2 more runs in April, he’ll set the all time Tigers mark for runs in April, passing Travis Fryman (22 in 1997) and Gary Sheffield (22 in 2007).

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.)