Category Archives: 2007 Season

Mesa released

Yeah, I’m kind of late on this, but the news came down during my journey home from Cleveland.

The Mesa signing was kind of a mystery at the time. I guess the Tigers were hoping to get some better than replacement level bullpen depth. What they got was a whole lot less. I think Mesa’s stay was extended with the injuries to Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya, but he couldn’t do anything with the extra chances.

I’m thrilled that the Tigers are going to stick with the guys who have been performing well, and that Fernando Rodney will be back to stabilize the 8th inning.

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 6/2 and 6/3

June 3rd

Toledo 3 Buffalo 2
Virgil Vasquez returned to form with 6 shut out innings. He allowed only 3 hits and 1 walk while fanning 4. Ryan Raburn hit a 3 run homer to provide all the offense.

Erie 7 Binghamton 0
Andrew Miller has adjusted well to Erie and with 7 more scoreless innings today his ERA is down to 0.59. He allowed 7 hits and one walk while fanning 7 and picking up 12 ground ball outs. Joel Roa homered, his 2nd of the year.

St. Lucie 11 Lakeland 12 11 innings
Wil Rhymes, Ryan Roberson, and Michael Hernandez all homered. For Hernandez and Rhymes it was part of a 3 hit attack. Cameron Maybin added 3 singles.

West Michigan – PPD Rain

June 2nd

Courtesy of Mike R:

Toledo 2 Buffalo 3
Ryan Raburn went 3 for 4 and Chris Shelton was 2 for 4 including a double and the lone Mud Hens RBI (other run was unearned). Corey Hamman made just his 2nd start of the season and went 4.2 IP in which he gave up 5 hits, 3 runs, 2 BB’s, and 1 K while surrendering a HR. Roman Colon threw 2 innings, giving up 1 hit, 0 runs, 1 BB and striking out 2.

Erie 3 Binghamton 1
Mike Holliman hit a 2-run HR, and Jeff Larish was 3-4 with 2 doubles. Dallas Trahern continued dealing this season with a 8 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K performance that dropped his ERA to 2.45 in Double-A. 14 of his outs were ground balls, 3 fly balls, and 6 K’s. Very dominating performance.

St. Lucie 8 Lakeland 0
Not much to like on the Lakeland side of things. St. Lucie’s 2-5 hitters drove in all 8 runs by going a collective 8 for 20 with 2 doubles and a HR. Lakeland mustered just 2 hits against St. Lucie pitching. Kyle Sleeth gave up 3 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 0 K’s in 2 innings of relief. Why is he still on the 40 man roster? His 13.50 ERA as a nearly 26-year-old in Double-A can be let go.

Fort Wayne 4 West Michigan 8
Scott Sizemore had 2 hits and drove in 2. Gorkys Hernandez didn’t play today. Duane Below went 5 innings, allowing 6 hits, 1 run, 4 walks, and striking out 7. The bullpen pitched well (Fragaso, Bierd, Clelland) as they combined to pitch the final 4 innings, scattering 5 hits, 3 runs, but only walked 1 and struck out 6.

Game 56: Tigers at Indians

PREGAME: With that pesky first win out of the way, the Tigers can now focus on splitting the 4 game set. It will be a matchup of Jeremy’s with Bonderman taking on Sowers.

Bonderman returned strong from the disabled list with 2 solid starts against the Angels and Rays.

Jeremy Sowers had a rough start to his season, but actually turned in a couple decent performances his last time out. He still has more walks than strikeouts on the season though. He’s had more success at home this year with a 4.74 ERA at Jacobs Field and a 7.13 ERA everywhere else.

Game Time 1:05pm

POSTGAME
: Sorry for being so quiet this weekend. I was out late watching the Pistons and Tigers Saturday night, and up early to head to Cleveland for Sunday’s game. I’ll have more on my trip and thoughts on the state of team tomorrow night.

For now I’ll just say that things feel a lot better today than they did 48 hours ago.

Game 55: Tigers at Indians

PREGAME: The Tigers enter the 2nd third of the season still looking for their first win against the Indians. Given the crappiness of the last week, it is still pretty surprising that the Tigers are on pace to win 90 games which is about what I expected. Plus they are still the wild card team. And they’ve done it with a number of injuries. As dark as the last week has been, the season is far from over.

As for tonight’s game, it will be Chad Durbin taking on Cliff Lee. Lee has been quite hittable this year, and has only lasted past the 6th inning one time this year.

Craig Monroe is out tonight with Marcus Thames playing left. Pudge Rodriguez returns to the lineup and Brandon Inge and Carlos Guillen are still out.

Game Time 7:05

Tigers Minor League Wrap 6/1/07

Toledo 15 Buffalo 3
David Espinosa and Timo Perez each had 3 hits and Ryan Raburn had 3. Yorman Bazardo pitched a complete game allowing 3 runs on 7 hits, 2 walks, and 4 K’s. Oh yeah, and Jake Westbrook didn’t make it through the 2nd inning.

Erie 7 Binghamton 8
Mike Hollimon homered, walked and singled to lead the way. Jeff Larish knocked his 10th homer. Eddie Bonine allowed 7 runs on 11 hits in 4 innings.

Lakeland – PPD Rain

West Michigan 5 Lansing 2
Jeramy Laster and Brennan Boesch had 2 hits apiece and James Skelton homered. It was a rough game for Gorkys Hernandez who went 0 for 5 with 3 K’s. Angel Castro went 8 innings and allowed 2 runs on 7 hits, 3 walks, and 4 K’s.

Game 54: Tigers at Indians

PREGAME: The Tigers are looking for some way, some how to get their first W against the Tribe. Tonight it will be a rematch of Mike Maroth and Fausto Carmona.

Maroth was touched for a 4 run first inning, but then only allowed 6 more baserunners and managed to stick around for 8 innings.

Against Carmona the Tigers picked up 11 baserunners but could only push across 3 runs.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME
: So it only took 24 hours to find a new most frustrating game. On a night when a third of your lineup is occupied by bench players, and your offense musters 11 runs against a good pitching staff, and you have a 4 run lead in the 9th, a loss is simply inexcusable. There’s that old axiom of “win and lose as a team” but that simply doesn’t hold true tonight. You can pin this one on two people.

First of all Todd Jones. Jones was awful and there is no getting around it. I’m not upset about the first run in the 8th inning. That was a scratch hit and the second run came on an error. But the 9th inning was despicable. At the same time, he was put in a position to fail and I have to place as much blame on the shoulders of Jim Leyland.

It was easy to see that Jones didn’t have it. He was walking guys which is the first red flag. With a low K-rate, Jones relies on his fielders making plays. He can’t afford the luxury of free passes. And yet Jim Leyland repeatedly refused to make a move. After the Martinez homer, the first long ball Jones had allowed on the season, it was time for someone to get up immediately. A conference at the mound would have been a nice stall tactic. Then after the Jhonny Perralta double another arm would have been warm enough to come in.

Instead Jones stayed in and managed to retire Ryan Garko, running his pitch count up to 36 in the process. Eric Wedge had already brought in his pinch hitters, so a lefty-lefty match-up was certainly in order. Instead the decision was inexplicably made to put the go ahead runner on base, and leave your closer who had already thrown 40 pitches in the game.

And when Jones failed to retire the right handed Josh Barfield and the game was tied, Leyland still stuck with Jones. Now 2 batters ago, Leyland thought that Jones wasn’t well suited to pitch to lefty Trot Nixon. Yet now with the game tied and a runner on 3rd Jones should be able to retire lefty Dave Dellucci? Of course Dellucci ended with a line drive up the middle.

Leyland should have lifted Jones after the Perralta double. He should have lifted him and brought in Bobby Seay who was warm to face Trot Nixon instead of walking him. And he should have lifted Jones and brought in Seay to face Dellucci after the Barfield single. He had ample opportunities to do something, and he didn’t make a move.

If you’ve read this blog for awhile, you know that I hate to assign losses to managers. Most of the time I can at least understand decisions even if I don’t agree with them. And there is no guaranteeing the result regardless. However tonight Leyland blew this game as much, if not more, than Jones did. I don’t know how Seay would have fared, but it would have given the team a better chance to win. I waited to write this until after the post game presser, but the portion shown on FSN involved no questions as to why Jones was allowed to completely give that game away.

I’ve often disagreed with Leyland’s tactical decisions. But even though I can’t quantify it, I felt that his greatest strength last year was in managing the clubhouse and getting guys to believe. I just wonder how he addresses a team tomorrow that scored 11 runs only to not have it be enough, or a closer who he hung out to dry.

Casey hasn’t produced anything

It’s a refrain that has been uttered by Tigers fans over and over again. This time it is a quote from Jim Leyland. Leyland was responding to questions about Marcus Thames playing 3 straight days and said:

“It’s an attempt to get some production in the lineup,” manager Jim Leyland said Thursday, before the Tigers’ 11-5 loss. “The fact of the matter is that Casey hasn’t produced anything.”

“When Marcus hits it, something happens,” Leyland said. “I love Sean Casey, and he’s going to play. But if Casey isn’t hitting, I’m going to play Marcus. That’s just the way it is. I need to get some thunder in there.”

Since Sean Casey became a Tiger he has hit 256/303/349 with 41 RBI and 5 home runs in regular season action. It isn’t exactly the production upgrade the Tigers were looking for when they found Chris Shelton’s production in June and July unacceptable. Shelton hit 246/310/374 over those miserable months.

Of course Casey’s struggles really don’t come as a surprise. Some will point to his World Series performance, but 4 months of poor performance have to trump 2 weeks of stellar production.

Some will also point to his clubhouse presence, which is fine. He is universally regarded as a really nice guy and a guy you want to cheer for. It also makes it very hard for the Tigers to cut him and it’s something I just don’t expect to happen. But reading Leyland’s quotes it seems like Thames will have an opportunity to dictate his playing time with performance. If Thames can hit, and this is the time of year he really turned it on last year (he hit 309/346/639 with 8 homers in June while filling in for Craig Monroe in left), it sounds like he’ll have his chances.

Given Sean Casey’s veteran-ness and attitude I don’t think this is a move by Leyland to light a fire and motivate Casey. This is simply about production. And quite frankly, if Carlos Guillen is going to be missing any time a hot hitting Marcus Thames can actually provide some protection hitting behind Magglio Ordonez.

Why is Jose Mesa still a Tiger?

Jose Mesa has been an unmitigated disaster as a Detroit Tiger. I couldn’t figure out why the Tigers signed Mesa in the first place, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why he’s still wearing the English D.

Somewhat surprisingly Mesa was actually effective in 9 of his appearances retiring the one or two batters that he needed to without incurring damage. So he can be serviceable some of the time. The problem is that when he’s bad, he is really really bad. And the real problem is that it isn’t that rare of an occurrence.

After tonight’s shellacking he has allowed 16 runs in 11 1/3 innings. He’s allowed multiple runs in 6 of his 16 appearances despite pitching more than an inning only once. This isn’t a case of a guy being left out for 3 or 4 innings at a crack. This isn’t one or two bad appearances that stain your ERA. This is a repeated pattern of bad pitching.

He has a double digit ERA. He’s allowing more than 2 base runners per inning. Opponents are hitting better than Ordonez in May against him. He simply needs to go. I don’t care who comes up to take his place. Whether it is a generic minor league free agent or a prospect, somebody has to be able to outperform him. He can’t keep games close, and he can’t pitch in mop-up duty. He provides no real value to this team.

I don’t care how far Mesa throws the ball in long toss. I don’t care what kind of physical condition he’s in. He simply hasn’t shown an ability to be able to retire major league hitters with any sort of consistency. Jim Leyland speaks of guys needing to step up and perform. That if you can’t do the job you’re out. Mesa simply can’t be counted on to do the job, and he’s hurting the team time and time again.

Mesa’s days in Detroit should be numbered, and that number should be no more than Fernando Rodney’s remaining days on the DL.

Game 53: Tigers at Indians

PREGAME: C.C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander will have a rematch from last Saturday’s Tigers loss. It’s the first of a 4 game series that is kinda important.

The Tigers had some chances against Sabathia, but couldn’t cash enough in.

The Tigers roster is one or two injuries away from being held together by duct tape so a split would be pretty cool.

Mostly I’d just like the Tigers to pick up a win here so we don’t hear about the Indians owning the Tigers.

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: There have been some frustrating losses this year, but this one might just trump them all. Maybe it is the freshness. Maybe it is the culmination of recent struggles. I don’t know, but I actually had to turn the game off for an hour or so. Which was really ashame because for the first 4 innings it was actually a very good game.

Sabathia was actually hittable tonight, and the Tigers even with a depleted lineup were actually able to take advantage of it. But Justin Verlander struggled with control and Jose Mesa made damn sure that the team had absolutely no shot.

While I still think it was a cheap ejection for Sheffield, he wasn’t smart. Not when the bench consists of exactly 2 players. And spazzing when your geriatric manager is trying to hold you back – just not cool.

I’ve got nothing else to say tonight. Yeah there were bright spots like Marcus Thames making the most of “regular” playing time and picking up a couple hits – one of which to the opposite field with a runner on 3rd. And Curtis Granderson hit the ball well repeatedly against lefties and layed down a sweet drag bunt. And Neifi Perez saved a run with a slick play at short. But in the mess that was the 2nd half of that game, it’s easy to either a) forget the good stuff or b) not even care.

Sneaking a peek at player of the month

Magglio Ordonez is on top of the AL in pretty much every category. With him starting slow for the first 2 weeks of the season, I figured that he had put up such gaudy numbers since that he’d be a shoo-in for AL player of the month numbers. Using the day by day database I pulled his competition for the month through the games of May 29th.

It turns out that there is quite the battle, and it could come down to the last day of the month. There are 3 players who have a real legitimate claim and their numbers are strikingly similar:

Kevin Youkilis has been the toughest out. Magglio Ordonez has hit for the most power. Mark Texeira has the least protection, as evidenced by the 4 intentional free passes and has knocked in the most runs.

It’s a player of the month honor, so it’s really not that important. I’m of course pulling for my home town guy, but it is an impressive group nonetheless.

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/30/07

Toledo 7 Scranton 0
Jordan Tata is back. He made the start tonight, and it was a short one as they build his arm strength up, but by all accounts successful. He went 3 innings and threw 34 pitches and allowed only a walk with no strikeouts. Ron Chiavacci “started” the back end of the game and pitched 6 scoreless innings allowing only 4 hits and 2 walks while fanning 5. Mike Hessman hits his 14th homer, a grand slam. Chris Shelton added a double and a single.

Harrisburg 4 Erie 9
Jeff Larish doubled and walked twice. Andres Torres tripled and singled. Jair Jurrjens allowed 4 runs on 9 hits, a walk, and a strikeout over 5 2/3 innings.

Lakeland 9 Tampa 2
Burke Badenhop allowed 2 runs on 3 hits and 2 walks while throwing 7 innings. Ovandy Suero had 3 hits and a walk, and no stolen bases. Wil Rhymes and Ryan Roberson also had 3 hits. Cameron Maybin was 1 for 5 with a walk.

Lansing 2 West Michigan 3
Jeff Kunkel had 2 hits to lead the offense. Scott Sizemore added a double. Jeff Gerbe started and went 5 innings allowing 2 runs on 7 hits and 4 strike outs. Randor Bierd was perfect in relief retiring all 9 hitters he faced, 4 via Ks.