Down one tough loss, the Detroit Tigers (31-23, 1st Central, 3rd AL)) reconvene to take the rest of the series from the Toronto Blue Jays (35-24, 1st East, 2nd AL). Dickey vs. Porcello, and a knuckleballer could be just what the hitting doctor ordered (I’m not kidding).

The brilliance of Sanchez and something better than meh from J.D. when it really counted gave us something to celebrate, if not a win. The Tigers’ 14-12 record at Comerica is less celebrated.

Gotta keep this one light, but I hope to be back for the finale with a few stats and a lot of praise and recognition, which is something we don’t get around to often enough.

Victor Martinez and Joe Nathan have at least a couple things in common. Great track record and a demeanor every single pitch thrown or seen which suggests that, to them, it’s the most important one of their careers. Every single time. VMart had a cold start to 2013. Don’t tell me about rust. For at least 2 and a half months, he flat out sucked. I saw it. He came back a-blazing, and he’s still blazing. Now, Nathan has had a couple rough spells, but in between, he was pretty darn good. Let’s temper the criticism. Closers can come back a-blazing, too.

Hate the sin, love the sinner. As they say.

17 games in 17 days and a 7-10 to show for it. It started off so well, with that sweep in Boston. The Tigers, following a long-awaited day off, return home for three against the Blue Jays starting Tuesday (7 PM, 7 PM, 1 PM), and won’t be doing any serious traveling again until June 24.

Detroit (31-22, 1st place Central, 3rd place AL) sends out Anibal Sanchez, probably their best bet for cooling off hot-hitting Toronto (34-24, 1st place East, 2nd place AL). Don’t look now, but the Blue Jays starter will be Drew Hutchison, and the fact that he’s a rookie and you’ve never heard of him should inspire fear. He’s been having some success, if that’s any comfort.

Let’s get to the hot-button issue for most Tigers fans these days right away: The Game Poster League standings. Sportsman that I am, I didn’t bring this up when I was way ahead.

Coleman 12-6
Smoking Loon 12-7
Kevin in Dallas 7-9

[Optional comedy interlude below]

Let’s have some stats, and tons of them, because it’s an off day before a night game. We begin with rankings, sans numbers, in RE24 and WPA, the two best measures of hitting/pitching effectiveness and situational win contribution, respectively.

I’ll have a word on defense before I start throwing guys under the bus and off the team: Ian Kinsler (.996 FPCT, 1 error in 226 chances) and Alex Avila (a ridiculously good 43% CS, 1 PB, and 6 WP under a heavy 43-game workload) come to mind as the most consistently outstanding defensive contributors. Factor in the the solid shortstops (Tigers lead the AL in DP/G) and Austin Jackson in CF, and the Tigers are strong in the middle. To a milder degree, I see negatives at 3B and RF in Nick Castellanos and Torii Hunter. Incidentally, to the extent you can gather anything from what’s officially scored as an error, Verlander (5) and Sanchez (3) have been burned for 8 of the Tigers’ 20 ROE. 11 of the 17 unearned runs between ‘em, too. (But note that Verlander the fielder has done burned his own self twice.)

Back to the spreadsheet snip. You wouldn’t think that lesser hitters such as Avila and Jackson have done more winning with the bats than far better ones Davis and Hunter, but WPA does not lie. You might also not believe that Avila has been a (slightly) more valuable hitter than Jackson, but this has been true so far. A couple things that stand out on the pitching side are how things have brightened in the bullpen (4/7 pret-ty decent!) and how the top dog in the bullpen – Al Alburquerque – falls from grace in WPA by virtue of… well, I’m sure you can remember a few games that ended suddenly. And Scherzer still rocks in spite of recent difficulties.

Now who are those under-contributors? Six jump out at you, but four of them aren’t guys you’re going to kick off the team.

Justin Verlander: An outing like the last one and you forget how lousy he’d been overall. Which is as it should be, I suppose. You might say that JV is always better than his stats, even when the stats are good.
Joe Nathan: This is not what the Tigers bargained for, but it’s too early for worst-case scenarios. He’s scuffling, not tanking. Heavy-duty scuffling, though. What’s the problem, aside from the walks and HRs? Oh, maybe it is the walks and HRs.
Nick Castellanos: The Third Baseman Of The Future isn’t going anywhere (name even one Tigers 3B prospect). You don’t rush a guy to the majors to hem and haw about it. They’re committed. The Third Baseman Of The Future isn’t going anywhere… except back to the outfield, eventually. You heard it here first.
Don Kelly: The hitting is worse than I thought, but his defensive and overall utility value guarantee him a spot through the rest of 2014.

Now it gets interesting. Sort of.

Andrew Romine: Although he’s clearly a very good shortstop (and I’ve seen him get shortchanged by Miggy failing to scoop a couple times recently), is he a GREAT shortstop, the kind you can live with mostly abominable hitting from? No. The thing is, Romine makes a better utility infielder than Danny Worth. Worth is actually the guy on the bubble here. (Enter Eugenio Suarez, sooner than later.)
Phil Coke: Can’t he be an inning-eating middle reliever for the ones that get away early? Is he wasting a spot? Maybe. If there’s one guy on the bubble, here he is. But it’s been that way for a while now. <yawn> (Enter Luke Putkonen, Justin Miller, Joel Hanrahan, or someone, maybe even you.)

Statistical potpourri:

Pitching: Anibal Sanchez has not allowed a HR in 43 IP, and Joba Chamberlain is HR-free thru 23 IP… Ian Krol, 2.33 ERA. Ian Krol, 7 of 18 inherited runners allowed to score… Evan Reed, 5 DP induced in 18 opps. Nathan, 1 in 14… Chamberlain and Alburquerque feature gaudy 30% K rates. Krol and Coke, 16% and 11%… Nathan does have one of the lower BA-against at .234, and the OPS-against isn’t bad at .739. Hmmm… Detroit’s staff is 11th in the AL in strikeouts. That’s a switch.

Hitting: Only one guy isn’t sporting something above or close to the league average line drive %, and that would be Romine at 11%… When 6 regulars are striking out below the league average rate, that’s good for 2nd lowest in the AL. Avila remains extraordinarily bad at 35%, but he’s being chased by Andrew and Nick. We all know about VMart and strikeouts, but Kinsler is sitting at an excellent 8% himself… So the Tigers aren’t striking out and are belting line drives. Good hitting, in spite of a #13 rank in BB, but where are the runs? 16% of Detroit baserunners score, which is above league average (14%). There are some RISP problems, highlighted by Jackson (.125), Avila (.219, though he does have a .793 OPS here), Romine (.120, and 3 of 72 runners on have been scored by him overall), and Kelly (.211). Lots of RISP K’s here, collectively… Jackson, Rajai Davis, Castellanos, Avila, and Romine are to be commended for remarkably low GIDP rates, although I suppose the elevated K rate for the latter three contributes to that. Jackson and Davis have grounded into 2 double plays in 73 opportunities! Meanwhile, the usual 1-4 hitters all have elevated GIDP rates, though it’s nothing ridiculous (the Tigers are slightly better than league average as a team here)… Victor Martinez is fantastic, of course, the numbers speak for themselves, but just imagine if he wasn’t so darned SLOW. The singles that would be doubles, the runs he’d score (he scores 16% of the time as a baserunner, shame for a .390 OBP guy), the trailing runners who could advance farther, the infield singles that anyone else would get, the occasional double-play averted. It’s a kind of tax. I’m glad he’s hitting more HR. Despite a good deal of team speed, Detroit is below average at taking the extra base… I have opined that Davis is not a leadoff hitter, and I am wrong. Look at the OBPs of Davis and Kinsler vs. Hunter. Check out the dynamic baserunning stats of Davis and Kinsler, and you know they should be successive in the order as they usually are. But it should be more often. I would go so far as to say that Awesome-Us makes a mistake to bat Davis #9, ever. I used to think it was clever.

Just noticed this very interesting feature (is it new?): Could help you in your All-Star voting. Scroll down a bit and check it out (note the “Highlight a team” feature) to have a look at how the Tigers stack up against the Blue Jays (and the rest of the AL) position by position. You might be surprised.

Sometimes the other pitcher is just better. You gotta tip your cap to Chris Young. Lots of fly balls, but lots of weak fly balls and pop-ups. The Mariners eeked out two runs on a bloop, a hope, and a prayer, and we just gotta understand that this will happen over a long season.

This good pitching thing shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, as pitchers are dominating like no other time in recent history. SI had a great article about this a few weeks ago – but here’s a brief AL historical comparison using SO/9 and FIP ERA.

1984: 5.01/4.02

1994: 6.1/4.74

2004: 6.4/4.53

2014: 7.6/3.87

That is a tremendous jump in K/9 as strikeouts are up over 50% in 30 years. I’d have to go back and look, but sub 4 ERAs league wide is definitely a new phenomenon.

Now let’s look at hitting – I’ll use OPS.

1984: .724

1994: .779

2004: .771

2014: .715

As you can see, 2014 is likely going to set a recent historic low for hitting in the AL. The same is true in the NL. SI credited this to the rise of the power pitcher, bullpen specialization, and a slightly larger strike zone.

I don’t mind the pitching dominance, but let’s keep this in mind as the Tigers get bettered by average pitching from time to time.

Also, you may like this recent article by Tom Verducci talking about the ever slowing pace of play, with ideas on how to fix it.

On to today’s game – Mad Max climbs the hill for a 4:10 eastern start against Roenis Elias. Scherzer has been bombed his last two starts out, though he managed to avoid a decision in either game. I’m looking forward to a typical Scherzer dominating performance and a comfortable series win headed into an off day. I mean, we’re not going to go two weeks without winning a series, right?

Traveling later today, please post the lineup when avail.

31-20, 1st place, 6 games up.

Two things caught my eye this morning as I read the papers (well, through the internet, on my cell phone).

1) VMart may have had one of the best at bats of his career yesterday. It looked good watching it, but think about this. He gets up 2-0, then watches 2 called strikes go by. He follows by fouling off 5 straight pitches, before ripping the 10th into the RF stands. Considering it effectively put the game away off of a Cy Young candidate (against all teams, not just the Tigers), it really was an incredible at bat.

2) Ausmus said after the game that Verlander’s velocity was up from the start of the game. I didn’t remember that, so I went back and checked. It was. 95 in the first inning, and he touched 98 in the 6th. This is HUGE. Really happy about that.

Tonight’s if it ain’t broke don’t change it series winning? lineup.

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

I’ll be checking in late. Talk to you guys then.

Hello win my old friend. I’ve come to talk with you again. Don’t ever disappear like that on us again. Ever.

Quick standings update:

Det  30-20   —
Chi  28-27   4.5
KC 25-28     6.5
Min 24-27   6.5
Cle   24-30   8.0

Well, the Tigers took 2 out of the last 3 from Oakland, and were perhaps a Castellanos catch away from taking the series. Considering how we had been playing, and the circumstances (best team in the AL on the road), I was very pleased with our last 3 games. That said, you have to wonder about Joe Nathan. Nathan is on pace for the worst year of his career; because even if he pitches perfectly from here on out, he’s already surpassed his 2013 HR allowed and blown save totals. Let that soak in.

Justin Verlander climbs the hill tonight. Rumor is that he used to be a dominating ace, though this last few starts have looked more like Dontrelle Willis than even a middle of the rotation pitcher. If he allows less than 8 baserunners tonight, that will be the first time he’s done that since his second start of the season. EIGHT. Let that soak in.

The Tigers face Hisashi Iwakuma tonight. Cano is out with an illness.

1. Kinsler, 2B
2. Hunter, RF
3. Cabrera, 1B
4. Martinez, DH
5. Jackson, CF
6. Avila, C
7. Castellanos, 3B
8. Romine, SS
9. Davis, LF (guess he’s not injured anymore.

Postgame:

That was about as clean as a win as you could ask for, unless, of course, you have JV on your weak hitting fantasy baseball team (it’s a sim league). In which case there is a huge difference between 2 and 3 earned runs. And that 3rd earned run is a tough one to swallow, resulting from Krol’s wild pitch and then a double off of Krol. I don’t know what it is, but 8 IP and 2 ER allowed seems like a dominating performance. 7 2/3 and 3 ER allowed, meh. Verlander did allow only 7 baserunners (there was one HBP), which resulted in his second game of the season with a WHIP less than 1.

The Tigers lost a golden opportunity last night to take a road series against the team with the best record in the league. With the quick turnaround to the day game today, we will see what they are made of.

Anibal Sanchez was simply great last night. I was hoping they would still leave him in after the opposite field squink of a double that Coco Crisp hit, but I suspect that Anibal let Brad know he was done. Points to BA for giving him the chance to start the 9th. Anyway, at this moment, he is the best starting pitcher on the staff.

Nathan looked awful, almost sailing two consecutive pitches over Avila’s head, and then later serving up a walk off. Castellanos didn’t help any by mispronouncing a line drive right off his glove into left field. And it would have helped to score another run or two.

Nathan didn’t waste any time throwing Castellanos under the bus after the game: “The big out there was getting Jaso,” Nathan said. “You get him and it changes everything, it gives me a chance to play with (Donaldson) a little bit.”

The crew has one more shot at the A’s today. No sleep ’till Seattle!

Postgame

Considering how this series started, a split looks pretty good. Ricky looked pretty good today also, allowing one to hope that maybe he really is for real this season. The A’s are a legit scoring offense, they do lead the league in runs scored.

Nathan, on the other hand. Well here’s a scenario for you to mull over as the Tigers ride their bicycles north to Seattle. Alburquerque and Chamberlain have been pretty good lately; maybe they turn into a strong 7-8 inning combo. And when Hanrahan is ready to make his comeback, maybe he is good (and maybe he isn’t). But if he IS, and Nathan continues to pitch like he has been pitching…well, that creates an interesting scenario, doesn’t it?

It would have been enough for me last night for the Tigers to just play a competitive game, and keep Oakland under 10 runs; that’s how bad things had gotten. But the Tigers did more, much more, and got a quality win against a quality team: Oakland leads the AL in both runs scored and fewest runs given up, which is a pretty good recipe for success.

Max Scherzer wasn’t great last night (although the did have some great moments), but he kept the Tigers in the game. The hitters put up 4 runs against a very tough Sonny Gray, led by Cabrera, Avila, and J.D. Martinez, who is quietly making a case for playing time. If 4 runs doesn’t sound like a lot, it should be pointed out that’s that most that has been plated against Gray so far this season.

The real fun started in the 7th though, when Hunter hit a massive (410 ft.) shot to dead center to tie the game. In the bottom of the inning Krol walked the leadoff hitter on 4 pitches, Ausmus yanked him, and from that point on the bullpen shut down the A’s.

Still, Detroit needed a run and that came at the hands feet of Rajai Davis. After Castellanos walked as a pinch-hitter (his 6th walk in 4 games!), Ausmus put Davis in to pinch-run. He promptly scooted to second on a passed ball, and then daringly stole 3rd while the catcher was throwing the ball back to the pitcher, and scored on a grounder to short when Jackson beat out the double-play attempt to first.

The stunned A’s announcers picked ex-A Rajai Davis as the Player of the Game.

The bullpen did the rest, with Kevin in Dallas nervously counting down the last 6 outs. It was a needed win, and a good one, and one won in a way the Tigers didn’t win games last season.

Davis gets a start today, as Austin Jackson sits against a lefty he has never managed to hit (3-for-14). In center, which could possibly be an adventure.

Anibal “Only Good Starter Last Week” Sanchez takes the mound against Scott Kazmir.  Look for Victor Martinez for the big hits (11-for-23 against Kazmir). Oh, and I’ll just throw this out there: Victor Martinez never takes an at bat off. Even in 10-0 games.

If you missed Vince in MN’s link, Suarez has been impressing people. More fun and excitement may be had at the shortstop position in the near future.

Tonight’s Never-Before-Used Lineup:

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

I jinxed Romine yesterday by mentioning his 4-game hitting streak, so now Danny gets a chance to show his worth.

Postgame

Damn. Best start by any Tiger this year. That one hurt.

Well down your lattes, slap your own cheeks, and prepare for a 10:05 spectacular (except for those of you not in the Eastern time zone, which is, actually, probably, a majority of you).

The Tigers have been plagued with facing Cy Whoever lately, but tonight, at least, they get a legitimate Cy Young candidate in Young Sonny Gray (pardon the redundancy), the 24-yr old with the 1.99 ERA and the 5-1 record. Let’s take a moment to pre-tip the cap to Sonny Boy, but that’s no reason we have to give up double-digits again. We need a chance to back off the ledge here, so, no matter what happens with Sonny, let’s keep these guys to single digits tonight, okay? We don’t need to win tonight, but we can’t have another massacre.

The Tigers are all about Team Unity right now: they wear matching Zubaz, their pitching–even the celebrated Starting Pitching–has been awful, and the bats are in tune, making average pitchers seem like Cy Young. We’ve seen this before, and every team sees it at some point every season. But didn’t it just rankle you a little bit when, shut down by Random Rookie Guy or Bruce Chen or Whoever,  Jim Leyland would start his post game comments with “you’ve got to tip your cap to Random Rookie Guy…?” Right?

Well it looks like it bothered Legendary Lloyd a bit too. McClendon’s Mariners were shut down by Houston’s Dallas Keuchel (remember him? he went all Cy Young on the Tigers on May 8). Lloyd was NOT about to cap-tip: “I saw average stuff,” he said. “We didn’t swing the bats very good. At some point, you’ve got to stop giving credit to average pitchers. That becomes a broken record. At some point, we’ve got to start swinging the bats.” Lloyd’s getting some blowback for that one, but I find it refreshing. By all means, tip your cap to Sonny tonight if he shuts us down, but it’s not ALWAYS good pitching.

What we really need is a Zubaz bonfire. I mean the stuff became popular in the early 90s in professional wrestling circles (red flag!). I don’t really believe in an actual Zubaz Curse, but I do think there is a symbolic aspect worth contemplating. I appreciate the team-unity aspect of the Zubaz-flaunting. But other than the hideous patterns of the stuff, the big selling point of Zubaz is the comfort. Thus the symbolic aspect: did the team get too comfortable, too early? Burn it.

Also, a sacrificial lamp wouldn’t hurt (tip of the cap to Jud). It’s very cool that Ausmus is all cerebral and whatnot, but that would make it even more effective were he to smash a lamp in the clubhouse. And wear the lampshade in the dugout.

Well, we can make our suggestions here, but they mostly float into the ether like the smoke from a Leyland Marlboro. What we CAN do though, is choose appropriate nicknames, and I’m not feeling it for “Smokey Jr.” Ol’ Smokey was perfect for Leyland, but Ausmus is just not a Leyland Jr. to me (among other things, the lineup shakeup yesterday was very un-Leyland-like). This may be a trial-and-error thing, but I’m going to throw this one out there to start: Ol’ Smarty.

Tonight’s Ol’ Smarty’s Slump-busting Lineup:

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

Andrew Romine now has a 4-game hitting streak.

This afternoon the Tigers begin a 7-game road trip to the dreaded West Coast: dreaded because of the travel, but also because those of us on the East Coast are treated to games that begin after 10 pm. Today is an exception, a rare day game to start off the trip, without a day off for travel.

Speaking of which, by the time the Tigers finish this trip they will have played 17 straight games without a day off, including a trip to the West Coast for a day game, and a Zubaz-clad flight-delayed morning on the way to Cleveland. Previous to that they played 13 straight, giving them only two games off and two coastal road trips in the month of May.

Could their current struggles simply be the result of fatigue?

Below are the days/times (in EST) and projected starters for the road trip:

Tigers at A’s

Monday       May 26 – 4:05     Drew Smyly vs Tommy Milone (L)

Tuesday      May 27 – 10:05    Max Scherzer vs Sonny Gray

Wednesday  May 28 – 10:05   Anibal Sanchez vs Scott Kazmir (L)

Thursday     May 27 – 3:35      Rick Porcello vs Jess Chavez

Tigers at Mariners

Friday      May 30 – 10:10     Justin Verlander vs Hisashi Iwakuma

Saturday  May 31 – 10:10     Drew Smyly vs Chris Young

Sunday     June 1 – 4:10       Max Scherzer vs Roenis Elias (L)

The should not be an easy trip, considering that the A’s may have leapfrogged Detroit as the best American League team after its collapses against Cleveland and Texas. Oh wait, Oakland has lost 4 in a row themselves. What kind of way is that for two teams to head into a best-in-the-league showdown?

At least Oakland’s games were close; Detroit lost by a combined 35-15 against Texas. Oakland has been beating up on teams this year and has a run differential of +90, which is best in MLB by a lot (the Angels are 2nd best at +47). Some of those teams Oakland has beat up on have been the Central teams: Oakland has a 9-3 record so far against the Central Division. But they have yet to play the class of the division, which is Detroit. Right?

Today’s Memorial Day Shake-Up Lineup:

1. Davis, LF
2. Jackson, CF
3. Cabrera, 1B
4. Martinez, DH
5. Hunter, RF
6. Castellanos, 3B
7. Holaday, C
8. Worth, 2B
9. Romine, SS

Jackson batting 2nd, as some of us here suggested trying. Didn’t see Worth at 2B coming–Kinsler has been Detroit’s hottest hitter and is hitting .308 career against Milone. Then again, Kinsler hasn’t had a day off yet this season.

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day, and a big thank you to all the men and women who have given their lives for our country, and their families.

Postgame:

The Detroit Tigers (28-17, 1st place Central, 1st place AL – still) can still salvage a split with the Texas Rangers (24-25, 4th place West, 11th place AL) before heading out on the road again after this brief “homestand,” and that would be a good idea, because the trip is to the West Coast. Trouble. M-O-O-N, that spells trouble. Laws, yes. Texas sends out Colby Lewis, and the Tigers counter with Justin Verlander. I have no comment on the expected pitch count for JV through 5.

Corey Knebel does have quite the curveball, and Danny Worth quite the knuckleball, but neither are ready to crack the bullpen, as was amply demonstrated mere hours ago. Andrew Romine is looking more comfortable and less pathetic at the plate. That’s nice. Meanwhile, the Rangers have to be encouraged by how their “team of scrubs” is handling Detroit.

So… the Tigers have lost 5 of their last 6, and they’ve had their donkeys (or mules, or whatever) handed to them in three of those losses. I mean, really. Beatdowns. There has been admirable restraint here. No one calling for team meetings or an Ausmus rampage behind closed doors. The team just has to play better, pitch better, and also pitch better, not to mention play better, or the losses will continue to pile up, however many Tigers hitters might be in the AL Top 10. It’s that simple.