Here are two seemingly independent pieces of information that coincidentally (or not) broke within a few hours of each other:
1. Humberto Sanchez has been scratched from tonight’s start due to health reasons. (hat tip Mack Avenue Tigers).
2. A White Sox-Nationals deal involving Alfonso Soriano and Brandon McCarthy is “extremely close” according to ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian.
Let unbridled speculation begin…
Durham 4, Toledo 3
Dustin Mohr, Mike Rabelo, and MIke Hessman each hit solo homers. Jordan Tata allowed 4 runs on 7 hits and 4 walks in 6 innings.
Erie 4, New Britain 1
Vincent Blue tripled and singled in 4 at bats. Brent Clevlen fanned in all 4 of his at-bats. Bobby Jones allowed 1 run in 5 innings of work. Brian Rogers followed with 2 scoreless innings as he struck out 3.
Lakeland 6, Jupiter 1
Brent Dlugach, Jeff Frazier, and Jeff Larish each added 2 hits. Dallas Trahern allowed 1 run in 6 innings. He struck out 1, walked 2, and allowed 7 hits including a solo homer.
West Michigan 6, Dayton 5
Michael Hernandez was 3 for 3 with a walk. Cameron Maybin picked up a single in 5 at-bats. Maybin was also picked off, but added his 22nd stolen base as well. Erie made 4 errors which didn’t help Josh Rainwater. He allowed 4 runs, but only 1 earned, on 6 hits in 6 innings. He fanned 7 and walked none.
Oneonta 7, State College 6
Deik Scram, Scott Sizemore, Brennan Boesch, and Ron Bourquin all picked up 2 hits. James Skelton had a 3 for 4 day. Tom Thornton allowed 6 runs, 4 earned, over 5 innings.
GCL Tigers 10, GCL Indians 5
Joseph Bowen was 1 for 1 with 3 walks. Audy Ciriaco who started awful, went 1 for 2 with a walk to raise his average to .211. Christian Martinez fanned 8 while walking none over 5 innings.
PREGAME: The Tigers look to cap their only July homestand on a high note. Today’s match-up is Nate Robertson taking on Esteban Loaiza.
Loaiza, while not pitching horribly, hasn’t had a quality start since June 15th. Let’s hope he doesn’t find his legs today.
Nate was touched up for a couple of homers in his last start against the White Sox. At times he looked fantastic, and at other times there were rockets coming off the White Sox bat in his last start.
Game Time 1:05pm
I didn’t notice it until today, but The Detroit Tigers Weblog turned 5 years old on Monday. Thanks to all of you who make this a part of your daily internet routine.
PREGAME: In their first Fox Saturday tilt in I don’t know how long. I think the last one I remember was done by Josh Lewin and Kirk Gibson if that’s any indication. The announcing crew for today will be Kennny Albert with Detroit’s own Rod Allen. I think the most entertaining part of this event might be Allen restraining his homer-enthusiasm.
The Tigers will send out Zach Miner who has made 2 bad starts this year. Both have come during home afternoon games.
Joe Blanton will be making his 3rd start against the Tigers this year. In the first he was hit hard and lifted in the 5th inning. In the second, the Tigers touched him for 9 hits but they were scattered for only 3 runs in 7 innings.
Game Time: 1:25pm
During his entire career as a Tiger, Jamie Walker has been quite solid in his role as a lefty specialist. Coming into this year, since 2002 he’s posted a 3.45 ERA while striking out 3.3 batters for every walk allowed. He gave up 1.3 homers per 9, which is a little more than you’d hope for, but it wasn’t bad. Over that time period, Walker held left handed batters to a .217/.263/.374 line.
Walker has provided considerable, if not dominant consistency, in a role that is extremly volatile. Jon Weisman created a table of the relief pitchers who were in the top 100 in adjusted runs prevented each of the last 5 years. Walker made this list in 4 of the last 5 years, which if you scan the list you can see is a pretty impressive feat.
But this year, at the ripe old age of 34, Jamie Walker is having a break through season. After pitching 2 scoreless innings tonight, he has lowered his ERA to 0.95. In 28 1/3 innings he has allowed only 19 hits and 3 runs. Those 3 runs came on 3 solo homers. The most amazing stat though may be his 23/2 strikeout to walk ratio.
What’s interesting is that in looking at Jamie’s splits, he has actually faced more right handers than left handers. Right handed batters have only managed 145/175/164 against Walker. Surprsingly all 3 homers he’s allowed have been to lefties, and as a result his slugging percentage against is .571.
Walker will be a free agent after this year. Assuming he wants to stay in Detroit, I’m sure the Tigers would love to have him back. But the price will be steep. Walker is having a career year, and is left handed. If he can keep pitching like he has been he will be a rich man this winter.
Toledo 4, Durham 3
David Espinosa went 2 for 2 wtih a walk. Corey Hamman last 6 innings allowing a single unearned run on 7 hits.
Erie 7, New Britain 2
Brent Clevlen was 2 for 4 while Adam Haley homered and tripled. Eulogio De La Cruz pitched 3 shut out innings allowing only 3 hits while fanning 3. The recently demoted Mark Woodyard followed with 3 2/3 innings of 1 run ball.
Lakeland 8, St. Lucie 5 (10 innings)
Clete Thomas was 3 for 5 with 2 doubles. Garth McKinney had 3 hits including a homer. Jeff Larish went 1 for 2 with a walk and 2 sacrifice flies. Kevin Ardoin allowed 1 run in 5 innings while fanning 8. Kevin Whelan had a rough 9 thinning allowing 4 hits and 3 unearned runs to force extra innings.
West Michigan 4, Dayton 0
Lucas French threw a 1 hit complete game shut out. French carried a the no-hitter to the 9th inning when a leadoff double meant he had to settle for the shut out. He walked 3 and fanned 7. Cameron Maybin was 1 for 4 and Wil Rhymes added 2 hits.
State College 7, Oneonta 5
This game was tied heading into the 9th inning, and I’m sure Oneonta wasn’t looking forward to more bonus baseball after yesterday’s 26 inning marathon. Deik Scram doubled and tripled.
Hebrew National, who supplies the all-beef dogs at Comerica Park held a contest over the last month to select the best hot dog hawker. Tonight they announced the winner and it was Charley Marcuse, the operatic hot dog guy. The 4 finalist demo’d their hawking call for the fans tonight. If you’re interested, the finalists can be seen in action here.
Charley was a lightning rod of controversy several years ago when season ticket holders complained. The Tigers told him to stop singing and it somehow became an international story (first reported by Tigerblog).
In any event, whether or not you like Charley, he is headed to New York after winning the contest. He’ll get a first class travel package to see the Tigers take on the Yankees.
If it were up to me the biggest differentiator would be the vendor who came prepared with mustard in a jar and then applied it with a tongue depressor, just like the old days. While the individual packets are probably tremendously more advantageous from a Board of Health perspective, it’s just not the same.
Shortly after winning, Charley and the other finalists were right back at work on a sell out Friday night.
PREGAME: Dmitri Young’s activation will garner most of the attention tonight. Once we get past that hoopla there is a pretty good pitching matchup between Justin Verlander and Dan Haren.
Haren was knocked around a little in his last 2 starts against the Angels and Red Sox. However, his season numbers are still impressive and he fans almost 4 batters for everyone he walks. That doesn’t bode well for the Tigers style of offense.
Justin Verlander is coming off a carving-up of Kansas City. He’ll look to repeat that performance tonight against all the Athletics, and specifically Jay Payton who was instrumental in Oakland taking the last series against the Tigers.
If you’re there early, Hebrew National will be selecting the best hot dog vendor from 4 finalists in an on field ceremony.
I’m heading to the game tonight, and I’ll have a report later tonight.
POSTGAME: Though the game got a little more interesting than it probably should have, it was nice for the Tigers to win one going away. That’s only happened twice since the break, and Justin Verlander was the starter for both of them. Only this year could a rookie be tied for the league in wins and have a sub 3.00 ERA and not even be considered a favorite to win the rookie of the year.
As for Dmitri Young, I was stunned by the reception he received. Both during pregame introductions and his first at-bat the crowd roared, with about 1/3 even standing up. Young delivered in his 2nd at-bat with a bases loaded single.
And in something that has been missing, the top of the order was clicking. Curtis Granderson had 2 hits, Polanco had 3, and Pudge and Magglio both added key doubles. The effect was enhanced with Brandon Inge picking up a couple hits at the bottom of the lineup.
There are reports on the local sports radio that Dmitri Young has been activated and is available for tonight’s game. I haven’t heard who was sent down to make room for Young.
UPDATE: via WXYT Young will be batting the DH and bat 7th tonight.
There will be a press conference at 4:30pm. If you’re not in the Detroit area you should be able to pick it up on the internet stream from 1270 or 1130.
UPDATE 2: As Kyle noted in the comments (thanks Kyle), Ramon Santiago was the odd man out. I’ve had a hard time finding a reason for Santiago to be on the team all along, so I’m on board with this decision. Sure the roster is a little slower and from a defensive perspective the DH situation has improved, but this was the right choice.
I’ll come back and update this after the games in progress have been completed. But I thought it was noteworthy that Dmitri Young and Toledo played this afternoon. Also, check out the game that Oneonta was involved in.
Pawtucket 9, Toledo 8
Dmitri Young went 1 for 5 in what may have been his last rehab start. David Espinosa was 3 for 5 with a homer. Jack Hannahan homered, singled, and walked. Chad Durbin was roughed up for 8 hits and 4 runs in 5 2/3 innings. Chris Spurling pitched 2 innings allowing 2 hits, a walk, and an unearned run.
New Britain 4, Erie 0
Vincent Blue was 1 for 1 with 3 walks. Brent Clevlen added a 1 for 4. Kody Kirkland has been place on the disabled list. Virgil Vasquez allowed 3 runs in 7 innings while fanning 8.
Lakeland 3, St. Lucie 3 (11th inning in progress)
Brent Dlugach was 2 for 4 with a homer and Chris Robinson picked up 2 hits. Eddie Bonine started and allowed 3 runs, 2 earned, in 7 innings. He allowed 7 hits and 2 walks while fanning 5 before giving way to PJ Finigan who threw 2 scoreless innings.
Dayton, West Michigan
Oneonta 6, Brooklyn 1 – 26 freakin’ innings
This game was 1-1 for a lonnnnggggg time. To put this in perspective, the top of the order had 12 at-bats. I can’t summarize this much so just go check out the box score. The game lasted 6:40.
GCL Tigers – PPD
PREGAME: For the first time in 3 series against the White Sox, the Tigers aren’t looking to avoid a sweep heading into the finale.
Weather permitting it will be Kenny Rogers versus Jose Contreras. As everybody knows, Rogers has been in a slump that dates back to his start against the Cardinals. Since June 24th opponents are slugging .722 against Rogers.
Contreras has also been hittable over that same time period (of course not to the extent that Rogers has) with hitters posting a 301/369/455 line.
Game time 1:05pm
POSTGAME: I’m thrilled the Tigers won today. I’m thrilled the Tigers picked up a victory and a game on the second place team in the division. I’m thrilled that Detroit has taken 3 of 4 from the White Sox and the talk of a mysterious mojo that the Sox hold over the Tigers can go away for the time being.
I know people want to talk about Marcus Thames taking out Tadahito Iguchi and busting up the double play. It was a huge play that of course set up the Chris Shelton double. But don’t lose site of Chris Shelton’s double either.
Both events overshadowed what was a terriffic pitching performance by Kenny Rogers. And I think we all needed to see Rogers put together an outing like that.
Joel Zumaya also seems to have his groove back. The ESPN guys were effusive in their praise and when the crowd came to their feet in the 8th inning Orel Hersheiser commented “I want to stand up with the crowd because this is fun!”
And speaking of the crowd, if anybody was down there please comment. I heard the game on the radio, and watched the last 3 innings I had recorded, and I can’t remember hearing Comerica Park that loud. I can’t wait to go experience it tomorrow night.