Delmon Young was asked what the Tigers are going to do to change their luck: “Like sacrifice a chicken or something? We’re not going to do that.” (@beckjason).
Well that seems reasonable. Not that anyone has suggested any better ideas.
Delmon also states the painful truth when he says that “we haven’t hit all playoffs,” not just against the Giants.
And yet in some ways, this is the team we have seen all season. They may have averaged 4.48 runs a game, but seldom did they score 4 runs; they were more likely to put together a run of 1 or 2-run games, then a run where they bombed the other team.
This is a feast-or-famine offense, nothing average about it.
The base running/base coaching issues, the sloppy play in the field, the inability to advance runner, the ill-timed GIDPs, the waste of brilliant starting pitching…these are all things so familiar to Tiger fans this year.
And yet that does not tell the story of the 2012 Tigers either; these Tigers, with all of these flaws, won their division, and played their way into the World Series.
They are a streaky team, having a bad streak at the worst time. But a new streak can start anytime.
As Justin Verlander tweeted this morning: “History is life’s greatest teacher and if it’s taught us anything it’s that nothing is impossible.”
Every season ends sometime, even for the winners. The players will pack up and head off to wherever they spend the winter; Octavio Dotel will buy some nice shoes; some players will be back, some won’t; management will be back at work on creating the 2013 version of the Detroit Tigers.
But it really is too soon–if nothing else for those 40,000 plus great Detroit Tigers fans holding tickets to One More Game. Here’s hoping the boys come through for them. And while we’re at it…the Giants fans are great fans as well. Let’s give them another game! What could be more fun than extending the series to Wednesday, for the team in the Halloween colors and costume beards.
Your Win One for the D Lineup: (Update: Avila scratched with right forearm soreness. Kelly is backup catcher).
1. Jackson, CF
2. Berry, LF
3. Cabrera, 3B
4. Fielder, 1B
5. Young, DH
6. Dirks, RF
7. Peralta, SS
8. Avila, C. Infante, 2B
9. Infante, 2B Laird, C
Didn’t you see the faces last night in the Tiger dugout? They were totally in shock of what happened and why they weren’t hitting and why they fell into a funk.We haven’t see such faces this entire season. Despite a typical great Scherzer outing, it’s over tonight. Sorry there will be no extra game(s) for the feel-goods. As sad as it is, such is baseball.
They fell into a funk because they sat around congratulating themselves for 5 days about how great they were by virtue of easily handling OAK and NY – on to victory in the WS vs Whoever; Destiny’s child will out and all that. The two games of T-ball organized by the manager for their own amusement served as a much needed diversion from the onerous tasks of batting, bunting, fielding and base running practice, which in any case, they weren’t going to need on their inevitable March To Glory. They all got to hold hands and sing Kumbaya (including with the manager they love to play for who never asks them to extend themselves), happily discussing what they we going to do in the off-season and how they were going to spend their World Champion money. So of course they are stunned. This isn’t supposed to be happening. Life is so unfair.
Might be the time for one of those rah rah speeches Leyland says he doesnt do.
I’d rather him spend time on the lineup card if that’s the lineup he is going with. Having Berry play again is crazy, especially at the 2 spot. Also having Gerald Laird play is just as bad. The guy is a .244 lifetime hitter, and even in an up year where he hit .280 this year he has absolutely no power. That doesn’t mean I’m happy and vouch for other players being on the team, but those are the 2 weakest hitters in our lineup.
Also it’s not bad timing of the GIDP’s, we actually led all of MLB this season with 156, the lowest team had 95. So we hit into 64% more DPs than the team that did it the least.
And I missed some of the updates and didn’t realize Avila was scratched with injury, so hopefully Laird plays a good defensive game and can maybe hold some runners on or throw somebody out.
To Delmon Young, I would say well I wasn’t thinking about a sacrifice so much as making better mental decisions to give us higher odds that would result in better realized “perceived” luck. Such as stealing when it makes sense, bunting when it makes sense, and not swinging at balls out of the strike zone especially in a hitter’s count when a walk is imminent. Try that stuff for a change and see how your luck unfolds from approaching the game under the guise of making smarter gambles with the chances you take in these events of probability. But I’ve been suggesting stuff like that for many years now, just nobody will listen.
Too Many Strikeouts.
Yeah that’s an issue too, also look at Berry there, he just missed a big hit and he failed twice still, he had a huge delay to even taking off, and then secondly his hustle was garbage it too him about 2/3 of the way down to first before he really tried to get up to speed he was just lollygagging down the first base line. That goes to what you were saying in this title post about our baserunning as a team which has been awful for over a decade and is another category that we tend to perform very poorly at.
“took” him
He didn’t get on base, but good AB nonetheless by Berry…11 pitches.
Well Berry wouldn’t have been safe on that last close throw no matter what he did, but gee whiz he didn’t come close to diving with proper technique, he hit the ground WAY in front of that bag. That’s twice now he has failed in this game in a ridiculously foolish fashion that had to do with weak mental focus. Not only does he not have the talent or the skill for this game, but he can’t even think of how to do things right, nor does he have the will power of a professional either. How embarrassing on a number of levels. Mainly to us for endorsing him as a team member, but still he should just go home and never come back.
Also for the record, I firmly believe BOTH Posey and Cespedes would be Tigers if I was the GM instead of DD. Just sayin’. Just about every Tiger fan on the Internet has denounced my ideas and sided with DD and we have Berry and Laird instead. Bad choice to any Tiger fans that opposed me in the past.
apply for the job.
of course, it would mean you couldn’t post here anymore. win-win for everyone as I see it.
well said
I did, I sent a package to DD that he never bothered to read and I received a rejection form letter saying they don’t have any job openings at this time, even though my premise wasn’t asking for a job per se. But it’s clear he didn’t read my proposal or any of my idea summaries. He claims to do anything for the pursuit of winning, and I declare him to be a liar and a fraud in that respect.
I also had an endorsement of a Tiger’s VP that could have been deemed as extra credibility for him to at least look at what I sent and hear what I have to say. He put in zero effort and completely ignored it though.
Atta boy DY. This isn’t over yet, friends.
Dotel’s goatee is really troubling.
It’s obviously troubling the Giants..I’ll take it!
Here comes THE rally.
Wow, Phil Coke!
You don’t suppose he has been dipping into Vasilerde’s misplaced Brylcream tube, do you?
I always wondered what the acronym TSE stood for. Now I know. Cool. You are probably really good at risk.
I am an expert at a vast multitude of different games of skill and intellect. If only there was a reality show for the most versatile game, D’OH!
And it’s all up to Don Kelly, oh my lordie. Okie dokie then, c’mon DON!
Congrats to the Giants. Two WS in three years! Well done!
Disheartening, but I was crushed yesterday.
Hell of a season, I really enjoyed it everyone.
Well said Kevin….see you next Spring! Have a safe winter!
Congrats Jim Leyland and Tigers. Great season. See you in March.
Would’ve been nice to get that one more game in Detroit…but in retrospect it was probably over when Verlander got bombed in Game 1. A loss is never easy to take, but at least tonight was a good game, the way a World Series game should look. Have enjoyed doing the game posts!
Well we could have pulled Verlander after 60 pitches in Game 1 and had him come back for Game 4, it was a possible option, so while he did bomb, he did have a technical possible path to redemption before we were swept. It would only make sense though if he felt he could have left after that partial outing and pitched Game 4 and Game 7.
Yes, a good game, obviously the best of the lot.
The Tigers are a good team that got beat by a better team. I disagree with any “Tigers exposed as a crap team” conclusions. I can’t think of a single “if they only woulda” involving having player X in position Y instead of what actually was. Prince Fielder’s performance at the plate the whole postseason – he seemed more lost than Quintin Berry – stands out for me as the straw that the regular season already showed as a very vulnerable camel’s back. The starting pitching, and the pitching overall, really, must stand as one of the best postseason runs ever.
What I’d like to see most for 2013: Signing Sanchez. A better defensive middle infield. Valverde, Young, and a whole bunch of deadwood gone. And though I’m a Leyland fan, I’m hoping (without much hope) that he and a number of his coaches will be gone as well.
What I like already: The pitching overall. The outfield (a lot of people think the Tigers need to go out and get some kind of name slugger for the OF; I disagree – look at the Giants OF).
Doubts: Victor Martinez is no sure thing after a year off, but what can they do until they know?
In all, I hope the Tigers stop pretending they’re some kind of Yankees Jr. and build on a great starting rotation by filling in the last 2 pieces of a bulletproof middle (especially considering how weak the corners are – this cost them a crucial run in the last game played, you know). You don’t need to be an All-Star team to win. You need contributors and to avoid the one-dimensional. The Giants are what the Tigers could easily be. Can it win in the AL? I think so.
I agree with a lot of what you said. On the offensive side, short of Cabrera, Fielder, and AJax, we don’t have many players that are valuable or that played well this year. Almost everybody is expendable and we need to figure out what our core for the future is going to be, and in the simplest of terms, we need to do a better job of picking the winners.
This blog and most of the folks on it have made this a very memorable baseball season. We now begin the long winter here in the Northwest and count the days until pithcers and catchers report. I am already planning to be in Seatlle for the series there in April, God willing, will try to liveblog. ( my bride has one of those fancy ipad thingies)
Lastly, to Tom in Lakeland give my namesake brother of yours a hug for me when you see him.
Well said Jim, and have a great trip! Good luck to our offseason and hopefully we make some good moves this offseason and come back stronger next year!
Will do James. All the best over the winter. And “Bless you boys.”
Ditto….have a great winter Jim and Tom and see you back this Spring. Always a Tiger, OTFiM.
As difficult it is for a team to even ‘get to the WS’, its important to make the most of those opportunities – unfortunately DET fans witnessed a ’06 rerun (minus the fielding miscues by DET pitching). But having said that, it was a good run for the Tigers this year… and anything but boring (exciting, frustrating, mind-boggling, etc – ‘yes’!).
Being a Tiger fan is in my DNA and therefore, i’m no stranger to the frustration, disappointment, excitement and ‘hope for next year’…that comes with the territory.
I’ve already turned the page and i’m already gearing up for some off-season roster moves… and will start making plans to go to some Spring Training games as well as some regular season games in a few cities, including a weekend series in early May in HOU. Have a great winter!
Yeah Stormin…we are already making plans to be at the 4-game Stroh’s series 2-5MAY13. The following weekend we will be at the 4-game Ranger series in Arlington. Best I can tell is that in 2013 the Tigers have 10 4-games series…interesting!
Thought this was interesting from Sharp’s Free column today:
General manager Dave Dombrowski went to each of his players in the clubhouse and hugged them. But when he got to Delmon Young and Don Kelly, he asked both to walk with him back into the outer reaches of the clubhouse for a more private conversation.
Hmm that’s interesting. He’s either talking to them about how to address the situation to keep them on, or to let them know they plan on parting ways. Must be one of the two! I’d be tempted to say it’s bad news for DY because he is grouped with Kelly, although that doesn’t mean he didn’t have different conversations with each, and as much as I don’t like Don Kelly it’s clear the Tigers think much higher of him so I have no idea what that means!
well this California boy survived 42 degrees…wind…rain…and the Tiger bats…heading back to Cali tomorrow…we don’t have winter in Southern California so I will bide my time until my month at Spring Training in 2013 which will be my 27Th consecutive spring training………..
to all my blogging friends here at DWB I very much enjoyed our interaction
. And although we are all much different in our perspective on things we share one important common bond that keeps beringing us back…….We love those TIGERS……see u in 2013
Well since our top key players are all seemingly under contract and we have lots of expendable players, I would say it’s very unlikely for us to get worse and highly likely for us to improve. So 2013 has gotta be 90 wins at the absolute minimum I would think. That should be plenty for another division title, so here’s looking to the future!
Hey guys, don’t just go away until ST! Everybody should keep checking in, because I am sure Kevin and Coleman will have some interesting post-season 2012, pre-season 2013 threads up soon. Just give them a little time to bounce back from their depressions. I expect the off-season to be active for the Tigers, as changes are a-comin’, so some lively winter time conversations will likely be on the near horizon. You wouldn’t want to miss out on the fun!
I keep this site in my Tabs under my Address Bar along with other sports sites that I visit frequently. Despite not posting until the late postseason I have at least lurked constantly throughout the season, this is one of only 5 sports sites that I visit on a daily basis if I can. I agree that there is a constant supply of fantastic stuff all year round and think you guys all do an awesome job!
I’m not going anywhere, and for any of you in the path of Sandy, keep your feet dry and stay safe!
amen to that.
everyone have a safe off-season. we should be in the running for the next few years, hopefully.
re: Leyland….it can be maddening to watch this team sometimes, and this past week was very tough to watch, but I’ll take it (and the past 7 years) over the near two decade stretch of futility we had before Leyland/Dombrowski.
ehh, that’s like saying it’s ok to murder people with a gun because burning them alive is worse. Death is not a good option if life is an alternative. We should be living in paradise with life, let alone not being murdered. So I don’t accept a previous terrible regime as an excuse or justification for DD being here. I’ve only had that argument about 20 times over the last several years.
Just came across your blog reading some articles on the world series. Looks good. I just wish I could experience a little playoff action as a Jays fan. I miss the thrill of watching my team fight in October.