Category Archives: 2006 Season

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 24: Twins at Tigers

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PREGAME: The Tigers go for two in a row against the Minnesota Twins at 1:05pm. Justin Verlander will try for his first Comerica Park win. He faced the Twins last year and lost at home, and of course was beat around by the White Sox earlier this year. He’ll be opposed by groundball pitcher Carlos Silva. Silva made his mark last year by getting through innings very efficiently. However he posts and 8.33 ERA coming into today.

Craig Monroe went 2 for 5 yesterday, but that’s nothing new against the Twins. Monroe sports a .360 average against the Twins which is tops among active players.

Historically against Silva, Carlos Guillen has hit .450 in 20 at-bats. Brandon Inge and Monroe are also .300+ hitters against Silva. Ivan Rodriguez has only managed a .174 average in 23 at-bats, but I’d expect Vance Wilson to get the start anyways. EDIT: it looks like Pudge afterall…

POSTGAME: Ummm, not a lot I can say about an 18-1 thrashing. Everything worked for the Tigers, nothing worked for the Twins. The box score looks pretty ridiculous for the Tig’s, and Verlander did his job.

One thing I will point out is that Minnesota pitchers have 362 pitches in the first two games of this series. Of those, only 113 have come from starters. The Twins bullpen has been battered as much as the starters have, and is largely unavailable tomorrow.

Also, the Tigers drew 24,000+ today despite the Red Wings and Pistons in the playoffs as well as the NFL draft. This team is forcing people to pay attention.

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – April 28th

Toledo 5, Louisville
Ryan Raburn, who has been playing more outfield, was the big stick in this game. He homered, hit a sac fly, added a single, and drew two walks. The pitching staff saw the return of Matt Mantei who appeared destined for retirement after a spring training injury. He retired all 4 batters he faced, 3 of which came via the strikeout. Chris Spurling followed Mantei and pitched a scoreless inning.

Binghamton 4, Erie 1
Nate Bumstead allowed 4 runs, only two of which were earned, in 7 innings. He only allowed 3 singles and two doubles while striking out 5. There were no offensive standouts for Erie as the team only managed 5 singles and no walks.

Lakeland 4, Sarasota 3 (11 innings)
Lakeland received strong pitching from pretty much everyone – except Kevin Whelan. Christhian Martinez pitched 5 scoreless innings and was followed by PJ Finigan who added 3 of his own. Kevin Whelan allowed two runs to score in the 11th inning on two hits, a run scoring wild pitch, and a walk. He managed to pick up the win though when Lakeland rallied to win behind an error, a walk, a sacrifice bunt, a fielders choice, and a single. Jeff Frazier homered and walked. Clete Thomas struckout 3 times in the midst of an 0 for 4. Jeff Larish dropped his average to .250 with an 0 for 5. Even with Larish’s rough night he is posting an OBP just shy of .400 due to 13 walks.

West Michigan 5, Kane County 2
Michael Hollimon hit his second homer and added two walks. Wil Rhymes also walked twice to compliment two singles. Lucas French allowed two runs in 6 innings (1 BB, 2 K). Andrew Kown raised his scoreless inning streak to 16 with two more innings tonight, and 3 strikeouts. He’s now fanned 16 batters while not allowing a walk. Orlando Perdomo picked up his 8th save by pitching a scoreless ninth.

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 23: Twins at Tigers

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PREGAME: The Twins come to town and have been struggling. Nate Robertson will be taking on Brad Radke. Radke is sporting an uncharacteristic 7.50 ERA. As has been the case several times this year, I hope that a struggling pitcher doesn’t find his groove against the Tigers (see Paul Byrd).

Carlos Guillen, Pudge Rodriguez, Magglio Ordonez, and Craig Monroe have all had success in the past against Radke. Going the other way, Twins hitters haven’t had a lot of experience against Robertson. Lew Ford has 7 hits in 21 at-bats and Torii Hunter is hitting .222 against Nate. Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer are still looking for their first hits.

In any case, the Tigers and Twins will be seeing a lot of each other. Nine of Detroit’s next 19 games are agaisnt the Twins.

POSTGAME: The Tigers blank the Twins 9-0 behind Nate Robertson.

There are two things I’d like to point out:
1. While it hasn’t happened on this site, either from me or in the comments, Robertson has received a good deal of grief. There have been calls for him to head to the bullpen to make room for Jordan Tata/Jason Grilli/Joel Zumaya/etc. Robertson has had one bad outing this year, and two spectacular ones. Now he won’t continue to be as dominant as he was the last two outings, but I’d hope he has at least earned the benefit of the doubt.

2. I guess I needn’t have worried about Brad Radke correcting himself. It just seems that too many times in the last several/dozen years we’ve seen struggling pitcher against struggling offense, and which ever role the Tigers are assuming, their counterpart seems to self-correct. I have to say it was nice to be on the good side.

A. Well I guess I had a third thing, but it really wasn’t that important. With Pudge catching the whole game, it appears that Vance Wilson will once again be catching Justin Verlander. I know last year it was by design. This year I don’t know if it has been a concious effort to have Wilson catching Verlander, or if it’s just working out that way.

2006 Season, Minors, Uncategorized

Tigers Minor League Wrap – April 27th

Toledo 3, Indianapolis 0
Zach Miner, last week’s International League Pitcher of the Week, is trying to win the award back-to-back. He shutout the Indians for 8 innings and only 2 hits. He struck out 8 and lowered his ERA to 1.33. With Roman Colon still laid up, it is nice to see the organization getting some value from the Kyle Farnsworth trade. David Espinsoa doubled, singled and walked while Brian Peterson walked twice and tripled. The struggling Josh Phelps hit his second homer.
Erie – DNP

Sarasota 2, Lakeland 0
Reds prospect Homer Bailey allowed no hits in six innings while striking out 9. Lakeland’s only hit Gil Mejia single in the 9th. Dallas Trahern pitched 7 innings of shutout ball himself.

West Michigan 8, Kane County 4
Dusty Ryan had two hits and two singles. Cameron Maybin and Michael Hollimon each added a hit and two walks. Burke Badenhop allowed ten hits in 7 innings but only 3 runs scored.

2006 Season, Statistics

Series Wrap – Tigers at Angels

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The Tigers only managed to take one of three from the Angels. Actually, they only managed to score in one of three games as the Angels handed Detroit their first two shutouts of the season. Once again Detroit got very solid pitching, but the bats that were showing signs of slumpiness in Seattle went completely silent in Anaheim. The result is that a mere 14 runs were scored in the series, which is one less than in the previous series. Detroit has now scored 15 runs in their last 6 games.

Tigers Angels
Wins 1 2
Offense
Runs 5 9
BA .185 .191
OBP .265 .255
SLG .261 .315
HR 1 2
SB/CS 0/1 2/0
Pitching
BB/9 2.8 3
K/9 4.2 9.3
ERA 2.77 1.67

Continue reading Series Wrap – Tigers at Angels →

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – April 26th

Louisville 3, Toledo 0
Toledo only mustered 3 hits and no walks to the offensive summary is basically: almost everyone had an 0fer. Wil Ledezma started for Toledo and pitched 6 innings allowing 3 runs. The runs came on two home runs. Along the way 18 of the 12 outs against Ledezma were strikeouts. Ledezma’s ERA now stands a 2.43 and in 29 2/3 innings he has 38 K’s and 6 walks.

Bowie 3, Erie 2 (11 innings)
Brent Clevlen reached base twice, one walk and one single. Vincent Blue added two hits. But that was it for offensive highlights. Eulogio De La Cruz continues to have a rough season, and if the Tigers needed 40 man roster room, he and Mark Woodyard would probably be in danger. De La Cruz pitched 2/3 of an inning and allowed two hits and two walks, and the winning run.

Sarasota 20, Lakeland 2
That’s not a misprint. No Lakeland pitcher had success. Josh Rainwater was the starter and gave up the first 7 runs. Jeff Larish and Victor Mendez both had a double and a walk. Nick McIntyre homered for the first time this season.

Kane County, West Michigan
Michael Hollimon and Cameron Maybin each struck out 3 times. Matt Joyce drew two walks and Ryan Roberson had two hits. Sendy Vasquez pitched 6 innings allowing one run with 4 K’s. Rick Steik blew the save allowing 3 runs despite recording all 3 outs via the K.

2006 Season, Game Post

Game 22: Tigers vs Angels

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PREGAME: The Tigers finish up their 9 game western swing with a matinee in Anaheim. By all accounts it has been a successful roadtrip with the team sitting at 6-2. Mike Maroth will be on the mound for Detroit and John Lackey will be pitching for the Angels.

POSTGAME: So Detroit is coming home 6-3 from the road trip. Without looking it up, it is the most successful west coast trip in recent memory for this team. It also brings their record against the AL West to 9-4.

The game was pretty sloppy for the Tigers, with all of the runs coming after a couple errors. It also featured 8 Tiger strikeouts, which is becoming problematic. However, I don’t think it was a give-a-way on get-a-way day type situation this time. Without seeing the game, it sounded like the Tigers were taking decent approaches at the plate drawing 5 walks. To me it seems like a team that is probably a little worn out on the last day of a long road trip.

I’ll have the series wrap tomorrow.

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – April 25th

Louisville 8, Toledo 6
Ryan Ludwick seems to be heating up with a two hit game including his 4th home run and a walk. Max St. Pierre also homered and singled. David Espinosa, Jack Hannahan and Ryan Raburn all had multi-hit games. Josh Phelps struck out 3 times for the second consecutive game. Lance Davis and Tony Fiore were responsible for all 8 runs in 4 1/3 innings. Chris Spurling pitched two scoress innings allowing 2 hits and a walk.

Erie 3, Bowie 3 (11th in progress)
I can’t make it for the end of this game. Preston Larrison went 5 2/3 allowing two runs on 8 hits and two K’s.

Lakeland 7, Clearwater 2
Jeff Frazier was 2 for 2 including a homerun, a walk, and a sac fly. Clete Thomas added two hits and a stolen base. Jeff Larish reached base 3 times with a hit and two walks. Jair Jurrgens continues to pitch well allowing only 2 runs in 7 innings. He struck out 7 and walked none. His season totals are now 24 innings, 21 K’s, 1 BB. Kevin Whelan pitched a scoreless ninth striking out 2.

West Michigan 3, Kane County (12 innings)
Erik Averill went 7 innings and allowed a single run. Orlando Perdomo had his first struggles and blew the save by giving up a run on two walks and two hits in the 9th. West Michigan’s offense consisted of 3 singles (Rymes, Maybin, Justice) and a triple (Ryan). Michael Hollimon had a rough night, striking out twice and making two errors.

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – April 24th

Toledo 7, Louisvill 0
Colby Lewis only allowed 4 hits and a walk in 8 innings of work to go along with 4 strikeouts. Mike Hessman had two homers and Ryan Raburn added one. Josh Phelps struck out 3 times in 4 plate appearances.

Bowie 6, Erie 5
Chris Homer allowed a homer in the 9th inning as Erie couldn’t hold onto the lead. Virgil Vasquez allowed 3 runs, 2 earned, in 5 2/3 innings. He walked 2 and struck out 4. Kody Kirkland hit his 6th homer with two men on. Kurt Airoso added two doubles and a walk.

Clearwater 3, Lakeland 1
The Lakeland bats were silent as they only mustered 7 singles and no walks while striking out 10 times. Brent Dlugach picked up two of the hits, but committed his 7th error. Kevin Ardoin allowed 3 runs, 2 earned, in 6 1/3 innings.

West Michigan 8, Clinton 2
Matt Joyce and Ryan Roberson each picked up a double and a single. Michael Hollimon and Cameron Maybin singled but struck out 3 times. Ramon Garcia pitched 8 innings and allowed 2 runs. He struck out 5 and walked none to raise his season ratio to 20:2 in 26 innings.

2006 Season, Statistics

Tigers-Mariners Series Wrap

It’s not often that a team can only muster 10 runs in a 3 game series, and still double the production of your opponent. Fortunately the Tigers had the 10 runs, and it was good enough for a road sweep of the Mariners

Tigers Mariners
Wins 3 0
Offense
Runs 10 5
BA .240 .185
OBP .306 .276
SLG .370 .207
HR 3 0
SB/CS 4/0 1/2
Pitching
BB/9 3.3 2.7
K/9 6.7 7.3
ERA 1.67 2.30

Of course the story for the Tigers was the starting pitching, which is good because the offense didn’t give them a lot to work with. In 20 innings of work they gave up one lone run. That’s giving even the 2003 Tigers a chance to win. A manufuctured run, anda late inning cushion via the homer were all that the pitching staff needed.
Continue reading Tigers-Mariners Series Wrap →

2006 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap – April 23rd

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Toledo 4, Columbus 3
Chad Durbin went 6 innings and only allowed 1 run while striking out 4. David Espinosa hit his first homer of the year, and Ryan Ludwick hit his third. Tike Redman added two hits including a double.

Erie 15, Binghamton 4
It was an offensive explosion for Erie today. Tony Giarratano had two doubles, a triple, and a walk. Kurt Airoso had 4 hits, two of which were homers. Kody Kirkland and Mike Rabelo added home runs as well. Kirkland reached base 4 times and had 5 RBI’s. Juan Francia posted an unfortunate 0 for 6. Humberto Sanchez didn’t really need the runs. He pitched 7 innings and allowed only 4 hits while K’ing 8. His ERA now stands at 1.96.

Clearwater 14, Lakeland 9
Christhian Martinez was hammered for 9 runs and didn’t make it out of the 2nd inning. PJ Finigan was then tagged for 4 unearned runs. Brent Dlugach made two errors to bring his total to 6. Jeff Larish had a tough week, but rebounded with his 3rd homer, a double, and a walk. Clete Thomas reached base 3 times. Victor Mendez homered and added a double as well.

West Michigan 6, Clinton 4
Michael Hollimon switched spots with Cameron Maybin in the lineup, and both responded. Maybin tripled and walked while Hollimon added a double and a single. Both were caught stealing. Matt Joyce homered. Lucas French allowed 4 runs in 7 innings despite poor peripherals. He allowed 3 walks, 3 strikeouts, and 3 homers. Ricky Steik pitched two scoreless innings for the save. Steik, who was obtained via the Kenny Baugh trade, now has 12 strikeouts and no walks in 8 1/3 innings.

2006 Season

The sweep thread – Detroit takes down Seattle

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For a few minutes there in the 8th inning, I thought I might be titling this post “Sweepless in Seattle.” Fortunately the Tigers held onto the lead and Detroit heads into Anaheim wiht their second 5 game winning streak of the season. In the process of knocking off the Mariners, Detroit guaranteed themselves a winning record on the road trip. When the team left Detroit last Monday, I think everyone would have been content coming back 5-4. But thanks to their recent play I can enthusiastically say a 5 win trip would be disappointing.

I’ll post a full series wrap up tomorrow. In the meantime, a few bulletized thoughts on the game Continue reading The sweep thread – Detroit takes down Seattle →