Game Post

Game 2014.137: Tigers at Indians

61 Comments

Well here we go, it’s September Baseball, we’ve got the useful or not-so-useful bits up from Toledo, got the guys all inspired (or not so much?) after a talking to by Mr. Ausmus, and we’ve got a whole lot of AL Central between here and October.

Cleveland has been the hot team in the Central of late, slowing down the previously hot Royals–almost, kind of, sweeping them (1/2 inning to go), and pulling to within 3.5 games of the division lead. Didn’t we see this movie last year?

David Price takes the reins this afternoon. We all remember what he did last time out, but also what he did the time before that. He’ll have his work cut out against Cy Kluber.

Despite speculation to the contrary, Cabrera is in the lineup–“resting” at DH. (Insert standard complaint).

Just to summarize the call-ups:

  • James McCann C
  • Steven Moya (L) RF
  • Tyler Collins (L) LF
  • Hernan Perez SS
  • Kyle Lobstein (L) P
  • Kyle Ryan (L) P
  • Robby Ray (L) P

Ausmus announced that Lobstein is the 5th starter right now, and will start tomorrow’s game.

Today’s Laboring Lineup:

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

61 thoughts on “Game 2014.137: Tigers at Indians”

  1. Man, what a relief that Miggy is in good shape again after extended rest. This *is* Game 151, right? Oh. I’m early? Well, I’m sure everything will be fine.

        1. Yeah, you were way off. Guess Miggy didn’t need the ankle for that one. Which raises the question…

    1. Record in games vs. “fair or better” opposing start:*

      KCR 38-55
      DET 36-56
      CLE 36-59

      *BBREF GameScore >41, not necessarily QS

      1. Record in games allowing Reached On Error:

        CLE 27-24
        KCR 18-19
        DET 18-22

        Ha. Go figure.

        On the basis of all this heavy research, I conclude that the Tigers have a 51% chance of winning this series.

  3. A good defense ( that includes pitching) coupled with timely (“clutch”) hitting will win you some ball games..

    Astros fire Porter, leaving Lloyd and Rick Renteria as only managers of color in MLB

    1. No way that should have been scored as a double. (It’s worth noting though that Santana drilled that pitch; I’d stay away from him the rest of the day).

      1. They’l never score something like that as an error, but yeah. You expect a bit more than just getting there.

  6. I agree…E8…clown show continues… and then Carrera follows that up w/a GIDP

    Carrera didn’t even need to jump, he could have taken one step back and reached up and made an easy catch… Little League teaches you to get to the wall first…

  7. Kluber should know Cabrera is having trouble catching up with fastballs and he’s chasing outside curve balls – so he serves Cabrera up an inside hanger… thanks.

    1. Yeah, I was wondering how Miggy couldn’t have been doing a little more of this over the past couple months. That looked easy. We’ll see how it goes next time against Kluber. Won’t be getting anything at all inside, you’d think. Or not on purpose.

  9. So Cle was up 4-2 when they called the game last night, most likely will be another KC loss. Cle is the hot team now. This thing is setting up nicely for Det to get hot and take the division, except for the whole “getting hot” problem.

  10. I’ll miss the remainder of this for a family function …the glory and/or frustration are all yours guys

    1. OK I stayed to see CLE give DET 3 runs after blowing Cabrera’s (what shoulda been a) flyout…reverse clown-show…for a change

  15. Wait he hasn’t thrown 100 pitches nor given up 10.yet. Asmus is looking this up to see if its legal to take him out!!

  16. This game shows the difference between Francona and ausmus. Ausmus will leave his starters in till they get at least 100 pitches. Francona went and got his. lets him rest up and try it again next time

    1. I think Francona is willing to concede the game to Price. And he has a normal bullpen too. That helps.

      1. Francona also has McAllister in his pocket. Tigers don’t quite have that kind of long relief option.

    3. I agree 100%..of all the things I don’t like about Asmus this is my #1 peeve…you do not leave your good starting pitchets out there to get their brains beat in..especially to save your piece of crap bullpen. A good manager like Francona gets him out of there. But of course Asmus has never developed a long man so he wouldn’t know who to bring in. He would use 6 more pitchers, which is another thing I don’t like…..I just hope this series doesn’t get down to coaching.

  18. Indians looked a lot more dangerous last time I saw them.

    Hey, Kluber got a strikethrough on his “Cy.” Nice touch.

  19. Some darn good pitching from Price right there…He is learning that to be successful in Detroit you cannot let the ball get hit anywhere in the Tiger outfield, including to them…after first and second no outs he really didn’t throw a hittable pitch!…nice work!

  25. Perez, Moya and Collins. Too bad they didn’t call them up yesterday, we could ditch Kelly, Romine and Carrera right now.

    1. That 9th inning was sweet. Collins is my guy, couldn’t be happier for him. So long, Andy Dirks.

  27. Here’s some unexpectedly good news. Not that things like this are at all predictive, but the Tigers are 14-7 in games following wins with a 5+ margin. Some hedge against the idea that the Tigers can’t follow up one good game with another.

  31. Great game today. It is always nice to wake up and see the Tigers are up 7-1, take a shower and find the lead has been stretched to 9-1 and then take the elevator downstairs and see that they won 12-1!

    Can someone try to explain “wins above replacement” to me? In Kurt Mensching’s recent love letter to Jose Iglesias he laments that the Tigers have the worst WAR for the shortstop position in the majors at -0.4, and that only 2 other teams are “worse than replacement level”, Boston at 0.0 and Milwaukee at -0.1. How is this possible? Isn’t the “average” player supposed to be a 0? Sounds like grade inflation to me if 27 out or 30 teams have above average players at a position!

    2. Actually it would be pretty easy to add all WARs, which should add up to 0, if I’m correctly understanding “replacement level” I might try that someday.. Then again, maybe the average player is actually above average.

    3. Isn’t a “replacement player” basically a AAA level performer? How the sabremetricians establish a value for that I don’t know (I assume it is less than 0). You could say that Suarez is our AAA replacement player at the SS position I guess. If so, I am not too disappointed, but as for Romine, Worth and Gonzalez, they must be well below “replacement level”. Beyond the basics I’m mathematically challenged, so that is my neophyte understanding, but for those of you who like to crunch numbers:
      http://www.fangraphs.com/library/misc/war/

      If somebody figures it out and can explain it in English rather than an equation, let me know.

  32. in Lobstein’s last 6 IN (4 H, 1 ER) outing against NYY, he only had one swing and miss – w/the way DET has been playing defense lately, let’s hope CLE has a lot more whiffs than one

    1. This is why we need strikeout pitchers. The more balls put in play, the more hits (25% or so) and inevitably the more runs. Factor in our No. 29 defense and it is clear that a ball in play is a liability.

  33. WordPress won’t let me post the link, but go to Lee Panas’ Tiger Tales site for an interesting stat comparison between Tigers and Royals.

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