PREGAME: Here we go, another series in the Metrodome. I don’t know if it is the dome itself or the way that the Tigers play there, but this games are rarely enjoyable. This time first place is at risk with the Twins just 3 games back (and the White Sox 2 back).

Lee has a detailed comparison of the two squads doing better tonight, and things are pretty but the Tigers are benefitting from some good fortune in close games. I have a feeling that good fortune doesn’t really apply to the Tigers when facing Joe Frickin Crede though.

Tonight’s match-up features Luke French making his first career start. Never a dominating force, French got by with location and moxie until he started fanning batters to the tune of 7.9 per game resulting in a 3.60 K/BB ratio for Toledo.

Ten game winner Kevin Slowey gets the ball for the Twins. He walks like no one, with only 15 free passes in his 87 innings of work. But he will give up the occasional homer with 14 on the year, but those even seem to come in bunches.

Random Factoid of the night: Slowey has only induced 6 double play grounders this year. And 2 of them came in his start against Detroit.

Your Magglio-less lineup is:

1. Granderson, CF
2. Polanco, 2B
3. Cabrera, 1B
4. Thames, DH
5. Kelly, LF
6. Inge, 3B
7. Anderson, RF
8. Laird, C
9. Santiago, SS

Detroit vs. Minnesota – July 3, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Well, that certainly was a memorable game. I’m sleepy so only bullet points tonight:

• The Tigers did get some offense, lots of it early in fact. But then there was the 9 innings of shutout ball between the 5th and the 14th.
• French was okay and he held Justin Morneau in check. I am surprised that Leyland didn’t let him go the one additional out for the win with the big cushion. It is a little indicative that the team has been struggling because that is when he tends to over manage.
• Two walks to Nick Punto. Really? The good news is that the Tigers only had 1 other unintentional walk.
• But two intentional ones, and this I thought was a great move by Leyland. Zumaya had control tonight, and the risk of walking in a run is always present, but passing on Mauer and Morneau when their runs were meaningless was good strategy.
• Despite the game going 16 innings only Freddy Dolsi and Joel Zumaya should be unavailable for the next 2 days. Rodney (6 up, 6 down) and Lyon were efficient in their multi-inning outings. Ni and Seay threw less than an inning and Miner was too ineffective to run up his pitch count.
• The Tigers didn’t play great defense tonight. During Miner’s meltdown inning, I thought both triples should have been fielded. Neither play was easy, but both plays were makeable.
• Eric Cooper was awful. I really think he’d ask the pitcher and catcher what number he was thinking of, whoever was closest got the call. One of the many egregious examples was a called 3rd strike against Polanco that Gameday tracked at 3 ft, 10 in off the ground. So at Polanco’s nipples essentially.
• Magglio hit into kind of a tough luck double play, but then he finally had a ground ball not go at someone and through for an RBI single.

PREGAME: Justin Verlander takes on Dallas Braden. Sorry I don’t have more guys, it’s one of those weeks.

Detroit vs. Oakland – July 1, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

PREGAME: Gio Gonzalez takes on Armando Galarraga.

Galarraga continues to teeter on the edge of the rotation. Gonzalez makes just his 2nd start of the season. He was rocked in his first start and was knocked out in the 4th inning after allowing 10 hits (but with 6 K’s).

1. Granderson
2. Polanco
3. Cabrera
4. Thames
5. Raburn
6. Inge
7. Ordonez
8. Ryan
9. Everett

Detroit vs. Oakland – June 30, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: This wasn’t the text book way to go about getting a win, but it’s a win.

You aren’t supposed to win when your starter gives up 6 walks, but the A’s didn’t hit Galarraga hard at all so there were only 2 baserunners via hits and only 1 run to show for all of their patience. I guess that’s what you call scattering your walks. But Galarraga did seem to have some bite on his slider and it was inducing some swings and misses – I just think he used it too often, like when he was ahead of Jack Cust 0-2 and he threw 3 straight sliders nowhere near the zone.

You aren’t supposed to win when you make 2 baserunning errors where outs are made between 3rd and home. Those are runs you have to have, or at least not toss away so easily. The baserunning mistakes, and the ill advised sacrifice bunt attempts early in the game against a struggling pitcher are why the Tigers only plated 3 runs off of Gio Gonzalez despite having 7 hits, 3 of which were for extra bases, and 2 walks in 5 innings.

You aren’t supposed to win when you make 3 error-like plays in the field. But Galarraga pitched around a dropped foul fly by Ryan Raburn, a fumbled grounder by Everett, and another play by Everett where the Tigers only got 1 out instead of 2.

You aren’t supposed to win when your closer allows 3 baserunners and a home run, but Rodney only let the game get to 2 runs before a double play grounder ended the night on 19 pitches. Oddly, it was Rodney’s fastball getting hit and really, his control improved after an initial walk.

• Ryan Raburn and Placido Polanco were the offensive stars. Raburn hit everything hard. Polanco drove in 3 of the 5 runs and is on a mini-Marcus power surge as of late.
• Inge was having a rough night offensively but he got a blooper to drop behind a drawn in infield to score an insurance run.
• Dusty Ryan was patient, and he took called 3rd strikes his last 2 times up
• Magglio, I don’t know. He did drive a ball to right field once, and a 2-0 count. He was also late on a 3-1 fastball. He also swung and missed a ball well off the plate as it looked like he was gearing up to try and pull a fastball.
• Bobby Seay and Joel Zumaya (pictured above thanks to photos from westcoasttigerfan) had good games. Zumaya hit 102.7 and 102.6 matching his fastest pitches from the Cubs series.

PREGAME: The Tigers once again find themselves in the middle of a very long road trip, next stop Oakland. The Tigers salvaged a happy plane ride at least after dropping 2 in Houston. The A’s meanwhile are scuffling having lost 5 in a row and their bloggers are deservedly restless.

As for the pitching match-up it will be Rick Porcello taking on Brett Anderson. Anderson faced the Tigers earlier in the year and his infield pretty much error-ed for the cycle as he allowed 9 runs, only 3 of which were earned. Anderson has a 45/18 K/BB ratio in 69 innings with 13 homers allowed.

Porcello turned in a QS when he faced the A’s in that same series. He’s allowed 21 baserunners in his last 2 outings spanning 10.2 innings, but he has limited the damage to 3 earned runs (5 runs total).

Detroit vs. Oakland – June 29, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: That was some kind of ugly. Porcello gave up a ton of baserunners and didn’t make it out of the 5th inning. There were some defensive lapses (and a couple nice plays to be fair) and the offense was shutdown by another pitcher with an ERA over 5.

The Tigers fanned 14 times in the game. They did make Anderson work and ran his pitch count up, but they sure couldn’t hit him. They couldn’t even make contact off him with 11 swinging strikes and 3 foul tips on 46 swings. That’s a 30.4% swing and miss rate which is just brutal and dumbfounding.

The only brightish spot was Fu-Te Ni making his debut (and wearing Todd Jones’ old number). He did allow a monster homer, but that was the only baserunner he allowed and he fanned 3 of the other 5 batters he faced.