Category Archives: 2007 Season

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/4/07

Scranton 4 Toledo 6
Toledo managed 6 runs on only 3 hits. Brent Clevlen led the way with a double, a walk, and 2 RBI. Dennis Tankersley allowed 4 runs, 3 earned, over 7 innings.

Harrisburg 0, Erie 2
Andres Torres had 2 hits and a walk. Eulogio De La Cruz pitched a complete game, 2 hit shutout, with 10 K’s.

Lakeland 10 Dunedin 6
Ovandy Suero picked up 3 hits, and surprisingly didn’t steal a base. Cameron Maybin tripled and walked. Lucas French allowed 3 runs in 5 innings.

Burlington 4 West Michigan 9
Ryan Strieby had 3 hits, including his 3rd homer, and added a walk. Santo De Leon also added 3 hits pushing his average to .300. Gorkys Hernandez and Audy Ciriaco each had 2 hits. Lauren Gagnier allowed 4 runs on 4 hits and 3 walks over 6 innings.

Game 28: Tigers at Royals

PREGAME: The Tigers make their second trip to Kansas City already this season.

In the series opener they’ll face Brian Bannister. Bannister has made 2 starts this year, and he allowed 4 runs (3 earned) in each start. He did rack up some big pitch totals with 82 in 4 1/3 in his first start and 99 in 6 2/3 in the 2nd.

The Tigers will send out Justin Verlander. Verlander has a 1.36 career ERA over 33 innings against the Royals.

Game Time 8:10pm

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/3/07

Scranton 7 Toledo 5
Ron Chiavacci allowed 5 runs (4 earned) in 6 innings. He fanned 5 and walked 2. Ramon Santiago and Ryan Raburn each had 3 hits. Brent Clevlen and Timo Perez had mutli hit games as well.

Reading 4 Erie 5
Andres Torres had 3 hits. Mike Hollimion was 1 for 4 with a walk. Jair Jurrjens struck out 4 and walked none en route to a 7 inning 3 run night.

Lakeland 3 Durbin 6
Wilkin Ramirez went 2 for 5. Ryan Roberson had 3 hits. Cameron Maybin was 1 for 3 with 2 walks. Burke Badenhop allowed 6 runs on 8 hits over 4 innings.

West Michigan 9 Kane County 3
Brennan Boesch and Louis Ott each picked up 3 hit games. James Skelton and Deik Scram each had 2 hit games plus walks. Jonah Nickerson allowed 3 runs on 3 hits and 3 walks over 5 innings with 5 K’s.

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/2/07

Scranton 1 Toledo 2 10 innings
Ramon Santiago, Ryan Raburn, and Jack Hannahan all had 2 hits. Chris Shelton went 0 for 4 with 2 K’s. Virgil Vasquez was strong again with 7 innings of shut out ball. He allowed 5 hits, 2 walks, and he fanned 7. Vasquez now has 41 strikeouts and 8 walks in 35 innings.

Reading 4 Erie 6
Jeff Larish singled and hit his 5th homer. Mike Hollimon tripled, singled, and walked. Brent Dlugach added 2 doubles. Dallas Trahern started and had his first rough outing. He only allowed 3 runs over 5 innings, but he also allowed 5 hits and 4 walks.

Reading 8 Erie 1
Andrew Kown was touched for 6 runs on 2 homers in 3 innings. Anthony Tomey pitched another scoreless inning stretching his string to 8 2/3 innings over 8 games between Lakeland and Erie. Jeff Larish was the offense with his 6th homer.

Lakeland 4 Dunedin 5
Mike Hernandez hit his 4th homer. Cameron Maybin added 2 hits and his 10th stolen base. Justin Justice drew 3 walks. Andrew Miller continues his up-and-down season with 6 innings of shutout ball. He allowed 5 hits while walking 2 and fanning 5.

West Michigan 3 Kane County 5
James Skelton had 3 hits pushing his average to .304. Chris Cody allowed 4 runs on 4 hits over 6 innings. He struck out 7 and walked only one.

Minors News

  • Kevin Hooper hits the DL. Kevin Mateo was signed to take his spot.
  • The Whitecaps are giving away Brent Clevlen bobbleheads on May 9th

Game 27: Orioles at Tigers

PREGAME: The Tigers have a chance for a sweep today. They’ll send out their Pitcher of the Month for April, Nate Robertson.

Steve Trachsel will take the mound for the Orioles. With a day game after a night game, and an off day tomorrow, Leyland usually likes to give Pudge Rodriguez the day off. But with 3 homers in 15 at-bats off of Trachsel, that decision becomes a little more difficult.

One guy who will get the day off is Carlos Guillen who is still battling shoulder tendinitis.

Game time 1:05

POSTGAMEOnce again a Tiger pitcher racked up a big pitch count against the Orioles. They made each of the starters work in this series, they just didn’t have many runs to show for it. Nate Robertson struggled with his control early, but limited the damage to 2 runs as he stuck around until he was one out shy of finishing the 7th.

Offensively Gary Sheffield was the man with 4 hits including his 3rd homer. With Sheff’s recent tear, and a couple of hits by Monroe and Casey, the 3 have pulled themselves above the mendoza line. Brandon Inge is the only starter under .200 and at .165 he’s at his highest point of the season. He’s also gone 4 games now without a strikeout.

Tigers 3 Orioles 2

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 5/1/07

Minor League Baseball: Scoreboard: Scoreboard
Jose Mesa made his rehab appearance as a starter. He 23 pitches in 2 innings allowing 2 hits and striking out one. Zach Miner followed and is still struggling with the walks. he surrendered 4 in six innings. Timo Perez added another multi-hit game and Chris Shelton walked three times.
Erie – Rained out

Sarasota 5 Lakeland 3
Ovandy Suero reached base 3 times (2 hits and a walk) so you know he had some stolen bases. He added 3 more tonight running his total to 18 successful swipes in 20 tries. Cameron Maybin was 1 for 3 with a walk and his 9th stolen base. Matt Righter started and was knocked around for 5 runs on 6 hits in 4 innings.

West Michigan 5 Kane Count 4
Ryan Strieby had a single and 2 walks. Santo De Leon tripled and knocked in 3 runs. Duane below did a nice job allowing 1 run over 6 2/3 innings on 5 hits and 3 walks.

April Musings

Some good, some bad, some stats for the month of April:

  • Gary Sheffield managed 19 walks which is pretty incredible for a guy who is hitting .200 in front of a guy hitting 344/434/622. That total matches Bobby Higginson’s 19 walk effort in 1999 as the most walks by a Tiger in April
  • Marcus Thames managed to slug 515 while batting 182. He hit only one single for the month – and 3 homers
  • Another interesting Thames note, he had 35 plate appearances, and with his 15 K’s, 2 walks, and 3 homers, the defense only needed to do something in 15 of those plate appearances
  • I’m not complaining about Curtis Granderson’s production at all, he’s slugging 525 after all. But…Granderson has only 6 walks against 28 k’s. The exact same ratio as Craig Monroe.
  • Pudge Rodriguez who was exercising some plate discipline during the spring hasn’t seen that translate. Rodriguez only has 1 walk on the season.
  • Jeremy Bonderman is sporting the ultra-impressive 33:5 strikeout to walk ratio. The second best ratio behind Bonderman belongs to the much maligned Fernando Rodney who is at 13:4.
  • Chad Durbin was next at 18:6. Of course these were April only stats.
  • The Tigers turned 24 bases loaded at-bats into 32 runs. Four grand slams and a couple doubles will help with that.

Today I heard several local sports talk hosts talk about the Tigers struggles and disappointing month. I’m just not seeing it. Granted, they weren’t clicking on all cylinders, but they’re hanging with the rest of the division. Heaven forbid the Detroit has a month in which they can only manage a 12-12 record. It wasn’t a great month team wise, but I’d still have to rate it as pretty good.

Cold as Ice: April is in the books ยป Mack Avenue Tigers has more April musings for your enjoyment.

Game 26: Orioles at Tigers

PREGAME: If the rain holds off it’ll be Chad Durbin and Adam Loewen.

Durbin is coming off an outstanding effort against the White Sox on the road. Loewen, has been battling control issues with 5-7-5 walks in his last 3 games.

Carlos Guillen gets his first night off and Neifi Perez will play shortstop with Omar Infante manning centerfield.

Game time (theoretically) 7:05pm

POSTGAME: After a couple of solid starts, Chad Durbin couldn’t find the strike zone with GPS. The Tigers were fortunate to still be in this game after 6 walks in 3 2/3 innings.

Bobby Seay did a great job in relief not allowing a baserunner until he’d retired 7 straight.

While Seay was great, Zumaya was outstanding. He gave up a run scoring single, but that was more a credit to Miguel Tejada. He went down and got a low fastball and bounced through the middle. There wasn’t really any solid contact and Joel had his heater and curve ball working – even throwing in an 88mph change up.

Placido Polanco didn’t take well to that swing and miss last night, and responded with 4 hits. Brandon Inge had his 3rd straight day of decent at-bats. Gary Sheffield deserved better than an 0fer with several hard hit balls and one he just missed on.

And with the surprise of all surprises, Sean Casey picked up a stolen base. His first since July 9th 2005.

Tigers 5 Orioles 4

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 4/30/07

Rochester 4 Toledo 1
Jack Hannahan and Mike Hessman each had 2 hits. Chris Shelton struggled going 0 for 4 with 3 K’s. Brent Clevlen doubled and walked. Yorman Bazardo took the loss on a fine effort. He was 2 outs shy of a complete game an it only took him 100 pitches as he allowed 3 runs on 8 hits, 2 walks and 4 strikeouts.

Erie – DNP

Sarasota 7 Lakeland 2
Justin Justice and Ryan Roberson each had 2 hits. Cameron Maybin doubled in 4 at-bats. Eleazar Aponte only lasted 4 innings before surrendering 4 runs on 9 hits, 2 walks, and 5 K’s.

West Michigan 6 Kane County 1
It was a balanced attack with every Whitecap batter picking up a hit and 6 of them having 2 hit games. Angel Castro allowed 1 run on 4 hits, 3 walks, and 3 strikeouts over 5 innings.

Minors News

The big news is the suspension of Lakeland Flying Tiger Sendy Vasquez. Vasquez will be out for 50 games for testing positive for a banned substance. Vasquez had a decent year for the Whitecaps in 2006 with a 2.97 ERA, but it’s hard to be a real prospect at age 24 in low A ball.

Also of note, former Tiger Rule 5 pick Matt Roney was also suspended. He had been pitching in AAA in the Blue Jays organization.

Contacting Polanco

This is something that I actually started tracking a few days ago, but Placido Polanco is off to quite the start this year making contact. Polanco has always been a tough strike out, and for his career he’s made contact with 91% of his swings. For some context, the average is 80%. But this year has been different for Polanco. Going into Monday’s game, Polanco was at 98% with only 3 swings and misses.

Sean Forman, who has loads of data available at Baseball Reference provided a list of the top seasonal contact percentages for which there is data available.

Wade Boggs and Marty Barrett are the only players to sustain that kind of contact rate over an entire season. But given Polanco’s history and approach it seems that he could hang with this group for awhile.

Looking at the names on the list, a super high contact rate doesn’t really spell success, but these are pretty incredible regardless.

Now as I was typing this up tonight, Polanco picked up just his 4th whiff of the season. That swing-and-miss broke a streak that, by my count, totaled 113 consecutive swings with contact. That dated back to an April 11th game, also with the Orioles. It’s a streak that was pretty much meaningless, yet amazing at the same time.

Game 25: Orioles at Tigers

PREGAME: It’s a beautiful night here in Detroit and a pretty good pitching match-up.

Daniel Cabrera stymied the Tigers the last time they met allowing only 2 runs and no walks as he pitched into the 8th.

Jeremy Bonderman has pitched very well for most of the season, save for the first couple innings of his last start. He’s sporting a K/BB ratio of 29/4 which should have earned him a win or two at some point.

Game Time 7:05pm

UPDATE: Okay, 45 minutes after commenting on how nice it is it becomes really overcast. I need to pay attention to the weather. Is this the game where the Tigers come out gangbusters and put a bunch of runs on the board for Bonderman, only to have the game rained out before it becomes official?

POSTGAME
: Bondo gets a win – in start in which he probably had the least command. Funny how baseball works out.

Miguel Tejada provided the spark and Sheffield started the fire. (look at me with bad metaphors). With Tejada getting upset at an inside pitch, Daniel Cabrera retaliating against Sheffield (who went on to score), and then Bonderman re-retaliating against Tejada again, the Tigers got fired up.

Sheffield and Magglio Ordonez were only retired one time between them. The combined to draw 4 of the Tigers 8 walks.

And the bullpen made a lead stand up, without a lot of effort. Wil Ledezma put a couple runners on with walks, but a failed sacrifice and 2 caught stealings were a nightmare for those who are proponents of small ball.

Fernando Rodney got the save in 2 1/3 innings with the only runner coming on an error by Brandon Inge.

Tigers Minor League Wrap – 4/29/07

Rochester 9 Toledo 6
Kevin Hooper went 4 for 5 with 2 doubles. Chris Shelton added 2 doubles and 2 walks and is now sporting a 301/422/458 line. Dennis Tankersley went 7 2/3 innings allowing 3 runs on 7 hits.

Erie 1 Bowie 2
Mike Hollimon walked twice. Despite a 242 batting average he has a 415 OBP and is slugging 452. Jon Connolly allowed 1 run on 3 hits over 5 innings.

Sarasota 7 Lakeland 8
Justin Justice homered and singled to raise his season line to 304/349/582. Cameron maybiin was 1 for 3 with 2 walks. Lucas French surrendered 4 unearned runs in 5 innings walking 1 and fanning 3.

West Michigan 0 Peoria 4
James Skelton was 3 for 3 with a walk. Deik Scram added 2 hits. Lauren Gagnier allowed 4 runs in 6 innings.