Carlos Guillen is back and Josh Anderson has been disignated for assignment. I expected this move, but not with this sequence.
Another move will be required when Eddie Bonine gets activated tonight. Most likely a reliever goes down, perhaps Freddy Dolsi who hasn’t pitched for awhile. Then either Bonine will go to the pen or another reliever is recalled, possibly Zach Simons.
When things start to get really dire for the Tigers, I usually use this space to try and provide some perspective. This isn’t only for you the reader, but for me the Tigers fan as well. I’m really having to scrounge for perspective right now as the team has tanked since the All Star Break and have surrendered sole possession of 1st place.
There are cliches that I can always employ, about it being a long season and what not. It rings a little bit hollow today though. But…it is a long season. Losing 4 out of 5 games 2-1 is freakishly consistently bad. So freakishly and consistently bad it is hard to sustain – which could be the good news. As is usually the case, when the team is playing bad it is easy to assume things will stay bad or get worse. Just like when things are going well, people can’t imagine the team tanking.
It’s hard to believe that the offense will get better given what has been on display lately, but it will. Everything is going wrong when the Tigers are at the dish, everything won’t continue to go wrong. The team will score more runs and it is probably not best to make rash decisions based on 6 games. Of course this isn’t just a 6 game thing. The offense has been bad for a month and isn’t showing signs of getting better.
I’d like to see the Tigers add a bat as much as anyone, but the bulk of the improvement will need to come from the current roster. I don’t know what Clete Thomas will provide, or Ryan Raburn, or Marcus Thames. But I still believe that Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco, and Miguel Cabrera will produce more than they have been. Beyond that where can the Tigers find help?
I don’t think the Tigers are putting all their eggs in the Carlos Guillen basket, but it’s worth checking out the Guillen basket before surrendering limited resources for another basket. Guillen is close to coming back, I think he’ll be back for Saturday’s game and the Tigers sent scout Dick Egan to see Guillen’s 3 hit night tonight. He doesn’t have the extra base hits yet, but he’s been on base in half of his plate appearances.
The problem with Guillen though is that he is likely limited to DH duties as he hasn’t played the field on his rehab assignment. That means the at-bats would come from some combination of Raburn and Thames, two of the hitters that have been producing somewhat. It could also mean the end of Josh Anderson.
The non-waiver trade deadline is fast approaching, but I think the deadline isn’t that critical. I’d anticipate that a number of players would clear waivers and be movable until August 31st. Of course the trade deadline is the MLB sanctioned portion of a deadline. The Tigers may feel the need to accelerate the timeline if they continue to struggle. Matt Holliday has been a hot rumor, and the Tigers have expressed interest, but it doesn’t seem that the Tigers are willing to meet the A’s price. And for a farm system that isn’t exactly flush, the Tigers probably shouldn’t wipe it out. At least not for this team.
I don’t think this is a World Series team, but they are a team that is strong enough to compete and make the playoffs. I don’t think that Holliday would push them into the WS team category either.
But the Tigers do need to remain competitive. The Tigers have a ton of payroll, and will next year as well. The best thing for business would be a sustained pennant race and not a firesale (which I’ve heard people calling for already). They are going to be limited in terms of cost cutting, but they do have a chance for a nice revenue bump. Attendance is down 10K, but that is off a record setting year. Attendance is still quite good relative to the AL and the Tigers own history.
And then there are Inge’s knees. They are in bad shape, though there seems to be a little confusion on the actual injury. Inge said one was 75% torn, but I don’t know that is accurate. Kevin Rand said there were significant microtears, which is different than the condition that Inge was describing which would be more of a ruptured tendon. In any case, he’s not moving well and the Tigers don’t have great options to take his place either in the field or the lineup. The situation either makes getting a bat more important, or perhaps it changes the focus of what they are looking for.
PREGAME: Jarrod Washburn and Lucas French hook up in a soggy get-away-day game.
Seattle vs. Detroit – July 23, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
POSTGAME: Yeah. I’m at a loss.
Syracuse 3 Toledo 2
Brent Dlugach went 3 for 5 with 2 doubles. Jeff Frazier doubled twice. Wilkin Ramirez homered, but fanned 4 times. Carlos Guillen went 1 for 3 with 2 walks. Brooks Brown allowed 3 runs on 4 hits and 2 walks with 3K’s in 7 innings.
Erie – suspended in the 4th inning
Lakeland 8 Jupiter 6
Michael Bertram and Chris Carlson both doubled and singled. William Alvino went 3 for 4 wiht 2 doubles. Lauren Gagnier allowed 6 runs on 6 hits and 2 walks in 4 innings.
West Michigan 4 Quad Cities 0
Ben Guez homered. Jordan Lennerton went 3 for 4. Brandon Hamilton pitched 6 shutout innings, fanning 4, walking 2 and only allowing 3 hits.
Batavia 7 Oneonta 6
Michael Rockett tripled twice and is hitting 342/370/475 for the season. John Murian went 3 for 5 with a triple. Alexis Espinoza doubled and singled. Clemente Mendoza struck out 5, but also walked 4 in 4.2 innings. Kevan Hess fanned 3 in 1.1 innings.
GCL Tigers 1 GCL Blue Jays 3
Alexander Nunez an deddie Rush each went 2 for 3. Jose Diaz struck out 7 in 7 innings, allowing 3 runso n 5 hits and 2 walks.
PREGAME: As much as I’d love to talk about the Tigers carrying over their offense from last night, that probably isn’t a realistic expectation. Felix Hernandez has been absolutely sick.
The last time Hernandez didn’t last through at least 7 innings was May 30th, when he went 6.2. He’s fanning a batter an inning and almost 4 batters for every guy he walks. Opponents have only taken him deep 8 times all season. RISP opportunities are going to be hard to come by, so the Tigers need to be efficient when they have an opportunity.
Armando Galarraga makes his first post All Star break start. There were a couple somewhat promising starts for Galarraga leading to some hope he had turned things around. But he was hammered for 9 hits and 2 walks in 6 innings by the Indians in his last start.
Your Brandon Inge-less lineup:
The decision to bat Thomas clean-up is a little strange, but I’m guessing the thinking is the lefty may provide a little more protection than Thames for Cabrera. The stranger move is batting Anderson anywhere higher than 8th. And did Dusty Ryan evaporate?
Seattle vs. Detroit – July 22, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
POSTGAME: The Tigers waste another masterful pitching performance and drop a 2-1 game for the 3rd time in 4 games. This time Galarraga allowed 1 freakin groundball single through 7+ innings, and still can’t get a win.
Bobby Seay threw a meatball to Russel Branyan who punished it. Seay had 22 straight appearances without a run allowed, and has given up homers in each of the last 2 games. But you can’t blame it all on Seay.
Josh Anderson has become Neifi Perez. I want to make it clear that I’m not hating on Josh Anderson here and blaming him for the Tigers offensive woes. When I call him Neifi it’s because he’s a player of limited ability that is being vastly misused by Leyland. Anderson is what he is and expecting more isn’t fair of him. Expecting the manager to realize that he is an inferior hitter who has no place in a starting lineup is another matter.
Anderson should not have been batting 6th. He came up in 2 RBI situations and ended the inning. This should not have come as a surprise. He should not have had a bat in his hands in the 9th inning. Horrible. If Anderson is a late inning defensive replacement or a pinch runner I have no problem with him being on the roster. But if you give Leyland a limited NL player, he’ll find a way to play him way too much. Leyland has done a good job in total this season, but his continued use of Anderson is baffling.
With the Tigers home for the first time since before the All Star break, there are a bevy of injury updates as the team gets reacquainted with the walking wounded who have stayed behind to work on getting better.
Tigers fans, media, and bloggers alike got a little tutorial on roster designations yesterday when the team announced that Guillen was being recalled from his rehabilitation assignment. Being recalled as we found out is very different than being activated. A recall of a rehab assignment is kind of like suspending the rehab assignment as opposed to a player having their contract recalled after being optioned out to a minor league club. Got it? Doesn’t matter.
Guillen was recalled to have his shoulder examined after experiencing soreness. But it checked out and he’s heading to Toledo for more at-bats.
My guess is he gets activated between Friday night’s game and Saturday’s game. The Tigers will be calling up a pitcher from Toledo to pitch game 2 of the double header (Eddie Bonine would be a good guess). So the Tigers will need to clear a player to make room for the mystery starter, and presumably the mystery starter would then be optioned back to Toledo after the game opening a roster spot for Guillen. As for who gets moved out in the first place? I’m guessing Josh Anderson.
Robertson has resumed throwing activity following his elbow surgery. Robertson is interested in stretching out to 5 or 6 inning, 100 pitch type work levels. This might not be a bad idea as there are questions about the back end of the Tigers rotation, and it also would likely mean a longer DL stint which would serve the Tigers well. With Ni and Seay pitching well, a lefty pen arm isn’t a pressing concern. Whether the surgery helps with the shallow slider remains to be seen.
Bonderman is throwing again, but not pitching yet. No return is imminent.
Further tests failed to reveal additional damage to Zumaya’s shoulder so the diagnosis remains “soreness” and his prognosis remains ambiguous.
Syracuse 6 Toledo 5
Jeff Frazier went 3 for 4 with a homer. Mike Hessman singled twice and doubled. Nate Bump surrenedered 4 runs on 8 hits, 2 walks, and 3 K’s in 6 innings. Kris Regas allowed 2 homers in 1 inning. Zach Simons fanned 2 in 2 innings.
Akron 2 Erie 5
Danny Worth went 2 for 4. Jon Kibler only allowed 2 unearned runs in 7.1 innings on 4 hits, 4 walks, and 4 K’s. Robbie Weinhardt fanned 2 and walked in in .2 innings.
Charlotte 3 Lakeland 12
Michael Bertram went 4 for 5. Devin Thomas, Audy Ciriaco, and Jordan Newton each had 3 hits. Mauricio Robles was nasty to the tune of 11 K’s and 1 walk in 6 innings and only 2 unearned runs crossing the plate.
West Michigan – DNP
Batavia 7 Oneonta 4
John Murrian doubled. Cory Hamilton allowed 4 runs in 4 innings on 6hits, 3 walks, and 1 K.
GCL Blue Jays 4 GCL Tigers
Jacob Cruz doubled and drove in 3. Rayni Guichardo allowed 3 homers in 6 innings to go along with 4 walks and 5 K’s.
PREGAME: The Tigers welcome the Seattle Mariners into town. The Mariners, like the Tigers are 6 games above .500 and rely heavily on their defense and pitching to overcome anemic offenses.
The Tigers will send out Rick Porcello for the first time since Michael Jackson died. Will he be rusty? Will he have extra giddy-up? Will he hold down the Mariners the way he did when he faced them on the left coast?
The Mariners send out Garrett Olson. Olson has a tendency to give up the long ball with 12 homers allowed in just 59 innings this year. He has a 4.53 ERA and strike out and walk rates that are unremarkable. The Tigers faced him twice last year and plated 5 runs in each game. So things should look good for an offense that is struggling, but I’m far from confident.
Tonight’s hopefully first place maintaining ineup:
Seattle vs. Detroit – July 21, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday
POSTGAME: The Tigers got themselves some offense. When the first 5 batters score, things should be a laugher. But the Mariners kept coming back as they launched 4 homers and this game was way more stressful than it should have been.
Rick Porcello looked to have a ton of movement on his breaking balls. That was the good. The bad was that there were too many balls being put in the air. Porcello is normally an extreme ground ball pitcher, but 5 of the 11 outs in the field were in the air. And then there were the balls that flew out of the park.
But the offense, the offense, oh the offense. Magglio Ordonez seems to be taking to this platoonery as he cracked a grand slam picking up that long awaited “hit with RISP.” And the fact that were RISP was also refreshing. Placido Polanco and Miguel Cabrera later went deep making it an Arby’s night.
The pen wasn’t bad. Fu-Te Ni and Bobby Seay both gave up homers, but both had been pitching well of late so I can’t hate on either of them. Brandon Lyon did his 2 out job, and Fernando Rodney made things interesting, but didn’t pitch badly. The 1-2 plunking of Branyan was clearly a mistake, but he was ahead of the count the whole inning, he didn’t nibble, and he followed the HBP with a couple grounders, a K, and a routine flyball.
Long time readers of this site remember a feature called the Inning Report. Reader Sam Hoff would break down the season into 18 game segments or “innings.” Why 18 game? Because there are 9 18 game segments in a season. When the Tigers completed the Oakland series that also completed the second inning. Sam is still putting these together, but he’s posting them on his site this season. So click through to read The Fifth Inning is over with games through last Friday.
The Tigers turned in their first losing inning posting a 7-11 record, and not surprisingly their second lowest scoring inning with only 70 runs. Sadly it wasted a lot of good pitching performances from the starters, and with the All Star break and off days allowing for rotation juggling, Verlander and Jackson started 9 of the 18 games.
Polanco was the RBI leader despite posting only a 699 OPS. Brandon Inge’s line looks frighteningly similar to his career numbers and Curtis Granderson failed to hit for either average or power. Thank goodness for Marcus Thames though.
Not related to the inning report at all, but did anyone notice the Twins blew a 12-2 lead to the A’s and that the Yankees won 2-1 yet again? Maybe it will make you feel a little better. Or maybe it won’t since the White Sox moved to within a game of the division lead.
Syracuse 2 Toledo 4
Jeff Frazier homered, singled, and drew 2 walks. Brent Dlugach went 2 for 4. Wilkin Ramirez drew 3 walks. Ruddy Lugo fanned 7 while allowing 2 runs on 5 hits and 3 wlaks in 6.2 innings.
Akron 2 Erie 6
Deik Scram homered and walked. Brennan boesch also homered. Luis Marte pitched 3.2 innings allowing no runs and 2 hits. Brendan Wise pitched the next 3 and gave up 5 runs and 2 hits. Cody Satterwhite fanned 3 in the final 2.1 innings and allowed just 1 baserunner to reach.
Charlotte 7 Lakeland 2
Joe Tucker and Jordan Newton each had 2 hits. Josh Workman went 3 for 3. Jeramy Laster homered. Matt Hoffman allowed 5 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks with 2 K’s in 4.1 innings.
Kane County 0 West Michigan 1 (10 inn)
The Whitecaps took a no hitter into the 7th inning with Casey Crosby fanning 8 in his 5 inning start. Anthony Shawler allowed the lone hit, but pitched 4 shut out innings fanning 3. Brent Wyatt and Avasail Garcia each had 2 hits. Ben Guez, the MWL player of the week drove in the winning run.
Batavia 2 Oneonta 3
John Murrian went 2 for 5. Jamie Johnson tripled. Alexis Espinoza started but didn’t bat which I hope doesn’t mean a serious injury. Luis Angel Sanz struck out 7 in 6 innings allowing just 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk. Michale Torrealba fanned 5 and walked 3 in 3 innings.
GCL Tigers PPD
The Tigers made some organizational moves bumping Zach Simons to Toledo and Jared Gayhart to Erie. Gayhart has moved all the way up from West Michigan this season. Simons is now just one rung away from the big leagues and is already on the 40 man roster meaning there’s a good chance he could see action out of the Tigers bullpen.
Also, in preparation for trade season Lee has put together a midseason prospect ranking which I pretty much agree with. There is always a lot of subjectivity in these things, but I think Lee’s list is a good one.
9-5. That was the series score. Tigers pitchers kept a very good offensive team to just 9 runs and yet were swept because Detroit went 1-26 with runners in scoring position. The numbers are pretty much mind boggling. And 3 of the Tigers 5 runs came on solo homers. The White Sox took 2 out of 3 games in their weekend series meaning that the Tigers lead is down to a slim 1.5 games. It was a crappy weekend for Detroit baseball. They got swept, they didn’t score, and they lost a relief pitcher for who knows how long. But I’ll find some good news in here somewhere.
The Tigers continue to get good pitching. Justin Verlander and Edwin Jackson came out strong and pitched the way they had for the bulk of the first half of the season. Sustained success for both is key to the Tigers playoff chances and with Verlander’s history of second half struggles, and Jackson’s history of never having been this good before, those are both question marks where the early returns are promising.
Also, outside of Joel Zumaya’s blow-up, the bullpen was just as good as the starters. Fu-Te Ni is probably benefiting somewhat from being the new funky-delivery lefty, but his results have been as impressive with the big club as they were with Toledo. I guess the other good news is that the bullpen is nice and rested.
Fortunately for the offense, they won’t continue to be that bad. Going 1 for 26 in any situational split, or any situation period, isn’t a sustainable pace. They’ll at the very least accidentally get a hit at some point in time. But here is the other side of the coin. The Tigers did a good job early in each of the 3 games of making the opposing starter work hard. They were taking pitches, drawing walks, and putting pressure on the starter and thus creating all those scoring opportunities in the first place. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the lineup got destroyed later in the game and the outs came quicker and easier. The Tigers hitters need to carry the types of approaches they were taking early in the game and sustain them throughout and continue to generate the scoring chances.
The Tigers need more offense, and I’d love to see them add a bat, but it goes way beyond that. Even if they trade for a stud, left handed hitting corner outfielder (which is unlikely), he is only going to hit once each time through the lineup. The Tigers have legitimate offensive threats already in the lineup that aren’t producing. One bat isn’t going to have a big impact as long as Granderson/Polanco/Cabrera continue to struggle.
One thing the Tigers could do to improve the offense is to remove Josh Anderson from the equation. Anderson had seemingly played himself out of a starting role before the All Star break with Ryan Raburn getting the bulk of the playing time in left field. From June 29th through the break Raburn had 9 starts, Anderson 5 (and one of those was in centerfield to spell Granderson). Raburn hit 323/364/581 over that span and Anderson hit 200/238/350 with no stolen bases. Yet the team gets to New York and Anderson starts 2 of the 3 games.
Raburn is OPS’ing over 800 against both lefties and righties and he has a pretty even mix of plate appearances this year. Anderson is OPS’ing under 650 against both lefties and righties while drawing 88% of his plate appearances against his favorable platoon side. While he is fast, he isn’t a good baserunner. The glaring mistakes are well known, but there are smaller ones as well. On Sunday he slid into second on a fly ball to centerfield. He was stealing and never saw the ball. Plus he had 2 defensive miscues this weekend. One cost the team runs, the other only cost Jackson 6 pitches. Outside of a late inning pinch runner he should have no role on this team, yet he continues to get starts.
Toledo 5 Buffalo 3
Brent Dlugach was 3 for 4 with a double. Wilkin Ramirez doubled and walked. Jeff Larish homered and singled. Eddie Bonine fanned just 1, but walked nobody in 8 innings of 3 run ball.
Erie 5 Binghamton 1
Cale Iorg doubled, singled, and drew a walk. Brennan Boesch and Casper Wells each had 2 hits. Thad Weber went 8 innings with no walks, 3 K’s 5 hits, and 1 run.
Lakeland PPD
Kane County 7 West Michigan 4
Billy Nowlin went 3 for 3 with 2 doubles. Luke Putkonen was knocked out in the 4th inning after allowing 4 runs on 8 hits and 3 walks. Victor Larez allowed 2 runs in 4 innings of relief while fanning 5 and walking 1.
Oneonta 6 Mahoning Valley 8
Michael Rockett, Alexis Espinoza, Keith Hernandez, and Luis Palacios all had 2 hits. Gary Perinar walked 6 and and was charged with 3 runs in 2.2 innings without allowing a hit.
GCL Tigers DNP