Justin Verlander was named American League Player of the Week. He shares last weeks honor with Carl Crawford. Verlander allowed on run in 16 innings of work against the Royals and Indians.
He’s the second Tiger to win the award this season. Chris Shelton won it the first week of the season when everything he hit went out of the park.
Toledo 3, Rochester 1
Ryan Ludwick singled and walked twice while Don Kelly, Alexis Gomez, and Tike Redman added doubles. Jorda Tata seems to have settled in as a Mud Hen with another strong start. This time it was 4 hits over 7 innings with 2 walks and 3 strike outs. Incidentally the Hens were facing Kyle Lohse. You may remember that the Tigers largely contributed to Lohse’s demotion by raking him in 3 appearances.
Altoona 4, Erie 2
Juan Francia seems to be coming out of his funk with a triple and a single. Chris Maples added two doubles. Brent Clevlen took an 0 for 4 with 2 strikeouts. He’s now hitting 217/317/322 in 180 at-bats with 59 strikeouts. I guess the bright side is that he has walked 24 times. Virgil Vasquez went 7 1/3 allowing 3 runs on 7 hits. He walked one and struck out five.
Lakeland – DNP
West Michigan 6, Dayton 5
Michael Hollimon singled and walked twice. Justin Justice and Matt Joyce both singled and tripled. Ramon Garcia had a very rare rough outing. He lasted on 4 innings allowing 5 runs on 5 hits and two walks. Josh Rainwater came on in relief and pitched 4 scoreless innings. Orlando Perdomo picked up his 14th save despite allowing two baserunners.
PREGAME: A Memorial Day afternoon tilt against the Yankees in front of a sell out crowd? Good times indeed. The pitching match-up is a dandy as well with Jeremy Bonderman taking on Randy Johnson. The last time these two hooked up, it was a 10-2 thrashing by Detroit. It was also the only game the Tigers won against the Yankees last year.
Today also happens to be me and Mrs. Billfer’s anniversary. As such, this will probably the sum total of today’s postings.
POSTGAME: Jeremy Bonderman pitched much better than the box score will indicate. The Yankees weren’t hitting him particularly hard. The rallies consisted of some missed opportunities on double plays, and weakly hit ground balls that found a way. I remember exactly 3 line drives that Bonderman allowed – two were to Jason Giambi and one to Alex Rodriguez. Bonderman’s final numbers look uninspiring, but he deserved a better fate.
But the game was unwinnable as the Tigers failed to muster any offense for the second straight day.
Toledo 3, Rochester 1
Colby Lewis 4 hit Rochester for 8 innings allowing one run on a homer. He walked none and fanned 4. Don Kelly tripled and walked.
Altoona 3, Erie 1
Erie only managed two hits so there isn’t much to talk about on that end. Humberto Sanchez went 6 innings and allowed only 4 hits, but struggled with his control and had 4 walks. He did strike out 9.
Tampa 4, Lakeland 0
Another game without much offense in the Tigers system. Jeff Frazier picked up two hits, and Victor Mendez had 3. Lance Davis allowed 13 hits in 7 innings.
West Michigan 12, Southwest Michigan 6
Michael Hernandez had his second big game this week with 4 hits. Justin Justice reached base 4 times, as did Pedro Cotto. Lucas French allowed 5 runs in 4 innings.
PREGAME: It’s hard to believe that we’re at the 50th game of the season already. After the 4 game set with the Yankees we’ll offically be at the one-third mark of the season.
It is an interesting match-up today with Kenny Rogers taking on the man he replace in the rotation – Jason Johnson. Johnson pitched well against the Tigers two weeks ago, but lost due to a couple unearned runs. Ivan Rodriguez is 11 for 19 lifetime against Johnson, and with Vance Wilson starting last night Pudge will be in the lineup.
Kenny Rogers looks to rebound from his 4 homer outing against the Royals. It won’t be easy against the Indians offense. Throw in the fact that it will be almost 90 with humidity and a breeze today, and it becomes imperative that the ball stays down.
POSTGAME: It was another Sunday shut-out, but not for the good guys. There weren’t many balls hit hard off of Jason Johnson. The few that were, were swallowed up the the Cleveland defense.
Kenny Rogers had another rough, but not awful, outing. It turns out that a shutout wouldn’t have even been enough.
Rochester 9, Toledo 5 11 innings
Kevin Hooper had two hits and two walks to pace the Mud Hen attack. Ryan Raburn doulbed in 3 runs, but also struck out 4 times. Zach Miner allowed 5 runs on 5 hits with 5 strike out sin 5 2/3 innings. Mark Woodyard gave up 4 runs in the 11th to take the loss.
Erie 9, Altoona 5
Kody Kirkland was 3 for 3 with 2 doubles and a walk. Mike Rabelo continued his hot hitting with a 3 for 4 effort. Struggling Brent Clevlen was dropped to 6th in the lineup, and added a single and a walk. Nate Bumstead allowed 5 hits and 5 walks in 6 innings, but limited the damage to 4 runs. Eulogio De La Cruz allowed one unearned run in picking up a 3 inning save.
Lakeland 1, Tampa 0
Victor Mendez was the offense for Lakeland with a 3 for 3 night. Jeff Larish added a double. But Jair Jurrjens didn’t need much support. He pitched 7 shutout innings, limiting the opposition to 3 hits while striking out 3. Kevin Whelan picked up the last out for the save.
West Michigan 7, Southwest Michigan 1
Justin Justice picked up 3 hits for West Michigan. Meanwhile, Burke Badenhop two hit Southwest Michigan for 7 innings. He allowed one run while walking none and striking out 5.
PREGAME: Justin Verlander will try to extend the Tigers win streak to 8. Now here’s the thing. The last time I went to a Tiger game where they were looking for their 8th straight they got beat handily by the Reds (amazingly that was only 8 days ago). And the last time I saw Verlander pitch in person he was shelled by the White Sox. I’m going to tonight’s game, so any bad mojo can be blamed on me.
The Tigers will face Paul Byrd who has seen his ERA improve in each of his last 5 starts. The last time the Tigers faced Paul Byrd it resulted in the famous Leyland tirade. They have since gone 27-8.
POSTGAME So it is a very delayed post-game synopsis, but you guys picked me up with the comments. It was a fantastic atmosphere in and around Comerica Park last night. Two hours before the game there were long waits at area restaurants and people were buzzing. Inside a nearly capacity crowd was hanging on most every pitch. The roar that went up in the crowd when Justin Verlander fanned Travis Hafner was incredible.
Justin Verlander continues to exceed expectations, and doesn’t seem phased by any team or hitter. His stuff is incredible, and he has command of it as well.
I’ve got to say, this whole Tiger winning thing is fun.
Toledo 9, Buffalo 4
David Espinosa went 3 for 4 as the leadoff man. Ryan Raburn also added 3 hits including a homer. Wil Ledezma went 2 innings and allowed 4 hits and 2 runs with two strikeouts. Jason Beck reports that Ledezma was limited to 50 pitches in case Jim Leyland decides to use him in Maroth’s spot on Tuesday.
Toledo 4, Buffalo 0
Ryan Raburn wsa the star of the double header by adding two more hits and a walk in the 2nd game. Chad Durbin pitched a complete game 4 hit shut out (minor league baseball only plays 7 innings in DHs).
Altoona 8, Erie 6
Brent Clevlen was 2 for 4 with his 3rd homer. Juan Francia walked, singled, and stole a base. The bad news is that raised his OBP to .176. Brian Jones went 5 2/3 and walked none, but allowed 9 hits and 4 runs.
Vero Beach 12, Lakeland 9
Brent Dlugach had 3 hits and Garth McKinney added two. Jeff Larish, Wilkin Ramirez, and Jeff Frazier went a combined 1 for 12 with 4 strike outs. Kevin Ardoin was roughed up for 8 runs in 5 1/3 innings.
Vero Beach 9, Lakeland 8 (12 innings)
There’s nothing like a 12 inning game as part of a double header. Wilkin Ramieriz was a single short of the cycle while Garth Mckinney added two doubles and 3 walks. Clete Thomas was 2 for 6 but fanned 3 times. Andrew Kown lased only 4 innings as he was touched for 8 hits, two of which were homers. Kevin Whelan blew the save in relief as he allowed two walks, two hits and two runs in 2/3 of an inning. His ERA now stands at 5.74.
West Michigan 4, Southwest Michigan 3
Michael Hernandez (?) was 3 for 4 with a home run. Michael Hollimon took an 0 for 5 with 3 K’s. Erik Averill allowed 3 runs (2 earned) in 6 innings of work whlie fanning 3. Olrando Perdomo picked up his 13th save striking out two in one inning of work.
The Tigers managed to pull off a sweep of the Royals, despite some rough starts by the rotation. With the exception of Justin Verlander’s series opening shut out, the rest of the starters were knocked around. Fortunately the Tigers were playing the Royals, where if you have outs left you always have a chance.
Still, the success that a team like the Royals had against the Tigers staff is disconcerting to say the least. Now that the rotation has made quite a few starts, have the scouting reports caught up to them? Did new patterns brought in by Chuck Hernandez and Kenny Rogers throw opposing teams off, but now they’ve got the memo? Or is it simply a regression to the mean because they had been pitching so good for so long? Only time will tell. Onto the stats…
| Tigers | Royals | |
| Wins | 4 | 0 |
| Offense | ||
| Runs | 35 | 16 |
| BA | .338 | .279 |
| OBP | .409 | .324 |
| SLG | .580 | .413 |
| HR | 10 | 9 |
| SB/CS | 1/1 | 0/2 |
| Pitching | ||
| BB/9 | 2.5 | 4.3 |
| K/9 | 5.3 | 6.3 |
| ERA | 4.00 | 8.00 |
PREGAME: The Indians are looking to exact some revenge after being swept by the Tigers two weeks ago at home. Nate Robertson, who has been stingy with runs despite walking 13 in his last 3 starts, starts for the Tigers. They’ll face Jake Westbrook.
POSTGAME: You kind of got the feeling things were going the Tigers way on the first play of the game when Grady Sizemore was cutdown stretching a double into a triple, after Curtis Granderson overthrew the cut-off man. But the throw was online and Santiago made a lighting quick turn on the relay. Things continued to go Granderson’s way as he knocked in 5 with a single and a triple. Nate Robertson was effective again, and really only encountered one jam.
So I guess that elbow thing is pretty serious. Mike Maroth has been placed on the 15 day DL and Chris Spurling has been recalled. Presumably Roman Colon or possibly Jason Grilli will become the 5th starter for the next couple weeks, with Spurling back-filling the bullpen.
There aren’t many details yet, but Maroth had been scheduled to visit with a doctor today. Presumably the news wasn’t good.
This is disappointing, and not from a “can the Tigers get by” perspective. Mike Maroth endured quite a bit during that 2003 season, and personally I really wanted him to continue his early season success. I was hoping this would be his redemption year.
As for Spurling, after a couple rough outings initially in Toledo he has been lights out.
Toledo – PPD Rain
Harrisburt 7, Erie 5
Mike Rabelo was the second Tiger org. catcher to hit a triple yesterday. He added a single as well and is now hitting 304/360/520. Preston Larrison took the loss allowing 4 walks and 7 hits for 6 runs in 5 2/3 innings. He allowed 3 homers and struck out none. Eulogio De La Cruz, who had been pitching well of late, allowed 3 hits and two walks in 1 2/3 innings.
Lakeland – PPD Rain
Southwest Michigan 5, West Michigan 4
Sendy Vasquez only lasted 4 innings and gave up 4 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks. Michael Hollimon doubled and walked and Pedro Cotto added two hits.