It won’t be a ceremony but Ernie Harwell will appear at Comerica Park on Wednesday night to thank the fans, the media, and the team. There are plenty of seats available, and even if you don’t buy a ticket head down and hang out on the fence and stand and applaud long and loud for one of the true treasures not only in baseball, but in the entire state of Michigan and beyond.
Harwell will also appear at the Detroit Lions game on Sunday at Ford Field serving as an honorary captain.
PREGAME: After Amber Grand delivered a big win yesterday (with some help from Rick Porcello, the bullpen, and a decent offensive attack) the Tigers will turn to Lori Adams who has a 4-2 record this season when performing the Star Spangled Banner. Sounds like a favorable match-up. Well, that and Justin Verlander taking on David Purcey.
Verlander gunning for a Cy Young (and having to pass Zach Greinke and Felix Hernandez) and Purcey returning to the rotation for the first time since April. Then again, Tigers have made lesser pitchers look great.
Your “Inge isn’t going to get anything good to hit” lineup:
Toronto vs. Detroit – September 14, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
POSTGAME: A walk-off FC E-6. Lori Adams gets to stay in the National Anthem rotation.
Justin Verlander had another one of those outings where he has his great stuff. Doesn’t look like he’s going to get touched. And then gives up a crooked number on less than 10 pitches. I don’t get it.
But how about that bullpen. They have now thrown 6 straight scoreless innings and have allowed only 4 baserunners after getting beaten up for 5 straight games. And it wasn’t even the big guns today with Fernando Rodney serving game 1 of his reduced 2 game suspension and Brandon Lyon having worked 3 straight days. This time it was Ni and Bondo and Perry and Seay.
As for the offense, I thought they had let this game slip away when they didn’t make Purcey hurt in the first. Raburn with the leadoff homer and 2 straight walks that never moved. But like in many of the Tigers recent wins, everybody contributed in one way or another. Inge fanned on 2 pitches at his shoulder, but drew the walk and scored the winning run. Granderson got on with an error and later walked. Raburn had 2 hits. Maggs reached base 3 times. Avila with a big pinch hit single. Oh yeah, and Huff.
Honestly I was kind of upset when Huff came into pinch hit. He hasn’t made a great impression with the stick since coming to Detroit. But crow tastes good. Give me seconds.
Flashback a week. The Tigers had a big lead in the division and they were surging. Nate Robertson had turned in two solid performances. Jarrod Washburn’s troubles were optimistically assigned to a sore knee that would hopefully be better with a little rest. Armando Galarraga’s struggles were tied to elbow inflammation and with a little rest there was reason to think he wouldn’t be awful. This would be great news to have potentially 6 starters down the stretch with a big lead and 3 key cogs to the rotation having worked more than they ever had and looking for rest. Oh well. It was a good thought at the time.
Robertson has since gone down with pelvic inflammation. Washburn’s knee isn’t better. Galarraga’s elbow isn’t better. And so what may have been 6 is now 3. Washburn will search for effectiveness in the rotation and Eddie Bonine has been promoted to 5th starter for the remainder of the season.
Now remainder of the season could be 1 start, the actual remainder of the season, or something in between. Jim Leyland has been known to make decrees before only to change his mind a week later – at least he isn’t stubborn in that regard. The duration of Bonine’s spot is probably equally contingent on Bonine’s effectiveness and the health of Robertson and Galarraga. Though I suspect that Galarraga returning to the rotation would be a stretch at this point.
Robertson’s problem flared up after his start against Cleveland and he had hoped to make it through 5 innings against the Blue Jays, but it didn’t work so well. Still, if he can get back quickly he could find a spot as a starter.
The bigger downside of all the shuffling has to do with not just the potential effectiveness or ineffectiveness of injured and replacement players, but the increased importance that Verlander/Jackson/Porcello starts take on down the stretch. Extra rest or skipped spots don’t look to be an option for any of the 3 over the last 3 weeks of the season. And with a potential playoff spot and additional innings coming for all 3 pitchers that has to be a concern. Then again, just add it to the list.
PREGAME: I was worried last night. The Tigers lost 5 in a row and not even the backwards post could fix things. But this morning I’m at ease. I see that Amber Grand is singing the National Anthem. This is in the bank. No worries. If it seems strange to put the fates of a team in a pennant race on the vocal chords of the National Anthem singer, well then you just don’t understand baseball.
Rick Porcello and Ricky Romero reprise their debut match-up from the first week of the season. But it doesn’t matter because Amber Grand is singing the National Anthem.
Your “Amber Grand is singing the National Anthem so the batting order is largely irrelevant” lineup is:
Toronto vs. Detroit – September 13, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
POSTGAME: How ’bout that National Anthem? Money. Money I say. Sure, Porcello pitched pretty good (although he did allow quite a few balls in the air for the 2nd game in a row). And the Tigers hit the ball pretty well up and down the lineup. And the bullpen faced 9 guys and recorded 9 outs (it did take 2 GIDPs but I’m not complaining). But how about that National Anthem?
It can’t be a good feeling for Jim Leyland when ever he ambles out to the mound and points towards the bullpen. It doesn’t seem to matter lately who gets the call, they will invariably allow more baserunners than outs. The numbers posted by the pen during the 5 game losing streak are simply staggering.
In the 5 game skid the bullpen has been called on to pitch 14 1/3 innings in 18 “calls to the pen.” Over those 14 1/3 innings they have allowed 23 hits, 12 walks, and 18 runs. Five of those hits have left the park. Only 8 hitters have gone down on strikes. It is simply amazing that they could perform so poorly as a group. They had to face 79 batters to record those 43 outs – and the last out came on a pickoff where Fu-Te Ni didn’t throw a pitch.
After the Royals series I laid some of the blame on the starters not working deep enough into games and thus exposing the less dependable members of the relief corps to high leverage innings. But in Saturday night’s game Jackson got the ball to Brandon Lyon – who picked up the blown save a wild pitch. And then a tie game was handed over to Fernando Rodney – and he allowed a 2 out 2 run homer. It doesn’t matter who comes trotting out, they are going to allow baserunners.
Of those 18 calls to the pen, the incoming reliever was charged with at least 1 run 10 different times. Miner, Bonine, Perry, Seay, Galarraga, it doesn’t matter. They’ve all been charged with runs in the last week. Ni is the only one to see his ERA unblemished and he even walked one of the 2 batters he faced.
Until the bullpen gets out of its collective funk the starters will need to find a way to pitch deeper and the offense will need to find a way to put games out of reach (in a favorable way). Neither of those events have been occurring and thus you have a losing streak.
PREGAME: It’s a 4 game losing streak, and thus the backwards post. I’ve invoked this with other Tigers 4 game losing streaks in the past, and we’ve yet to see it flip to 5 games. Let’s hope the mojo keeps working. (the Twins lost by the way).
Edwin Jackson gets to play the role of stopper, and not just the role of stopping the the losing, but stopping the short outings of starters and getting into a favorable Seay-Lyon set up. Jackson went 8 innings his last time out, I’d take 7 with no complaints.
Scott Richmond will try to play the role of non-descript starter who the Tigers struggle against. Actually, Richmond’s peripherals are pretty solid but he has allowed 21 runs over his last 4 starts. He is allowing 1.5 homers per 9, but the Tigers have only mustered a single Ryan Raburn homer in this 4 game skid.
Your “it’s a right handed starter for a change” lineup is:
POSTGAME: Yeah. I’ve got nothing. Commence hand wringing.
The offense did something against a starter for a change, but did nothing after knocking said starter out of the game. The Tigers got a starter to go deep in a game, but not with a high degree of effectiveness. The Tigers got to hand the game over to the late inning specialists and avoid the seedy underbelly of middle relief, but both Lyon and Rodney faltered. Crap.
PREGAME: There was a time when the Blue Jays looked like they may be a surprise team. That was April when they took 3 of 4 from the Tigers and generally were winning with regularity. They even spent 44 days in 1st place. They played a lot of AL Central teams back then and there may be a chance that had something to do with it. The Jays are now 14 games below .500.
Tonight Toronto sends out the mustachioed Brian Tallet. He’s left handed. And he has a 5.31 ERA.
The Tigers send out there own trusty southpaw, Nate Robertson. If Nate’s pitching, I’ll be there. Through scheduling quirks, I will be at this Robertson start, and I was at the last one, and I was at the one before that too.
Your “I hope the top of the order is productive” lineup is:
Toronto vs. Detroit – September 11, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
POSTGAME: Brian freakin’ Tallet . The Tigers fanned as many times as they got hits against Tallet. Tallet. Put this in the Bruce Chen disappointing offensive performance bucket. And I just don’t get it. Raburn is hitting. Thames is swinging the bat well. Maggs is up to .290. The Tigers have some guys hitting lefties well, but the team is still struggling at the dish.
I’ll give them credit for making things interesting in the 7th and 8th innings. They strung hits together, and Thames had himself one heck of a sac fly with the bases juiced. A sterling defensive inning in the top of the 8th and it felt like stuff was starting to lean in the Tigers favor, but the threat ended on a foul pop-up off the bat of Polanco and that was that.
Of course the offensive had to pick up 5 runs in the late innings just to tie the score as Nate Robertson was awful and channeled his inner Dontrelle and eventually left with a groin injury. His first 2 outings were very encouraging. This one the stadium gun had him at 85/86 (haven’t checked gameday yet), and Nate doesn’t really have a strong 85/86mph pitch.
Galarraga started off great and retired the first 5 guys he faced before reverting to Galarraga form. Ryan Perry didn’t help the matter. Runs just kept getting piled on.
Ugh.
The Tigers haven’t lost more than 4 in a row this season. It will be up to Edwin Jackson to get deep into the game and stop the slide and once again take command of their September.
There is so much not to like about a sweep at the hands of the Royals. The Tigers had a chance to really lock down the AL Central this week, but instead they managed to play some of their worst baseball of the season. There is reason to be frustrated with the offense, and we’ll cover that in a minute, but the bigger issue in this series was on the run prevention side of things.
It is easy to point to the bullpen as a major problem this series. The team did blow 2 late inning leads and the pen turned a 1 run game into a 5 run game. They issued too many walks to a team that doesn’t walk (7 pen issued walks and a HBP in the 3 games). Thursday game they allowed 2 homers. Zach Miner continued his seesaw season and followed up several good and important outings against Cleveland and Tampa Bay by getting shelled. In general there was nothing good to say, even about arms like Seay, Rodney, and Ni who have been reliable for the most part this year. Their failures were glaring and significant, but it wasn’t all the pen.
Tigers starters threw 299 pitches in the the 3 games, and yet the faced exactly one batter after the 6th inning (Rick Porcello allowing a single to Yuniesky Betancourt). Porcello was efficient, but not particularly effective. Justin Verlander held the Royals to 1 run, but it wasn’t easy and he rang up 112 pitches in 6 innings. Jarrod Washburn just got hammered and allowed 10 baserunners in 5 innings and could have easily allowed more than the 3 runs that crossed the plate.
And then there was the outfield defense in the first game in which every ball turned into an adventure. Run prevention all around was not good this series, and probably the biggest reason for the sweep. But the offense isn’t immune from criticism.
Getting shut down by Tejeda didn’t bother me. He’s pitched well this year and his stuff was nasty on Wednesday. The offense didn’t get shutdown by Lenny DiNardo as they got to him for 7 hits and 3 walks in 5 inning, and they added 8 more hits against the Royals bullpen. That they hit into 5 double plays was more a matter of freakish happenstance than anything else (yes, the Tigers hit into lots of double plays anyways but 5 qualifies as freakish).
My bigger issue was the Tigers not beating up on Bruce Chen and the tattered Royals bullpen with more voracity. This is a team that used to feast on left handers and now they tend to fester. And with the Blue Jays throwing 3 southpaws at the Tigers this weekend that is troublesome.
You don’t get swept by a bad team without multiple things going wrong. In one way or another the Tigers completely collapsed for 3 games. Maybe it was the 400 people in the stands each night, or a let down after 3 breathtaking games in Tampa. The good news is that the lead in the Central is still safe, but the Tigers did waste a tremendous opportunity this week.
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.
Your wilkin-ized lineup is:
Detroit vs. Kansas City – September 10, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
Jeremy Bonderman has had a very long road back from the surgery he underwent to correct thoracic compression outlet syndrome. There was hope he’d be back in the rotation this year, but his spring became very extended and he didn’t make his first appearance until June 8th – and he was crushed. It was back to the minors and more rest and rehab, but with the rosters expanded Bonderman is back as a reliever, and the pitch f/x data is promising…so far.
When Bonderman made his June start, his pitches didn’t behave in the way they had in the past. His velocity was down. His fastball didn’t have the same arm side run. His slider wasn’t as tight and was more of a sweeping pitch. The particulars (via Brooks Baseball) were:
| Pitch | Count | Speed | Horiz Move | Vert Move |
| FF | 48 | 89.59 | -6.66 | 8.71 |
| FT | 5 | 89.16 | -8.16 | 6.25 |
| SL | 22 | 82.44 | 1.32 | 3.25 |
| CH | 10 | 83.69 | -7.13 | 8.32 |
Let’s fast forward to his latest 2 outings. The results have certainly been better, but what about the stuff?
| Pitch | Count | Speed | Horiz Move | Vert Move |
| FF | 23 | 91.60 | -9.00 | 8.55 |
| FT | 3 | 91.03 | -10.02 | 6.31 |
| SL | 10 | 84.13 | -0.87 | 1.57 |
We see that his velocity is up about 2mph across the board. The fastball has a couple more inches of arm side run and the slider has an inch and a half more drop. This all seems to be good and much more in line with Bonderman’s past pitch f/x numbers.
I’m going to skip the 2008 numbers where he was clearly hurting and couldn’t maintain his velocity. This clouded pitch classification data greatly. Instead I’ll put the numbers from 2007 up. These were harvested from Fangraphs.
| Pitch | Count | Speed | Horiz Move | Vert Move |
| FF | 92.1 | -8.6 | 7.7 | |
| FT | 88 | -10.7 | 9.8 | |
| SL | 84.1 | 0.5 | 1.6 | |
| CH | 84.2 | -8 | 8.3 |
The pitches from September (granted there are only 36 of them) look much more like the pitches from 2007 than the pitches from the June start. And yes, small sample sirens should be going off. And this is far from an ideal analysis. I’m certain there are pitch classification issues that are especially prevalent between the two seam (FT) and four seam (FF) fastballs. Plus the system was relatively new in 2007 and still being calibrated. Still, the results from this cursory analysis are encouraging.
PREGAME: Justin Verlander takes the mound tonight for the Tigers sitting at 222 strikeouts for the season. That ranks as the 11th best single season mark in Tigers history. If things go as planned tonight he should at least get to 9th and if he’s feeling frisky he has an outside shot of moving into 7th or 8th.
Strikeouts – Tigers Single Season Leaders
| Rank | Player | SO | Year | ||
| 1. | Mickey Lolich | 308 | 1971 | ||
| 2. | Denny McLain | 280 | 1968 | ||
| 3. | Hal Newhouser | 275 | 1946 | ||
| 4. | Mickey Lolich | 271 | 1969 | ||
| 5. | Mickey Lolich | 250 | 1972 | ||
| 6. | Joe Coleman | 236 | 1971 | ||
| 7. | Jack Morris | 232 | 1983 | ||
| 8. | Mickey Lolich | 230 | 1970 | ||
| 9. | Mickey Lolich | 226 | 1965 | ||
| 10. | Jack Morris | 223 | 1986 |
(from baseball-reference.com)
Robinson Tejeda makes the start for the Royals. Tejeda has only made 1 start this year (and only 1 last year) and he 1 hit the Angels for 5.1 innings of shut out ball. He has 61 K’s in 47.1 innings this year which is really good. Between Tejeda and Verlander there could be a stiff breeze tonight.
Detroit vs. Kansas City – September 9, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
PREGAME: Sorry for the lack of blogging this weekend. I went up north for a few days and my internet connectivity was severely limited. I was able to get the game posts up, and that was about it. I didn’t miss much did I?
Rick Porcello gets his chance to keep the winning streak alive as the Tigers are 6-for-September. I’ve gotten used to the magic number trickling down each day, and yesterday that didn’t happen. Two such days would threaten to disrupt my good mood.
Bruce Chen starts for the Royals. Chen started once against the Tigers and they torched him for 7 runs and chased him in the 5th inning. He also faced them in relief and fanned 3 in 2 innings allowing just an unearned run. I’m hoping for more of the former than the latter.
Detroit vs. Kansas City – September 8, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
POSTGAME: All good things must come to an end, but they shouldn’t come to an end when you’re playing a last place team, and you have a 3 run lead. But come to an end they did on the backs of some adventurous outfield defense and some control issues in the bullpen.
Clete Thomas missed a foul ball in the corner that would have preserved a 1 run lead which would become a 1 run deficit. Ryan Raburn misjudged a fly ball and played it into a double. Bobby Seay hit a guy. Jeremy Bonderman walked Yuniesky Betancourt. Yep.
The Tigers got some timely hits but didn’t really crush the ball. Marcus Thames had an infield single. Aubrey Huff blooped one just over the infield. But 5 runs should have been enough.
Rick Porcello didn’t have his characteristic ground ball inducing repertoire working. Too many of the balls were hit well to the outfield. It happens.