All posts by billfer

2010 Season, Game Post

Game 2010.028: Tigers at Twins

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Yesterday Max Scherzer built upon a previous underwhelming outing by performing considerably worse. Maybe Dontrelle Willis can build upon a satisfyingly strong outing by doing better. Of course better than 0 runs is tricky.

Last week Willis fanned 6 Twins in 6 innings while allowing only 6 base runners and his 3.75 ERA would certainly qualify as surprising.

The Twins send out Nick Blackburn. The Tigers torched him for 9 runs in 3.1 innings the first time they faced him last year. Then he held them to 3 runs in 16 innings over his next 2 starts. Blackburn’s peripherals are pretty ugly this year with 8 walks, 7 K’s, and 6 homers allowed in 23.2 innings.

Your stat to watch tonight: opposing hitters have led off an inning get on base at a .520 clip off of Blackburn this season.

Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins – May 4, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

2010 Season, Game Post

Maxed Out

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Max Scherzer didn’t really give his team a chance to win, and that’s pretty much the game story in a nutshell. Speaking of shells, Scherzer was pummeled early and often and the Tigers were down 7-0 nothing before they even got their bearings at Target Field.

In the first inning Jim Thome drove in the first run on a pitch low and away. Thome did a nice job with a tough pitch. The rest were pitches up and in the middle and pitches that Scherzer can’t make.

In Max’s defense Jim Reynolds wouldn’t give him calls on the edges of the strike zone, but Scherzer has to do a better job. Especially after the Tigers started to chip away. In a way the 5th inning which featured 2 walks after the Tigers had cut it to a 4 run deficit were just as damaging as the early inning barrage.

  • Brad Thomas didn’t exactly clean up Scherzer’s mess, but he did go 3.2 innings to finish the game.
  • Austin Jackson is damn entertaining to watch. He ended up with another 3 hits and a strike out free game. He has 5 games without a strikeout, 4 of them are against the Twins.
  • Brennan Boesch continues to impress at the plate with 2 more hits of his own and he just missed his 2nd homer.
  • Detroit went 0 for 11 with RISP. A couple of those outs did plate runs, but it also kep the rallies short and harmless.

Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins – May 3, 2010 – MLB.com Wrap

2010 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap: 5.3.2010

Toledo – suspended in 2nd inning

Binghamton 7 Erie 5 (10 innings)
Cale Iorg was the offensive star with a double and 2 singles. Andy Dirks had 2 hits. Audy Ciriaco tripled, but also fanned 3 times. Eastern League Player of the Week Wilkin Ramirez had a double. Thad Weber started and allowed 4 runs in 7.1 innings. The Seawolves tied this game up late, but Brooks Brown allowed 3 runs in 2.1 innings of relief.

Daytona 6 Lakeland 3
Adam Wilk allowed 2 runs on 7 hits and no walks, but he hasn’t found the strikeouts yet with only 1. Lester Oliveros is back from the DL but was charged with 2 runs and the loss. Rawley Bishop had 3 hits and Billy Nowlin had 2.

West Michigan 3 South Bend 0
Alexis Espinoza doubled and singled pushing his season line to 333/385/479 (but with 17 K’s and only 1 walk). Ramon Lebron fanned 6 and allowed just 4 hits and a walk in 6 innings.

2010 Season, Game Post

Game 2010.027: Tigers at Twins

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For the first time ever I’m excited to see the Tigers play in Minnesota. Sure, I’ve been excited for games that have taken place in Minneapolis, but never excited by the prospect of the Tigers being there. But with the Metrodome no more, we can just enjoy the Twins new digs. Oh yeah, and the winner of the series will be in first place come Thursday.

Max Scherzer is coming off his worst start, which was against the Twins. He’s also got this thing where he fares poorly against a team when he sees them in a second consecutive start. Which if the trend follows it would mean that his last start would no longer be his worst of the season. I’m not expecting that, just sayin’

He’ll be opposed by Scott Baker who happened to be the opposition last time too. Not much has changed since the Tigers faced Scott Baker last, so I’m going to cheat and just say read last week’s pregame.

There is no word if Paul Emmel will be on hand to haunt Denard Span.

The big news from the Twins camp is that Joe Mauer may miss the series. In typical Twins fashion though his replacement, Wilson Ramos, stepped in and had a 4 hit day on Sunday.

The Tigers lineup will be:

  1. Jackson, CF
  2. Damon, DH
  3. Ordonez, RF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Boesch, LF
  6. Inge, 3B
  7. Raburn, 2B
  8. Laird, C
  9. Santiago, SS

I haven’t complained too much about lineups this year, but I really think Alex Avila should be catching today.

Also, I talked with FS North in a Know the Enemy segment that they did to preview the series.

Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins – May 3, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

Links

Links for 2010-05-03

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2010 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 5.2.2010

Charlotte 4 Toledo 0
Wil  Rhymes went 3 for 3 with a stolen base and a walk. Jeff Larish, Jeff Frazier, and Danny Worth all doubled, but that was all of the hits. Alredo Figaro gave up 4 runs on 8 hits, a walk, and 4 K’s in 6.2 innings.

Trenton 3 Erie 4
Duane Below fanned 4 and walked none and allowed just one hit besides a solo homer in 5 innings. Ramon Garcia gave up 2 runs on 4 hits in 2 innings of relief. Cesar Nicolas had 2 doubles. Max St. Pierre hit a walk off homer to win it. It’s St. Pierre’s 4th homer of the season.

Dunedin 4 Lakeland 3
Alden Carrithers, Rawley Bishop, and Chao-Ting Tang each had 2 hits. Brayan Villarreal was touched for 4 runs (2 earned) in 5 innings on 6 hits, 2 walks, and 4 K’s.

West Michigan 5 South Bend 6
Giovany Soto struck out 5 and walked none in 6 innings of 2 run ball. Melvin Mercedes got knocked around for 4 runs while recording just one out. Alexis Espinoza went 4 for 4 with 2 doubles and a walk. Avisail Garcia also had 4 htis. Jamie Johnson reached base 3 times.

2010 Season, Game Post

Verlander is back

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When Jim Leyland said he was going to put Justin Verlander on a strict, but undisclosed pitch count today, who thought it would be 120? It probably is a few more than Jim would have liked, but when you have a pitcher as in control as Verlander was today, 120 doesn’t seem to be a stretch at all.

By the numbers

The numbers really do tell a story of how dominant Verlander was today:

  • 23 – The number of consecutive hitters Verlander retired after Torii Hunter singled in the first inning.
  • 82% – The rate at which Verlander racked up first pitch strikes
  • 9 – The pitches that Verlander threw from the stretch. It’s safe to say he wasn’t pitching under duress.
  • 4 – The number of times Verlander went to a 3 ball count. He didn’t walk any batters.
  • 3 – The hits allowed.
  • 72% – Verlander’s strike rate for the day

That’s pretty much as good as it gets and not a moment too soon.

Everybody else

The bottom of the order led the charge today and 5 runs proved to be more than enough. The bottom 4 in the lineup went 5 for 14 and set the table for Austin Jackson who does what Austin Jackson does. He gets a hit or strikes out. Five ABs, 3 hits, 2 strike outs. It really is incredible.

  • Alex Avila reached base 3 times. I’m not sure what was more impressive, his rope double down the line or the 8 pitch walk he worked in the 8th.
  • Brennan Boesch continues to hit and picked up another double. Boesch has been mashing first pitch fastballs since getting called up. This time though he jumped on a first pitch slider. It was nice to see the adjustment for the youngster.
  • It was unfortunate that Jose Valverde had to come in today. He’s now appeared in 14 of the team’s 26 games and is on pace to make 84 appearances this year. It would certainly help with his goal of 74 saves, but that is a heavy workload.

Tigers 5, Angels 1

2010 Season, Game Post

Game 2010.026: Angels at Tigers

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The post game can be read at Verlander is Back

The Tigers wrap up what seemed to be a very quick home stand. They won both series already, and a win today would be icing on the cake. Of course with the ace on the mound for Detroit the team and fans are looking for something more than a solid effort on get-away day.

Justin Verlander did a good job against the Twins in keeping them off the scoreboard. He would have had 6 shutout innings were it not for a Ryan Raburn error that allowed an unearned run.

But even with the nearly 6 innings, he went over 120 pitches for the second consecutive game. For the season he is at 4.42 pitchers/plate appearance. The league average is typically in the 3.7-3.9 range. While it seems like more pitches are being fouled off, this rate is only 2% higher than his career norms which means just 7 additional fouls over the 5 starts.

Jered Weaver takes the ball for the Angels. He held the Tigers to 2 runs over 7 innings in Anaheim. His 34:6 strike out to walk ratio is particularly impressive (and daunting). He’s allowed 5 homers this year, 4 of them to right handers. This probably doesn’t mean a lot, but in his 5 starts the leadoff batter is 0 for 5 with 4 strike outs.

Los Angeles Angels at Detroit Tigers – May 2, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

2010 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 5.1.2010

Charlotte 7 Toledo 5

Jeff Larish went 4 for 5 with a home run. Casper Wells and Danny Worth each had 2 hits. Enrique Gonzalez was knocked around for 7 runs on 8 hits, 3 walks, and 1 strike out in 5.1 innings. Josh Rainwater pitched 2 perfect innings with 3 K’s.

Trenton 4 Erie 10
Wilkin Ramirez is on quite the run. Yesterday he went 3 for 4 with 2 homers and a walk. In his last 6 games he is 13 for 23 with 4 homers, 5 walks, and just 2 strike outs. Cesar Nicolas went 3 for 5. Audy Ciriaco picked up 2 hits. Lauren Gagnier allowed 3 runs in 6.2 innings with 5 K’s and 3 walks.

Dunedin 4 Lakeland 0
Lakeland had 11 baserunners, but couldn’t turn them into runs. Rawley Bishop and Josh Workman each had 2 hits. Mark Sorensen gave up 4 runs on 5 hits in 2 innings. Robert Waite pitched 4 shutout innings in relief.

West Michigan 4 South Bend 8
Hernan Perez went 2 for 2. Victor Larez got knocked out int he 4th inning after allowing 8 runs. They called this one after 4.5 innings due to rain.

2010 Season, Game Post

Game 2010.025: Angels at Tigers

39 Comments

The Tigers look for the morning storms to move out of the area so they can get in an afternoon tilt against the Angels. It will be Jeremy Bonderman taking on Scott Kazmir.

Kazmir has had a tendency to walk people in the past, but when the two teams hooked up earlier this season he fanned 7 Tigers hitters without issuing a free pass as he picked up a win. He followed that up by walking 4 Yankees in 5.1 innings though so I don’t know that the control issues are corrected.

Jeremy Bonderman was nearly great his last time out, humming through the first 5 innings before things got away from him in the 6th. At least he was efficient needing only 74 pitches to get through 5.2 innings.

2010 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 04.30.2010

Syracuse 2 Toledo 1
Wil Rhymes and Brent Dlugach each had 3 hits, including a homer for Dlugach. Armando Galarraga was good again, with 8 strike outs and just 2 walks in 7 innings. Daniel Schlereth pitched an inning with 2 K’s and only 12 pitches.

Trenton 11 Erie 6
Wilkin Ramirez went 2 for 3 with a walk. Cale Iorg and Justin Henry homered. Jon Kibler allowed 4 runs in 5.2 innings, but Jay Voss was left out to dry. He recorded 5 outs, but allowed 7 runs on 8 hits.

Dunedin 2 Lakeland 1 (10 innings)
Bryan Pounds went 2 for 5. Chao Ting-Tang doubled. Luke Putkonen went 7 innings and allowed 1 run on 6 hits, 1 walk and 3 K’s. Mark Morrison fanned 3 in 2 innings of scoreless work.

West Michigan 2 South Bend 4
Wade Gaynor went 2 for 4 with a double. Jade Todd allowed 4 runs in 6 innings on 8 hits, a walk, and 3 strike outs.