56-44, 1st place, 3.5 games up.
The Tigers again took advantage of the hapless White Sox and cruised to a 6-2 victory. Cruised may not even be descriptive enough. After the fourth batter the game was never in doubt, and other than a really bad outing by Rondon and some bullpen chaos, there was little cause for concern for the Tigers’ faithful. The Phil Coke 1 batter experiment really backfired last night (5 pitches, 2 strikes, 1 hit, no outs), and I have to think that his trade value has plummeted to a handful of ham sandwiches. Oh, and Leyland is not happy with Putkonen/Coke right now.
Justin Verlander pitches this afternoon. That’s all I have to say about that.
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A few notes:
– Infante went 1-3 for the White Caps last night. Perez is a capable fill-in and I look forward to seeing him full-time in a few years. But I’m ready for Infante to come back.
– A guy over at ESPN suggests that Castellanos should be the guy to fill the LF hole (you’ll need insider).
– Great article on Fangraphs yesterday about Torii Hunter embracing the #2 spot and a corner OF position.
– I really like the idea of MLB skills competition during the AS game festivities.
– As william pointed out yesterday, we still have 12 games against the White Sox after today.
I’m looking forward to a nice afternoon game. I’ll hold my calls, have lunch at my desk, and chat with Dan and Jim for a few hours.
Lineup to come.
how did the White Sox get so bad,? so fast. We know it started with the dive at the end of last season, but their personnel aren’t near as bad as they actually play!
They overachieved early last year and now they are just playing out the string, waiting for those trades that will get them to a contender.
Here we go.
It looks like Miggy’s medical issues are worse than initially thought …… seeing that he has missed 3 games in a row with no estimated time of return.
When more than one of our best players get injured at the same time, for an extended period of time, our goose is cooked.
When can teams increase the size of their rosters?
This is why an effort has to be made to get a decent bench. It’s been so many years since the Tigers have had one, we don’t know what one looks like. Considering the salary of this team it is negligence bordering on the criminal.
Sept 1.
Not sure how I can check this, but I’ve gotta believe that JV has one of the worst WHIPs among starters over the past few months.
In his last 10 starts before today it is ~1.38. That is surprisingly consistent compared to the entire season. Obviously way higher than what we are used to.
Interestingly over those 10 starts (65.2 IP), JV’s K=46, BB=26. That’s 6.3 K/9, which is very low for him. Whatever the problem is, we are 100 games into the season and he hasn’t figured it out.
how can he be this bad all of a sudden ? Just blows my mind.
I get nervous every time he pitches. I haven’t said that in 5 years.
They gotta pull JV.
So I’m following along on Gameday, if the pitch tracker is right, all of these balls are right in the middle of the plate.
Arguably all of these runs are unearned b/c of the Dirks play, but JV still gave up all of those hits after the fact.
Oh yeah, and the AJax throw was ridiculous as well.
Okay, I’m done for now. Well, at least until next inning.
Not JV’s day! Turned the game off and going rollerblading ….. absolutely can’t stand to listen to Hawk crow!
It’s very hard to sweep a 4-game series, against anyone, much less on the road. That being said, I really do wish Verlander weren’t the one with the clown shoes today.
I don’t care what the player’s name is, if he is performing this badly you have to get him out of there. And with a low octane offense, we don’t have the luxury of giving up extra runs.
It looks these guys may be shifting into quick getaway mode.
3/4 is fine. I don’t even mind JV losing, But his pitching line is awful.
want to thank Pena for his once a week contribution..too bad your back on the bench for the next 5 games while Mumbles son Alex flails away at some more pitches
Days like this remind you that–based on the track record of past 30+ long term starting piotcher deals–that the Verlander deal is going to lead to some hundred loss seasons in the ’17 and ’18 era. They owe Verlander and Fielder a third of a billion dollars.
Oh well. SMOKE’M WHILE YOU GOT THEM.
Infante re-injured ankle today, doesn’t look like he’ll be back any time soon.