PREGAME: Please Tigers. Please show up tonight. Please Verlander, don’t crap out once again against an Indians team missing Hafner, Martinez, and Blake. Please offense, beat the stuffing out of Carmona. Please top of the order, drive in a run, or 12. I can’t take the sucking anymore.

Jeff Larish starts at third tonight and Matt Joyce bats 2nd. Polanco gets the night off and Santiago plays second.

CLE @ DET, Wednesday, August 27, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: The offense showed up. Seven runs should be enough. The bottom of the order continued to produce, and even Magglio Ordonez broke out of his slump. But the pitching, oh the pitching.

Verlander wasn’t good, again. It wasn’t the 7 hits as much as the leadoff walks and hit by pitches combined with the hits. And the fact he threw 115 pitches in 6 innings (which doesn’t bode well for his next start either).*

*And in case you’re keeping track of such things, Verlander threw 114 pitches in his last start. His average game score in subsequent starts when he throws 110-114 pitches is 45.2. Last night it was 43.

Gary glover was brought in, and promptly allowed a homer after a walk. I wanted bobby Seay at that point. Seay made me look smart when he had a scoreless inning in the 8th, but made me look dumb by allowing a couple hits (who would later come around to score) in the 9th.

PREGAME: I’m watching this one from the friendly confines of my couch, so the Tigers have a chance. On paper, this isn’t a good match-up for the Tigers. Then again on paper the Tigers looked like contenders.

The Indians send out uber pitcher and Cy Young (and maybe MVP) front runner Cliff Lee. Oddly, the Tigers have had some success off of Lee this year and have scored 8 runs in 10 innings, chasing him after 5 innings in both games.

Meanwhile, the Tigers send out Chris Lambert who is making his big league debut. I like watching debuts.

CLE @ DET, Tuesday, August 26, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: So this one played out like it looked on paper. Chris Lambert had a good start, recording 6 outs on 18 pitches. But a bad finish, not escaping the 3rd inning. He was undermined by errors from Ryan Raburn and Marcus Thames meaning 4 of the 6 runs he allowed were unearned. Still he had his own issues.

I can’t kill him for allowing a homer to Jamey Carroll. I’d rather see him throw one down the middle to a guy like Carroll and take his chances. Carroll just got him. But the bigger problem was that Lambert went to his breaking ball wayyy too much. He’d get a head, but then throw 3 straight breaking balls out of the zone before having to throw a fastball down the middle. And by the 3rd inning it almost looked like the Indians knew exactly what was coming. Whether it was a matter of being predictable, or if he was tipping his pitches, it wasn’t good.

Still, there was some stuff to like from Lambert. He looked to have quite a bit of movement on the slider. He just needed to throw it closer to the strike zone to entice the hitters a little more.

I could talk about the offense, but why. For the second consecutive night all the RBI came from the bottom of the lineup. So nice job Brandon, Edgar, and Marcus (3 consecutive 2 hit games for Thames).

As for that interference call on Brandon Inge, as strange as it was, the umpires appear to have gotten it right:

Rule 7.08(b) Comment: A runner who is adjudged to have hindered a fielder who is attempting to make a play on a batted ball is out whether it was intentional or not.

Clearly Inge was trying to avoid the fielder, but even intent doesn’t play into the ruling.

PREGAME: In March when I bought tickets to this game, I thought it would be huge. To teams jockeying for position in the AL Central. And boy was I right. The surging Indians, winners of 14 of their last 20, are only 1.5 games back of the third place Tigers. Sigh.

Anywho, Armando Galarraga looks for another strong performance as he tries to catch Evan Longoria for ROY consideration. This will be the 4th time he’s faced the Indians this season, and each time they’ve gotten to him a little more.

He’ll be opposed by left hander Zach Jackson. Jackson hasn’t allowed a homer in his 15.2 innings this year. With 15.2 innings there isn’t a lot else to say. He’s fanned 6, walked 4, and allowed 20 hits.

CLE @ DET, Monday, August 25, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: Another game I went to, and another loss. The last game I attended and they won was back in June. June people. Against the Cardinals when it rained and stuff and Sheffield had a walk off hit at 1am.

Anyway, it appears that Gary Glover is now officially a part of the bullpen. After an impressive couple of games, he becomes the goat in his home debut.

Galarraga was shaky early, but by all means did enough to keep his team in the game. Except the offense had a hard time keeping themselves in the game. The top and middle of the order was nowhere to be found with the 3 RBI coming from the 7-8-9 hitters.

At least Fernando Rodney looked awesome.

And then there was the cavalcade of bad news.

• Guillen – left with back spasms (again).
• Thames – after back to back multi hit games – leg cramp.
• Cabrera – not reported as an injury, but hobbled after beating out a double play grounder.
• Dontrelle Willis – gone after one inning with forearm tightness.
• Jon Kibler – (yes this is going deep in the organization but it was that kind of day) Hit the DL with shoulder issues. Though expected back in a week, shoulder issues are never a good sign. Kibler has a 1.75 ERA in 154.1 innings with 4 K’s for every walk allowed.

PREGAME: The Tigers and Royals have played 3 series this season. All have been sweeps. So for the sake of consistency, the Tigers should just go ahead and keep things tidy with a sweep today.

They send out Kenny Rogers. Rogers has been decent over his last 3 starts. He’s posted a 4.66 ERA with 14 K’s and 10 walks (egh) in 19.1 innings. The last time he saw the Royals he 4 hit them for 6 innings before rain cut his night short.

The Royals will let Brandon Duckworth make his 2008 debut. Duckworth faced the Tgiers in 2007 and pitched 6.1 innings of shut out baseball.

DET @ KCR, Sunday, August 24, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 2:10

POSTGAME: Sloptastic. Marcus Thames made a nice diving catch, and while it saved some runs, it couldn’t overcome the runs that he allowed with a couple gaffes.

Magglio Ordonez meanwhile, who is just not comfortable, hit a check swing half pop up to second with no outs and runners at the corners. Instead of, you know running, he stood at home plate and watched it like a golf shot. This allowed the second baseman to let the ball drop, turn the double play, and leave the runner at third standing there.

And Kenny Rogers wasn’t good. He wasn’t helped by Thames, but he also created his own problems with 4 walks and he allowed the number 9 hitter to go 3 for 3 with a walk.

Ugly.

PREGAME: Zach Miner looks to bounce back from a rough outing against the Orioles. He didn’t make it out of the secon inning before allowing 5 runs on 6 hits and 4 walks. That came after 3 straight starts in which he pitched into the 6th inning and allowed 3 earned runs or fewer.

For the Royals it will be Kyle Davies. Davies has efficiency issues. He hasn’t recorded a 6th inning out since July 13th. In his last start against Detroit, he limited the Tigers to 2 runs on 5 hits and a walk, but he was lifted after 4 innings and 96 pitches.

DET @ KCR, Saturday, August 23, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:10

PREGAME: The Tigers return to Kansas City for a 3 game set. Tonight it will be Justin Verlander trying to reclaim his ace stuff. In his last start he held the Orioles to 2 unearned runs on 4 hits in 6 innings. He hasn’t had back to back quality starts in a month though.

Brian Bannister owns the Tigers, limiting them to 3 runs over his last 3 starts. But he hasn’t had that same success against the rest of the league. His last time out he allowed 10 runs on 10 hits and 3 walks with 3 homers – in one inning.

DET @ KCR, Friday, August 22, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 8:10

POSTGAME: It’s a win. Justin Verlander was pretty good. He had a rocky first inning, not being able to command any of his pitches. Be he later settled down. The curve ball was really working.

The Tigers didn’t have a ton of hits, but what they did have were hit a long ways. Cabrera picked up another 2 homer game, the second being a monster off a car on top of the waterfalls.

Fernando Rodney wasn’t good, but he got out of it. Usually the fastball command dictates the outing for Rodney, but he had more trouble with the change up. A couple doubles, a walk, and a single with 2 impressive strike outs in between put the tying run on 3rd with 2 outs. A wild pitch with a fortunate bounce, and Rodney remembering to cover homer, led to Dave DeJesus being tagged out easy to end the game.