All posts by billfer

2010 Season, Game Post

They’re coming home

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It looked like a laugher, but then the jokes stopped getting funny, then the Miguel Cabrera had the last laugh. It’s games like this where I like to let Fangraphs tell the story.

Jeremy Bonderman looked great in the early going. He only needed 38 pitches to get through 4 innings. He pitched his way out of a rocky 5th with minimal damage, so it was quite the surprise to see him unable to finish the 6th and spare the bullpen.

And that bullpen which has been quite good and quite heavily used was vulnerable. Joel Zumaya finished off the 6th inning, but got knocked around for the first time this year. Phil Coke came on and got the first out before Vladimir Guerrero tied things up.

The offense scored early and late. Brandon Inge broke his home run drought in a big way. After sending a ball to the warning track he got angry and went homer-double-homer for a monster night. Ryan Raburn narrowly missed a grand slam and added another double.

But the biggest blast once again came from the biggest hitter. The Rangers inexplicably threw Miguel Cabrera a pitch over the plate in the 9th inning and he put it over the wall to give the Tigers a win that Jose Valverde saved easily.

A 5-6 road trip isn’t great, but it is certainly acceptable. And we get back to 7p start times, and the Minnesota Twins.

2010 Season, Injuries, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 04.26.2010

Toledo 10 Columbus 1
With a roster full of sluggers, the Tigers got some offense from unexpected sources. Mike Rabelo and Danny Worth each doubled, homered, and walked. Clete Thomas drew 2 walks and Jeff Frazier and and Max Leon each had 2 hits. Enrique Gonzalez allowed just the 1 unearned run on 6 hits, no walks and 5 strike outs. Scott Drucker pitched 2 scoreless innings needing only 18 pitches, 15 of which were strikes.

Jacob Turner to the DL

With only 1 game on the docket I was looking for something to add to the wrap. News that Jacob Turner has been put on the disabled list isn’t what I had in mind. The cause is forearm stiffness. The hope is that the Tigers are just being extra cautious and that this doesn’t turn into a case of “forearm stiffness begets tendinitis begets a visit to Dr. James Andrews begets rehab begets no improvement begets Tommy John surgery.”

Cory Hamilton gets called up from EST to fill in on the West Michigan roster.

2010 Season, Game Post

Game 2010.020: Tigers at Rangers

80 Comments

The long grueling road trip is over. I’m exhausted after these 11 days and nights. I can only imagine how the players are feeling. A win tonight would mean a palatable 5-6 trip. A loss and it is a disappointing 4-7. Arbitrary you ask? Yeah, it is.

Jeremy Bonderman takes the ball for Detroit. I was going to wow you with a pitch f/x breakdown of Bonderman this season. The thing is, try as I might, I can’t classify his pitches. I haven’t trusted what gameday is telling me so I did my own k-means clustering trying a variety of variables and I got nada. I can pick out some fastballs and some sliders. The rest is noise. Hopefully the noise is effective tonight ‘cuz the pen needs a breather.

Matt Harrison goes for the Rangers. Much like Bonderman he has two quality starts and a stinker this year. The Tigers faced him twice last year and neither game he made it out of the sixth inning and the Tigers plated 9 runs total.

The lineup:

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

Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers – April 26, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

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2010 Season, Game Post

Doubled up in Arlington

40 Comments

Let the Rick Porcello panic set in. He was knocked around pretty good for the third straight start, which was a shame because an interesting lineup managed to plate 4 runs in the first 2 innings.

The raw numbers don’t paint a pretty picture in this one. Four innings, ten hits, six runs, two walks, three strike outs, 92 pitches. I’m not going to sugar coat this, Porcello didn’t make the pitches he needed to when he got in trouble. When things were at their worst the balls came off the bats the hardest. But I’m still not worried.

Half of the hits that Porcello gave up came on ground balls. The second inning outburst was set up by two ground ball hits and a line drive just out of the reach of Ramon Santiago. While the bases loaded walk was inexcusable, the bases clearing double was on a pitch that was off the plate inside to Michael Young. The homer he allowed in the first inning was off the plate away.

Both the Young pitch and Murphy pitch were up too high in the zone, but he didn’t throw them in the middle of the plate either. Porcello didn’t make enough good pitches, but he also didn’t get enough good results on the good pitches he did make.

Here’s where I get accused of being an apologist. I understand that and I can live with that and I still think that Porcello will be okay. If he doesn’t, feel free to go back to this post and point out how wrong I am.

As for the offense, it was an interesting day. The bats came out strong but after the second inning they were completely silenced. Colby Lewis went on to fan 10 batters. Four of those strikeouts were caught looking.

  • Dontrelle Willis walked the bases loaded and allowed 2 add-on runs. After a strong outing against the Angels  you have to see the control problems return. Maybe it was coming out of the bullpen, but the Willis situation is fragile to say the least.
  • Fu-Te Ni walked 2 in 2 innings, but that was mitigated with 5 strike outs and Phil Coke pitched a nice inning was well.
  • The bullpen has been effective, but is in getting worn down. Jeremy Bonderman needs to go 6 innings at least tomorrow, and pray for no extra inning games.
  • Congrats to Austin Jackson on his first career homer.
2010 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 04.25.10

Toledo 3 Columbus 2
With Rick Porcello struggling the claxons are already sounding for help from Toledo. Armando Galarraga would be a candidate, and he went 6 innings today and allowed 2 runs on 4 hits, 3 walks, and 2 K’s. Robbie Weinhardt went 2 scoreless innings with 2 strike outs and Jay Sborz grabbed his 7th save. Jeff Larish homered and walked.

Erie 10 Altoona 3
Wilkin Ramirez went 2 for 5 with his 3rd homer. Cale Iorg went 2 for 3 with a double. Lauren Gagnier allowed just 2 unearned runs in 5 innings.

Lakeland 3 Tampa 5
Brent Wyatt went 3 for 4 with a double. John Murrian was a triple short of the cycle. Josh Workman had 2 hits. Mark Sorensen managed to only allow 5 runs despite allowing 13 baserunners and striking out nobody in 4.2 innings. Mike Morrison made his first appearance and threw 2 scoreless innings.

South Bend 5 West Michigan 1
Jordan Lennerton homered in the 9th to break up the shut out. Victor Larez went 7 innings allowing 3 runs on 5 hits, no walks, and 1 strike out.

2010 Season, Game Post

Game 2010.019 Tigers at Rangers

48 Comments

Read the game wrap: Doubled up in Arlington

Rick Porcello hasn’t had an easy go of it this season. He’s managed to pitch around some struggles, but the Angels hit him pretty good. Already things like “sophomore slump” are being bandied about and with one more rough outing [air quotes]clever[air quotes] will start calling him Por-shell-o. A strong outing against the Rangers would certainly help quell that talk.

In actuality there is nothing wrong with Porcello:

porcello stats

He’s getting more ground balls, striking out more, walking less, keeping the ball in the park better, and the only thing that isn’t happening is that his balls in play aren’t being converted to outs. He’s also giving up fewer line drives. Porcello is fine.

Colby Lewis goes for the Rangers. He has 18 K’s in 17.1 innings this season, including a 10 strike out effort against the Indians. He is prone to the walk though with 10 allowed over his 3 starts.

Magglio Ordonez is sore and will get his first day off today.

Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers – April 25, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

2010 Season, Game Post, Injuries

Wins in unexpected places

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When your team turns to an emergency starter and you get a win, the aesthetics of such a win become irrelevant. Which is fortunate because this wasn’t exactly a pretty victory.

With Dontrelle Willis battling a stomach virus the Tigers turned to Brad Thomas to try and eat some innings. Thomas wasn’t good the first two innings. He either missed the strike zone or got hammered. Even factoring in an Austin Jackson misplay, you had the feeling that the Rangers should have scored more than 4 runs in the first 2 innings. But Thomas did manage to come out for a quick and painless 3rd inning.

The Tigers then got frisky in the 3rd and 4th innings. They strung together 3 hits, an RBI ground out to get the game within 1 run in the 3rd.

In the 4th inning it was Tigers patience and a screwy wild pitch that gave the Tigers the lead. Ramon Santiago scored from second on a pitch that went through Taylor Teagarden’s 5-hole.* That was enough for the lead, but the Tigers added some more runs as they batted around.

*Does anybody else remember another game in Texas where Nook Logan scored from first base on a wild pitch?

Bullpen Dominance

The story of this game though is probably the bullpen. Eddie Bonine followed Thomas and allowed just 2 baserunners in 3 innings while getting 9 ground ball outs. Bonine threw his knuckler 7 times, all for strikes and 2 resulted in ground outs.
Joel Zumaya was next and recorded 5 of his 6 outs with strike outs. Jose Valverde handled the 9th inning allowing just an infield single.

The final line for the pen was 6 innings, 3 singles, 1 walk, and 5 K’s.

Because Bonine and Zumaya in particular were able to chew up 5 innings, it means that the rest of the pen is available tomorrow.

  • The bullpen would have had one more hit surrendered were it not for a spectacular leaping grab by Jackson. It may be his best catch of the season.
  • Jackson did keep his strikeout streak alive. It’ll end some day.
  • I liked seeing the Tigers taking advantage of the defense and picking up 2 bunt hits. I hate the sacrifice, but love seeing a guy drop one down when the 3rd baseman is playing deep.
  • Adam Everett left the game with a hamstring strain.
  • Scott Sizemore didn’t play due to ankle soreness.
  • Johnny Damon’s hit streak extends to 11 and he reached base 4 times.
2010 Season, Injuries, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 04.24.2010

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Before moving into the run down of the box scores, the Tigers minor league system has been racking up their share of co-pays this week. Add in the Carlos Guillen injury and there is quite a bit of roster shuffling to cover.

Brennan Boesch of course was promoted to the Tigers to take Guillen’s spot. Clete Thomas is on the DL but is expected to be activated soon. Ryan Strieby’s wrist is acting up and so he went on the DL. Deik Scram was moved up from Erie to take Strieby’s place. Also, Ruddy Lugo was placed on the DL following last night’s scare. Fortunately it sounds like he will be okay.

Moving down to Erie they now had a spot that needed filling Christopher White is now a Seawolve.

Lakeland of course loses White, and they already have Daniel Fields in for Ben Guez (who went to Toledo when Thomas hit the DL). They also lost Lester Oliveros and Tyler Stohr to the DL this week. Chao Ting-Tang was added to the roster to be the team’s 3rd outfielder. Austin Wood and Robert Waite were added to fill the bullpen holes.

Now with Adam Everett leaving tonight’s game with a hamstring strain we’ll see if this all gets shuffled after tonight’s game.

Columbus 7 Toledo 1
Deik Scram made his Mud Hens debut and he doubled twice, pacing the offense. Phil Dumatrait was knocked out after 5 innings, 8 hits, 5 runs, 2 walks, and 1 strike out. Daniel Schlereth walked 2 and fanned 2 in 2 innings.

Erie 4 Altoona 3
Max St. Pierre hit his 3rd homer of the season and added 2 walks and a stolen base. Jon Kibler went 6.2 innings and allowed 3 runs on 7 hits and 3 walks.

Tampa 7 Lakeland 13
Luke Putkonen allowed 3 hits and 2 runs with 2 strike outs and was lifted in the second inning. While he was hit around, it seems like an early exit. Ralwey Bishop doubled, homered, and walked. Billy Nowlin and Alden Carrithers each had 3 hits. Andy Bouchie homered. Daniel Fields singled and doubled.

South Bend 3 West Michigan 0
Jade Todd struck out 7 and walked just 1 allowing 2 runs in 6 innings. The offense consisted of singles for Jamie Johnson, Wade Gaynor, and Avisail Garcia.

2010 Season, Game Post

Game 2010.018: Tigers at Rangers

48 Comments

Read the post game wrap-up: Wins in unexpected places

The Tigers have dropped 4 straight series openers. They’ve dropped the first two games of each of their last two series. The Tigers will turn to Dontrelle Willis to draw this Rangers series even.

Willis was quite good his last time out allowing just 4 hits and 2 walks in a 6 inning loss to the Angels. Willis faced the Rangers once last year in what was one of the more memorable games of the season. Willis pitched into the 7th inning and only gave up a hit and 2 walks while fanning 5.

The Tigers were set to face Rangers starter Scott Feldman last night before he was scratched due to a lingering illness. That means I get to copy and paste last night’s stuff.

Scott Feldman went 7 innings in his first 2 starts, but didn’t make it out of the 3rd in his latest outing against the Yankees. He faced the Tigers once last year and Detroit got to him for 6 runs in 2.1 innings. Granderson did the bulk of the damage hitting homers in each of the first 2 innings.

Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers – April 24, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

2010 Season, Game Post

Questioning the IBB

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In my opinion these are the hardest losses to swallow. On a night when the team had to have been tired they really did battle. They fought against a closer with an electric arm and tied up a game in the 9th. But then there was a failure. A failure of execution and of strategy. A game where it seems like the manager let his team down.

I wish that Fox Sports Detroit did a post game with Jim Leyland because I’d love to know the thinking in walking Ryan Garko to get to Nelson Cruz. I don’t always agree with Leyland’s decision making process, but I can usually see his side. In this case I don’t really see another side at all. I’m dumbfounded. Given the effort his team gave him in the top of the 9th, they deserved better.

Perhaps I’m making too much of the IBB. The win expectancy only went down 1% for the Tigers. It was actually the smallest WE event of the inning.

Of course Leyland wasn’t the one who walked Justin Smoak, or Nelson Cruz for that matter. Fu-Te Ni’s control has been poor this season (8 walks and 2 HBP in 6 innings). Ryan Perry has to make a better pitch with 2 strikes to Elvis Andrus. If Perry comes in and doesn’t get Garko out, I don’t have a beef with the manager. In this case though it seems like Leyland walked right into what Ron Washington wanted.

The downside is that I spent 3 paragraphs lamenting negative instead of talking about the top of the 9th inning, which was terrific. The at-bats were all solid. Don Kelly fanned but it took 7 pitches. Ramon Santiago had a 13 pitch at-bat that resulted in an out but had to certainly wear on Neftali Feliz. Austin Jackson was determined to not strike out for a 4th time and put the first pitch in play, and Johnny Damon fought off a couple pitches before getting a bloop hit. And of course Magglio Ordonez with the line drive to right to tie the game. Great stuff that should be remembered.

And we haven’t even mentioned Brennan Boesch’s debut which saw him hit a double and a single (and later make a baserunning mistake). We haven’t mentioned Max Scherzer who went 7 innings and fanned 7 in a quality start. There was quite a bit of good in this game, and the players deserved the same from their manager.

  • It’s a quality start Scherzer because one of the runs was unearned and was the result of a charged error when Alex Avila used his mask to corral a ball.
  • Avila did gun down both attempted base stealers.
  • Scott Sizemore had a rough night at the dish with 3 uncomfortable looking strike outs. A pinch hitting appearance by Don Kelly may have spared him the sombrero.
  • Ordonez looked a little off balance at times on the west coast, but he reached base 4 times.
  • Miguel Cabrera’s 5 game double streak came to an end, but Austin Jackson’s 16 game strikeout streak and Johnny Damon’s 10 game hitting streak are still intact.
2010 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 04.23.2010

Columbus 6 Toledo 2
Interesting night in Toledo as they didn’t have a position player available to DH. Also, starting pitcher Ruddy Lugo left the game with an “injured head” after the second batter he faced singled on a “line drive to pitcher Ruddy Lugo.” I have no other details but it sounds scary.

Jeff Frazier doubled and singled. Jeff Larish drew 3 walks. Scot Drucker had a sub 1.00 ERA going into the game, but had a rough night with 5 walks and 5 runs allowed in 2 innings.

Erie 6 Altoona 4
Andy Oliver allowed 4 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks with 4 K’s in 5 innings. Brooks Brown went 3 innings to get the win allowing just 2 hits while fanning 4. Deik Scram doubled twice and homered. Audy Ciriaco doubled and walked.

Clearwater 7 Lakeland 4
Rawley Bishop went 2 for 4 with a homer and Kody Kaiser also went deep. Gustavo Nunez went 2 for 3 with a walk. Charlie Furbush gave up 11 hits in 4.1 innings, but he also struck out 7. Austin Wood (pictured above) made his 2010 debut and struck out the side.

South Bend 3 West Michigan 1
Trevor Feeney was quite good. He last 8 innings with 8 strike outs and a walk and he surrendered all 3 runs on 7 hits. Wade Gaynor had one of the 3 Whitecaps hits and the only extra base one with a double.