Category Archives: 2007 Season

Game 158: Twins at Tigers

PREGAME: Yorman Bazardo will make his second career start, and like his first it will come against the Twins. He wasn’t dominating by any means, but he held the Twins to 2 runs in 4 2/3 innings on 4 hits and 2 walks.

The Tigers will be up against Matt Garza. In his last start against Detroit the Tigers worked 4 walks and combined the free passes with 4 hits to plate 4 runs. Garza typically doesn’t make it out of the sixth inning before running his pitch count up into the 90’s.

Game Time 7:05 but there is a chance of thunderstorms.

MIN @ DET, Tuesday, September 25, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Very nice start tonight for Bazardo who kept the ball out of the outfield for the most part. He induced 14 ground outs, and the few times he got into trouble he was able to get strike outs with his change up. Most impressive was the back to back strike outs with 1 out and runners on 2nd and 3rd.

The Tigers bats came alive in the 6th after killing rallies with double plays in 3 straight innings. A 3 run inning turned a tight game into what would become a laugher. The biggest blast was a Magglio Ordonez moonshot that made it to the aisle way that bisects the pavillion in left field. It was his second hit of the night pushing his batting average to .359. Add in a Granderson triple and it was a pretty nice night for the Tigers.

Game 157: Twins at Tigers

PREGAME: It’s Nate Robertson taking on Carlos Silva tonight. Nate’s turned in consecutive 7 inning outings. He fanned 5 and walked 3 while allowing one homer in each. One game he allowed 6 hits, the other 5. So for a guy that has vacillated between crappy and good, a brief moment of solid consistency is refreshing. One other thing to note, Nate has thrown exactly 7 innings in his last 5 starts against the Twins.

On the other side it is Carlos Silva. The sinkerballer will give up hits, but he doesn’t walk anyone (only 36 in 188 innings this year) so the damage is usually minimized.

Game Time 7:05

MIN @ DET, Monday, September 24, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Bonderman to start Tuesday

Well, the good news is that Jeremy Bonderman’s elbow is feeling fine again and he’ll be able to pitch on Tuesday. I guess I’d prefer he just shut it down for the year, but maybe there is something to going out on a high note, I don’t really know. And that presumes he goes out on a high note.

What’s especially frustrating though is that if 2 weeks of rest is enough to clear up the problem, just think if the he had admitted to the pain in early August instead of struggling to pitch through it.
Beck’s Blog: Bonderman for Tuesday

Game 155: Royals at Tigers

PREGAME: It’s that time of year when you look at a lot of the guys on the roster and you realize that you might be seeing their last home performances with the English ‘D’ on. Case in point is tonight’s starter Kenny Rogers who’s contract is up at the end of this season I really do think the Tigers will bring him back for a one year deal, because quite frankly they need the starting pitching depth. But you never know.

Another guy who is questionable to come back, Pudge Rodriguez, is in line to move into 3rd place on the all time games caught list as he tied Gary Carter with last night’s game.

Ono the other side, there is a Kansas City team that has assembled some young talent, and players that we’ll be seeing in Royal blue for awhile. One of those may be Kyle Davies, who the Royals acquired at the trade deadline for Octavio Dotel. Davies has struck out a batter an inning since coming to the Royals, but he also walks a batter every other inning and has allowed 8 homers in 41 Royal innings.

I’ll be there tonight, and I’ll probably be tired. It’s “sports day” for my 6 year old son and we’re doing both the Michigan-Penn State game and the Tigers game. We’ll miss part of at least one of the games, but I’m still looking forward to it.

Game Time 7:05

Game 154: Royals at Tigers

PREGAME: The Tigers kick off their last homestand of the season with a couple of rookies doing battle.

For the Royals it will be Billy Buckner making his 4th start. Buckner has as many walks has as many walks as strikeouts in games he’s started. But he also hasn’t been hit really hard in his last two.

Jair Jurrjens is coming off his best start, a 2 hitter with 6 K’s in 5 1/3 innings. Looking at his strikeout numbers overall, he’s been fairly lucky to have the results he’s had so far – that being only 13 hits allowed in 25 innings. But the results have been very impressive nonetheless.

Game Time 7:05
KCR @ DET, Friday, September 21, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: The 9 game win streak began tonight! Right! Maybe? Okay, probably not. But on a night when Sean Casey homers and gets an infield single, maybe there is some magic left in this season. Even Brandon Inge came up with the winning hit, going down and getting an 0-2 curve ball and hooking it through the hole on the left side.

Jair Jurrjens had his first rough outing, and didn’t last through the 3rd inning. Fortunately Tim Byrdak was exceptional in relief and went 4 innings allowing only a walk while fanning 5 and giving the Tigers a chance to claw back in. Fernando Rodney pitched through a runner on 3rd and 1 out situation after Marcus Thames lost a ball in the lights, and Jonesy had a fairly uneventful 9th for a routine save.

They still like them some Tigers

I thought I’d pick up some tickets for the Tigers this weekend, so I started looking online earlier in the week. It turned out that for the Saturday game it was singles and standing room only. Then I checked StubHub! and you had to pay at least $30 a seat for anything that wasn’t a single, and even then they were the $5 Skyline tickets which put you closer to Ford Field than the pitchers mound.

After the sweep in Cleveland, I figured everyone who was hoping for pennant race baseball would start selling, so I checked StubHub! again, and nothing really changed. I finally caved and went to the ticket office and found out the whole weekend was singles and standing room, and was told there was little chance of more being released. I’m surprised, and inconvenienced, and yet still quite pleased.

It’s great to see people still enthusiastic about the team, and looking to enjoy one last weekend at the park.

The Tigers have quite a bit planned for the Fan Appreciation Weekend. They’re giving away over 70 prizes each of the 3 games, as well as the “Shirts off their back” promotion on Sunday where lucky fans get the game worn jerseys from that day. Plus there’s the regular fireworks shows on Friday and Saturday and all the kids stuff on Sunday. Plus the weather is supposed to be beautiful.

But really the attendance is just a continuation of what’s been happening all summer as the Tigers have averaged 37,676 a game this summer. Going into tonight their paid attendance is 2,825,671, and with 3 near sell outs this weekend the team will pass the 3 million mark against the Twins, probably on Monday.

How I’m coping – or – it’s hard to be a fan

One thing I’ve learned doing this blog is that being a fan of any team is a very personal thing. Fans approach their love for their teams in a myriad of ways, and this is manifested when the teams are at their lowest point. After all, when the team is winning that is when all types of fans band together and celebrate. High fives are exchanged and wins are cherished, but when things go south the reactions are so varied.

For some being a fan is all about the payoff. It’s all about seeing the team win. There’s the portion of fans who are happy to have a good team, and there are others who aren’t satisfied unless the team wins a championship.

There are others where fandom is about the process, the journey. It’s about enjoying the beauty of the sport and hanging on each moment throughout a long season.

Some want to have players they like and respect and who represent the team well. Guys that you want to pull for, who you want to see succeed. Others don’t give a damn about character. It’s just win baby.

And when a season ends without that championship, the responses are very different. There are emotional responses, analytical responses, silver linings to search for, and blame to assign. Most fans seem to do all of the above to some extent.

With a very long preamble now out of the way, I in no way expect others to deal with this the way I am. This is just one moderately humble bloggers take.

On Monday night when Casey Blake jumped around the bases, it was a punch in the gut. Much like Curtis Granderson slipping in game 4 of the World Series I pretty much knew at that moment that playoff hopes were lost. It hurt going to bed, and it didn’t get any better when I woke up the next morning. But as I felt when game 5 of the series got underway, when the first pitch was thrown Tuesday night I was quite calm. Sure I still had a little bit of hope, but I also knew that barring something extraordinary the season was done. As the Indians launched an aerial assault on their own fans, it just became clearer. So instead of supreme frustration last night, it was merely a sigh.

I know that in time I’ll do a deep dive analysis. In the meantime I’m going to enjoy the last week of the Tigers season. I know that the games don’t have larger implications. It will just be enjoying baseball for the sake of baseball and spending a couple nights more nights at the ballpark soaking up those summertime sounds and smells. It’ll be a couple more nights laying in bed with my son while the Tigers and I tuck him in at night.

There’s a part of me that says, who cares, shut it off. But then there is the other part of me that knows there will be nights in January where I’m craving baseball. And I know in February I’ll be so excited to see a bunch of grown men laying in the outfield stretching as newspaper headlines say “Pitchers and Catchers Report.” And I’ll tune in at work when the Tigers play their first exhibition game against Florida Southern and I’ll be dreading the end of spring training where all I want are games that count. And then we’ll do the dance again.

And I can go into this last week knowing that despite the fact my team won’t be playing for anything, I had nightly entertainment for the last 6 months. I still have a team that went from being a joke for a decade to posting a 178-138 record over the last 2 years. I had a team where a young centerfielder made history. I saw a veteran who is past his prime put together the best offensive season I’ve experienced from a member of the hometown 9 and I want to see him hang on to his batting title for one more week.

Yeah, I’m more of an optimist. And yeah, the team broke my heart. But they also gave me so much more, and I’m going to keep taking from these last 9 games as I did from the 153 before. The good, the bad, the frustrating, the thrilling – I’ll take it all.

Game 152: Tigers at Indians

PREGAME: The Tigers get back at if after last night’s tough loss. Fortunately, this team does seem to have a short memory for these types of things. Justin Verlander will do his best to give the team the same kind of chance that Kenny Rogers did last night. Verlander has been awesome his last 4 starts with 3 runs allowed in 28 2/3 innings and a 26:6 K/BB ratio. But in his last 5 starts against the Tribe dating back to last year they’ve hung at least 7 runs on him in 3 of those starts.

Jake Westbrook takes the ball for Cleveland tonight. In his last start against Detroit he allowed just 7 baserunners and no runs over 8 innings. It was one of the few starts where the Tigers couldn’t get to him.

Marcus Thames is in the lineup playing left field tonight while Timo is on the bench. Ramon Santiago starts again at shortstop with Carlos Guillen playing first.

Game Time 7:05
DET @ CLE, Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Not much to figure out in this one. Tigers – lots of hits and all but one were singles. There were clutch hits, but with the singles they needed to string together a bunch. The Indians, a few hits and all homers 15 rows back. Justin Verlander was living at the belt all day, he simply couldn’t find the bottom of the zone and the balls got tatoo’d.

Game 151: Tigers at Indians

PREGAME: Here we are, the Cleveland series. The last 3 chances for the Tigers to exert their will on the teams they are chasing. I can’t remember being this nervous for a game, maybe game 2 of the ALDS, but even then I’m not sure. I guess I’m nervous because not so much of what a win would mean – that just keeps the window of hope alive – but what a loss would do to already slim playoff chances. There’s been lots of talk about “if the Yankees win X” or “if the Indians win Y” and none of it matters as much as “if the Tigers win tonight.”

As for the match-up it’s Kenny Rogers and Paul Byrd. The Tigers have scored some runs off of Byrd in 3 starts this year, but he’s still a good bet to get to the 7th inning while giving his team a chance to win. He won’t walk more than 1 or 2, so pitch count isn’t usually a concern.

Rogers is making just his second start against the Indians this year, so maybe a slight edge to the Tigers in the “lack of familiarity” department. Rogers should be stretched out after throwing 83 and 94 pitches in his last 2 starts, but it’s more a matter of how his elbow holds up.

One thing to watch is what happens if the Tigers have a slim lead late in the game. Todd Jones has thrown 3 days in a row, and of course yesterday was especially rocky. I’d be surprised if he was available. And Joel Zumaya has thrown the last 2 days, but he didn’t throw a lot of pitches in either outing so we might still see him.

Game Time 7:05
DET @ CLE, Monday, September 17, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Crushed. Me, the team, the season, the postseason hopes. Crushed.