Category Archives: 2006 Season

2006 Season

Get your Tiger Tickets – Now!

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Tiger tickets are going fast, and there won’t be much of a chance to see them at Comerica in the near future.

The Tigers have a 6 game homestand coming up in which they should draw close to 200,000. They’ve already sold 100k for the St. Louis series, and with Clemens likely to pitch for Houston one of those game stands a good chance of selling out. So if you don’t have tickets for this homestand, you might want to get down to the box office in the next day or so.

And if you miss the Tigers this homestand, you’re out of luck for a while. The Tigers head on the road for a 9 game road trip which is then followed by the All Star Break. So the Tigers won’t be home again until July 13th. They will then play their only 10 home games in March. In fact, after the upcoming homestand only 10 of their next 29 games are at home.

Now it may be rough for the Tigers, and fans, and ticket sales, but it could prove helpful come September when the Tigers play 17 of their final 28 at home. In fact 25 of their last 42 will be played in Detroit. If the Tigers are in a pennant race the team and ticket sales should definitely benefit.

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 72: Tigers at Brewers

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PREGAME: The Zach Miner show comes to Milwaukee. Miner has proven to be a pretty capable replacement for Mike Maroth against some tough offenses. Things won’t get easier tonight, or even going forward, as the film library on Zach becomes more robust.

He’ll be facing Rick Helling who makes his first start of the season after coming back from elbow problems.

Craig Monroe will take Marcus Thames’s spot in the lineup as he makes his first start since Wednesday.

POSTGAME: Well at least that Zach Miner film library isn’t getting a lot of footage of guys having success against him. Awesome outing by Miner, and of course it was a slight disappointment he couldn’t get the shut out as well.

The Tigers went long ball crazy again and Jeremy Bonderman can’t help but wonder why an offense that hits 12 homers in 3 games can’t get give him a little run support.

And while the White Sox won again, the other team that is matching the Tigers blow for blow is the Twins. While the Indians may be wilting, the Twins are doing their best to make things interesting. I don’t think things will be as easy the next time they meet up.

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – June 21st

Toledo 2, Rochester 2 (in progress 10th inning)
Josh Phelps hit a two run homer, his 9th. Brian Peterson doubled and tripled. Nook Logan was 1 for 3 with a walk. Colby Lewis allowed a single run in 6 innings. He fanned 4 and walked just one. In other news, congratulations to Humberto Sanchez who was named International League Pitcher of the Week.

Erie – DNP

Fort Myers 2, Lakeland 1
Lakeland managed 11 hits, including 4 doubles, but only pushed across one run. Jeff Larish was 2 for 3 with a double and a walk. Jeff Frazier and Chris Robinson also doubled. Dallas Trahern allowed one run in 6 innings on 5 hits, 2 walks, and 3 K’s.

West Michigan – DNP

2006 Season, Game Post, Uncategorized

Game 71: Tigers at Brewers

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PREGAME: Fresh off the heels of a beat-down at Wrigley, the Tigers look to extend their winning streak to 5. Quite frankly, I’ll be a little disappointed if the Tigers don’t spot Jeremy Bonderman some runs in the first inning after what transpired the last 3 games.

Bonderman’s last 2 turns in the rotation were the Tigers last two losses – not that either was Bonderman’s fault. His bullpen collapsed and blew a 3 run lead in Toronto and the offense spoiled an 8 inning, 1 run, 12 strikeout performance against the D-Rays.

The Tigers face another lefty in Doug Davis. Davis has struggled with his control this year walking 5 per nine innings. However, he’s walked only 5 in his last 3 starts.

POSTGAME: It takes a special team to turn 2 bunts into a run. Once again it’s stuff like that that make you think this team has something special going.

An outstanding effort of course by Jeremy Bonderman and it really would have been a shame had he not picked up the win.

Jim Leyland made a great move to order the intentional walk forcing Doug Davis out of the game.

Kudos also go to Todd Jones who has thrown 4 1-2-3 innings in the last 8 days. (he also allowed 4 runs in an inning, but he’s really done okay lately).

2006 Season

Tigers sign 7 more from draft

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The Tigers announced the signing of 7 more players from the draft, including their 2nd, 3rd, and 5th round picks:

Rd	Player	        Pos     B/T	Age	School
2	Ronnie Bourquin	3B	L/R	21	Ohio State U.
3	Brennan Boesch	CF	L/L	21	UC-Berkeley
5	Scott Sizemore	SS	R/R	21	Virginia Commonwealth
6	Jordan Newton	C	R/R	20	Western Kentucky U.
9	Zach Piccola	LHP	R/L	21	U. of South Alabama
20	Casey Fien	RHP	R/R	22	Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
21	Thomas Thornton	LHP	L/L	22	U. of Notre Dame
2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – June 18th

Toledo 3, Rochester 0
Humberto Sanchez continued to dazzle, this time allowing 2 singles in 6 1/3 innings of work. He walked two and struck out 5. Chris Spurling pitched 1 2/3 innings and Lee Gardner pitched a scoreless 9th to preserve the shutout. David Espinosa homered in a 2 for 4 day.

Harrisburg 17, Erie 8
Humberto Sanchez’s good fortune is Erie’s loss as they were throttled. Bobby Jones came into today having allowed 11 earned runs in 49.2 innings, but allowed that many in 3 2/3 innings today. He was tagged for 4 homers. Kody Kirkland was 2 for 5 with a homer. Juan Francia was 3 for 6 and is now hitting .151.

Lakeland – DNP (All Star break)

West Michigan – cancelled (rain)

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 70: Tigers at Cubs

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PREGAME: The Tigers will try and make it a happy Father’s Day by completing a sweep against the Cubs. Kenny Rogers will make his first attempt at 200 career wins while Mark Prior will make his first attempt at starting this season.

We know that Pudge Rodriguez will get the day off, but I’d hope that Jim Leyland wouldn’t tinker too much with a lineup that has been crushing the ball in the first two games of the series

And on a non-baseball note, I’d like to wish Happy Father’s Day to all fathers today. There’s just something about baseball and it’s ability to bridge generations that make days like today special.

POSTGAME: Congratulations of course go to Kenny Rogers on securing his 200th victory. He did it while being dominant in one of baseball’s most historic venues on Father’s Day. I think the script is complete.

Of course his win was overshadowed by a power display by, well, everyone except Magglio Ordonez and Placido Polanco. If you had told me that in mid June Brandon Inge would be leading the team in homers with Marcus Thames close on his heels, I’d have thought the season would be a disaster. Instead, the Tigers have 6 players with 10-15 homers and Carlos Guillen hovering at 9. I haven’t done any research, but I can’t imagine too many times when the #7 and #8 hitter combine for 4 homers in a game.

Again we saw the talents of Curtis Granderson who picked up only one single in the series but still picked up 16 total bases. And Chris Shelton continues to look much improved. His first homer was a bomb to straight away centerfield. A .900 OPS hitter in the bottom 3rd will definitely help the offense.

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – June 17th

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Toledo 10, Rochester 4
David espinosa was 3 for 5 with 2 doubles and Josh Phelps added 3 hits as well. Chad Durbin went 5 2/3 innings allowing 3 runs on 8 hits with no walks and 2 strikeouts.

Harrisburg 6, Erie 2
Once again Erie’s offense was stymied and managed only 4 hits. Kurt Airoso had the big one with a two run homer. Brent Clevlen struck out 3 times in 4 plate appearances. Preston Larrison went 7 innings allowing 4 runs on 10 hits and 3 walks.

There was no game for the Lakeland Tigers as the FSL held it’s All Star Game. L-Tiger reps included Jeff Frazier (1 for 4 with a homer) and Chris Robinson (0 for 1). Tiger pitchers recorded the final 4 outs with Jeff Hahn pitching a scoreless inning and Kevin Whelan allowing a walk and a flyout.

West Michigan 7, Fort Wayne 3
Matt Joyce and Dusty Ryan homered for the Caps. Cameron Maybin was 2 for 3 and added 2 walks and his 9th stolen base. Wil Rhymes also reached base 4 times in 5 at-bats. Lucas French went six innings allowing 3 runs on 6 hits. He fanned 3 and allowed 2 homers. Matt Rusch picked up a 3 inning save allowing only one base runner.

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 69: Tigers at Cubs

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PREGAME: It’s a rookie pitching battle today as Justin Verlander takes on Carlos Marmol. We know about Verlander already, but there isn’t much to know about Marmol. He’s only made one start and 2 relief appearances – and been very impressive. In his 10 innings he has 13 K’s against 3 walks, and has allowed only one run.

We’ll see who the true home team is today, with the crowd pro-Tigers yesterday.

POSTGAME: The Tigers continued to pound the ball against the ivy. Even pinch hitter Omar Infante hit a homer – er a triple thanks to crappy umpiring. And despite the fact that the Tigers picked up 14 hits, 7 for extra bases, they were still robbed on several occasions. In fact the last two outs of the 4th, and the entire 5th innings were basically web gem nominees for the Cubs.

Verlander’s control wasn’t entirely there, but he battled through and held the Cubs to one run. Wil Ledezma was awesome in relief coming into a bases loaded situation and stranding all 3 runner. Fernando Rodney pitched about as well as he hit, but with a 8 run cushion you could laugh about both.

With the win the Tigers move to 21 games over .500. That matches their highest point which they last achieved after a Verlander win against Cleveland on May 27th. So since racing out to a 35-14 record, they played .500 ball over the last 20 games.

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – June 16th

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Toledo 0, Syracuse 0 (14th inning, in progress)
Can you say pitchers duel? Mark Woodyard started and pitched 3 scoreless innings despite walking 4 and he only allowed one hit. Chris Spurling threw 4 innings fanning 4 and only allowing two hits. Ryan Raburn has 3 of the Hens 5 hits.

Harrisburg 7, Erie 3
Jair Jurrgens made his AA debut for Erie. He allowed 3 runs (2 earned) on 6 hits and 2 walks in 5 innings. He also struck out 5. Not a bad outing for a debut at a new level. Eulogio De La Cruz allowed 3 runs, 2 earned, in 2 innings. Brian Rogers allowed a solo homer, but recorded 5 of his 6 outs via the strike out. Tony Giarratano who had been heatin up was placed on the disabled list with a sprained wrist.

Lakeland – DNP

West Michigan 7, Fort Wayne 1
Michael Hollimon was 2 for 3 with a walk. Cameron Maybin doubled in 4 at-bats and struck out twice. Mark Haske was 3 for 3 with a walk. Burke Badenhop spread 10 hits over 8 innings. He allowed a solo homer and no walks against 6 strikeouts. Orlando Perdomo pitched a scoreless 9th.

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 68: Tigers at Cubs

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PREGAME: The Tigers travel to Wrigley Field to take on the Cubs. It’s the occasional match-up like this that makes me actually like interleague play.

On a personal note, I made the trip to Chicago in 2000 to see the Tigers take on the Cubs. My wife and I took in two games. What made it even more memorable is that the morning we left we found out we were pregnant with my son.

But on to the game itself…Nate Robertson will be taking on Glendon Rusch. Rusch has been pretty awful and has allowed 14 homers in his 31 innings as a starter this season. He’s been particularly ineffective at Wrigley allowing a .387 BAA and 10 homers in 13 1/3 innings. Rusch is also the 4th lefty starter the Tigers have faced in the last 5 games.

POSTGAME: That game ended up a lot closer than it felt like it would be early on. I happened to be at home today, so I was able to see the game. While the Tigers only posted 5 runs, they hit the ball hard up and down the order (well except for Guillen). Pudge and Thames both had balls caught at the wall and Shelton and Granderson both had line drives that Jacque Jones made nice plays on. Even Nate Robertson had a hit taken away on a nice diving play by Juan Pierre.

Robertson was dominant, I think he only had one 1-2-3 inning, but he also was never really in trouble.

Marcus Thames homer was to the opposite field, which is a rarity. I mentioned his flyout to the wall which was also to right-center.

Todd Jones pitched an uneventful 1-2-3 inning. And it may be hard to believe, but that was the 3rd 1-2-3 inning he’s pitched this week. It’s just that one of them was followed by a disastorous 4 run inning.

And finally, the most encouraging item may have been Chris Shelton. Yesterday he doubled and walked twice. Today he doubled down the right field line and sent another line drive to the warning track. He also drew another walk today. And even when he struck out his last time up, he didn’t take the monster swing, he looked like he was trying to flilp it to right again. I’m not saying his slump is over, or that he’s even breaking out. But Chris Shelton today looked a lot more like the Chris Shelton of last year.