2012 Season, Game Post

Game 2012.31: Tigers at Athletics

35 Comments

If any eyes are still open at 10:05 EST and would like to watch baseball, they will have to tune in to Oakland where the Tigers will be starting a 4-game series with the A’s in tonight’s only MLB late game.

The Athletic Brandon Inge awaits the Tigers in Oakland, although they may not recognize him.  For one thing, he is wearing his pants all the way down to his white shoes.  For another, he seems to have figured out how a baseball bat works…so far, Brandon Inge has more RBI (9) in the month of May than Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, and Delmon Young combined. Inge responded to being slotted 5th in the lineup with a walkoff grand slam;  with the RHP Scherzer on the mound he moves to the 6th spot for tonight.

Speaking of which, for all the the hand-wringing about the weakness of the bottom of the order boys for Detroit, the glaring weakness of the lineup has been the 5-6 spots.

Here are the BA/OBP/SLG/OPS numbers for the Tiger 5-6 hitters compared to league averages:

  • Tiger 5th (14th): .205 .274 .304 .578
  • League Avg:      .260 .329 .458 .787
  • Tiger 6th: (14th): .178 .267 .308 .575
  • League Avg:       .257 .318 .421 .739

Either is bad enough alone; together they spell Rallykill.  Where have you gone, Victor Martinez?

And it doesn’t help that the weak 5th-hitter numbers are mostly from the DH spot (more on that tomorrow).

Sure, it doesn’t help matters that Cabrera in the midst of his 2nd slump of the season.  But even so his numbers stack up pretty well as a 3B and as a 3-hitter, if not against his numbers last season as a 1B and 4-hitter.
***

I was going to look at Scherzer’s last start, and the Reanimated Tiger-Cuddler Bartolo Colon (he last beat Detroit in 2003), but lately it doesn’t seem to matter how well the starters do–it’s all about scoring runs right now.

Yoenis Cespedes, the Cuban phenom A’s RBI leader, is out with a strained hand muscle, but it is not fractured as originally thought so he may yet play this series.

Tonight’s Player of the Pre-game:  Ramon Santiago.  Rockin’ Ramon is 11-20 against Colon.  If he has a good game, maybe he could slide over to 2B and give Raburn a, um, rest.

Today’s Dirkiriffic Lineup:

  1. Austin Jackson CF
  2. Andy Dirks LF
  3. Miguel Cabrera 3B
  4. Prince Fielder 1B
  5. Delmon Young DH
  6. Alex Avila C
  7. Ryan Raburn 2B
  8. Brennan Boesch RF
  9. Ramon Santiago SS

35 thoughts on “Game 2012.31: Tigers at Athletics”

  3. Well….the offense is going to have to do something tonight, not going to win this one 1-0…

  7. Maybe Rayburn gets the chance to make all three outs in one inning if this keeps up.

    1. To be a breakout it has to last more than one game, or indeed, one inning – we’ll see.

      2. Raburn is now hitting .125 on the year… I wonder if Oakland would trade Raburn for Inge? At this point, I’d take Inge back… He is hitting .045 points higher than Raburn…

        1. Sorry, i’m not in for that. I’ve been Inge free for 2 weeks and I’m felling good.

  10. Dirks is 3 for 3 so far. He will therefore most likely be benched tomorrow with Rayyyburn playing left field.

  11. With Jackson-Dirks-Cabrera hitting like this we could have 3 Raburns and still win.

  13. I thought we were beyond drama in this game…Smokey actually pulls Coke so he can get a righty to face Inge, and he bashes Balester for another Salami. If only we had a 2nd baseman who could hit like that…

  16. Inge is hilarious. Out of baseball by the all-star break, but hilarious nonetheless

  17. Are the bats breaking out or was it just a bad game for Colon? Any team can score 10 runs once in a while. I need to see some consistent hitting before I believe the bad stretch is over. Hopefully we can look back and say May 10th was the day they turned it around.

    And then there is the bullpen. When do they turn it around?

  18. Vince and Mark need to spend more time studying the Tigers. Pretty bad when an easy player name can’t be spelled right.

    Anyone new to this site that’s interested in following the Tigers daily should not view it as 2nd Class – even thou administration here won’t correct (or follow-up) on misspelled player names appearing daily here – by the same individuals.

    Not sure whey – for I know site founder Billfer has occasional interactions with some on the Tigers staff. If I were a Tigers staff member supporting Billfer’s site here, I wouldn’t want to read these adolescent-type mistakes on a daily basis…. kdding or not.

    Kids kid – pros don’t – regarding players lives/names.
    Want a kiddie website – or a pro website Mr. Ferris?

    1. Damus,
      I know how to spell Ryan Raburn’s name and I apologize if you took any offense to my posts. I didn’t think I was out of line because people have been “creative” with player names for the several years I have been enjoying this site. In the posts for this game alone you can read…
      Dirkiriffic
      Mad Max
      Bad Max
      Smokey
      It surprises me that you wouldn’t take offense to those posters too.
      Once again I’m sorry if my manipulation of Raburn as caused offense to anyone.

      1. Mark, I think you are wasting your time. This has been explained to Damus Fucious before. Just in the last week or so both Kevin and I tried to explain the fun-loving nature of giving nicknames to the Tigers, with various detailed examples other than “Rayburn” for Raburn (why JaKKKson, for Austin Jackson, e.g.) DF is apparently a “serious” and “professional” fan who holds no truck with humor as it is applied to “a boys game played by men” as the old saying goes. Fine for him. I have been posting for at least five years and in that time the “adolescent-type” kidding has been a constant feature, frequently by people who have also contributed some excellent analysis and commentary supported by relevant data and/or links. Who knew that unserious amateur adolescents could be so baseball savvy? And I don’t recall any instance where Dave Dombrowski or one of his lackeys chided the site for any unkind statements. Perhaps DF is under the illusion that this is the official blog of the Tigers. This is not so. We are not beholden to the organization in any way. If this site is not DFs cup of tea and he is interested in a site which is more serious and professional in its comments, I can only recommend….. well come to think of it I can’t recommend another, but if he does a diligent enough search I am sure he can find one. Good luck to you sir. In the meantime, all I can say is

        Long live K-burn, Kayburn, Rayburn, Rayyburn, Rayyyburn, Ra(ll)y(killer)burn, and so on and so forth.

  19. Admittedly, I’ll troll some of the other blogs out there to keep tabs on Tiger talk. There are a lot of great sites out there, but I feel strongly that the best and most erudite user input shows up on DTW. My goal is to provide a forum for high-level Tigers discussion. And we accomplish that on DTW.

    This site also serves as a haven for fun and a place to vent. If we want to call out Raburn, then lets do it. We also praise when it is due.

  20. Admittedly, I’ll troll some of the other blogs out there to keep tabs on Tiger talk. There are a lot of great sites out there, but I feel strongly that the best and most erudite user input shows up on DTW. My goal is to provide a forum for high-level Tigers discussion. And we accomplish that on DTW.

    This site also serves as a haven for fun and a place to vent. If we want to call out Raburn, then lets do it. We also praise when it is due.

  21. Admittedly, I’ll troll some of the other blogs out there to keep tabs on Tiger talk. There are a lot of great sites out there, but I feel strongly that the best and most erudite user input shows up on DTW. My goal is to provide a forum for high-level Tigers discussion. And we accomplish that on DTW.

    This site also serves as a haven for fun and a place to vent. If we want to call out Raburn, then lets do it. Sometimes we need to complain to like-minded friends. We also praise when it is due.

    I really appreciate and enjoy the interaction.

    Let’s go Tigers.

Comments are closed.