Detroit Tigers, 52-44, 1st place, up 1 game.
Game 1 of the new Tiger lineup starts tonight. Omar Infante rejoins the Tigers, as they look to continue their 5 day win streak and command of their Central division foes (20-14 in the division).
Tonight Doug “2nd Half” Fister goes for his 3rd straight strong outing, against Ubaldo “Human Trade Deadline Warning Label” Jimenez.
Infante is in the lineup tonight, despite the right-hander on the mound. Which is either the Leyland thing where the new guy starts right away, or means there won’t be any more platooning at 2nd.
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Kevin’s trade thread is here.
I like the trade too, and the Infante part of the trade I had been expecting. An ex-Tiger, a Marlin, a Venezuelan, and a 2nd-baseman who can hit. What’s not to like?
The Anibal Sanchez end of the trade is more interesting. Trading for a rental always has its downside (Sanchez is a free agent at the end of the year). But there is all the reason to believe that the Tigers can keep Sanchez if they want him: he should feel comfortable amongst his fellow Venezuelans (Miguel Cabrera is from the same home town, Maracay), and his agent is Scott Boras, who seems to work better with the Tigers than any team in baseball.
There are also a couple of intriguing things in the Sanchez stat line for this season. In addition to his excellent 3-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio (look out Leyland–too many strikeouts!), his ground ball to fly ball ratio has shifted dramatically this season toward the ground ball, a 1.43 vs career 1.21. This on a team with a much worse left-side of the infield than the Tigers, which may explain in part why his performance against RHB has taken a dive this season (2.88 BAA vs career 2.55 BAA).
Which brings up another concern about the Sanchez part of the trade. The Tigers are now left with a pure right-handed rotation, which is a big vulnerability (think facing the Yankees in Yankee stadium). I feel a bit better after looking at Sanchez’ splits. Over his career he actually is as tough on lefties as on righties (career .253 BAA vs career .255 BAA), and this year actually much tougher (.229 BAA vs .288 BAA).
Sanchez is scheduled to make his Tiger debut against Toronto saturday.
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To make room for Omar Infante, Detroit has shipped Danny Worth back to Toledo. No tears were shed, nor did Danny curse his fate: “In honor of getting optioned down for the 11th time (I think?) of my career, I shall buy a sweet ass electric guitar.”
There are more moves to come. Andy Dirks continues his rehab assignment at Toledo, and Al Alburquerque begins his at Lakeland.
Stat of the Day: This one is for you Anibal: meet your new 3rd baseman. Hanley Ramirez Runs From Fielding Value: -10 runs. Miguel Cabrera: -1.
Today’s Player of the Pre-game: Omar Infante. Welcome back to the D.
Today’s Infantastic Lineup:
- Austin Jackson CF
- Quintin Berry LF
- Miguel Cabrera 3B
- Prince Fielder 1B
- Delmon Young DH
- Brennan Boesch RF
- Jhonny Peralta SS
- Alex Avila C
- Omar Infante 2B
Miggy might be a helluva hitter…….but he does stupid things in the field at times……….and it’s twice this inning………
Wait a minute, 2Bmen aren’t supposed to get hits.
Meanwhile, Danny Worth plugs in and begins to play Free Bird…
Complete lack of clutch hitting tonight against a very hittable pitcher…
This is our inning.
Maybe they are still high from the CHI sweep. Time to come back to earth boys.
Can’t win them all.
CWS losing right now.
…and Williamham increased his trade value (if the Twins decide to move him) – he hit his 24th and 25th HR, 72nd RBI.
Right after I typed that the CWS scored 4, the 5 runs in back to back innings.
So tied for 1st.
i like the Scherzer – Lowe matchup tomorrow – especially considering D. Lowe was pummeled by BAL his last outing (7/20) – 3 IN, 7 H, 9 ER 2 HRs, 5 BB
DET got 9 hits and 7 runs against Lowe last month in DET’s ‘lone win against CLE this year’
Well……despite Jimenez struggling against pretty much any team not named Detroit, he has owned us big-time this year. That is 4 ER combined in three Jiminez starts versus us in 2012 (CLE has won all three of those games by the way). Whatever it is that other teams have figured out against Ubaldo, we apparently did not get the memo. Time for our advance scouts to try and trade some info with advance scouts of other teams regarding Mr. Jiminez as we may have to face him three more times this year depending on how the schedule falls. I can pretty much guarantee that Manny Acta is going to do all he can to make sure that Ubaldo pitches in all three of those series as long as CLE remains in the race.
The Cleveland Indians are sure giving the Tigers a tough time this year. If someone would have told me the Indians would e 6-1 against the Tigers at the start of this season I may have fell over dead….