2012 Season, Game Post

Game 2012.19: Mariners at Tigers

41 Comments

Well, here we go.  Rick Porcello–he of the 8-run first inning–is all that stands between the Tigers and a series sweep, at home, at the hands of the lowly Mariners.

Not to worry:  Rick, who no doubt reads DTW before starts, will be inspired by both the picture for today’s post, and his resplendent full name festooned across the banner.

The Tiger offense continues to struggle (but it was King Felix), although the Boesch HR is a hopeful sign that he has emerged from his funk.

So what is wrong with the offense so far?  Time to take a look, as promised.

Today’s category:  Runner at 3rd and less than 2 out.  The complaint is that the Tigers are awful at this, and waste rare scoring opportunities.  Verdict:  true, and it’s worse than it looks.

Detroit is dead last in the R3L2O category, only scoring 34% of its runners (AL average: 48%, Best team Toronto at 61%).  But if you look at RBIs with a R32LO instead of runs scored, the Tiger performance drops to just 28%–5 of the runs they have scored have been on errors and wild pitches.  Their OPS with R3L2O is .310, vs a league average of .820.

These are early season results and are based on small sample sizes, so some caution must be used in concluding anything about how the season will go.  The R3L2O failure has definitely been a part of the early season struggle to score runs though. We will revisit these things on a periodic basis.

Today’s Player of the Pre-game:  Andy Dirks

This is the day the Dirks day-to-day ends, and it ends up with him in the leadoff spot.  Guy still can’t manage to take the field with a glove on though.

Today’s Where is Everyone? Lineup:

  1. Andy Dirks DH
  2. Brennan Boesch RF
  3. Miguel Cabrera 3B
  4. Prince Fielder 1B
  5. Delmon Young LF
  6. Don Kelly CF
  7. Jhonny Peralta SS
  8. Ryan Raburn 2B
  9. Gerald Laird C

41 thoughts on “Game 2012.19: Mariners at Tigers”

    1. Porcello’s 2012 first inning ERA was 21.00 BEFORE today. Yikes. He is making Bonderman look like a good first inning pitcher.

    2. agreed, but then again when compared to last week’s 8-run 1st inning… today was a ‘gem’

      FACT: despite DET pitching, SEA is STILL one of the worst hitting teams in MLB

  2. DET his batting .217 in innings 1-6, but .293 in innings 7-9 – try and figure that one out.

    1. SEA is batting .265 in innings 1-6; but in innings 7-9 they’re batting .188

  3. As Rod and Mario just said “As bad as things might be going for the Tigers ….. we’re still tied for first place!”

    1. Excellent point. This may be our worst stretch of the season. And we have plenty of time to come back and win.

  4. SEA pitcher Noesi gave up 6ER, 6H, 1HR against the CWS last week in 1.1 IN of work.
    TEX chased him after 3 innings – after giving up 6H, 7ER and 2HR

    One would expect DET to hit this guy…

    1. I was about to say maybe this is his breakout game, but I think the Kelly hit unnerved him and he just fell apart after that.

  10. now this is more like the pitcher we thought we’d be seeing todayy….jump started by Raybum….

  13. Question: Why didn’t Leyland PH for Dirks there? Say with Inge, who is “supposed to help against lefties.”

    1. It’s all clear now: Inge wasn’t available since he was going to be released AFTER the game.

  14. How the hell does Figgins fly ball get over the head of Boesch? It landed on the edge ocf the warning track in straightaway right field. There is no reason why Boesch should not make the play unless he is playing shallow on Figgins. That would beg the question, why are you playing a shallow right field on a left handed hitter with the wind blowing out, a man on first and two outs. Tigers should have been in a ‘no doubles” defense with a man at first and two down. This team continues to baffle me.

    1. They can’t pitch, they can’t hit and they can’t field lately. We knew ahead of time they couldn’t run. What’s left? I guess they still have Leyland’s gut.

  17. ‘Forgive them even if they are not sorry/All the vultures, bootleggers at the door waiting/We’re so quick to point our own flaws in others’

    1. He is listed as a 1B at Toledo ….. with a bat that has flames coming off of it ….. where do we play him other than DH?

  20. I ran out of Inge hate late in 2010. That little fella exhausted me. But Brandon has been raised from the dead before. I expect he’ll roll back the stone and be GM by August.

  21. getting swept by the Mariners is pretty close to trolling bottom (especially since they fly to NYC today for 3 @ yankee stadium)… but getting swept coupled with their poor showing over the past two weeks must have been the catalyst that prompted the Inge release…and that’s a turning lemons into lemonade scenario in my book.

    Illich must have made a call to DD and retracted his protection of Mr Inge, as releasing Inge is very uncharacteristic of the Tigers. Best of luck to BInge, personally i hope he stays in the AL Central, so DET pitching gets the opportunity to face him another 15-18 games this year.

  23. They lost the game for two simple reasons…Defense and not converting w/ R3L2O. I don’t care if it’s a small sample size, etc., etc. The defense is pathetic. Boesch is a DH, Young is a DH, Fielder is a DH…Heck, Miggy at 3rd is better than any of those guys…The corner OF is rough because you play in Comerica….That will not improve..so, they need to start getting runs home w/ R3L2O…It’s as simple as that…If they can’t…I don’t care if ppl call me Chicken Little…I don’t care that the central is supposed to be weak…You can not win the division w/out fixing this issue. I would make a deal for some defense, How does having Boesch or Raburn playing 2B help this team over, getting a great defensive corner OF and a great defensive SS (I would move Peralta to 2B)…If we were able to get those things…We would win more games than by having their offense in the lineup…We need better defense. Porcello and Fister are Groundball pitchers and we have possibly the worst infield defense in the history of baseball. You could put either Boesch or young at DH and play Dirks at a corner OF position, you need one good defender,so, that AJaxx can shade that way to help the weak fielder.

  24. As a side bar, today’s game brought memories as I saw it was attended by Detroit area school safeties. In 1967, my second years as a devoted Tiger fan, I was a 6th grade Safety at Bagley Elementry School and attended a Tiger game vs. the Red Sox. We all sat in the lower deck in left field on a very sunny Spring day. I got to see Yaz play while the Tigers beat the Nation 9-3 with homers from Jim Northrup and Dick McAuliffe. Earl Wilson got the win via a complete game.

        1. I recall him hitting two homeruns in one game in either ’67 or ’68. Also, a few years ago colleague of mine from the lab I work at sat next to him on a flight and had a great visit with him. Earl has since passed away, but lived in Louisiana until his death.

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