Hello Friends –
Nothing like a two-game sweep (or 3/4) to get you excited about an early season weekend series. Though at 6-2 the Tigers find themselves trailing the white hot White Sox and Royals to start the season. I don’t think the Central will be this good all season long, so let’s not get too excited or too frustrated too early.
Pittsburgh’s starters have no reason to be bashful, but they aren’t quite Astros ace Dallas Keuchel. Keuchel is the reigning AL Cy Young winner, and he hasn’t lost at home since August 10, 2014. That’s right, he went 2-0 over his last 3 home starts in 2014, and 15-0 covering 18 starts in 2015.
Here is the Baseball Reference Game Preview (you really can get lost in this thing). For instance, I noted that the Tigers are averaging 6.13 runs per game this season; last year’s MLB high was 5.5. The Tigers team OPS of .835 is currently pacing 4th in the Majors.
Jim Leyland is going to manage the US Team in next spring’s World Baseball Classic. Marlboro shares are up 5% on the news.
1. 2B Ian Kinsler
2. LF Justin Upton
3. 1B Miguel Cabrera
4. DH Victor Martinez
5. RF J.D. Martinez
6. 3B Nick Castellanos
7. C Jarrod Saltalamacchia
8. CF Anthony Gose
9. SS Jose Iglesias
It looks like the Tigers should hire a base running coach!
Boy, you’d like to see the boys take a few pitches there.
We can’t afford to be losing runs due to sloppy and stupid base running, especially with Pelfrey pitching!
Any word when Norris will be ready and available?
They will swing at anything close …..Houston’s like the Tigers
So Pelfrey how about getting close!
How many more bullets can Pelfry dodge?
Sometimes it is better to be lucky than to be good, and better to dodge bullets than to get hit by them.
After the 3rd inning, who could have predicted it would be a 1-run game with the Tigers still having a chance for a win?
For the most part these are some pretty ugly “at bats” by the Tigers…no 6.13 runs today!
What a nice job by Farmer! Let’s get a couple of runs for the win in a game we should have been blown out of!
What a terrible offensive attempt to win a game. I guess we were due for one of these. Tigers were dazzled by 86-88 mph today. Miggy lately looks like a lot of effort to hit the ball all the way to second base!…..
JV time to step up tomorrow!
Miggy 3 for 20 with 1 rbi…..last 5 games. Looks like he barely has enough energy to walk all the way to the plate.!!!..and jog all the way to first!
I hope next week we don’t hear that Miggy has a flu or minor sprain. Jud is spot on, he just doesn’t have any real energy, not even joking around as he always does.
Not a surprise we lost to Keuchel but how little we did to give us a chance. Makes JV start tomorrow very important. If he gets hammered again it will make us question our starting pitching all over again.
Billy Martin would bump him down to about 7th in the lineup. Not that that’s a good thing.
These are the games that will frustrate Tiger fans. They can put up 6 runs with anybody, but 1 or 2 runs will be a struggle.