2012 Season, Game Post

Game 2012.58: Tigers at Reds

53 Comments

Detroit Tigers, 26-31, 6 games behind Chicago.

Day-to-Day injuries: 2 (Benoit, Laird). 15-Day DL: 4 (Jackson, Fister, Avila, Dirks).

The Tigers hop on the bus and ride their 1-game winning streak south to Cincinnati, where they will engage in a 3-game Sparky Bowl series with the Reds.

The Reds have taken over first in the Other Central, led by MLB Most Valuable Player Joey Votto (if you take WAR rating as a guide), who failed to get the memo about how performance should tail off after signing a huge contract.

The Reds will be facing Rick Porcello, who tries to follow up an a good 1-run, 6 inning outing against New York. The Reds will counter with Mat Latos, who they received this offseason from the Padres in exchange for Yonder Alonso, Edinson Volquez, Yasmani Grandal, and Brad Boxberger. Just wanted to type those names.

Austin Jackson,  Doug Fister, and Andy Dirks are all preparing for their returns.  If there are any more setbacks, Jim Leyland may be singing a different tune, as StorminNorman posted.

So here is today’s challenge.  In Jim Leyland’s future career as a singer, his signature song will be:  ______.

In other news, Detroit won’t have Omir Santos to kick around anymore: he has refused his assignment to Toledo and is now a free agent.

Stat of the Day: Something is foul here.  The Tigers lead the AL in the propensity to foul off pitches: 29% of the team strikes are from foul balls.  I have a feeling this is a good thing, although I can’t quite articulate why.

Tonight’s Player of the Pre-game:  Rick Porcello. Rick Porcello and his .250 career average gladly grabs some lumber and helps his own cause.

Tonight’s Un-Designated Lineup

  1. Quintin Berry CF
  2. Brennan Boesch RF
  3. Miguel Cabrera 3B
  4. Prince Fielder 1B
  5. Delmon Young LF
  6. Jhonny Peralta SS
  7. Gerald Laird C
  8. Ramon Santiago 2B
  9. Rick Porcello P

53 thoughts on “Game 2012.58: Tigers at Reds”

  1. Great prelude for the game. As for my nomination of a Leyland song “Don’t cry for me Alburquerque.”

    For what its worth, the Tigers (and the Wings) don’t ride buses, rather a MD81 that can be tracked via: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N682RW If you track such, you will find they have lots of sleepless nights of travel.

    1. I know that about the bus (although they did take one for a Cleveland series last year, and it turned out to be good luck!).

    2. As for the song, I’m still thinking about it…turns out “I Don’t Want To Hear Any Weak S— From Jason Grilli” isn’t actually a song.

  5. Little things. Berry not even realizing that the runner is tagging. Berry has made some plays, but, fundamentally he is not a very good fielder, he gets by on athletism. He had an easy play to first, what is Rod talking about? set his feet and throw a 92 MPH seed to first and you get the out and live to fight another day…This team is moronic.

  6. Rick Porcello is seen by the media and some fans around Detroit as some great young prospect…if you look around baseball…He is a below average at best #4 starter, this team likes to talk about its pitching and that is DD’s excuse when we can’t find a position player down in AAA that is any good…Well, he drafts pitchers…No, he drafted Justin Verlander…He hasn’t drafted another good pitcher, since he has been here. He has drafted some flash in the pans and made some great, great trades. He made a big mistake not trading Porcello back when he was a “prospect” he may want to do the same with Jacob Turner. His track record with his draft picks is pretty poor. Thankfully, Florida thought highly of Miller and Maybin…because those guys suck and thankfully he developed Granderson because that trade is where we got most of our players, that we were supposed to be drafting all these years. It’s mind boggling how few players, Detroit has developed during DD’s tenure..Yet, he is treated as Kenny Holland in some circles in this town. He is a good baseball man, but, he better start hitting on some of these drafts or there will be nowhere to hide anymore.

  7. I wonder if the advanced scouting guys have in their notes that if you throw balls down the middle the Reds will hit them hard…but then again maybe the advanced scouts are from Smokeys old folks home and they havent gotten there yet..

  11. Young’s pitch count OPS:
    0-0: .697
    1-0: .923
    0-1: .773

    Yet, he’s swung at 34 first pitches, as opposed to 35 combined 1-0 + 0-1. Isn’t anyone in the dugout relaying this information to him?

      1. Thanks for the stats…Nobody is going to throw him a good 1st pitch strike on purpose until he proves that he will lay off it. So, his numbers are probably bad because they throw him crap and he swings at it. Bench him until he changes…it isn’t that hard. He is batting 5th, let Peralta have that spot (his bat is perking up) see what we can do, the top 4 spots are doing a good job of getting on base.

  12. 4-3 game. Heart of the order. Runners on 1st and 2nd. Latos threw 1 or 2 strikes in the next 13 or 14 pitches and we get nothing. The advanced scouts have put the word out, you guys expand your zone when the pressure is on..at least Jhonny finally took the walk. Base Hit Laird.

  14. If you swing at the first pitch. Be ready, the bases are loaded and this guys can’t throw strikes and you lift that weak little popout. We are back in the game, but, that inning is why we are under .500…We just wouldn’t let the pitcher fall apart…we had to bail him out. Delmon Young, IMO, should be benched in favor of anybody until he starts actually trying at the plate…It’s a joke. I don’t care if he has started to hit the ball..Considering where he is batting in the order..his numbers may be among the worst in all of baseball. On top of it, he was unavailable for a week because of immature behavior…Millions per year and he can’t stay out of jail on a work night and he plays like garbage..play Raburn anybody over that stiff.

  16. Rod”you cant throw a fastball past Young”..what he should have said is Young has never seen a fastball he doesnt like..anywhere

  19. please fire Mumbles before the 9th inning….who the crap is Ortega…..duh¡!!!!!!!¡!!!!!!¡

  20. another ‘fresh off the bus from Toledo, bring him out in a pressure situation’, gone wrong

  23. Well, Young proved me wrong, but, not ol’ smokey…He uses a guy in his first ML appearance w/ the tying run on second…Which is odd, to me, but, even more odd that you let Below bat and then he doesn’t even get to finish the inning. Boesch is also out of the game..a guy with 3 hits…again, understandable, if you have Benoit available..but, if you are going to use Jose Ortega..you may want to keep your best offensive players in the game…It made no sense, to let Below bat and then replace him w/ an unproven rookie at a high leverage situation during the game. I know Benoit is unavailable, but, by that logic…you thought your best reliever available tonight was Jose Ortega. You were 5 outs away from victory…I don’t get it, no offense to Ortega, but, if was highly thought of, then he would have already been up by now, considering Weber, Putkkonen, Balester, etc. Just a very strange managerial move that, there really is no defense.

  24. I think it is Kevin, who always brings this up…but, statistically speaking shouldn’t all managers use their ‘Closers” in those situations w/ the tying run on 2nd as opposed to bringing him in w/ a 2 run lead in the 9th…Managers and their use of closers, setup men, IMO, makes no sense…for us, it works out because on most nights he uses Benoit..who happens to be our best reliever…but, if Valverde was that guy, then you should use him in those situation and let somebody else finish the game…It’s a silly way to manage games.

  25. sure glad that all happened…..I have seen this 10000 times.Im still in stll in shock at pitching someone named Ortega

  26. For bringing in Ortega with the game on the line in the late inning ….. Smokey should be relieved of his duties come tomorrow morning ….. if not sooner ….. what a pea-brained move!

    1. They are trying to build some momentum for this trip and get things going in the right direction…The funny thing is: Jim will bat Raburn, Boesch, Young, etc. forever despite major slumps because he wants to back his guys…but, when your normal 8th inning guy is unavailable…he is basically saying to the rest of the relief corps..well, you guys all suck, so, we will give this joker a shot. This is at a critical juncture of the season..I believe JV is going tommorow, so, a win here and we might be able to build something.

  27. and we actually wonder how any manager can possibly lose over 1600… games..yet we see this stuff day after day after day

  28. regardless of the outcome tonight…Coke was huge tonight – K Votto (runners on 1st & 3rd), then a 1-2-3 9th

    a guy could get used to bullpen outings like that.

    1. “was huge tonight” – clarification: pre-10th

      apparently the bullpen was spent tonight, that Coke was rolled out again in the 10th?

  29. it was ok for your veteran LH relief pitcher to pitch o RH hittiers in the 9th where was he in the 8th with the game on he line…no you do he dumbest thing you could have possibly done.with the exception of borrowing Grilli….and you brng in a kid to make his major league debut……..

    1. that (bringing in ortega at that moment) was a head-scratcher, but its classic Leyland

    2. He’s an idiot and there is no defending this move, even if it worked..it was a stupid move, that would be hard to understand if a brand new inexperienced manager made the move…No, Jim, in a season in which nothing has gone right, comes back from a 4-0 defecit…Slumping Young hits a HR off the #1 pen in baseball and you use a rookie…who has a mid 4.00 ERA in AAA and no experience. YOU LOST THIS GAME…Don’t blame it on Rick or the fact that Benoit was unavailable…There was no excuse…then to top it off. you took out your best hitter of the night and replaced him w/ another OF who is inexperienced and not much of an upgrade…he turn a 2b into a 3B and you lose…A coach needs to put his players in a position to succeed and if Coke or Below give up the 2B to Frazier…then what can you do? He seems to think that these fresh call ups never need to be eased into anything…remember he used a “green” Don Kelly as a defensive replacement in the always difficult metrodome and he dropped a popup and it cost us the 2009 division…It’s pro sports…use some common sense…don’t do things we wouldn’t do in high school sports. Coke may not be the most consistent, but, he is a solid major leaguer and Ortega wasn’t even having a good AAA season…plus, the moment may have been too big for him. STUPID!

  31. Just when you thought we’d run out of ways to lose games.

    First of all, Fielder should have been expecting that, having played his entire career in the NL and all; secondly, Leyland should have been at the top step screaming to watch out for it. Dan and Jim saw it coming from the time Valdez picked up a bat.

    Leyland made three mistakes tonight, IMO.

    1) Ortega debuting in a high pressure situation. Though we all saw that coming. Not too surprised. (http://www.detroittigersweblog.com/2012/06/game-2012-56-indians-at-tigers/)

    2) Leaving Coke in to pitch the 10th. He’s simply not a 2 inning guy. Though with no update on Dotel, who knows why the bullpen was so depleted tonight. If we had Nolan Ryan as President he wouldn’t put up with this 1 night on, 3 nights off stuff.

    3) Not readying his team for the squeeze. I guess that Leyland saw Valdez’s .413 OPS and figured “this guy is as good a Raybun, better play him deep at 1st in case he goes oppo.”

    Yes, Raybun. I have no patience for correcting names tonight.

    And can someone explain to me what the situation was when he PH for Boesch? Wanted to save a few hits for tomorrow’s game? (I missed an inning while explaining to the world’s most incompetent cashier which item I was returning, and which I was purchasing, at one point in time she asked “Did you buy this here?” And I responded, “That’s what I’ve inferred from the receipt in your hand.”)

  33. If the situation was reversed, there is no way we would’ve pulled off that bunt against the Reds, and we all know it.

    Bunting though, like defense, doesn’t matter, because our offense will score so, so many runs this season…

  34. Pitiful,
    Chris in TX said it best. The team was rolling in that inning, 5th I think. Boesch had brought them back to 4-3 and we had runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs.
    My heresy is that Leyland should have approached Prince in the batter’s box. BUNT!
    Why?
    The shift on Prince gives him almost half a field to lay it down in.
    Worst case it’s a sac bunt and we have 2nd and 3rd with 1 out.
    Delmon the master of hitting into the double play follows Prince.

    Play just a little national league ball when it makes sense. The 3 run home run doesn’t always arrive. This game made me puke. Leyland also took Boesch out of the game so Young could misplay the ball that cost them the game. Young also gave an empty at bat to account for his night.

    Props to Phil Coke. Good job of keeping us close enough to lose.
    Dead Starling

  35. and not one media person will dare ask about the stupidity of bringing Ortega in…Leyland will beat them too it by either saying…thats baseball…or he will blame everyone buy himself…..fire him please…

    1. This is something that I really have an issue with. I try to tune in to Detroit sports talk radio from time to time (97.1, let me know if there is something better) and all I get is two guys talking over each other seeing which can dis the other harder. Every news article I read either a) promotes a book/play/poetry reading by Mitch Albom or b) makes obvious points that look like they were written by a Tigers PR intern. I get my best Tigers coverage right here and from the other Tigers bloggers (Panas and Beck are my favorites). What’s up with the Detroit media these days? I don’t tune in for Red Wings/Lions/Pistons coverage – but how do those compare?

      I will say that the writers for the Freep and News seem to be more willing to take shots at UM and MSU than Leyland or DD.

        1. That’s the problem, it’s not going to improve. That’s like writing “Valverde’s gut needs to shrink.” Obviously, it’s an issue, but more obviously, it’s not going to get any better.

          Mitch, if you’re reading this, how about “Leyland should consider using 2012 managing techniques, not 1992 ones.”

          1. The media coverage is so biased in favor of the Tigers it is crazy.,.which is why I like to point out that DD’s drafts have not brought many good ML players in a DECADE. Thank god, somebody traded for our trash. Thank God for Curtis Granderson, or we would have nothing. The farm system has been a giant disapointment and then the way Jim and Dave are treated. I think Holland and Babcock take more heat in the press…and think of what Kenny helped build. Terry Francona and Theo Epstien are both out at Boston and think of what they accomplished…You have a right to believe that Jim and Dave have done a good job and deserve long contracts, but, the part that infuriates me is the way, they act as if that is a no-brainer..In the world of pro sports…They have not been that successful, when you consider DD has been hear over 10 years. Many, many more succcessful ppl have been fired in sports.

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