2014 Season, Game Post

Game 2014.66: Royals at Tigers

32 Comments

Well, the Tigers won a game and a series (at home even! which brings their home record to a disappointing 18-16). So that was a good win, but not quite in the sense of a game well played. Porcello did pitch well for more than 5 innings, but then hit that 90 pitch roadblock that Vince has mentioned. The hitting, though–especially with men in scoring position–left something to be desired, with Austin Jackson prevailing as the STBD King. Jackson now has these bizarre splits:

  • .109 BA .344 OPS – RISP (61 PA)
  • .217 BA .649 OPS – Men On (113 PA)
  • .277 BA .736 OPS – Bases empty (140 PA)

What do you do with that?

Anyway, the Tigers did manage to pull off the walk off, thanks to the second dropped fly ball by Arcia (both scored as hits), and a throw from shallow center that kicked off the side of the pitcher’s mound (and you thought our outfield was bad).

Sometimes you win games you shouldn’t; in fact, over the course of a season winning teams need to have a bunch of these.

It won’t be so easy this week, with the hottest team in Major League Baseball coming to town, yes, the 7-wins-in-a-row, 1 1/2 games out of 1st, Kansas City Royals. KC leads with lefty Jason Vargas, who has been hit hard by Ian Kinsler in two previous outings this season (4-for-6, HR). The Tigers counter with Justin Verlander, who has struggled, but is, uh, working on it: “I mean it is troublesome, yeah, but just need to continue to work on what I’ve been working on,” he said. See, nothing to worry about.

Royals vs Tigers

  • Mon 4/16 7:08  Justin Verlander (6-6, .4.61) vs Jason Vargas (L) (6-2, 3.30)
  • Tue  4/17 7:08  Max Scherzer (8-2, 3.05) vs Yordano Ventura (4-5, 3.20)
  • Wed 4/18 1:08  Drew Smyly (3-5, 3.58) vs Jeremy Guthrie (3-6, 4.04)
  • Thu  4/19 1:08  Anibal Sanchez (3-2, 2.44) vs Danny Duffy (L) (4-5, 2.83)

Note the unusual back-to-back weekday day games. Thursdays game is a rescheduled game from an earlier rainout.

Today’s Lineup:

  1. Davis, CF
  2. Kinsler, 2B
  3. Cabrera, 1B
  4. V Martinez, DH
  5. Hunter, RF
  6. Jackson, CF
  7. Castellanos, 3B
  8. Avila, C
  9. Suarez, SS

Davis gets himself back in the lineup against the lefty…despite a career 3-for-15 against Vargas. Despite the lefty, Holaday gets a rest after his one grueling inning last night.

32 thoughts on “Game 2014.66: Royals at Tigers”

  1. Time for Verlander..Hunter..Jackson..Kinsler..Avila…Davis to step up…all are due…no all are overdue…some are way way over..due!!

  2. Jackson: trade him for a bullpen and bring up Carrera – problems solved!

    Yeah, I know, not gonna happen.

  3. Vince…I do like it!…Jackson accomplishes absolutely nothing in the batters box…nothing!

  5. KC starting to square up JV now. 3rd time through the order will be the test. Keep those DPs coming.

    1. Sam old same old, but he’s got another 50 or so pitches to go before he hits the magic 125, so….

  8. If Verlander can only give up 4 runs and go 6, I’ll consider it a roaring success.

    1. He’s been lucky so far, could easily have given up 6 or 7 by now without the 2 DPs. In other words, a normal start.

    2. that’s pretty sad… but i would also concur.

      …the 2008-version of JV seems to be something DET is going to have to deal with for the foreseeable future

      1. It would help considerably if the manager wouldn’t insist on Ace throwing 125 pitches every time out no matter what. You could see the collapse coming from the 2nd inning. A 1-2-3 first and then more and more base runners each successive inning. And still he is out there on the mound. That’s sadder than JV’s decent into train wreckism.

  9. with tonight’s start JV has solidified his place as the 5th (weak link) starter… i’m not going to press the panic button w/him quite yet, but seeing as DET is paying him $20M this year and $28 thru ’19… that has to be creating some anxiety for DD and mngmt

    1. To be fair to JV, half of his runs should be charged to Smokey Jr. for consistently being an idiot and leaving him in too long, game after game after game.

  10. JV’s last 7 starts: 43.2 IN, 61 H, 42 R, 38 ER, 20 BB

    avg per start: 6.1 IN, 8.7 H, 6 R, 5.4 ER, 2.9 BB

    as i stated before, i’m not going to press the panic button ‘yet’… namely because i’m not the one paying him

  12. Fine job by Hardy. You’re not going to find too many 2 on, none out shutdowns from the 2014 Tigers bullpen. That’s something good to take away from this game.

  13. Well, at least we got our fifth starter in the rotation in and out of the way in the first game of the series. I predict it’ll be all down hill for the remaining 3 games.

  14. Hey Brad…if you are going to use 4 pitchers a game anyway why not start while its still a game instead of letting your starter give up 6-7-8 every time?????..
    You have done this exact thing 10-15 times now. Does alot for your starters confidence knowing you won’t pull them until they have been totally bombed!!!!

    1. On the other hand, I would have left JV in to pitch another inning to complete the 7th. How much worse could he have made it? And why burn the bull pen up even more for a game that JV lost by the end of the 6th?

      1. Yeah, he had lots left in the tank (25 pitches or so), but I suppose Smokey Jr. didn’t want to hurt his feelings by asking him to go out there and take one for the team.

      1. Verlander threw the game away with one pitch, no doubt. Surely the fastball to Infante was supposed to be higher. Wasn’t.

        1. Lots of pitches that weren’t where they were supposed to be: 14 base runners in 6 IP.

    2. That 9th inning was like a little bonus consolation game. Heck, Coke even looked like Old Coke in the top half. Let’s say they split a doubleheader.

  19. Hey Brad gee suddenly all thos runs were important. See the game is determined by runs scored, not by pitch quotas, or requirred innings for starters, or waiting til the starter gets his brains beat in…..hope u learned something about managing tonight!!!

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