2012 Season, Game Post

Game 2012.135: Indians at Tigers

36 Comments

Detroit Tigers, 72-62, 2nd place, 1 back, 3 back for WC spot.

Apparently sweeping the White Sox is a momentum killer.  The last time the Tigers swept the White Sox they followed up by losing to Cleveland, who took 2-of-3 for the series.

Well, you know the old saying that momentum in baseball is the next day’s starting pitcher.  Except…Anibal Sanchez did well, and the Tigers were facing a pitcher with 0 major league wins. So much for that.

At any rate, Delmon did his part yesterday.  As frustrated as everyone had been with Delmon all season long (this writer included), Jim Leyland kept telling us he was going to get hot, and get hot he did. Over the past 7 days Young leads the team in OPS (1.383), has hit .429, and has 42% of the Tiger RBIs. And he has been consistent game after game, with a 9-game hitting streak, a 4-game RBI streak, and a 4-game extra base streak.  Smokey was right.

Now that Delmon has the D-train in gear, the next order of business is…to get Prince Fielder “off his feet.” Huh? Yes, Fielder will be DH-ing today, to get him off his feet (what about Cabrera’s feet?).  Maybe this is Fielder’s reward for making 2 impressive plays in the field yesterday.

This means Delmon has been bumped from DH, and gets the day off.  Leyland may have done what opposing pitchers could not do–find a way to cool off Delmon.

Not to worry though:  Don Kelly is there to pick up the slack. Batting 6th.

Alex Avila states the obvious, speaking of a guy who looks like he could use some time off.

Stat of the Day: Prince Fielder leads the league in both HBP (15) and IBB (17).

Today’s Player of the Pre-game:  Don Kelly.  The Donkey replaces the hot bat of Delmon Young in the lineup. Good luck with that. Maybe Kelly will surprise us all and this will be one of those Lucky Leyland moves.

Todays Who’s On First Lineup:

  1. Austin Jackson CF
  2. Andy Dirks LF
  3. Miguel Cabrera 3B
  4. Prince Fielder DH
  5. Brennan Boesch RF
  6. Don Kelly 1B
  7. Jhonny Peralta SS
  8. Alex Avila C
  9. Omar Intante 2B

36 thoughts on “Game 2012.135: Indians at Tigers”

  1. Maybe Leyland likes encouraging lowest ranking teams by giving up games to them even before they’re played. Any thoughts on how Francona will do with the Tigs next year? Just wondering.

    1. OK i’ll bite. All things relatively equal, I’m confident Francona and a new coaching staff would put DET in a better place than JL and his staff… but i think the only way JL is not managing DET next year is if he retires (either willfully or with some behind-the-scenes pressure).

      Coleman jokingly mentions the “Lucky Leyland moves” above. Even though JL gets it right sometimes, personally I’d rather have a manager that doesn’t rely too heavily on ambiguous or outdated instincts or ‘his gut’ or ‘luck’. Managers loaded with talent might be able to get away with this approach, but when the difference in talent level between you and your opponent is more negligible, the Mgr and coaching staff carry greater significance… and it seems that the Mgr (and staff) that takes care of the little things and makes sure his team is prepared usually prevails.

      This might not be a fair comparison, but I don’t believe the two Larussa led Cardinal teams that won the WS (’06 & ’11) had as much talent as the current DET team, but they found a way to win when they had to win… while too often JL led DET teams seem to find a way to lose when they need to win.

      I like JL and think he’s a really good guy, but I believe there are better managers/coaches for this team. Hopefully DET goes 21-7 the remainder of the season, win the division and prove that JL is ‘the man’, and I’m an idiot for questioning his awesomeness a/o managerial skills.

      1. I agree 100% and I think JL will be “encouraged” to retire if Tigers don’t make the playoffs. And I don’t think they will make the playoffs unless they win the division. Which is still possible at this point.

  2. When you look at 5-6 tonight..why not Kelly and Boesch…look at the next two spots and Boesch and Kelly make sense…not having Young continue until he cools off is a Leylandism at its finest!

  3. Why was AJ kept out of the lineup yesterday, considering this coming Thursday is an off day …… we sure could have used him at the bat. Smokey is the worst at putting together a lineup …… which is another reason of many why we won’t make it to post-season play.

    1. really I think the biggest reason: we hit into the most DPs in the majors and our average with RISP has to be one of the lowest [though I haven’t seen the stats]…….

  4. since the Indians’ uniforms don’t say “Sox” or “Chcago”……does that mean we’ll play more crappy ball and lose again?…….. grrr……. 🙁

  6. The Tigers are third in MLB in avg with RISP. And second in avg with RISP ,two outs. The problem ? too slow to score from second with a single. No HRs

    1. Lamont is part of the problem. Couple that with slow runners and poor base running, and our scoring efficiency is awful.

      1. Slow runners, poor baserunners, bad situational hitting, and the “best” 3rd base coach in the league, means we need to win by Blunt Force.

        1. I understand the frustrating with the Tigers being unable to bunt, advance runners, etc…on the other hand, should they really be trying? The Tigers are unable to hit a fly ball with a runner on 3rd (close to, if not worst, in the league)…so why waste an out? Infante executed perfectly there, only to lead to one more R3L2O fail. At this point I would recommend no bunts, no moving runners up, no hit and run, just swing away full speed ahead and take what comes.

  7. There is no possible way Mumbles will retire after this year…the guy is working on 1700 frickin losses…do you think that matters to him???

    You read it here first no matter how the Tigers finish he WILL be back!!!

    1. If the Pizza Man wants to win a World Series before he kicks the bucket he had better get rid of Smokey and his crew tomorrow.

  11. Joey Votto just activated today after 51 days, without Votto the Reds are 32-16… can you imagine where the Tigers would be if Cabrera on the DL for almost 2 months?

  14. BAL beating TOR 12-0 in the 8th, TAM beating NYY 5-2 in the bottom of the 7th – if that holds, BAL will be tied with NYY for 1st place, and TAM will be 1 1/2 back.

  15. If the Tigers are going to put up a run or two, its going to have the 8th inning with the top of the order coming up. No confidence in the bottom 4 hitters to produce.

    1. Been calling for that since 2010 to no avail. I would gladly sacrifice every remaining game on the schedule if it meant a guarantee that Leyland would not be skippering the team next year. That is how badly I want change. I am tired of watching hunches that don’t work, him mumbling thru a salad in postgame interviews, of resting key players in the stretch run (anyone remember when he rested Polanco in 09 on the final weekend when we were fighting for our lives).

  18. I have a little extra cash to bet the Sox battle back and win and the Pusstcat offense goes meekly in the 9th

      1. We should’t have to pray the other teams tank ….. we should be fighting for our own lives on the diamond and winning our own games.

  19. How many more do the Tigers have to lose to be under. 500 for the second half, which would be business as usual under The great Capt Mumbles leadership….oops I didn’t mean leadership..I know mumbles doesn’t believe in that nonsense!

    1. “What they need to do is they need to e-mail you guys their lineups, and then you guys can bring them in here to me, and I’ll be sure to write that down and put that on my big card, and that’s who I’ll play.”

      Now we’re getting somewhere!

      1. Nah, we’re getting nowhere…we’ll email “those guys” our lineups, they’ll toss them, and bring their own dumb lineups into Leyland…I think we need to cut out the middle man; let’s all pitch in and get Smokey an aol account or something.

  23. How about if we trade Leyland and Lamont to the Red Sox for Valentine and a coach to be named later. Then, at the end of the season DFA Valentine and hire Francona? The Red Sox fans would be happy to get rid of Valentine, and then they could slide Lamont (who was 2nd pick this year) right into the managerial role for ’13.

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