Buffalo 5 Toledo 3
Mike Hessman was 1 for 3 with 2 walks. Chris Lambert allowed 5 runs on 8 hits over 4.2 innings.

Erie 3 Akron 4
Jeff Frazier had 2 hits, as did Ryan Roberson. Dusty Ryan doubled and walked. Matt Righter allowed 3 runs on 3 hits and 4 walks in 4.1 innings. Angel Castro allowed 4 hits and a run in 2.2 innings of relief work.

Lakeland – DNP

Dayton 6 West Michigan 0
Joe Tucker had a double. Joe Bowen singled and walked. Alfredo Figaro allowed 4 runs on 9 hits, no walks, and 4 K’s in 7 innnings.

PREGAME: First of all Memorial Day wishes go out to everyone. And for those of you who are veterans or are currently serving…Thank You for all you do.

The Tigers head west for 9 games starting off with the Angels. Maybe the schedule makers did the Tigers a small favor. The Angels were in Chicago for Sunday Night Baseball last night so they probably got in about 5 hours after the Tigers did last night.

As for the game itself, it will be Kenny Rogers against Jon Garland.

Garland has been pitching to contact as evidenced by the 14 strikeouts he’s amassed in 64.1 innings. But he’s been on a roll his last 4 starts with a 2.25 ERA in 28 innings of work with opponents only mustering a .543 OPS against.

Rogers has been the weak link the last 2 times through the rotation only making it through 9.1 innings in his last 2 starts combined while allowing 19 hits, 3 for home runs. He hasn’t faced the Angels since September 2006 when he pitched 7 innings of 4-hit, shut out ball.

DET @ LAA, Monday, May 26, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 9:05

POSTGAME: Why does this team hate us fans so?

• Garland who doesn’t strike out anyone fanned 5.
• Kenny Rogers was awesome going 7 strong innings. Now all the Tigers starters have ERAs under 6!
• Freddy Dolsi showed me something tonight. He fanned Vlad Guerrero which is impressive in its own right. But when everyone failed to call time and Torri Hunter alertly took 2nd base, and during the subsequent intentional walk Dolsi threw a ball away, he didn’t get rattled. His next 2 pitches were strikes, the 2nd resulting in a bouncer to first base.
• Carlos Guillen with 2 more errors, and some excellent at-bats.
• Gary Sheffield is out with an oblique/back thingy.
• Ryan Raburn fanned twice and popped out in his place.
• A 4 pitch walk is no way to end this game. Especially to someone who doesn’t really walk. Only one of the pitches was close, and to be fair the Tigers took a ton of close pitches that went as balls. I have no problem with the calls in that at-bat. You have to put it near the plate.
• The Tigers have 11 bases loaded walks now this year. They had 9 all of last year.

PREGAME: The Tigers look to close out their 6 game homestand on a positive note. They’ll send out Justin Verlander who has pitched better as of late with 3 runs, 10 K’s, and 4 walks in 12 innings spanning his last 2 starts. True, those starts were against the Royals and Mariners, but still, it’s progress.

Glen Perkins will make his 4 start of the season. He’s 3 for 3 in quality starts with 12 K’s and 2 BB’s in 18.1 innings.

The Tigers haven’t won on a Sunday this season and have been outscored 46-13.

MIN @ DET, Sunday, May 25, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Just got back from the game. It was a lovely afternoon at the park, save for the game on the field. Actually, I think I’m getting desensitized to the losing, or maybe I’m relieved in some weird way when it’s the bullpen that falls apart instead of the rest of the team.

For the bulk of the day it was a pretty even pitcher’s duel. Verlander didn’t appear to be particularly sharp, but was effective nonetheless. I wasn’t watching the radar gun at the stadium, but judging by the comments it sounds like he had his old velocity back.

On the offensive side, the Tigers were making quick outs, but credit some of that to Perkins who was throwing strikes. Perkins through 69 of his 104 pitches for strikes. There’s a certain point where being down 0-1 automatically isn’t such a good strategy either. And the Tigers for their part had a number of hard hit balls. Guillen hit the ball well all 4 times. Ordonez had a couple line drives, one went for a double, the other an out. Raburn was robbed on a play by Cuddyer. Yes they scored only 1 run, but I never got the impression they were just rolling over. This was a tie game through 7 innings after all.

But then there was the Cruceta inning. I’m not a fan of the intentional walk in that situation, and even less a fan of the follow-up unintentional walk. But what was more idiotic is not having anybody warming up in the pen throughout the inning. It was the same situation in the 7th when Verlander loaded the bases and nobody was up.

Why wouldn’t you have a lefty available to face Mauer/Morneau in that situation? I know that both can hit lefties, Mauer especially, but I’ve got to go with platoon splits when you are cobbling together the back end of the bullpen. I still think that Cruceta can be effective, but we’re not at that point yet. Unless Seay and Willis were unavailable thanks to McClendon leaving both in too long on Friday night.

PREGAME: It’s sports heaven in Detroit today with the Pistons in the Conference Finals and the Wings in the Stanley Cup finals, and the Tigers trying to not be eliminated from future finals consideration.

It will be Boof Bonser and Nate Robertson tonight.

The Tigers scored 6 off of Bonser in their last game against him. Yet the Tigers are scoreless against him in the last 5 innings.

Nate is Nate and will somehow give up 4 runs in 5 to 7 innings of work. At least the offense knows exactly how many they need to score.

MIN @ DET, Saturday, May 24, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: The Tigers did their part on sports day in Detroit. They plated 19 runs for the second time this season (the highest total by teams not from Detroit is 16 this year). We’ll get to the game in a second, but things are starting to look a little more normal. The Tigers are down to only 1 starter with an ERA above 6 and Gary Sheffield finally moved ahead of Ramon Santiago in RBI (who had Memorial Day weekend in the pool?).

Nate got himself a quality start. I was pretty sure that one of the inherited runners he left for Aquilino Lopez in the 7th would score, but Lopez finished the game with 2.2 scoreless innings.

And then there was the offense. Magglio Ordonez was the clear headliner with 2 RBI in each of his first 3 at-bats. Polanco had 4 hits. Sheffield had a couple hits. Heck, everyone had fun.

Louisville 0 Toledo 6
Mike Hessman ended his sabbatical with a 3 for 4 night including homer number 19. Brent Clevlen had 2 hits including ahomer and Timo Perez homered as well. Virgil Vasquez scattered 8 hits over 7 innings and Francis Beltran pitched 2 no hit innings to complete the shut out.

Erie 0 Akron4
Erie was held to 3 hits making Danny Worth who doubled and walked the offensive star. Wilkin Ramirez singled and walked, as did Jeff Frazier. Jon Connolly allowed 4 runs in 7.2 innings on 8 hits, a walk, and 4 K’s.

Lakeland 3 Jupiter 2
Brennan Boesch went 2 for 4. Duane Below fanned 7 in 5 innings of work limited Jupiter to 1 run.

Dayton 2 West Michigan 3
Casper Wells was 2 for 4 with a double. Chris Carlson homered and walked. Roger Tomas was 3 for 3 with a walk. Lauren Gagnier allowed 2 unearned runs in 6.1 innings while walking 3 and fanning 7.

PREGAME: Remember the last time the Tigers swept a series? They were in New York and went to play the Twins and then got swept themselves. Let’s not do that again.

Did you know the Twins have played 28 of their games in the confines of the dome and are 16-12 there? But when they head on the road they are 7-12? Let’s hope that trend continues as Armando Galaragga takes his turn in the rotation.

For the Twins it will be Kevin Slowey who is making his 5th start of the season. He hasn’t made it through the sixth inning yet, but posts a 16:3 K:BB ratio over 19.1 innings. His achilles heel has been the long ball with 6 surrendered all ready. Last year he averaged over 2 allowed per game as well.

MIN @ DET, Friday, May 23, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

IN GAME: I think Leyland had a beef. Those were called strikes in that Guillen at-bat:

POSTGAME: Well, it got interesting there for a while. I missed the first 3 innings while at my son’s game so I didn’t see Galarraga walking everybody, but it sounded similar to his last start against the D-backs but the Twins added hits as well.

The Tigers couldn’t get to Slowey and couldn’t take advantage of his tendency to hit homers, but the offense still managed to put runners on base in most innings. And they did double his walk total for the season (and should have more than doubled it – see above graphic) so they did exhibit some patience.

An inspired rally in the 7th cut it to one, and could have tied it save for the comical play involving Marcus Thames running all over the field. Unfortunately the bullpen imploded under the eye of Lloyd McClendon who took over when Jim Leyland was ejected. McClendon let Willis throw 28 pitches and Bobby Seay 38 which would seem to indicate that both would be unavailable tonight.

Willis struggled with his control walking 2 (1 intentional) and throwing 15 balls versus 13 strikes.

POSTGAME: I don’t want to knock a sweep, a pounding, a 3 game win streak. But I’m far from giddy. After winning the last 3 the Tigers are still 7 games under .500, and even with the Twins, Indians, and Royals losing at the same time they’re still 3 games out of 2nd. But that’s the hole they have dug.

Plus I’ve been really encouraged before, like when they swept the Yankees to move within 1 game of .500 only to go in the tank again. I guess I need another 10 games at least of good play, not necessarily wins mind you, but good play to start to get that shiny-happy feeling again.

Still, it’s unreasonable to expect them to win anymore than they did over the last 3 games so I can’t help but be happy with the sweep. Yes, the Mariners are playing really bad baseball. And the Tigers got the good fortune to miss Felix Hernandez and Erik Bedard. And the Tigers bullpen had issues in the one game. But the Tigers still doubled up the Mariners in this series. It’s not like they were squeaking out wins. They beat the Mariners to a pulp, or in Rod-ism form, like they stole something.

Slumping players seemed to bounce back a little and Bonder-lander put together a couple decent starts.

Good sweep. Now let’s see it again.

Comment of the day: Courtesy of T. Smith – This is like the Detroit Tigers playing the Detroit Tigers.

On a related note, check out the game thread at USS Mariner. We’ve all been witness to some bad baseball as Tigers fans this year so we can feel their pain. But at least the commentors are creative in their frustrations.