2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.139: Tigers at Rays

140 Comments

PREGAME: Afternoon tilt today as Jarrod Washburn gives his bum knee a test against Lenny Dinardo. Dinardo hasn’t made a start this year, but he’s hardly a rookie. He’ll turn 30 next week and has spent 5 years banging around primarily as a reliever for the A’s and Red Sox. He’s had impressive numbers at AAA this year with only 5 homers allowed in 151 innings.

PennantRaceIsOnYour wilkin-ized lineup is:

  1. Raburn, CF
  2. Polanco, 2B
  3. Ordonez, RF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Thames, DH
  6. Ramirez, LF
  7. Inge, 3B
  8. Laird, C
  9. Everett, SS

Detroit vs. Kansas City – September 10, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

140 thoughts on “Game 2009.139: Tigers at Rays”

  1. Raburn in CF kind of makes my stomach a little queasy each time they will hit the ball to him. It would be really nice if Washburn could give us a great start today as we really need to win this one. Also Bilfer in the title of this you have the Tigers playing the Rays. Or is that just a ploy to give us some of the road magic we had against them.

    1. Not with Jarod “I’m annoyed I got traded, wish I was still in Seattle so I’m going to pitch like crap for the rest of the year” Washburn on the mound.

  4. Good luck to Washburn and all, but any chance we see a Royal homerun today? I don’t know if nicknames have been discussed for JW, but may I suggest “Yard”.

    1. I see your glass is half full… Continuing with that theme, you could say that not allowing 4 runs (or was it 6? i think it was 6, now that i think about it) before recording an out is improvement.

  10. Wow, I did not realize our 3B is hitting a full 30 points higher than the Royals young 3B prodigy.

    2. He’s been one of our best hitters since the All-Star break. The way he is going, he could catch Granderson for second best OPS on the team (for the whole season).

      There’s no good baseball reason to not play him right now.

    2. August – Current

      Player A (130 ab): .169/.215/.315 – 12 runs – 6 hr – 15 rbi
      Player B (89 ab): .393/.539/.550 – 11 runs – 2 hr – 8 rbi

      A is Inge
      B is Ordonez

      Even with a bloated avg/obp/slg line, Ordonez is still only just on par with Inge in terms of translating numbers in to production. Factor in Inge’s defense, and I could care less how many doubles he has because what little he has done has been of the clutch variety.

      1. Inge’s defense, at its best, is nowhere near enough to make up for .324 worth of OBP. Nowhere close. Not even familiar with the area. Can’t even find the map at AAA.

        And, bloated? Really? Is that how the kids are saying “great” these days? For you to type numbers showing that, for the past month, Maggs has been an All-Star-quality player, and Inge a AA-quality player, and then conclude that Inge is better… I just don’t know what to say. RsBI and runs scored are incredibly context dependent. It’s all about what the guys around you happen to do. It’s not Inge. The guys ahead of and behind him create those runs and RsBI.

          1. I don’t know where to find out for sure, but I think his WAR was up around four in the middle of June. Which is incredible, for a counting stat to move backwards.

            Through mid-June, Inge was an All-Star, a great player, and one of the biggest reasons the Tigers were competitive. Right now, he’s killing this team. I don’t know where to find date-ranged defensive stats, but the ol’ eye test tells me that his range has been compromised. He also seems to be back to the slo-pitch softball stance of 2007-8.

            Inge showed earlier this year that he can be great. Playing every day on his knee is not helping him get back to that. Don Kelly should start at third for a week. If he is worse than Inge overall, put Inge back in. If he’s okay, sit Inge until he feels a good bit better. The team is better with good Inge. But any adequate replacement is better than this Inge.

          2. You might be right that either Kelly, or even Huff would be a better option at 3, and that Inge should be rested. However, for whatever reason, Leyland seems to think that Inge playing 3b gives the team the best chance to win. That might be misguided, but the Maggs scenario shows that their only concern is to play the players they feel give them the best chance to win.

          3. Andre: You make a good point about Leyland; and whether he’s right or wrong, it’s good to think about these things–I find it saves a lot of energy to not want things that aren’t going to happen in a million years.

            Forget extended rest–have you even ever seen Leyland take Inge out early in a blowout game? There was one recently when he lifted Inge, Polanco and Cabrera, and maybe one other when his knees were worse but that’s all I can think of.

            I can’t recall Inge ever being lifted for a pinch-hitter; Inge and Cabrera and Polanco are the 3 guys he NEVER pinch-hits for. Whether it’s because he thinks Inge is going to pull through late in tight games or he wants his glove out there in the 9th (and I’m sure the Psychedelic Raburn Ninth Inning Experience recently still sticks in his head), you can tell Old Smokey thinks of Inge as one of the must-have guys. Considering Inge leads the team in game-winning hits and 9th-inning OPS, the Smoking Man either knows what he is doing or has been lucky (after all both are very small sample sizish)…I’m fine with either.

        2. I could have gone with “gaudy”, “ridonckulous”, “insane”, “ridiculous”, etc…

          The point wasn’t that Inge was better than Maggs, but to illustrate that Ordonez’s batting line hadn’t correlated into a higher rate of returns (runs or rbi) than Inge had managed with his awful batting line, and that given Inge’s defense it didn’t bother me that he wasn’t hitting lots of doubles.

          And please, let us distinguish between All-Star quality batting (Ordonez, post-ASB) vs. defense (Inge, all year).

      2. That’s really reverse logic Andre. The number of clutch opportunities that have never arose because Inge is batting in the 160s is so much greater than the 4 or 5 clutch hits he’s had since the all-star break.

        1. Point taken re: missed opportunity, but his production (runs, rbi) is still ok despite the other numbers. Again, when taken with his defense, I think he’s a net gain. I’m not saying they shouldn’t try to rest his knees in the hopes that he’ll benefit from it, but one does wonder who his replacement would be, and whether or not they would be an overall improvement.

          1. Andre, Inge is batting .168 with a .511 ops. His post all-star numbers if extrapolated for a full season would be 178 strikeouts and 18 hr’s and 48 rbi’s. That sort of sucks.

          2. I’m aware of Inge’s recent average, you can tell…cause I did the math above.

            If one were to extrapolate Magg’s pre-ASB numbers, or most any other players’ poor stretches, it wouldn’t be hard to come up with similarly crappy numbers.

            Oddly enough, ESPN is projecting Maggs to finish with 8 hr and 48 rbi. That sort of sucks too, especially at $12mil more dollars and way less defense.

            Inge has been very bad at the plate, but again, who replaces him? Huff? Somebody else? Would that be better overall?

    1. I don’t have much faith in Washburn right now. On the other hand, we’re getting to KC’s pitcher. If it wasn’t for the ump, we’d have had at least one run before Inge’s GIDP.

  21. The blackholes in the line-up are just staggering in some series. This has been one of those series…

  29. Raburn to LF, really? Has Leyland seen him this series out there? I would have rather kept Ramirez…

    Thank you Miner for being awful at a time when we need you to be good.

  30. Zach Miner in the house, everyone.

    Our lead lasted all of 3 pitches. Thanks for playing, Zach.

    1. When is Ol’ Smoky gonna ever learn that we don’t have a clue on how to pitch Butler. Even though it would’ve loaded the bases, I’d have walked him there after the way he has just abused us this week. Thank the heavens we’ve extended him for two years. Yippeee.

  44. Is this officially a mop-up game now? We’re conceding a one run game? Why the hell is Miner still pitching?

  47. Not really sure why Minor is still on the mound and even more confused why this guy is still on the roster . . .

  50. unbelievable that Leyland brought Miner out for the 7th.

    It’s 90% Miner’s fault and 10% Leyland for the awful 6th inning. You can flip those percentages for the crappy 7th inning we’re about to have.

  51. three of those pitches from Ni were strikes according to Gameday.

    EDIT: oh goody. Eddie Bonine to the rescue.

  54. As crummy as this is, I’m trying to tell myself that what if they only won one or two in Tampa over the weekend, then came to KC and won 1 out of 3. It’s the same math, but getting sweep by the dead Royals in front of about 100 people in Kaufman Stadium still stinks.

    1. This game is miserable, but you are right though. I think Bilfer noted that a loss today is still a .500 road trip. A road trip split is okay compared to the rest of the season…

  55. Why would Leyland bring in Bonine? He’s not a strike-out pitcher, so we’ll probably allow at least a run, even if he gets 3 outs.

    We need that run!

    1. The seeds to this inning were sown by the ridiculous decision to let Miner come back out to start it.

    1. Tigers fans are disgruntled with the pitching today, but how about the Royals (both of them). Two bases-loaded-no-out innings and two runs to show for them.

    1. If shades of ’06 means the Tigers make it to the series, I think we’ll all accept that. Every game someone notes this, and I will today – baseball is a marathon, albeit harder to run with Yard Washburn on your back.

  59. Sorry to sound overly negative, but I’m getting a feeling in my gut that a slide is coming (or more precisely has started) for the Tigers. I see us splitting four with TOR this weekend and then struggling with this same Royals team, losing two of three. That would be a 3-7 stretch that includes six games with the Royals and 7 of those 10 at home. What a waste of a glorius opportunity that will be. Its just a gut feeling, but it is deep in the pit of my stomach and it is just gnawing at me right now. I really see this thing going down to the final weekend. I was hoping that could be avoided, but our guys appear to be determined NOT to take the drama out of the division race. I am having nightmares of the 2007 and 2008 Mets. This KC series is HUGELY disappointing. HUGELY disappointing. I could’ve lived with dropping two of three, but getting swept by these mutts really tells me how deeply flawed our favorite baseball team is.

    P.S. The Twins will sweep Oakland at the Metrodome this weekend and by Monday all of our collars will feel quite a bit tighter.

    2. Not so much worried about the next two series. The issue will be if the Tigers get swept by Minnesota and/or Chicago in their upcoming series with these teams, who will be hungry to win. If the Tigers acheive slightly more than they have during this series (the pennant is on the line afterall) they will get swept by both teams.

      This series is just awful. Forget about adjusting expectations on account of this team being only slightly better than average, as someone argued earlier, the look of this team in this series is much more like the look of a last place team.

  61. Miner’s line today:

    1 ip, 5 h, 3 er, 1 bb, 0 so, 1 hr, 8 batters faced and 28 pitches to get 3 outs.

    nice effort.

  66. And THIS is the bullpen that DD thinks is going places in the post season? Doubt they will even get there . . . aside from Lyon and occasional glimmers of hope from Seay, the rest should be working on a coffee boat.

    Good move picking up Washburn and not focusing on shoring up your bullpen and solidifying a good closer(seeing many were dirt cheap recently).

    Getting swept by KC at this point is absolutely unforgivable. This organization needs an enema!!!

        1. You only show up in losing streaks. You stay silent during a 6 game win streak and then you show up and complain when the team loses 3 in a row.

          1. I noticed that the quantity of posts is drastically reduced during winning streaks, so maybe that’s a trend.

            And is it complaining, or voicing frustration over a team that doesn’t appear to be playing to it’s full potential.

            Come on, this is a pennant race, and this is a systemic problem(the bullpen, lack of timely hitting), not an isolated incident . . . I mean . . . Minor, Ni, Fien . . .

            Tell you what, if the team comes back and sweeps Toronto this weekend, I will be the first to show up and applaud with a barrage of positive commentary.

          2. ” this is a systemic problem(the bullpen, lack of timely hitting)”

            so kind of like what happened with all the come-from-behind wins en route to the sweep of the Rays, right?

  67. Realistically after this teeeeeerrrrrrible sweep, what do the Tigers need to do in the next three series: vs. Toronto; vs. KC; at Cleveland, before starting the Minny/CWS death march without giving us all nightly heart attacks?

  68. UNFORGIVABLE! RIOT! ENEMAS! Relax people. We aren’t the Yankees, so why are we expecting to dominate every series. This is baseball, and all teams get swept by bad teams now and again. There’s no reason to believe this will transfer into the next series or into the playoffs or whatever. As history has proven to us, baseball is streaky and we just need to support our guys this last month. They have put us in a great position to win our division for the first time in two decades.

    2. They have put us in this position, or is it the other teams in the division have just been uncharacteristically awful this year? Does getting to the playoffs really mean much when once you get there, you will be blown out right away?

      Negative? Sure . . . but can you blame someone being negative when this team has so much potential if it were managed and run correctly.

      But what do I know, you guys are probably right . . . The Tigers will probably blow past the Yankees and beat the Phillies in the world series, good chance of that w/97% of the lineup below .300, a joke of a bullpen and a closer that can’t throw strikes consistently.

      1. “w/97% of the lineup below .300, a joke of a bullpen and a closer that can’t throw strikes consistently.”

        +

        “this team has so much potential if it were managed and run correctly.”

        =

        ok, how would you manage/run it differently to unlock this dormant potential?

        1. 1) I would throw out the formula manager practice that Leyland and the other old boy’s club managers employ and play the hot hitters, i.e. Magglio instead of Clete, against righties.
          2) Play much more aggressively to manufacture runs against all these so called “pitchers w/good stuff”(that don’t seem to have good stuff against teams w/worse records, btw), for example, more squeeze plays, more bunting . . . work in a catcher w/a stick more often.
          3) Fire McClendon right away. Would this help? Odds are it would . . . life has to be instilled in this offense if we have any chance of going past the first series in the off season(if we make it)
          4) Bring up ANY reasonable bullpen talent from AAA/AA. What do you have to lose compared to what we have now, barring a select few.

      2. Yeah, because if Leyland and Dombrowski were not running the team, they would be 30 games over .500.

  69. when the starters fail to go deep in the game your stuck with the not so great bullpen pieces and your chances of winning tend to decrease, and Zack proved that point today.

  70. Really poor game today and series overall. Our pitching was pretty much terrible and like everyone else I agree Zach Minor sucks.

    As for Washburn I understand why we made the trade with at the time Porcello was not pitching well, who knows what you are going to get from Galarraga, and French while he had pitched well who knows how long that was going to last. So DD made a trade to bring us a solid SP who he they could depend on to pitch some solid games. Well it certainly has not worked out that way as he has flat out sucked. If we do make the postseason I am not even sure he gets on the roster right now.

  71. Flip side: This team just got swept by the Royals, and still has a 5.5 game division lead. They have 14 home games left vs. 9 on the road. They had some good luck in Tampa and some bad luck in KC. Overall, they played about well enough to be 3-3 in the last two series. Which they were. The bullpen had a bad series. They are still one of the team’s major strengths. For a team coming off this series, with Inge, Laird, Huff, and Everett hitting almost every day, and Washburn starting every fifth day, things look pretty good.

      1. It’s actually not. The Tigers have a 5.5 game lead over one small market team with no starting pitching and two great players. The White Sox are 6 back and traded away key players on August 31. Neither one of them are above .500. If The Tigers play that badly and make a ‘pennant race’ hash out of this that just means the season ends 3 games earlier than it would in the playoffs. I am just not going to get white knuckle nervous if the team somehow can’t win 85 games. That would be like the Emmys coming down to Saved By The Bell vs. Mr. Belvedere.

        1. First of all, I don’t like the implication that those two shows weren’t really all that deserving of Emmys.

          Second…well, I don’t really have a second, I just think one of them should have won.

          1. If only they could have gotten together, like the peanut butter and chocolate bar in the Reese’s commercial…

            Saved By The Belvedere would have been unstoppable at Emmy time…

    2. True, it’s only a pennant race when all the teams have winning records, both overall and against each other. Oh, wait…

  73. To me it is. I don’t see how record has anything to do with it. There are five teams racing to the finish line and one team wins.

  74. Swept by the worst team in the American League who threw out three starters who had a grand total of 2 wins on the season between all of them.

    Humiliating.

    But this is no time to panic. We still have a huge advantage in the Division race and the Magic Number was lowered today. We have 14 more home games. We still have a solid starting staff. Put this one behind us boys and move along.

    Go Tigers!

  75. It is funny, last year you could not convince Tigers fans that the team didn’t have a shot. This year, you cannot convince Tigers fans that the team has a real chance.

    Awful loss today, but I wonder if the losses were reversed? What if the Tigers were swept by Tampa Bay and then swept the Royal? What would the reaction be?

  76. Anyone have stats on teams leading their division by more than 5 games and getting swept by the last place team in the last month, and actually going on to win the division?

    1. It’ll likely be similar in nature to teams leading the division, sweeping the defending AL champs away, and going on to win the division.

      1. Wow Andre . . . wasn’t sure until now, but it seems unlikely that I will be getting a Christmas card from you this year . . .

          1. That doesn’t make me feel better, man . . . in fact, it makes me feel very sad. You should call her tonight, tell her you love her.

  77. Look, everyone would have been happy with a .500 road trip. We got that. Getting swept by the Royals is tough, and maybe we should have won two of them. However, if you think that you have to accept that we should have lost two of the Tampa series.

    It’s amazing how things even out in the length of a season, sometimes almost immediately.

  78. I think it’s human nature to excel when you have less to lose, like the Royals. Pressure is off, so they just went out, strung hits together, pitched well, and dominated the series.

    The Tigers are a professional organization, and it’s really up to them if they want the division bad enough. There is little any of us can do, aside from buy pizzas and stay on the edge of our seats when Rodney comes out w/less than a 6 run lead.

  79. Man, can’t believe everyone is so hysterical. These games didn’t mean a whole lot because we won 6 straight and took a 6.5 game lead last week. We could probably go 8-15 in our last 23 games and still win 1st place, but we’ll probably go 15-8 and win 90 games for the season.

    Getting Miner and Washburn back on track before the season ends is one of the most important things Leyland has to do. We need those guys at the top of their game come playoff time. JL just has to keep throwing them out there until they right themselves.

    1. I think getting Miner at the top of his game would involve putting him back into the starting rotation. Why not swap Washburn out for Minor, and let Washburn mend his game as an extra set up man next to Lyon? Washburn’s sinker isn’t working, and w/a 89 MPH fastball, should he really be starting?

  80. Wow, I can’t believe all the negative comments. We have a 5 1/2 game lead and very, very good odds of making the playoffs. Once there we certainly won’t be the favorite, but anything can happen; it will just be a matter of getting hot at the right time.
    The insinuation that if the Tigers make the playoffs they’ll surely get swept is ludicrous. We could possibly get swept, but we could also get hot and win the World Series.
    Losing like this to the Royals stunk, but we’re still in a great place and set up for October baseball.

    1. Good points. And I agree, they could get hot at the right time against a Yankees or Angels in the post season. Considering the Tigers recent road record, taking 3 of 6 on the road is excemplary, it’s just the sweep by the Royals is suck a bitter pill to swallow.

      Just either some really bad luck yesterday(5 dps) or lack of execution . . . either way, it’s difficult to watch at this point when these games were going to hopefully be easily in the win column.

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