2013 Season, Game Post

Game 2013.41: Tigers at Rangers

17 Comments

23-17, 2nd place, .5 games behind Cle (won earlier today)

Wow, what a game last night. Spectacular effort by Porcello (that’s now 24 Ks in his last 25 IPs – 3.24 ERA and a .96 WHIP…pretty salty), and the bullpen was almost as good. Luckily, I was at a graduation celebration last night and didn’t have to stomach Valverde in the 9th. Kudos to those of you who stuck it out.

Rangers starter Justin Grimm was the AL rookie of the month for April after going 2-0 with a 1.59 ERA and 1.18 WHIP, but it’s been pretty grim since then. In May, he’s 0-3 with a 7.02 ERA. This month his walks are up, the BAA has skyrocketed to .300, and he’s not getting very many groundballs (.88 GO/AO). Note, his BABIP in April was .362, so it looks like he really did simply have a heck of a start, and perhaps now things are starting to even out. Though the Tigers have been known to struggle against unknown struggling rookie guy.

Sanchez will be looking for his 8th straight quality start tonight. Remember when JV had a streak like that? Sanchez is currently 4th in the AL with 66 Ks and 5th with a 2.05 ERA. 

Very hot and a jet stream out to right tonight. Sanchez has allowed 1 HR all season…the Rangers lead the AL in HR. Grimm has been giving up a lot of flyballs.

A win tonight would be huge. I’d love to have a shot at taking the series.

**********

A few notes:

– The Tigers have 407 hits so far (leads the AL) and 403 pitching Ks (leads all of MLB).

– May 25th will be the 25 year celebration of the ’68 team.

Tonight’s Lineup:

1. Dirks, LF
2. Hunter, RF
3. Cabrera, 3B
4. Fielder, 1B
5. Martinez, DH
6. Peralta, SS
7. Avila, C
8. Infante, 2B
9. Garcia, CF

17 thoughts on “Game 2013.41: Tigers at Rangers”

  1. In the what have you done lately department. LAST TEN GAMES

    Player………..OB…….R…….RBI……AVE
    Dirks 18 5 6 .297
    Hunter 8 1 4 .163
    Cabrerra 16 4 6 .279
    Fielder 11 4 “1” .171
    Martinez 8 4 5 .156
    Avila 12 4 7 .206
    Peralta 21 12 4 .394
    Infante 16 6 3 .375
    Kelly 6 4 2 .174

    1. Infante…Dirks…..Cabrerra ob base 50 times in 10 games have scored 14 times only

      1. Mumbles two sons Ramon and Don have been on base added together 12 times all SEASON scoring 5 runs batting in 3

      2. I’m not positive, but I think that scoring 28% of the times you reach base isn’t too far off the norm.

        1. Ramon and Don have actually reached base 24 times in 89 AB (97 PA) combined. 11 runs scored (46% of the times they’ve reached, they’ve scored), 4 driven in (with somewhat below average RBI opportunities). Exactly 0 GIDP as well.

  2. to sum it all up..Elvis Andrus did more than the entire Tiger team added together….

  3. 8 runs in 3 games. At Rangers Ballpark. Summer weather. 4 runs in 3 innings against the best pitcher in baseball at the moment, and then 4 runs in 24 innings since, 19 of those innings against not the best pitcher in baseball at the moment.

    2-13 when scoring 3 runs or less
    6-5 when scoring 4-6 runs
    15-0 when scoring 7+ runs

    What stands out about this is not the W-L, which are probably only a bit off the norm, but the relative lack of a middle. Feast or famine. That gets lost in the aggregate team stats, which tend to trumpet the Tigers as one of the best hitting teams in the AL. They don’t rank as high in consistency, I suspect, and I’m a bit afraid to look at the come-from-behind numbers. My impression is that when the Tigers fall behind, they pretty much curl up and die.

    There’s also about a full 2 run difference in runs per game, home vs. road.

    1. And then you have the pitching:

      0-10 when allowing 7+ runs
      4-5 when allowing 4-6 runs
      19-3 when allowing 0-3 runs

      The lack of a middle here is definitely a good thing. In case you were wondering how the Tigers manage to be as good as 23-18, this is a clue.

      1. With those numbers it makes the batting sessions look relatively pointless. They never mattered. The price of irrelevancy is sky high today!

        1. Meanwhile…

          The Tigers have managed to put up 4+ runs in streaks only twice: 7-8-4-6 and 7-6-5-4. On the other hand, there’s only been one alarmingly cold spell: 2-0-1-0-3. You should be able to recall exactly which 5 games those were.

          The Tigers have had only one bad pitching streak: 8-10-4-5-8. Far and away the most given up over 5 consecutive games.They have had two notable 3 or less streaks: 3-1-2-1-2 and 3-3-2-0-3.

          1. See, if they were only more consistent, the Tigers could be 41-0, with 41 consecutive 5-4 victories…

    1. Fair point. Kelly has been a pinch runner 5 times and scored once as such. That reduces the Kelly/Santiago reached base/scored run % to 42%, still above the league average of 30%.

      Prince Fielder scores 19% of the time he reaches base. In some measure because of his baserunning, but mainly because of Martinez and Avila hitting behind him. It;s a shame for the Tigers to waste Fielder’s great OBP, but on the other hand, part of that OBP is due to the fact that Martinez offers no protection whatsoever. In the last 20 games or so, I think that Fielder has more walks than hits. His frustration at the plate has become palpable.

      1. Without a perfect lineup, there’ll always be some dividing line where “middle of the order” becomes “bottom of the order”. I’d like to see more production out of Martinez and Avila ,but at the end of the day, Fielder being walked regularly just means we get around to the top of the order that much faster, so if that’s our biggest problem, we’ll be ok.

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