PREGAME: I’m tired from the last couple nights. So it’s Nate Robertson and Justin Duchscherer and all the data is available at the game preview link below. Or you can just follow the template.
DET @ OAK, Wednesday, June 4, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com
The Tigers are in a stretch of games where runs are likely to be at a premium. Between the A’s, the Indians, and the White Sox, they are facing 3 of the stingiest teams in terms of allowing runs. At the same time they aren’t exactly powerful offenses either so the Tigers figure to be playing in a number of low scoring games.
The table below shows runs per game scored and allowed as well as the ranks for the Tigers next 3 opponents.
For a freakishly inconsistent offense like the Tigers, it’s hard to say what type of production they can muster. They’ve made mediocre pitchers look awesome. But looking at the offenses they’ll be facing, if they can manage to avoid the 0-1 run syndrome they can still be in position to win a number of these games.
Hopefully those manageable offenses help a pitching staff that has really been turning things around as well. The Tigers are still 12th in the league in runs allowed per game at 5.04 for the season. But in their last 19 games they have allowed a much more respectable 4.1 runs per game.
Toledo 7 Louisville 2
A lot going on with the Hens today. Brent Clevlen homered twice and picked up an IBB. Fernando Rodney made a rehab appearance and pitched 2 innings allowing a hit and two walks and fanning 1. Denny Bautista also pitched a perfect inning, and that’s pitching on back to back days. I’d expect him back this week. And the Toledo starter was Lauren Gagnier who was brought over from West Michigan to take Casey Fossum’s spot tonight. He allowed 2 runs in 4 innings on 4 hits, 5 walks, and 5 K’s.
Erie 1 Portland 8
Max Leon doubled, one of only 3 hits for the Seawolves. Jon Connolly allowed 6 runs in 4 innings on 9 hits, 3 walks, and 1 strikeout.
Sarasota 10 Lakeland 8 (10 innings)
Joel Zumaya pitched 2 scoreless innings with 1 hit, 1 walk, and 1 strikeout. Brennan Boesch was 4 for 6 with a triple. Cale Iorg was 1 for 3 with 3 walks. James Skelton doubled twice, walked twice, and singled.
West Michigan 5 Dayton 2 (6 innings – rain)
Audy Ciriaco had 2 doubles and 3 RBI. Andrew Hess was the fill in starter with Gagnier bumping up to AAA. He allowed 2 runs on 2 walks, 2 K’s, and 3 hits in 4 innings.
Editors Note: Craig, a regular commenter here at DTW, filed this report from his experience at last night’s game.
The attendance could not have been the announced 11,000. I arrived at 6:30 and the place was empty. Maybe 4000 by the first pitch. I was shocked that when the A’s were threatening in the middle of the game, A’s fans were for the most part quiet. It is a strange sports town.
Kenny looked confident on the mound. Tiger hitters were in some good counts but Harden had good stuff as well.
My seats courtesy of a friend were row 20 directly behind home plate. The entire row in front of me was scouts from other teams. The Dodgers scout was in front of us. It was very interesting, stop watches, pitch charts, fielding charts etc. The Mets scout actually had his own radar gun which was off 7 mph from the stadium gun.
A NL scout had some interesting comments. 1. Larish has a ton of talent but he is a bit overmatched up here. In his opinion it is a very bad idea to use him in the DH role. To much pressure. Playing a position would help take his mind off hitting. 2. Cruceta is the real deal despite his numbers lately. He thinks with his odd spring, he should have had another month in Toledo or wherever to get mentally tough.
There was a young lady next to us in the stands who said she flew out for the games because she is “friends” with some of the Tigers. She said he ex husband was Magglio’s wife’s trainer and she has become good friends with them and had gotten to know the other guys. She said she was in the Ordonez box when Mags hit his big homerun in the playoffs. She said you can see her in the footage next to Mags wife. She’ll be in the seat again tonight. I got the impression she was out here for someone in particular.
I think they should do well tonight unless D train derails.
PREGAME: Tonight’s starters are Dontrelle Willis, Dana Eveland, and Armando Galarraga. That’s right, it’s split start night in Oakland.
Dontrelle Willis returns to his hometown and the starting rotation. Willis has made 2 starts, but only recorded outs in one of them. The other saw his knee do a strange bendy thing that resulted in a DL stint. The key for for Willis is not to walk the whole ballpark.
Armando Galarraga will be the Tigers other starter coming in around the 5th inning or so. He’s coming off a near shut out complete game performance against the Angels that was spoiled by a Maicier Izturis 9th inning homer.
Eveland takes the ball for the A’s. The lefty has a 3.66 ERA on the year and a normal 6.4 K/9 rate and a normal 3.5 BB/9 rate. What he does well is keep the ball in the park. He’s only allowed 3 homers in 66.1 innings this year. Only 1 of those has come in Oakland where he boasts a 2.73 home ERA.
Everyday left fielder Marcus Thames who hasn’t played the last few games will be DH. Inge is available as a defensive replacement late, but Leyland doesn’t want to risk losing his back-up catcher early in the game aggravating his oblique.
DET @ OAK, Tuesday, June 3, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com
POSTGAME: I confess. I went to bed. After the 10th inning, with my alarm clock looming 3.5 hours later I just couldn’t do it anymore. I wasn’t surprised to wake up and see they lost. I was surprised to see it on an infield single from Jack Cust.
The Tigers left too many runs out there. The Clete Thomas play where he got a horrible read on the ball. The Pudge Rodriguez play where he couldn’t handle the short hop from Thomas allowing the tying run to score. Leaving runners at third with less than 2 outs. It all adds up to a loss.
Willis looked very good in the first 2 innings being in and around the strike zone. But then he struggled again the next innings and was all over the place yet somehow escaped unscathed. So there was some reason to be encouraged, but he didn’t exactly finish strong (although wiggling out of the jam should give him a lift).
Galarraga walked a couple in his first inning and then ultimately allowed the 3 run homer before settling in.
Curtis Granderson made a phenomenal play and with the help of a Emil Brown brain cramp kept the game tied in the 8th.
I don’t have any other thoughts. They are playing better-ish, but still not really crisp. Each of the last 2 nights, and really every game of this road trip save for the Felix Hernandez start, they had multiple chances to win a game but once again they come up short.
I’m just happy to be done with late night west coast games for awhile.
The Tigers have called up Casey Fossum from Toledo. A corresponding roster move hasn’t been announced yet.
Fossum was signed as a minor league free agent this spring and has pitched very well for the Mud Hens. In his last 3 starts he has 31 strike outs and 6 walks in 20.2 innings with only 2 runs crossing the plate.
As for who is heading out, I don’t know. Bobby Seay has struggled as of late with 4 walks in his last 3 outings and you wonder if he might be hurting and heading to the DL. Of course there is also Francisco Cruceta who has been struggling, but it would require him passing through waivers to be sent down.
Tigers promote Fossum to majors | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press
UPDATE: Francisco Cruceta was DFA’d. He’d been awful in his last few outings, and not that great in his other ones. Regular DTW commentor Craig sat next to a NL scout last night who had this to say about Cruceta:
Cruceta is the real deal despite his numbers lately. He thinks with his odd spring, he should have had another month in Toledo or wherever to get mentally tough.
This seems reasonable enough, and it looked like Cruceta’s splitter/fastball combo could be devastating if he knew where it was going. Hopefully he can clear waivers and the Tigers can give him some more seasoning time in the minors where he isn’t killing the big club.
Toledo 17 Indianapolis 3
Brent Clevlen continues to rake coming up a triple short of the cycle. Freddy Guzman and Timo Perez each had 4 hits. Virgil Vasquez allowed 3 runs on 5 hits, 1 walk, and 3 K’s in 7 innnings. Miguel Bautista pitched a scoreless inning fanning 1.
Erie DNP
Sarasota 8 Lakeland 2
Cale Iorg was a double short of the cycle. Scott Sizemore was 2 for 3 with a double. Duane Below got hammered for 6 runs in 3 innings.
West Michigan 10 Dayton 6
Audy Ciriaco was 3 for 6 with 2 doubles. Kody Kaiser, Justin Henry, and Roger Tomas each had 3 hit nights as well. Chris Carlson homered and knocked in 3. Manny Miguelez allowed 3 runs in 3.2 innings on 5 hits and 4 walks.
PREGAME: I know this is a Tigers blog and all. And I usually try to stay pretty much on topic. But there’s kind of a big hockey game tonight. And I figure many people who frequent here are Detroit sports fans. So GO WINGS! And along with Ian, in the interest of blogger solidarity, a shout out to the Red Wing blogging brethern:
As for our little baseball game, it will be Kenny Rogers and his crazy Oakland splits against Rich Harden. Harden strikes out oodles of people, but he’s already made 6 starts this year making any pitch a potential season-ender at this point.
UPDATE: Carlos Guillen is back at third. Brandon Inge tweaked his oblique on a check swing and is day-to-day.
1. Granderson, CF
2. Polanco, 2B
3. Guillen, 3B
4. Ordonez, RF
5. Cabrera, 1B
6. Larish, DH
7. Renteria, SS
8. Thomas, LF
9. Rodriguez, C
DET @ OAK, Monday, June 2, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com
Game Time 10:10
POSTGAME: I guess you can say that if you have 3 walk-off decisions on a road trip, at least your competitive. Too bad the Tigers need to be better than competitive and start notching some W’s with regularity.
I can’t get too upset with the offense in this one. Rich Harden is good. Rich Harden was on his game. But the Tigers did manage to bust up a shut out and scratch across a couple of runs. They made a guy throwing mostly strikes work to the tune of 4.3 pitches per PA running his pitch count to 115 in the 7th. They got a clutch hit from rookie Jeff Larish to take advantage of a rare scoring opportunity.
Rogers struggled a little early on, but limited a first inning bases loaded situation to 1 run. He pitched out of a few jams as things went on, but still gave the team 7+ innings.
But oh that bullpen. Bobby Seay walked the .163 hitting Travis Buck to load the bases and fell behind Deric Barton 3-0 before escaping the 8th inning. And then Francisco Cruceta happened to the 9th inning. Again he takes the loss. Again.
It’s been written about for the last few days, but the team made it official today. Righthanded pitchers Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya are both scheduled to begin an injury rehab assignment on Tuesday, June 3.
Rodney will be assigned to Triple A Toledo, while Zumaya will be assigned to Single A Lakeland.
With Rodney being assigned to the Mud Hens, it seems that he could be back within a week or two. I’d guess that Zumaya is more likely to use closer to the full month allotted as he rebuilds arm strength.
PREGAME: The Tigers are looking for a series win, their first since the last time they played the Mariners. The match-up is a repeat from that series as well when Jeremy Bonderman beat Miguel Batista.
The Tigers trot out yet another different lineup with Carlos Guillen breaking in his outfielders glove for a trial in left field. He’ll bat 3rd. Thames is out of the lineup so Miguel Cabrera moves back to 5th.
DET @ SEA, Sunday, June 1, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com
Game Time 4:10
POSTGAME: The Tigers came into today 0 fer Sundays being outscored 52-14. But they got one today. Yes, it was against the Mariners, and yes it wasn’t the prettiest of wins, but there are no style points to gain or lose.
Jeremy Bonderman didn’t have the same sharpness he’d shown in his last few starts – at least early on. His fastball seemed to have that uncontrollable tailing action, but despite pitching behind in the count there weren’t many hard hit balls. Until the 5th inning anyways.
In the 5th he was getting drilled with line drive after line drive. But he escaped down only 1 run. He came back and seemed to regain his command and with the help of a balls-on throw from Curtis Granderson he pitched 2 more scoreless inning.
The Tigers offense wasn’t booming, but they took advantage of a couple early opportunities and hung around until a 1 out walk by Brandon Inge started a 4 run rally that put the win safely in the Tigers hands – even with a Todd Jones scare outing.
Guillen had several plays in left field and handled the position well.
Comment of the game thread honors goes to T Smith for:
Maggs New Slogan:
Got chocolate milk?
Last year Sam Hoff started breaking down the season into 18 games segments, each representing 1/9th of the season, or an “inning.” Here is the 3rd inning report.
The 3rd Inning is over.
Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for the first 3 innings in 2008:
Starters: Bullpen:
W-L RS –RA HR-SB-AVG/OBA/SLG W-L-IP- ERA W-L-S-ERA
1: 6-12 74 -112 15-10-262/345/404 3-9- 96.2-5.96 3-3-3-5.28
2: 9-9 98 -87 21- 6-261/350/426 5-8-105.2-5.11 4-1-2-3.61
3: 8-10 89 -75 19- 2-275/326/442 8-5-109.2-4.19 0-5-4-3.83
In the 3rd inning the Tigers endured a 5-game losing streak. They have now had at least a 5-game losing streak in every inning. The optimist in me says that 23-31 matches the record the 2006 AL Champs had during the last third of that campaign. The realist in me says that the team just plays bad baseball and could very easily end the 2008 campaign losing more games than they win.
Based on Pythagorean theory, the 3rd inning should of yielded a record of 10 or 11 wins, but a 1-4 record in 1-run games, an 0-5 bullpen, and 19-3 win which blows Pythagorean off balance means only 8 wins. The team is now in 4th place and 7.0 games back.
The offense, a unit, is still not performing at their career levels. Only 2 stolen bases in the last 18 games indicate that the team is in too much of a station to station mode. Best performances were by Magglio (3-11-368/419/603), Thames (3-10-259/310/704), and Cabrera (2-9-333/387/500). Guys who are struggling are Granderson (1-7-269/275/358-1bb-11Ks), Sheffield (1-6-234/294/362), and Raburn (0-0-160/192/240-25abs). Inge’s line (1-7-188/188/438 – 32abs) indicates that he is swinging for the downs which is not his best suit.
The starters were much improved in the 3rd inning. Verlander (1-1-1.89) had his best performance. Galarraga (2-1-3.98), Robertson (2-1-4.74), and Rogers (2-1-5.24) each won 2 games. Bonderman (1-1-4.63) is still searching for consistency.
The bullpen had pretty good statistics (3.83era- 45 hits in 49.1 innings), but did go 0-5 as a group. Some of that could be due to the offense not scoring late in tight games. Zach Miner pitched a scoreless 10.1 innings and Freddy Dolsi had a 1.12era in 8 innings yet somehow each of these guys got a loss. Cruceta was bad as he had 2 loses giving up 9 hits and 7 walks in 7.2 innings (4.70era). Todd Jones knew when to give up runs as he was 3/3 in save opportunities but had a 7.50era in 6 innings.
I am presently watching the Tigers start the 4th inning by possibly getting shutout for the 9th time this year. It is NOW time to hit the panic button. I think Jim Leyland senses that. If the next 2 innings aren’t very good, I think the unbelievable will happen as the Tigers will become sellers at the trade deadline.
Toledo 3 Indianapolis 4
Matt Joyce homered and drove in 2. Brent Clevlen doubled, singled, and walked twice and is now sporting a 320/405/572 line. Chris Lambert allowed 3 runs on 5 hits, a walk, and 5 K’s in 6 innings.
Altoona 3 Erie 8
Max St. Pierre homered twice. Justin Justice, Ryan Roberson, Wil Rhymes, and Max Leon had 2 hit games. Josh Rainwater allowed 3 runs over 5 innings.
Altoona 6 Erie 5 (8 innings)
Danny Worth went 3 for 4. Justin Justice was 1 for 2 with a walk. Matt Righter allowed 5 runs on 5 hits, 2 walks, and 2 K’s in 4.2 innings. Anthony Tomey took the loss allowing 1 run in 3 innings.
Lakeland 10 Dunedin 7
Jeramy Laster, Cale Iorg, Lou Ott, and Pedro Cotto all went deep for Lakeland. James Skelton was 1 for 3 with 2 walks. Jordan Tata struggled allowing 3 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks in 3 innings with 3 K’s. Ramon Garcia allowed 3 runs, 1 earned, in 5 innings of relief work.
South Bend 5 West Michigan 1
Cory Middleton and Chris Carlson had the only 2 hits for the Caps. Carlson’s was a homer accounting for the only run. Brandon Hamilton allowed 2 runs on 3 hits, 3 walks, and 4 K’s in 4 innings. Matt Hoffman made an appearance in relief and allowed an unearned run while fanning 4 in 1.2 innings.