Smyly gets my vote for Tiger MVP for April… that, or MPS (Most Pleasant Surprise) – especially in light of the whole Fister-DL-thing.
Had Smyly struggled like other Tiger rookie (and a few ‘veteran’) starters, the ‘concern level’ would be much more elevated than it is now.
Considering the demoralizing defeat on Fri, if the Tigers can get a win today and salvage a series win in NYC, that would say a lot about this team.
I think this team is coming to the realization that ‘nothing is going to come easy’ – and the AL Central crown will have to be ‘earned’… we shall see how that ‘realization’ translates onto the field.
Well said Norman….he is the only player that has seemed to go beyond his potential. BTW, Fielder hasn’t had a homer in 20 games!
Come on Max, how about a two hitter and no runs scored like you did in Game 2 of the ALDS?
Same old same old Bad Max. Can they really afford to hand this guy the ball every 5th game?
I’m beginning to wonder that myself…
He has been getting bad calls by the home plate ump ….. too many walks thought.
geez……Rayburn in the field……..Dr. Strangeglove………
Based on the radio broadcast, some of this can be blamed on the umps.
Roger that Kevin…both runs as Jeter should of KS’ed or KC’ed on the same pitch
Based on 7 Walks, I’m not going to blame the umps. This is just Scherzer being Scherzer…
Wow ….. what an attempt by A-Jax to take away a HR from Grandy!
Trying to figure out how Leyland justifies any playing time for Raburn…
I hate it when JL does this. Big league debut in the highest pressure situation of the game. Hasn’t really worked out much recently.
Granderson ripped that, fortunately Worth was playing 2B. I’ll take it.
Smokey really likes to roll the dice ….. and that costs this team too many lost wins every year,
I don’t think it is a matter of him rolling the dice, he just doesn’t mange pitching staffs, especially bullpens, very effectively.
Welcome to the MLB Luke!
I think we would have seen Dirksy in left if it were not for a lefty starter ….. but then again if you want to be a regular starter you have to be able to hit against righty’s and lefty’s ….. so Smokey should be giving him the chance to hit against both.
Raburn can hit neither, which means he should get no playing time by that logic, but I don’t think that logic plays in that Tigers club house…
Touche ….. Dirksy should be in there every day ….. better defense by far and better offense than Raburn.
Teixeria has done anything this series.
Inge signed by Oakland. Nice to see he is still in baseball.
Hey, we’ll give them Raburn as a signing bonus!
A two for one special!
What is the % of groundballs, that are fielded by our infield? Fielder gets NO groundballs, None…That guy needs to hit WAY better or be a DH for it to work in our favor…He is the worst defensive first baseman, that I have ever seen. He lets more DP balls (From last year) turn into 1st and 3rd situations then anybody I have ever seen. The Tigers let every pitcher off the hook w/ a very low pitch count, yet, they still strike out a ton. It seems that we never foul off many pitches and make the other guy work. It’s amazing that this game is even close. The defense is an issue that will not go away, nor is the issue of too many walks by our pitchers…It is ridiculous. You can’t win 90 games w/ this bad of defense. It will NOT happen. Fielder needs to be the DH or he needs to be working day after day, to improve. Dirks needs to play everyday, and ideally, you move Jhonny to 2nd and trade for a SS that can play defense. The last part is a bit far fetched, so, just trade for a legitimate major league 2nd baseman. They have real, serious issues w/ defense, bullpen, and any starters outside of Smyly and JV and Smyly is a rookie, so, his 2nd half is a mystery. (Many rookies struggle as their innings get to new levels) Not to mention the baserunning or productive outs. Our guy would have struckout and Grandy fights back from 0-2 and moves both runners up. That is a problem because when Grandy played for us…He would have swung at one of those pitches down 0-2 and struck out. Why is this?
Chris
Jhonny cannot play 2B.
Never has – Never will!
Inge prevented Kelly from getting 2B-time in spring training. Not saying the test would have worked. But I wanted to see it on a trial basis. Too bad Inge spoiled the trial period.
Santiago should be playing 2B for 90 games… another 25 at SS this season. Nice to see Worth back. Maybe he can spell Ramon at 2B instead of Raburn.
A trade is coming in the next 60 days. It will involve a prospect lefty starter – prospect reliever and hopefully Raburn.
If Raburn and Inge can play 2B…Why could Jhonny not play it? I know he won’t because he is our best option at SS, I was in fantasyland…Pretending that if we could acquire a great young defensive SS, it would be more valuable than having two weak positions at the middle infield. Jhonny can’t play SS, but, he does. The only guy in the league w/ worse range is the 38 yr old Jeter (and he is a hall of famer and still will DH on occasion) Not to mention he has a 2 former gold glovers at 3rd (A-Rod and Chavez) both help to mitigate his lack of range. Cano at 2B has a ton of range ( will commit errors) and Tex is a gold glover…so, in other words they can put up w/ one weak defensive player, when he brings the offense and intangibles that Jeter brings….Our team has average offensive players (Raburn and Peralta, Boesch, and Young) stinking up our defense, when we already have to compensate for Fielder and Cabrera. We would be better off w/ complementary players that can run and play defense as opposed to these guys like Peralta, Boesch,and Raburn…I know it’s a fantasy, but, that is what I would like.
Homeplate umpire clown show!
He was safe. It was pretty obvious. Laird is the only guy in baseball who doesn’t block the plate in that situation.
Wow, and the defense sucks again…
This defense is beyond terribel. Laird doesn’t even block the plate. He had plenty of time and he just didn’t do it. The fundamentals of this team are awful, the fact that Illitch spends so much money and are in a weak division, makes them capable of winning some games, but, I am amazed at the degree of bad baseball they have played under this coaching staff and how it is just accepted. Remember, we didn’t win a pennant in 2006…We lost to an inferior team in the WS because we couldn’t field groundballs and throw them to the proper base. That should have been a wakeup call, instead we doubled down on stupid baseball. The Yankees have struggled all day to get the big hit, but, they still have been able to tack on runs, because they are not waiting for the big hit…They are aggressive on the bases and are working for walks. The Tigers score when, they get hits and sometimes, they need 2 hits w/ RISP because they run the bases so poorly…It’s tough to win games, when you need hits to score all your runs.
7 innings and 88 Pitches. LMFAO. You can’t win like that.
Good at bat Worth!
TBS Announcer just referred to the Tigers as “heavy hitting”… Apparently he is still going with the perceived pre-season Detroit Tigers and not reality…
Where do the Tigers find these guys to put in the bullpen? They don’t throw strikes and they don’t hold runners. What good are they?
There aren’t too many teams in the league with good middle relief, but yeah, that’s one of our biggest weaknesses. All things considered, I like our rotation and back of the bullpen, but you can pretty much pencil in all of the miscellaneous relievers for at least a half a run per inning.
Amen. I would expect this foolishness from the Royals or Cleveland but this club is supposed to be a “contender” and yet they push these barely double A players out in a close game to do what? See what happens? Frustrating.
And so ends a really, really bad stretch of baseball. The Tigers were only in the game thanks to the generosity of the Yankees, who 2+ runners left on base through the first 5 innings. That game could have easily been 10-2.
I know that we’re having problems with our middle relievers, but so does everyone else. That’s why those guys are 4A middle relievers. The problem is really the starting pitching. Collin Balester should be pitching once per week, not once every other game. The horrendous starting pitching from Scherzer and Porcello is exacerbating the control problems in the pen.
I listened to the Yankees broadcast for a bit to see if they had any comments on the umpiring (they didn’t). But they were confused by the Dirks for Raburn swap in the bottom of the 7th (not a PH situation). They seem to think that Raburn is a better LFer. I have no idea why, they saw enough.
Fielder will hit for more power. Boesch will hit. Peralta will hit. Avila will hit (though probably not like last year). We’ll be fine. We’re gonna have a low point, I honestly just think that we hit it early.
When the Tigers start playing good ball is when we can say the bad stretch is over. There is no reason to expect KC to roll over and accomodate.
How does horrible starting pitching affect the bullpen’s control issues? If you are saying the bullpen is being taxed from overuse, I agree, but then you have to question the way it is being managed as well.
Kevin
Both Fielder and Pujols are finding out the AL is the superior league. It’ll be interesting when both sluggers start getting getting 2nd-3rd games against these unknown AL starters.
Who wins in the end will likely be the $450M pair. But the waiting game continues and right now, both look like Big Busts.
Plus, Fielder at 1B has been disappointing. Hopefully there isn’t any fine print limitations to his DH-time inside his new contract. If there is, things could get real ugly around 1B in the back-half of his long contract.
Fielder is hitting about .500 w/ RISP. I would hardly call him a bust. His defense is awful, but, he can hit.
Yanks pitcher strike out 10 and the Tiger pitchers walk 10……any questions??
Scherzer needs to strengthen his left leg. His windup insists on it for better consistency. Also, his hole at the rubber should be ‘kicked-out”/enlarged more often. His windup insists on it for better consistency.
Now will someone reading this – having contact with pitching coach Jones, please refer this info to Jeff. It will certainly help Max improve-on his ‘busy windup/mechanics”.
Inge signs with the A’s – could be a marriage made in heaven, since the A’s are the worst hitting team in baseball (.205 team BA). Best of luck Mr Inge.
Tigers play 19 road games and only 10 home games in May – i see this as a positive, and project a good month, somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-11 or 19-10.
Here’s the Detroit Tigers’ starting lineup for tonight’s home game against the Kansas City Royals. Right-hander Luke Hochevar is scheduled to start for K.C.
1. Austin Jackson, CF
2. Brennan Boesch, RF
3. Miguel Cabrera, 3B
4. Prince Fielder, 1B
5. Andy Dirks, DH
6. Alex Avila, C
7. Jhonny Peralta, SS
8. Don Kelly, LF
9. Ramon Santiago, 2B
Starting pitcher: Duane Below
Once again, JL has his best fielding corner OF, DH’ing. Kelly’s mishap Friday is rewarded with another start in LF… go figure.
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News, views, and analysis on the Detroit Tigers and baseball
Smyly gets my vote for Tiger MVP for April… that, or MPS (Most Pleasant Surprise) – especially in light of the whole Fister-DL-thing.
Had Smyly struggled like other Tiger rookie (and a few ‘veteran’) starters, the ‘concern level’ would be much more elevated than it is now.
Considering the demoralizing defeat on Fri, if the Tigers can get a win today and salvage a series win in NYC, that would say a lot about this team.
I think this team is coming to the realization that ‘nothing is going to come easy’ – and the AL Central crown will have to be ‘earned’… we shall see how that ‘realization’ translates onto the field.
Well said Norman….he is the only player that has seemed to go beyond his potential. BTW, Fielder hasn’t had a homer in 20 games!
Come on Max, how about a two hitter and no runs scored like you did in Game 2 of the ALDS?
Same old same old Bad Max. Can they really afford to hand this guy the ball every 5th game?
I’m beginning to wonder that myself…
He has been getting bad calls by the home plate ump ….. too many walks thought.
geez……Rayburn in the field……..Dr. Strangeglove………
Based on the radio broadcast, some of this can be blamed on the umps.
Roger that Kevin…both runs as Jeter should of KS’ed or KC’ed on the same pitch
Based on 7 Walks, I’m not going to blame the umps. This is just Scherzer being Scherzer…
Wow ….. what an attempt by A-Jax to take away a HR from Grandy!
Trying to figure out how Leyland justifies any playing time for Raburn…
I hate it when JL does this. Big league debut in the highest pressure situation of the game. Hasn’t really worked out much recently.
Granderson ripped that, fortunately Worth was playing 2B. I’ll take it.
Smokey really likes to roll the dice ….. and that costs this team too many lost wins every year,
I don’t think it is a matter of him rolling the dice, he just doesn’t mange pitching staffs, especially bullpens, very effectively.
Welcome to the MLB Luke!
I think we would have seen Dirksy in left if it were not for a lefty starter ….. but then again if you want to be a regular starter you have to be able to hit against righty’s and lefty’s ….. so Smokey should be giving him the chance to hit against both.
Raburn can hit neither, which means he should get no playing time by that logic, but I don’t think that logic plays in that Tigers club house…
Touche ….. Dirksy should be in there every day ….. better defense by far and better offense than Raburn.
Teixeria has done anything this series.
Inge signed by Oakland. Nice to see he is still in baseball.
Hey, we’ll give them Raburn as a signing bonus!
A two for one special!
What is the % of groundballs, that are fielded by our infield? Fielder gets NO groundballs, None…That guy needs to hit WAY better or be a DH for it to work in our favor…He is the worst defensive first baseman, that I have ever seen. He lets more DP balls (From last year) turn into 1st and 3rd situations then anybody I have ever seen. The Tigers let every pitcher off the hook w/ a very low pitch count, yet, they still strike out a ton. It seems that we never foul off many pitches and make the other guy work. It’s amazing that this game is even close. The defense is an issue that will not go away, nor is the issue of too many walks by our pitchers…It is ridiculous. You can’t win 90 games w/ this bad of defense. It will NOT happen. Fielder needs to be the DH or he needs to be working day after day, to improve. Dirks needs to play everyday, and ideally, you move Jhonny to 2nd and trade for a SS that can play defense. The last part is a bit far fetched, so, just trade for a legitimate major league 2nd baseman. They have real, serious issues w/ defense, bullpen, and any starters outside of Smyly and JV and Smyly is a rookie, so, his 2nd half is a mystery. (Many rookies struggle as their innings get to new levels) Not to mention the baserunning or productive outs. Our guy would have struckout and Grandy fights back from 0-2 and moves both runners up. That is a problem because when Grandy played for us…He would have swung at one of those pitches down 0-2 and struck out. Why is this?
28th in MLB fielding:
http://www.detroittigertales.com/2012/04/tigers-after-three-weeks.html
Chris
Jhonny cannot play 2B.
Never has – Never will!
Inge prevented Kelly from getting 2B-time in spring training. Not saying the test would have worked. But I wanted to see it on a trial basis. Too bad Inge spoiled the trial period.
Santiago should be playing 2B for 90 games… another 25 at SS this season. Nice to see Worth back. Maybe he can spell Ramon at 2B instead of Raburn.
A trade is coming in the next 60 days. It will involve a prospect lefty starter – prospect reliever and hopefully Raburn.
If Raburn and Inge can play 2B…Why could Jhonny not play it? I know he won’t because he is our best option at SS, I was in fantasyland…Pretending that if we could acquire a great young defensive SS, it would be more valuable than having two weak positions at the middle infield. Jhonny can’t play SS, but, he does. The only guy in the league w/ worse range is the 38 yr old Jeter (and he is a hall of famer and still will DH on occasion) Not to mention he has a 2 former gold glovers at 3rd (A-Rod and Chavez) both help to mitigate his lack of range. Cano at 2B has a ton of range ( will commit errors) and Tex is a gold glover…so, in other words they can put up w/ one weak defensive player, when he brings the offense and intangibles that Jeter brings….Our team has average offensive players (Raburn and Peralta, Boesch, and Young) stinking up our defense, when we already have to compensate for Fielder and Cabrera. We would be better off w/ complementary players that can run and play defense as opposed to these guys like Peralta, Boesch,and Raburn…I know it’s a fantasy, but, that is what I would like.
Homeplate umpire clown show!
He was safe. It was pretty obvious. Laird is the only guy in baseball who doesn’t block the plate in that situation.
Wow, and the defense sucks again…
This defense is beyond terribel. Laird doesn’t even block the plate. He had plenty of time and he just didn’t do it. The fundamentals of this team are awful, the fact that Illitch spends so much money and are in a weak division, makes them capable of winning some games, but, I am amazed at the degree of bad baseball they have played under this coaching staff and how it is just accepted. Remember, we didn’t win a pennant in 2006…We lost to an inferior team in the WS because we couldn’t field groundballs and throw them to the proper base. That should have been a wakeup call, instead we doubled down on stupid baseball. The Yankees have struggled all day to get the big hit, but, they still have been able to tack on runs, because they are not waiting for the big hit…They are aggressive on the bases and are working for walks. The Tigers score when, they get hits and sometimes, they need 2 hits w/ RISP because they run the bases so poorly…It’s tough to win games, when you need hits to score all your runs.
7 innings and 88 Pitches. LMFAO. You can’t win like that.
Good at bat Worth!
TBS Announcer just referred to the Tigers as “heavy hitting”… Apparently he is still going with the perceived pre-season Detroit Tigers and not reality…
Where do the Tigers find these guys to put in the bullpen? They don’t throw strikes and they don’t hold runners. What good are they?
There aren’t too many teams in the league with good middle relief, but yeah, that’s one of our biggest weaknesses. All things considered, I like our rotation and back of the bullpen, but you can pretty much pencil in all of the miscellaneous relievers for at least a half a run per inning.
Amen. I would expect this foolishness from the Royals or Cleveland but this club is supposed to be a “contender” and yet they push these barely double A players out in a close game to do what? See what happens? Frustrating.
And so ends a really, really bad stretch of baseball. The Tigers were only in the game thanks to the generosity of the Yankees, who 2+ runners left on base through the first 5 innings. That game could have easily been 10-2.
I know that we’re having problems with our middle relievers, but so does everyone else. That’s why those guys are 4A middle relievers. The problem is really the starting pitching. Collin Balester should be pitching once per week, not once every other game. The horrendous starting pitching from Scherzer and Porcello is exacerbating the control problems in the pen.
I listened to the Yankees broadcast for a bit to see if they had any comments on the umpiring (they didn’t). But they were confused by the Dirks for Raburn swap in the bottom of the 7th (not a PH situation). They seem to think that Raburn is a better LFer. I have no idea why, they saw enough.
Fielder will hit for more power. Boesch will hit. Peralta will hit. Avila will hit (though probably not like last year). We’ll be fine. We’re gonna have a low point, I honestly just think that we hit it early.
When the Tigers start playing good ball is when we can say the bad stretch is over. There is no reason to expect KC to roll over and accomodate.
How does horrible starting pitching affect the bullpen’s control issues? If you are saying the bullpen is being taxed from overuse, I agree, but then you have to question the way it is being managed as well.
Kevin
Both Fielder and Pujols are finding out the AL is the superior league. It’ll be interesting when both sluggers start getting getting 2nd-3rd games against these unknown AL starters.
Who wins in the end will likely be the $450M pair. But the waiting game continues and right now, both look like Big Busts.
Plus, Fielder at 1B has been disappointing. Hopefully there isn’t any fine print limitations to his DH-time inside his new contract. If there is, things could get real ugly around 1B in the back-half of his long contract.
Fielder is hitting about .500 w/ RISP. I would hardly call him a bust. His defense is awful, but, he can hit.
Yanks pitcher strike out 10 and the Tiger pitchers walk 10……any questions??
In case you didn’t see Jackson’s tremendous effort on the Granderson HR:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2012_04_29_detmlb_nyamlb_1&mode=video
Scherzer needs to strengthen his left leg. His windup insists on it for better consistency. Also, his hole at the rubber should be ‘kicked-out”/enlarged more often. His windup insists on it for better consistency.
Now will someone reading this – having contact with pitching coach Jones, please refer this info to Jeff. It will certainly help Max improve-on his ‘busy windup/mechanics”.
Inge signs with the A’s – could be a marriage made in heaven, since the A’s are the worst hitting team in baseball (.205 team BA). Best of luck Mr Inge.
Tigers play 19 road games and only 10 home games in May – i see this as a positive, and project a good month, somewhere in the neighborhood of 18-11 or 19-10.
Here’s the Detroit Tigers’ starting lineup for tonight’s home game against the Kansas City Royals. Right-hander Luke Hochevar is scheduled to start for K.C.
1. Austin Jackson, CF
2. Brennan Boesch, RF
3. Miguel Cabrera, 3B
4. Prince Fielder, 1B
5. Andy Dirks, DH
6. Alex Avila, C
7. Jhonny Peralta, SS
8. Don Kelly, LF
9. Ramon Santiago, 2B
Starting pitcher: Duane Below
Once again, JL has his best fielding corner OF, DH’ing. Kelly’s mishap Friday is rewarded with another start in LF… go figure.