Mike Pelfrey certainly didn’t win any new fans last night, but the Tigers pulled out the kind of game they usually use in dramatic fashion, with Justin Upton hitting his 2nd home run of the game, of the walk off variety. With JD Martinez likely out until August, the Tigers really need Upton to contribute, and he has now homered in 3 straight games and has a 10 game hitting streak.
The Tigers and Mariners traded leads 7 times in the game, in what was a bit of a home run derby. Until Upton’s game winner the big shot of the game was by Miguel Cabrera, who hit one out toward the Kaline statue, off the concourse, and into the street, estimated at 454 feet, which would be the longest ball hit at Comerica. The win actually went to Anibal Sanchez, although maybe the bullpen should have gotten a group W for that; other than the two Wilsons the bullpen put together 7 pretty good innings.
Tonight sees the reliable Justin Verlander take on James Paxton, who was called up to start in place of Felix Hernandez. In Place of Felix Hernandez is my favorite Mariner pitcher.
Today’s Lineup:
- Kinsler, 2B
- Maybin, CF
- Cabrera, 1B
- V Martinez, DH
- Castellanos, 3B
- Upton, LF
- Aviles, RF
- McCann, C
- Iglesias, SS
Today’s my birthday so I’m not going to follow the blog during the game. I have checked the starting lineup and noticed Aviles is in RF for Moya. It proves that Brad can NEVER be a capable baseball manager. If you’re worried about lefty righty matchups so much, who is filling in for Miggy, J-UP and the rest of the RH hitters tomorrow when we face a right hander.
I know it’s hard to ignore Aviles numbers against lefty pitchers: .174 BA .240 OPB and .414 OPS! Moya has no experience and has faced a lefty for only one at bat. He got a hit and a RBI. This was an excellent chance to help Moya work on his skills against a tough lefthander and he ignored it.
Big Al: Tu sabes que Brad no tiene las habilidades, experiencia o el temperamento para manejar con éxito.
Happy Birthday! The line about Aviles made me laugh.
Ok guys, I am headed to Sweden tomorrow for my annual summer three week shebang. During June I have observed this team has Mojo and wants to be in the hunt. Keep it going while I am gone! Perhaps a seven game over .500 record will be in on my return!
It looks like they must have pitched Felix Hernandez after all.
That would have been a good time to pinch-run for Victor.
Brad’s use of pinch runners is so confusing that it’s starting to make sense, if that makes sense.
Exactly …..if you are going to PR for him at third..Romine would have scored from first on Castys double if u PR when he got on.
My thought exactly.
Aviles and Upton coming through in successive games.
Who would have thought?
Ausmus +1….running for VMart in the 8th from third. There is no way possible VMart would have scored on Avilies groundball….
http://espn.go.com/blog/detroit-tigers/post/_/id/2164/daniel-norris-anibal-sanchez-return-to-rotation-while-tigers-try-to-manage-michael-fulmers-workload
Norris to start tomorrow, and Sanchez to ‘start’ in Fulmer’s next slated start… officially ‘trying to limit Fulmer’s innings’ With Fulmer’s pitching motion, i’m not so sure cutting-back innings will prevent any future elbow or shoulder injury… those joints (elbow and shoulder) are either built to handle that type of stress (Fulmer’s delivery), or they’re not… and i’m skeptical that 140 innings instead of 156 (projected) is the solution. I don’t want to see him overtaxed into injury, but i think the ‘one size fits all’ approach of imposing ‘inning limits’ on pitchers is guesswork at best.
I’m okay with it. It’s been done recently with Strasburg and Stroman that I can think of.
I agree. I wondered how were Nolan Ryan and Jack Morris limited when they came up? In his first few years with the Mets, Ryan never pitched more than 156 innings. I suspect that may be because their staff had a bunch of good pitchers. After he was traded, his inning went up a bunch. Jack had 107 innings but only 7 starts in 1978 then in 79 he got 28 starts and nearly 200 innings. Beyond that Jack was well over 200 innings every year until the last two years (age?).
I guess I should apologize to both Brad and Aviles. Aviles had a terrific at bat in the 8th that resulted in the go ahead run. The other big plus is that Rondon had his 2nd good inning in the 8th. If he can continue, it’s a big help for our pen.
tonight; 36-35 SEA (Iwakuma) vs 36-35 DET (Fulmer) – Iwakuma (career 3.29 ERA) throws a lot of pitches outside the strike zone looking for hitters to chase – typically not the type of pitchers DET has a lot of success against…but he has given up 7 HR’s in his last 4 outings.
1. Ian Kinsler, 2B
2. Cameron Maybin, CF
3. Miguel Cabrera, 1B
4. Victor Martinez, DH
5. Nick Castellanos, 3B
6. Justin Upton, LF
7. Steven Moya, RF
8. Jarrod Saltalamacchia, C
9. Jose Iglesias, SS