2014 Season, Game Post

Game 2014.143: Giants at Tigers

124 Comments

These last two games may have put the Tigers up against the ropes, but they were not a knockout blow. The Tigers have played well enough this season to still control their own destiny with 20 games left to play in the season.

As I write this, the Royals are up 2-0 in the 4th against the Yankees, but the Tigers wills start tonight’s game knowing whether the Royals will be up 2.5 or 1.5 at game time, with the possible Tiger scenarios being back 3, back 2, or back 1. Remember that the Royals still have to tidy up a game against the Indians where they will be down by 3 in the bottom of the 10th, so more than likely, there is another 1/2 game that the Tigers will pick up. But all that is to say that if the Tigers take care of business, they can be in first place by Wed night. There’s also that whole wild card thing, but the division is the goal right now.

Kyle Lobstein gets the ball tonight at the Tigers – Giants game will be the only game on Sunday night. Lots to be excited about. In three starts covering 17 innings this year, Lobstein has 13 Ks, 8 walks, and a 3.18 ERA. He’s pitched well enough, and we’ll likely need several more of those this year as there has been no news on Sanchez in weeks, which is bad news.

Baseball Reference game preview here.

I’m headed out to the Death Star to see the Cowboys most likely get murdered, so someone please post the lineups later. I’m looking forward to coming back tonight in time to watch the Tigers start their 2014 playoff march.

#DoItForTheRotation

124 thoughts on “Game 2014.143: Giants at Tigers”

  1. Yeah, no news on Sanchez is bad news. A lot of pressure on Lobstein and the other potential rookie starters, but we’ve seen other teams cope with such in September. Lobstein’s pitching has been encouraging, observationally speaking.

    The Giants have jumped all over the first two Tigers starters early. I wonder if there’s some counter to whatever their successful strategy has been.

  2. Coleman, you’ll be glad to know that Beck says that Jack White is in the Tigers clubhouse.

  3. I was very interested in a comment Rod made during Friday nights game while the Giants were methodically lobbing Porcellos pitches around the field like tennis volleys.

    He remarked on the Giants approach to facing Porcello. He said that the Giants knew Porcello has been throwing a lot of strikes lately – especially low in the zone. So, they were being really aggressive early in the count in the likelihood that they would be getting a lot of strikes to hit. You are, I’m sure, aware of the results.

    Tell me when was the last time you saw or heard of such a well reasoned approach to hitting by the Tigers. The Tigers approach seldom resembles more than “Go up to the plate and flail at the white thing. Swing hard in case you hit it.”

    Realistically, for a professional baseball franchise, there must be more to it than that. But, it sure doesn’t look like it.

    The result – that we’ve seen again and again – you know what I’m going to say – is that an undistinguished pitcher looks like a first ballot Hall of Famer.

    Don’t we have TWO hitting coaches? Wally Joyner and Darnell Coles? Maybe Ausmus should wake ’em up.

    1. To some degree I think it’s a case of noticing the negative instances more and the positive instances less, and one aided by confirmation bias. I’ve seen that the Tigers come out with variously “aggressive” and “wait him out” strategies, but even good strategy doesn’t guarantee successful results.

      One important reason I would hesitate to criticize the Tigers’ hitting coaches is that this is a very, very, very good hitting team. Try to refute this with various statistical inquiries (I have), and you will fail.

      The veteran hitters are what they are; Joyner and Coles aren’t going to reform them. Kinsler and Hunter have their own ways of hacking and striking gold often enough to be successful. We can’t complain too much about how the younger players have hit, either. A team with zero – ZERO – sub-.200 hitters is quite the rarity, and that’s what the Tigers have, not to mention 8 of 9 starting position players with an XBH/PA% above league average. 8 of 9! They also lead MLB in runs scored.

      My eyes are on the pitching. Perhaps Jeff Jones and his various game plans and strategies are due for some questioning.

      Defense? Well, I don’t like to pick on Nick, but in spite of some nifty plays here and there, that is one gaping hole over there at 3B. It’s September. There’s not a lot that can be done, but going back to regularly getting Kelly (or SOMEONE) in at 3B late in the game is definitely in order.

      1. The Tigers have played 56 games in which they have scored 3 runs or less. That is just shy of 40% of games played. Their record in those games is 8-48

        1. I don’t think this is atypical, and the record is more of an indictment of the pitching, if you ask me.

          1. Comparison with 3 other “good hitting” playoff contenders (games scoring 3 runs or less):

            Tigers (1st in RS): 8-48 56 games -40
            Angels (2nd in RS): 13-43 56 games -30
            A’s (3rd in RS): 15-46 61 games -31
            Orioles (6th in RS) 18-45 63 games -27

            So the 40% ratio for games scoring <3 runs seems to be pretty consistent, but the Tigers are 9 games worse than the A's (4.5 games in the standings). I can't believe that the pitching staff is responsible for all of that.

  4. Unlike the Tigers who only score 2 runs 4-5 times per week. The Royals allow less than 2 runs 4-5 times per week

  6. I’m still struck by how many current Giants and how few current Tigers remain from the 2012 World Series teams.

    Cabrera’s HR off Romo yesterday gives us something to take away from this series, anyway. It was as if scripted. Only a walk-off version could have been better. First pitch. I saw the photo from the last PA of the 2012 WS in my mind.

    1. Rock Lobster will turn the Little Giants into ice cream sandwiches and crush them with a pincer movement! He will B-52 them into submission, them and their pretty boy haircuts. Rock Lobster will turn their own energy against them and turn them into empty, mindless spectres, for such is his power. Several Giants will retire from baseball after the game, and the franchise will be sold for pennies on the dollar when the season ends.

        1. You encouraged my cautious optimism, OTFiM!

          SOMEONE has got be able to stop these Giants hitters early in the game…

  8. I’m surprised that the phrase “Be kind, please rewind” hasn’t come up the last couple games. Hopefully it doesn’t tonight.

  9. Who made the decision to start the Donkey in CF, and why? The position this team is in would dictate the powers to be to field the best lineup possible, especially offensively! We need WINS!!!!

  12. Having Tickets for tonight ….tomorrow Tigers, …..Lions at night would be about as great as it gets….other than 18 innings of the Tigers trying to score, that is…but still….

  14. A manufactured run!….and I thought we were going to do this all year…instead a rare occurrence!

  20. Asmus does two positive aggressive moves with two steals in two innings……..+1…wheres this been all year

  24. You gotta love the way this kid appears to be “trusting his stuff” and go right after some very good and scrappy hitters.

      2. Kid Rock Lobster Skywalker. He’s gotta be back for the 6th and hopefully beyond if he keeps rolling.

        Runs, please. (I mean Tigers runs, baseball gods. I know how you can be when we’re not specific.)

        1. OK, so maybe they saw something in the 5th. Deep out on Posey, Pence walks, Lobstein falling behind 5 of last 6. Yeah, maybe it’s time to go.

      1. On some weekends with doubleheaders, even before rosters expanded, I think we have had 16 pitchers in our bullpen, but unfortunately it hasn’t worked out so well. Too many cooks spoiling the broth perhaps.

          1. Well we could have 16 in our bullpen too, but like I said, finding 16 relief pitchers who can pitch relief hasn’t worked out.

            1. Finding 7 relief pitchers who can pitch hasn’t worked. They might as well carry 1 relief pitcher at a time, pitch him till he falls over dead, DFA him, and bring in the next guy.

  27. Almost K’ed Grasshopper (K-Fu Panda) Good outing Rock as we are in the game.

    1. 2nd to Texas in sheer number, but in terms of opp. %, 12% as compared to league average 11%. Tigers put a lot of runners on.

      1. Yep, OBP .330 is #1, .005 better than, wait for it, the Twins, who also are 4th in the league in runs. How did that happen?

  30. OK, this stinks.

    Vince, here’s a test of the 3 run offensive game before us. As it now stands, anyway.

    1. I will point out the double R3L2O fail in the 4th, a common occurrence.

      Actually, my question is, with all that run producing ability and the high OBP, why is the number of games with 3 runs or less as many as it is?

      1. There will be split decisions, but I’d say that the bullpen blowing a two-run lead weighs heavier than blown scoring opportunties, being something that actually DID happen rather than something that could have happened but didn’t.

        1. So, is the bullpen not blowing a lead something that could have happened, but didn’t? Just trying to parse out the fine distinctions here.

      2. “why is the number of games with 3 runs or less as many as it is?”

        I don’t know. Chance? There’s a lot of it in baseball.

        1. “Just trying to parse out the fine distinctions here.”

          Just saying that we’ll treat what DID happen before we treat what could have been, whether it’s hitting or pitching.

          If the starter gives up 6 in the first 3 innings, I think we can agree that the offense scoring 3 or less in that game wasn’t the fatal blow. If the pitchers hold the opponent to 1 or 2 runs and the offense can’t make a win out of that, it’s equally clear cut. I think most of the 3 or less for the offense won’t require a lot of parsing. Obviously, 3 or less isn’t “good,” but it might not be as bad as it looks every time.

    1. It’s great. I’m still waiting for Jesus Satan. I’d settle for… um… help me out here, Coleman.

  32. Win or die, Tigers. Staying up late on a Sunday for a loss is not something I will suffer gladly.

    Thank you, Blaine Hardy. Conditionally.

    1. Romine’s last hit set up 3 Tigers runs. Luck? No more so than the pitch Hudson didn’t want to serve up to Cabrera.

  33. And Hardy puts out the fire. I hope he isn’t having a career year. One would like to think that he has room for improvement (fewer BBs). But with lefties you never know I guess (re: Phil Coke).

      1. Yeah, their offense has gone into the tank since then. In those 26 games they have scored 3 runs or fewer 16 times.

        1. That’s pretty good. If anyone read this blog, that would go moderately viral in the baseball blogosphere.

  39. Just the fact that aHardy has to sit with the Tiger blowpen all game and then come in and do a great job again is amazing in itself

        1. Yeah, Dontrelle Willis came to mind.

          Some of Johnson’s stuff is unhittable, and some of it is just non-hittable.

      2. I went to bed, slept, got up, went to work, came home, and that Johnson 8th inning was still going. Did they postpone the Royals game?

        2. For this evening, anyway. I prefer to think of it as “The Jim Johnson Experience.” Have you ever been experienced? Well… I have.

            1. Ah, very subtle. If Jim could just get his mind together, we could all hold hands and watch the sun rise from the bottom of the sea. Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful. And he could set his glove on fire at the end of the game.

      1. 133 for AleKKs now. How long before he passes Inge? Casty at 117 by the way. Miggy at an even 100. The last time he was 100 or more was ’09 when he finished with 107.

  45. Well with their backs against the wall it is at least refreshing that The Tigers ARE capable of winning…still!

    1. You nailed it! Funky start time (4pm) today also, especially since DET had a night game last night… so I have to give the starting pitcher (JV vs Guthrie) and ‘intangibles’ edge to KC today.

      w/the 4pm start time, in theory the die-hard DET fan could catch the Tiger game at Comerica and then head over to Ford Field for the Lions at 7:10p… could be a recipe for incredible joy and/or frustration (?)

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