Category Archives: 2006 Season

2006 Season, Roster Management

Alexis Gomez out, Colby Lewis in

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Alexis Gomez was designated for assignment and pitcher Colby Lewis had his contract purchased.

There weren’t many at-bats available for Gomez. He was primariliy a defensive replacement/pinch runner and made the rare start. Those starts will be even rarer with the return of Dmitri Young.

Colby Lewis has been effective for Toledo. He has a 3.86 ERA and has fanned 90 in 121 innings against 30 walks. He last pitched on Friday, so he’ll be able to step in today if needed and help out a bullpen that has been heavily utilized lately.

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 101: Tigers at Indians

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PREGAME: After much bullpen usage the last 2 days, it would be really helpful if Justin Verlander could pitch deep into this game. Verlander will be opposed by C.C. Sabathia.

This is a pretty big game for the Tigers. I’d feel a lot better if they could take this series before heading into a very difficult match-up with the Twins in the Metrodome.

The good news is that if you can escape some place with a TV for lunch today, you can catch part of the game. It is a 12:05 start and will be aired (are things aired on cable?) on ESPN.

POSTGAME: Justin Verlander provided just what the team needed, a shut down type effort that saved the bullpen. With an off day tomorrow, and the addition of Colby Lewis the pitching staff should be fully rested heading into the Twins series.

Craig Monroe continues to rake with 3 more hits. His batting average is up to .260 (but his OBP remains .290).

The biggest at-bat of the game had to be Marcus Thames 11 pitch walk to lead off the 6th inning. He had fallen behind 0-2 and battled back to set the stage for Magglio Ordonez’s 2 run double.

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – July 25th

Toledo 3, Pawtucket 1
Mike Rabelo was 3 for 4. David Espinosa hit a solo homer and Dustin Mohr hit a 2 run walk off shot in the 10th. Chad Durbin pitched 9 innings of 3 hit ball. He allowed 1 run while walking 4 and fanning 7.

Akron 6, Erie 5
Jair Jurrjens was placed on the DL after experiencing neck stiffness from an auto accident on Friday. Jackson Melian had 2 hits. Nate Bumstead pitched all 6 innings. Only four of the six runs allowed were earned.

Akron, Erie (in progress)

Jupiter 2, Lakeland 0
Clete Thomas had 2 hits. Eddie Bonine scattered 7 hits over 7 innings. He walked 1 and struck out 5.

West Michigan 10, Peoria 0
Burke Badenhop pitched 7 scoreless innings. He allowed only 5 hits. He walked none and fanned 8. Michael Hernandez was 4 for 5 and hit for the cycle. Cameron Maybin was 2 for 4.

Oneonta 4, Williamsport 1
Ryan Strieby went 2 for 4 with a walk. Matt O’Brien allowed 1 run in 6 innings. He gave up 7 hits, walked 1 and fanned 4. Brett Jensen picked up his 8th save with a scoreless inning that involved a hit and 2 strikeouts.

GCL Tigers 2, GCL Phillies 0
Eleazar Aponte pitched 7 shut out innings. Gorkys Hernandez was 1 for 3.

GCL Tigers 4, GCL Phillies 3
Luis Arlet singled and homered. Chris Carlson hit his 7 homer. Matt Righter allowed 3 unearned runs in 3 2/3 innings and Adriano Santos added 3 1/3 scoreless innings of relief.

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 100: Tigers at Indians

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PREGAME: The Tigers will try and clinch a series win, and hopefully do it in under 4 hours.

Tigers starter Kenny Rogers will be facing the Indians for the 4th time. The first two efforts were great, the last one was a 9-0 shutout for the bad guys.

He’ll be opposed by Paul Byrd. Byrd has seemed hittable, except for when he faces the Tigers. In two starts the Tigers have mustered only 4 runs, with only 2 being earned.

A couple of lineup notes: Marcus Thames will sit out again today with Dmitri taking DH duties and Craig Monroe manning left. I’d expect Curtis Granderson to get the day off tomorrow so Thames should return. Also, Placido Polanco returns to the lineup. For the Indians Victor Martinez will be playing first base.

POSTGAME: Well, the offense made a game out of a miserable outing by Kenny Rogers. Roman Colon and Wil Ledezma combined for 4 1/3 shaky yet effective innings of relief. While the Tigers pitchers have struggled the last 2 nights, part of the credit has to go to the Indians. Tribe hitters have made Tiger pitchers throw strikes. The result is a lot of full counts and hitters counts, and shortened outings.

The game saw Curtis Granderson pick up his first error. While this one was pretty cheap, Curtis did misplay a ball against the A’s without being charged with the error. Things even out.

And then there were the rally killers. Polanco, Pudge, and Ordonez combined to go 0 for 13 and negated a 4 for 5 night from Curtis Granderson.

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – July 24th

Durham 15, Toledo 10
Steve Green made the start on short notice when Humberto Sanchez was scratched with a tender elbow. Green didn’t make it out of the first inning and before all was said and done Durham scored 10 runs. Jack Hannahan was 4 for 5 with 2 doubles. Dustin Mohr homered, singled, and walked.

Akron 9, Erie 8
Vince Blue weent 3 for 4 with 2 doubles. Jackson Melian was 4 for 5 with a double and a homer. Brent Clevlen struck out all 5 times up, which makes that 9 K’s in a row. Jon Connolly was roughed up for 7 runs in 5 innings. PJ Finigan was promoted from Lakeland and Juan Francia was sent to Lakeland.

Jupiter 7, Lakeland 1
Brent Dlugach had 2 hits, and that was about it for offense. Jeremy Johnson allowed 5 runs, 2 earned in 5 1/3 innings. Loren Fraser was promoted from West Michigan.

West Michigan 5, Peoria 3
Cameron Maybin homered and singled. Mike Hernandez went 2 for 4. Erik Averill went 6 innings and allowed 3 runs. He struck out 4 and walked none. Orlando Perdomo struck out the side in the 9th for his 23rd save. Jose Fragoso was promoted from Oneonta.

Oneonta – DNP

GCL Tigers – DNP

2006 Season, Offense, Players

Inge on the Offensive

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Way back all of 18 days ago I took a look at Brandon Inge’s offensive contributions. Based on what he’d done so far in 2006, the conclusion was Inge had become focused on the flyball. His line drive percentage was only 10.8%, or nearly half of what a decent hitter should have. The result was an improved home run total, but it came at the expense of his batting average and on base percentage. But all that looks to be changing now.

Since writing that Inge has hit 326/396/543. In that time his line drive percentage has been 31.6% raising his season total to 14%.

In looking at his game-by-game log you can see that his hot streak really started in full effect with the resumption of play after the All Star Break. Over that time he’s hitting 406/474/594 and the most impressive aspect may be that he only fanned 4 times during the 10 game homestand. Not surprisingly his improved numbers come as he hit 41% of his balls in play for line drives.

Now it’s unreasonable to expect Inge to continue getting on base in nearly half of his plate appearances, but if he can carry at least some of this performance into the rest of the season the Tigers offense definitely stands to benefit. And with his first inning opposite field homer tonight, the shift in venue hasn’t seemed to effect him yet.

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 99: Tigers at Indians

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PREGAME: The Tigers venture into Jacobs Field looking to continue the success they enjoyed on their last trip. You may remember that the Tigers swept the Indians in a mid May weekend series. That series featured Jeremy Bonderman limiting the Indians to 3 hits and no runs over 8 innings. I bring this up because Bonderman will be taking the hill for the Tigers tonight.

He’ll be opposed by Cliff Lee. Lee has faced the Tigers twice this year. The first time he was a hard luck 1-0 loser to Mike Maroth. The second time the Tigers touched him for 5 runs in 7 innings.

Placido Polanco will get the day off after being hit in the jaw and Craig Monroe will bat in the 2-spot despite being 3 for 21 lifetime against Lee.

This series makes me nervous. Yes the Indians have a lousy record, but they aren’t a lousy team. The offense can put runs on the board (2nd in the AL in runs scored) and they have quite a bit of talent. You wouldn’t know it by the standings, but they have actually outscored their opponents for the season.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: Phew!! That game was long and ugly – but a win. Quick observations before heading to bed:

  • Glad that the bats continued to stay hot. Dmitri Young hits his first homer, Inge adds a homer, Infante picks up 3 hits, Shelton had mixed results. Curtis Granderson and Magglio Ordonez were the only ones not to really enjoy the hits.
  • The Tigers were the beneficiary of a couple calls. Alexis Gomez was picked off, but called safe and Ordonez dropped a ball along the foul line.
  • Bonderman couldn’t buy a strike the first 2 innings and yet held the Indians scoreless until he settled down.
  • Fernando Rodney just wasn’t right. That was ugly combined with bad luck. Jamie Walker was solid until it looked like he got gassed at the end of his 2nd inning.
  • When they’d show the Tigers dugout, I saw something I hadn’t seen all year – tension. That wasn’t a light and jovial bench the last few innings.
2006 Season, Injuries, Minors, Trade Rumors

Soriano, Sanchez, Speculation

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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…

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – July 23rd

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.

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 98: A’s at Tigers

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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

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 97: A’s at Tigers

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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

2006 Season, Pitching, Players

Jamie Walker is Good

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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.