Sorry about my brief hiatus. Between some personal obligations, and the fact I just haven’t had a lot to say about the team, I decided to take a little break. Since I last wrote the Tigers lost 4 in a row, and did it in a variety of ways. Ramon Santiago seemed to have caught the error virus that plagued Eric Munson a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully this was just a temporary thing. One of the bright spots for the Tigers this year has been the defensive play of their young infield (just ask Nate Cornejo) so there is reason to believe that this is just a slump.

Something a little more troubling is that Bobby Higginson appears to have a bad back/leg. If you’ve been watching him bat for the last week or so, it was clear something was wrong. Pretty much every at bat had been a soft ground out to second, and he didn’t look like he was swingining aggressively. If the Tigers lose Higgy for awhile, it won’t be pretty. As bad as their offense has been with him in the lineup, it will only be worse without him. Unfortunately the Tigers don’t have any exciting young outfielders to bring up and take his place like the Indians and Twins.

Again I have to call into question Tram’s penchant for sacrifice bunting. In the ninth inning on Saturday, the Tigers had scored a couple runs to get within 3. They had runners on first and second, and still nobody out. Gene Kingsale then sacrifice bunts to move the two “stay behind” runs into scoring position. Kingsale is pretty quick (once he gets out of the box) and the chances of a double play were pretty slim. For a team that has such a hard time getting hits, I can’t fathom why you would want to give away so many outs.

Prospect Watch: Here’s how Kenny Baugh, Joel Zumaya, and Jon Connolly fared in their last starts (courtesy The Prospect Report)
Baugh:4.2IP, 10 hits, 7 ER, 2 BB, 2 K
Zumaya: 6IP, 8 hits, 3 ER, 2 BB, 9K
Connolly: 9 IP, 6 hits, 0 R, 1 BB, 7K – He’s now 11-0 with a .84 ERA

Getting Linky
Rob Neyer’s all-time Tiger team (from “The Big Book of Baseball Lineups”)
The Grand Rapids Press takes a look at Jon Connolly. The Tigers currently have no plans to promote him.
Danny Knobler’s Inside the Tigers column mentions that NL scouts are interested in Dmitri Young
Davey Lopes likes Alex Sanchez. Sanchez already has nine steals, just think how many more he’d have if he took a walk.

From Baseball Prospectus on ESPN.com

The Tigers went after hard throwers early in the draft as 4 or their first 5 selections, and 6 of the first ten were pitchers. I understand the motivation for drafting the best available player (and this is more true in baseball than the other sports), but the Tiger organization currently has no position player to get excited about. Cody Ross has done well, but he has 4th outfielder written all over him. Moore, Cleven, and Granderson all have shown flashes, but nothing to get that excited about from A ball. On the other hand, the Tigers have intersting pitchers at every level of the minors. In A ball Jon Connolly and Joel Zumaya have been pitching well. At Erie, Larrison, Henkel and Farnsworth all show promise. At AAA Toledo Shane Loux has thrown well. I’m not suggesting that any of these guys are sure fire top of the rotation pitchers, but they still have the potential to contribute. I just don’t see that same potential from the position players.

For a listing of all the Tigers draft picks go here

I know this is old news, but the Tigers came back and won one in the 9th against San Diego. The game started at 10 and wasn’t televised, so I can’t really comment too much on it. I do know that Nate Cornejo threw 15 ground ball outs, including a couple inning end double plays. The result was another strong outing despite a glaring lack of strikeouts. Dmitri Young continues to crush the ball as he hit another home run to center-and he earned Player of the Week honors for his performance last week. Congrats Dmitri and keep up the good work.

Giarratano is a shortstop from Tulane. From MLB’s website:

Here is his player bio from Tulane

With the second pick the Tigers picked Jay Sborz, a right handed high school pitcher. Unfortunately I don’t know much about him except that he’s a power pitcher and signed with Arizona State. Click here for more information

With the third pick in the draft the Tigers selected pitcher Kyle Sleeth from Wake Forest. Sleeth is a hard throwing 6-5 200lb right hander. He has a mid 90’s fastball, a change, a curve and a slider. For Team USA he was 7-1 with 56K/16BB in 56.1 innings. The Tigers selected Sleeth over fellow pitcher, Tim Stauffer. Stauffer was supposed to be the more polished of the two, and closer to the bigs. However, Sleeth is supposed to be a harder thrower. With Richmond Stauffer had 135K/16BB in 106 IP. Based on these numbers, I think I would have preferred Stauffer. Regardless, I think the Tigers made a solid pick given that Richie Weeks had already gone to Milwaukee.
Kyle Sleeth Links:
Wake Forest Bio
ESPN-John Sickels
Prospectreport.com

Highs and Lows from the Yankees series, including Clemens bid for 300
High: A Comerica Park record crowd of 44K+ showed up to watch the game. For the weekend the Tigers drew 97,000 fans. Regardless the reasons for the surge, it was fun to see people in Detroit care about baseball again.
Low: Shut out number 10 came on Friday night as the Tigers had 4 hits and 1 walk.
High: Carlos Pena’s pinch hit to bring the Tigers back within one. Also, Eric Munson picking up 3 hits on both Saturday and Sunday pushing his average to .217
Low: The Tigers walked 4 times in 139 plate appearances over the 3 games, including two in 69 PA’s on Sunday.
High: Detroit’s ability to battle back when they seemed doomed. Granted, the Yankees did everything in their power to make it easier on them. Nonetheless, the Tigers still managed to tie up the game, and even when they fell behind by two in the 17th, they got one of them back instead of rolling over.
Low: Jeremy Bonderman continued to struggle. He was having a tough time getting his offspeed pitches over for strikes, and was behind often. He ended up allowing 4 walks. What’s reassuring is that in his last few starts when he’s missing with the slider, he’s missing by inches instead of feet. To me, that means he’s getting closer. Also, not being an established pitcher, he’s not getting the calls on the pitch that is 1-2 inches off the plate.
High: The Tigers bullpen did an excellent job-especially loser Steve Sparks. In twelve and a third innings they allowed 3 runs. Sparks line looked like that of a starter in that he allowed two runs in 7 2/3 innings.
Low: Franklyn German threw 8 balls to the two batter he faced. When German is on, he is scary-good. However, there are too many times when he comes into games and can’t find the plate.
High: What’s better than listening to Ernie Harwell for 9 innings? Listening to Ernie Harwell for 17 innings. It seemed that it took Mario Impemba a couple innings to adjust to Ernie. Specifically, Ernie’s belief that you don’t always have to be talking during a game-that the sounds of a game are enough to the listener. That seemed to throw Impemba at first, but he adjusted as the game went on.

Notes
-Bobby Higginson is in a 2-23 slump.
-Alex Sanchez is 4 for 4 in stolen bases
-Ramon Santiago has 8 sacrifice bunts this season. That’s as many as the Texas Rangers, and more than the Yankees(5) and Blue Jays combined(2). The Tigers as a team have 30 successful sacrifice bunts on the season. This doesn’t even include the numerous failed attempts. The next closest team is Baltimore with 18. I know the argument that the Tigers are struggling to score runs, and need to manufacture as many as possible. However, combined with their caught stealing rate (21 times in 44 attempts) that is a ton of outs to give away.
-Is it me, or is Alex Sanchez playing way deep in centerfield. I couldn’t see his positioning on TV, but it seemed to take him a long time to get to ground balls through the middle. Also, Gene Kingsale coming from left beat him to a ball in short center.

Lynn Henning reviews the first two months of the season

Eric Neel spends a week watching the Tigers-and survives

Yesterday Connolly threw a complete game for West Michigan striking out 3 and allowing 7 hits, no walks, and 1 run. This raised his season ERA to 0.79.

New York Times on athletes skipping their senior season of high school. Part of the article is about Jeremy Bonderman. (From Baseball Primer)

The one positive thing you could say about the Tigers this year is that they’ve been healthy. Fifty-one games in and the starting rotation is intact, and the only person to spend time on the DL is Dean Palmer (which should never be considered a surprise). Sure Omar Infante missed a couple games to a stiff back, and Dmitri has lost a couple AB’s to various ailments, but the team has been healthy. That was until Carlos Pena tore a tendon behind his knee. Now according to Dr. Pena, the injury isn’t that serious (from the Free Press) “The tendon that I tore is one you don’t really need or use,” Pena said. “Once there’s no more bleeding and the swelling goes down, I should be OK. In fact, the doctor told me my leg probably will end up feeling better than it did before.” Hopefully Carlos is right.

Mike Maroth had to leave yesterday’s game in the second inning after his hamstring tightened up when backing up home plate. It’s too early to know whether or not he’ll miss his next turn.

Yesterday was my third trip down to Comerica this year, and I took the whole family. Billy, my two year old, attended his second game this year. Katilyn, my 2 month old attended her first game ever. Needless to say I only saw parts of the game. Luckily, two very nice gentleman approached us while we were in line for tickets, and gave us two that they weren’t using. Turns out the two were 12 rows behind the Tiger dugout. Despite the way the Tigers played it was a beautiful day and I can’t think of many other places I’d rather be on a weekday afternoon than at a baseball game. Unfortunately the place was pretty empty, the paid attendance was 17,000 but actual attendance I’d put around 10,000. The lack of turnout is really disheartening. I know the team is pitiful this year, but weekday afternoon games still used to be a decent draw. And I’m not talking about the “good ole days.” I’m talking like 98-99. It speaks to just how bad this organization has been for so long, that people don’t even think about coming out.

Even with a bad team, there is still something inherently enjoyable about sitting outside on a sunny day, having some hot dogs, drinking some beer and watching baseball. Billy loves going to games, and at two he doesn’t understand what’s going on on the field. He just likes seeing the stadium, and eating hot dogs, and sitting in the seats (and no we don’t do the carousel and ferris wheel stuff). With Clemens going for 300, I hope that it generates enough interest to fill the stadium. I’d be going if my wife wasn’t working that day. I know that I can only expect so much support for a 13-38 team. Still, I just want people to remember that going to a game is still fun.

Other Stuff:
-After playing solid 3B for the bulk of the season, Eric Munson has committed errors in 3 of his last 4 games
-Alex Sanchez debuted with a single, and then easily stole second. He had a huge jump, and was two strides from the bag before the ball got to home plate. The Tigers are now 20 for 41 in stolen bases. Opponents have been successful 30 of 41 times, including 1-2 in attempts to steal home.
-Wil Ledezma pitched 3 2/3 innings (career high) and looked alright. He walked 2 and allowed 3 hits. No runs were charged to him, although two runners he inherited from Maroth scored in the second
-Dmitri Young hit only the 11th homer in Comerica Park history into the centerfield ivy
-With two doubles yesterday Brandon Inge’s OPS has topped .500 for the first time this season