43 thoughts on “Game 2013.126: Twins at Tigers”

1. I think that ball is gone if Cabrera is feeling okay.

   1. Cabrera hit the ball really solidly his 2nd at bat…and it was a routine line out to LF. I don’t think he has his legs under him.

2. Thought I had a POPG score there. Victor Martinez has the longest singles in baseball.

   1. I think you ended up with the POPG score after all.

3. is it me or does AJ look like a deer in headlights batting the last few….weeks??

   1. Maybe he should wear sunglasses at night, like Prince. To help with the headlights.

      1. Earlier this season, when the slump had begun and he was off the sunglasses for the most part, I was thinking he hits better with sunglasses. Somebody with a lot of time should look into the sunglasses/no sunglasses splits.

4. going into today, MIN is dead last all MLB for ‘quality starts’

5. Oh no, there is going to be more hat tipping tonight, isn’t there?

   1. You’ve nailed an important point. No more hat tipping. I notice a strong association between hat tipping and losses.

6. The inevitable stolen base cost us a run there.

   1. This is the dirty little secret about the Tigers that no one wants to talk about, but it will cost us a big game somewhere down the stretch. Teams run with impunity against us (part of the reason why the Angels swept the season series from us). It doesn’t matter if Avila, Pena, or Holaday is behind the dish. The green light is always on. The Tigers need to figure out a way to slow down the running game because when they are playing other good teams that they can’t just overpower into submission, that glaring weakness is going to get exploited.

      I don’t know if Ol’ Smoky needs to start calling a few pitchouts, but whatever the Tigers are currently doing in terms of holding base runners is a huge fail. If Hunter doesn’t get that big hit in the 7th, that easy stolen base by Florimon with two outs that immediately preceded a RBI single may have been the difference in a 1-0 ballgame.

      I’m genuinely worried about our complete inability to stop the other teams from swiping bags. I believe I read on mlb.com that the Florimom stolen bag was the 16th straight successful steal versus the Tigers. In the postseason runs are very tough to come by and we just can’t afford to have people taking second base so easily after a walk or a single.

7. other than walking the #9 hitter (Floriman, who then scored) who’s only hitting .216, Sanchez has pitched a smart/good game…

   1. Sanchez punched his own ticket for the no-decision. Walking Florimon, ignoring Florimon, hanging the pitch to Dozier. To the extent you can be annoyed with a pitcher who pitches 6 shutout innings, I was annoyed with Sanchez. Not one of his better starts, IMO.

8. And there is another free base.

   1. It looks like everyone is starting to steal on us ….. big disadvantage!

9. giving up a double to anyone who singles is getting annoying and should be an embarrassment to the Program seeing that they have tried three catchers and none of them can throw!!!

   1. More and more I’m seeing what a big part the pitchers play in this. I gather that Jeff Jones considers controlling the running game a distraction.

10. Huge hit by Torii, we needed that.

11. nice piece of hitting..not trying to do too much..just hit it where it was pitched…atta boy!!!

12. Well now, you don’t see that every day.

    1. Prince really hoofing it to first helped. (After looking very silly on the strikeout.) I can think of at least one Tiger – a really good hitter – who would have just stood there until it was too late. (Then again, don’t see this guy striking out like Prince did, either.)

13. Tigers running game at its best….haha!

14. I stayed up til 12:30 pulling for the Angels late last night against those pesky Indians…I came away with one obsevation…the Angels suck against everybody except thhe Tigers…just like a lot of teams…

    1. Cleveland against everybody but Detroit: 66-45

       Detroit against everybody but Cleveland: 61-49

       Pesky could be a problem.

15. i the past two days..Angels strand 27….2 for 22 RISP…2 runs…and we think we have problems

16. Jackson musta been reading
    DTW..between at bats and got fired up over the deer lights! way to go!

17. at 70%…Miggy is better than 90% of players in MLB

    1. Imagine 100%.

18. a bit of charity from the Twinkies tonight… we’ll take it.

    1. True. Quite a collapse.

19. A few observations:

    1) Love the doubles power from Martinez (even if he only gets one 50% of the time).

    2) I’m not sure how to find this, but the late inning hitting woes seem to be gone; and I wonder where we stand for the season.

    3) Torii Hunter, ladies and gentlemen. If any of you were listening to the radio call, the Hunter double was absolutely beautiful, and then hearing the excitement for “Torii Hunter will score without a throw” on the Cabrera double spoiled me. A) I’m ready to call Dan one of the best radio guys around right now, and B) I think he gets extra giddy for Hunter. I’m going to do a post just on radio guys around the league here in a bit.

    4) “De Veras” in spanish with a question mark after it means “for real?” As a statement it means “Indeed.” Yup, de Veras.

    1. What does the Spanish word “veras” literally mean? Real? Actual? Truth?

       Jose Truth sounds kind of cool. Still any hitters in the league named Justice?

       1. Tigers OPS still:

          12th AL 7th & later

          11th AL Late & Close (last in HR)

          11th AL Extra Innings (not a single HR… only team)

          1. I like the doubles power of Martinez as well. Unfortunate that half of his 28 doubles have been with bases empty, and that only 9 have come with runners in scoring position. Imagine how many more doubles he might have if he could run just a bit… and if he didn’t pause to admire his HR and double singles so often.

             Martinez has the lowest SLG with RISP of any regular at .382. Unless you count Dirks as a regular (.306 here.) Nice work, Andy.

             Martinez K/BB overall: 56/43. RISP: 27/14.

             Of course, this covers the whole season. I suspect the numbers would look a lot hotter from mid-June onward.

20. We teach our high school catchers that their “pop time”…(from time they receive the ball to the release ) has to be .6 or .65 sec at the longest.The really good ones are .5-.6 If you time the three Tiger catchers all three are consistently over 1 sec to 1.3..because big league players run 25 feet a second ( high school run 20) this is a huge amount of time. You would think Leyland being a catcher would…….oh never mind!

    1. speaking of Tiger catchers… JL considering VMart behind the plate in NY(Mets)… and the WS?
       http://www.freep.com/article/20130821/SPORTS02/308210176/

       1. He was doing drills behind the plate before yesterday’s game.

          1. I like the move (as long as VMart’s knees are going to be OK with it) because if (and that’s a big “if”) DET makes it to the WS, game 3’s starting catcher could/should be VMart… but he’d DH in game 1&2 in DET.

             Throwing out base stealers was never a real strong aspect of when VMart was a full-time catcher, but he likely can’t do much worse than Avila, Pena or Holaday

             1. Exactly, I like the move too. VMart can’t do any worse than our other catchers are doing and you get VMart’s bat over Avila’s, Pena’s, or Holaday’s bat. That’s a plus in my mind. If teams are going to run on us regardless of catcher we might as well play one that can give us some offensive production in road games in the World Series (if we are fortunate enough to get there).

21. only 13,000 fans in KC to see the Royals lose their 4th straight game… I guess most KC fans feel like they’ve already ‘heard the big-boned lady sing’

    1. I wish she’d do an encore in Cleveland already.

       1. Me too. It would be nice if the Twinkies go to Progressive this weekend and take two of three after playing us so tough this week in Detroit.

Comments are closed.