Detroit Tigers, 67-58, 2nd place, 2.5 back, 1 back for WC spot.
Well, all good things must come to an end, and the Tiger win streak ended with a couple of misplays in the field, one bad pitch, and an incredible disappearing offense (or Greinke suddenly found himself again, pick your explanation).
Cabrera and his taped ankle provided the lone run of the game, and the grumbling commenced. Just how bad has the Tiger offense been? Well…not bad at all, which is the mysterious part. The Tiger team OPS (.779) is 3rd best in the AL since the break, behind only the Angels and Yankees. If you just look at August, they are 3rd best (.820) behind only the Angels and Rangers.
What makes them frustrating is that they tend to be starving or binging: they already have 8 5 run+ innings this season, but when they need just one run, like last night, they seem unable to create one, instead crossing their fingers and waiting for Cabrera and Fielder to come up.
The win Thursday over Toronto was an anomaly: a single, stolen base (!), single to win the game. Sloppy play in the field, bad base running (and an inability to stop running teams), a tendency to hit into DPs, an inability to move runners up or score them from 3rd with less than 2 out (except for the wild pitch runs; they’ve got that down), mean that they are going to lose more often than win in games like last night.
So the Tigers are NOT a bad offense; they are one of the league’s best. Just incredibly inconsistent. No three solid meals here, it’s feast or famine. Hopefully The Tiger is hungry tonight.
Smyling Drew Smyly makes his way back into the starting rotation tonight. As expected, Putty Time has come to an end for now: Luke Putkonen has been returned to Toledo to make room for Smyly.
Stat of the Day: The Tigers have the 2nd-half lead in intentional walks with 12. Wonder why.
Today’s Player of the Pre-game: Delmon Young. He has seen all of 24 pitches in his last 9 at bats. So he is more rested than some of the other guys. That’s the best I can do at why he is batting 5th again.
Todays Half-Baked Lineup:
- Austin Jackson CF
- Omar Infante 2B
- Miguel Cabrera DH
- Prince Fielder 1B
- Delmon Young LF
- Andy Dirks LF
- Jhonny Peralta SS
- Alex Avila C
- Jeff Baker 3B
Young hasn’t driven a run in batting in the 5 spot in over a month therefore using Mumble favorite logic….he’s due!!!!!!!!!!!…why else would he be batting 5
Back-to-back doubles, no runs…not what we need tonight.
CWS is finding ways to ‘win’ games, DET seems to be finding ways to ‘lose’ games …for example today, Fielder not sliding into 2nd on his double [and over-running the base], Smyly serving up a letter-high change up, and Infante not mastering the 20 ft throw to 1B
Peralta quietly does NOTHING on a daily basis….nice gig!
Lewisville, Mississippi native Craig Monroe is in the TV booth tonight. Can he grab a bat?
The theme for the Tigers play tonight is Bumble & Stumble.
in less than a month Infante has moved right up near the top tier of the clown show
Why do we have a manager? Pitchers can’t field, hitters do not know to run bases and fielders can’t field. Nothing has changed.
Good article on ESPN indicates something we all knew a long time ago. Tigers are the second worst team in baseball batting in the 5 spot , KC is worse, and the second worst team in baseball hitting in the 6 Spot., Seattle is worse…..so added together the Tigers suck way more than anyone else in baseball when you add those two spots together…..but we all knew that…..
Dirks plays for Boesch so he is obligated to swing at the same crap Boesch swings at
Back-to-back back-to-back hits for Fielder and Young, still…nothing. Maddening.
Patented Tiger R3L2O GIDP Fail. This is just who they are right now. This is not what a playoff team does.
Waste of a great effort by Smyly (a 1 ER, 6 inning and counting start by a spot starter = great start).
Ok, and Delmon 3-3…good call on POPG…the team maybe seems to be trying to hard right now (did you see Cabrera after that K…or Fielder yesterday? Delmon…he just is who he is, immune to everything.,,maybe it works right now.
Tigers have 8 hits to Rally Monkeys 4 hits
Are ya ready for some football??? Hope Tigers lethargy this year doesn’t spill over onto the Lions year. BTW any guesses who will replace Leyland next year?
Wayne Fontes.
Wayne Fontes. Ok. Good guess. Any others?
I would like to see Gibby.
I’d give Brookens a shot, he did real well in the minors before coming up to be the 1B coach. However, I think it will be someone outside of the organization. Who else managed under Drombowski?
I’m crossing my fingers for Terry Francona. Brookens is slightly tainted by association with Leyland (although much less so than Lamont and McClendon). 2011 not withstanding, Francona generally gets the most out of his teams.
We have seen this year that the offense can NOT overcome the bumblin and stumblin that this team does.
And a fair amount of the bumblin’ and stumblin’ has been done by one of the best inconsistent offenses.
Hey Smyly excellent job today..1 ER…4 hits….now here is your cab fare back to Toledo..Mumbles doesn’t’ t think u can pitch in the MLB.
That Was Peralta….. U KIDDIN ME
Jhonny P!
Rally Tigers over Rally Monkeys!
BHOOBs Rhally!
5-9…Go 20 AB..10 hits..3 R….5 RBI…might be a 2012 record
That’s where the inconsistency is, and has been all season. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.
I don’t think Leyland is going anywhere, even if we miss the playoffs.
Leyland has pictures of Dombrowski, Delmon has pictures of Leyland, and TMZ has pictures of Delmon.
And Dombrowski must have pictures of Illitch.
Do not want to see any of those pictures!
Good going last night BOOOBs (there are 5 of them, thus the extra O), but not to get too excited, a reminder:
“The numbers five through nine hitters have batted a remarkably weak .245/.307/.367 for the season. That’s five spots in the lineup with .674 OPS!. That helps to explain why a team with three of the ten best hitters in the American League – Austin Jackson, Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder – is only seventh in the league in runs scored.” – Lee Panas
In other words, although the Tigers have 3 of the best 10 individual hitters in the league, they are not one of the best hitting teams. At this late date the composite statistics don’t reflect the degree of imbalance in the lineup. When the big three aren’t hitting (Jackson hitless in 5 of last ten games, Cabrera hitless in 5 of last 6) the weakies aren’t much help, and they are hard pressed to score. Up until now, except for a brief stint in July when the team seemed to be running on all cylinders, the bottom feeders generally haven’t done much and it’s pretty hard to imagine things changing dramatically down there over the last month of the season. But maybe last night’s game will get them going and it will be different from now on.