Category Archives: 2009 Season

2009 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 7/3/09

Columbus 2 Toledo 8
Wilkin Ramirez and Brent Clevlen each tripled and singled. Jeff Frazier homered. Scott Sizemore, Mike Hessman, and Max St. Pierre all had 2 hits. Brooks Brown pitched around 4 walks and allowed just 2 runs in 6 innings with 3 K’s. Ryan Perry pitched 2 innings and fanned 3 with no walks.

Trenton 10 Erie 1
Brennan Boesch homered and singled. Thad Weber allowed 5 runs on 11 hits in 5 innings. Robbie Weinhardt allowed his first AA run on two hits and a walk with 2 K’s in an inning.

Lakeland 0 Tampa 1
Justin Henry and Devin Thomas doubled. Jordan Newton tripled. Andrew Hess allowed a run on a solo homer, but that was it for 6 innings.

West Michigan 10 South Bend 0
Billy Nowlin went 3 for 5. Ben Guez doubled and singled. Luke Putkonen went the distance allowing just 1 walks and 5 hits against 5 K’s.

Oneonta 1 Aberdeen 10
Alexis Espinoza doubled as a pinch hitter. Luis Angel Sanz fanned 6, but walked 5 in 4 innings. And pretty much everyone else struggled.

GCL Phillies 4 GCL Tigers 3
Elvin Soto doubled and walked. Pat McKenna singled and walked 3 times. Rayni Guichardo didn’t allow a run in 5.2 innings with 2 hits, 4 walks, and 3 K’s.

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.079: Tigers at Twins

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PREGAME: Here we go, another series in the Metrodome. I don’t know if it is the dome itself or the way that the Tigers play there, but this games are rarely enjoyable. This time first place is at risk with the Twins just 3 games back (and the White Sox 2 back).

Lee has a detailed comparison of the two squads doing better tonight, and things are pretty but the Tigers are benefitting from some good fortune in close games. I have a feeling that good fortune doesn’t really apply to the Tigers when facing Joe Frickin Crede though.

Tonight’s match-up features Luke French making his first career start. Never a dominating force, French got by with location and moxie until he started fanning batters to the tune of 7.9 per game resulting in a 3.60 K/BB ratio for Toledo.

Ten game winner Kevin Slowey gets the ball for the Twins. He walks like no one, with only 15 free passes in his 87 innings of work. But he will give up the occasional homer with 14 on the year, but those even seem to come in bunches.

Random Factoid of the night: Slowey has only induced 6 double play grounders this year. And 2 of them came in his start against Detroit.

Your Magglio-less lineup is:

  1. Granderson, CF
  2. Polanco, 2B
  3. Cabrera, 1B
  4. Thames, DH
  5. Kelly, LF
  6. Inge, 3B
  7. Anderson, RF
  8. Laird, C
  9. Santiago, SS

Detroit vs. Minnesota – July 3, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: Well, that certainly was a memorable game. I’m sleepy so only bullet points tonight:

  • The Tigers did get some offense, lots of it early in fact. But then there was the 9 innings of shutout ball between the 5th and the 14th.
  • French was okay and he held Justin Morneau in check. I am surprised that Leyland didn’t let him go the one additional out for the win with the big cushion. It is a little indicative that the team has been struggling because that is when he tends to over manage.
  • Two walks to Nick Punto. Really? The good news is that the Tigers only had 1 other unintentional walk.
  • But two intentional ones, and this I thought was a great move by Leyland. Zumaya had control tonight, and the risk of walking in a run is always present, but passing on Mauer and Morneau when their runs were meaningless was good strategy.
  • Despite the game going 16 innings only Freddy Dolsi and Joel Zumaya should be unavailable for the next 2 days. Rodney (6 up, 6 down) and Lyon were efficient in their multi-inning outings. Ni and Seay threw less than an inning and Miner was too ineffective to run up his pitch count.
  • The Tigers didn’t play great defense tonight. During Miner’s meltdown inning, I thought both triples should have been fielded. Neither play was easy, but both plays were makeable.
  • Eric Cooper was awful. I really think he’d ask the pitcher and catcher what number he was thinking of, whoever was closest got the call. One of the many egregious examples was a called 3rd strike against Polanco that Gameday tracked at 3 ft, 10 in off the ground. So at Polanco’s nipples essentially.
  • Magglio hit into kind of a tough luck double play, but then he finally had a ground ball not go at someone and through for an RBI single.
2009 Season

The Twins series is big, but far from critical

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It was July 19th, 2007. Things were looking great for the Tigers. Detroit was playing their second series after the All Star break. Heading into that break the Tigers had won 5 in a row, 2 against the Indians and a sweep of the Red Sox. After the break they split a 4 game set in Seattle  and then pulled off an improbable sweep of the the Twins in the Metrodome. They won 3 straight 1 run games against Minnesota and found themselves 21 games above .500. Talk about momentum. The big series was followed up with a 4-12 stretch.

Today the Tigers are once again heading into Minnesota for a 3 game set. It is a big, exciting, mid summer series. But the season is too long and it is too early for this series to mean that much – even if it results in a sweep for either team.

If things go poorly they could find themselves a half game out of first place, a perch they’ve held since May 9th. It would be a disappointing result to be sure, but being within a half game of the division lead before the All Star Break isn’t that bad of a worst-case scenario.

We’ve seen the Tigers in past years surging early in the season only to later collapse. We’ve seen it this year where the team had “serious issues” only to reel off 7 wins in a row, and then 2 drop back to back series. Two weeks ago the White Sox were done and playing “must-win” games against the Tigers. Now they are in 2nd place. This is the type of rollercoastering that happens over the span of a couple weeks, let alone over the course of a season.

If the Tigers were on the brink of contention a week before the trade deadline (like  when they went to Seattle in 2005) maybe it takes on more importance. If it is September and there is limited time to make up ground it becomes huge. Yes, every game is important because you can look back at the end of the season when your team is a game short and say “see, if we’d just won one more game…” But there are are typically at least a dozen games that are given away during a season and a dozen more that are “stolen". These are just 3 of 162.

Games against division rivals always take on more importance, it’s your team’s only chance to directly put L’s in their standings. With both teams involved in the hunt for the division and it falling on a holiday weekend, the games should be exciting and it should provide for a great “playoff like” atmosphere. But it ain’t the playoffs because both the winner and loser still have 90 more games to go.

2009 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 7/2/09

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Toledo 3 Columbus 16
Clete Thomas and Brent Clevlen each had 2 hits. Ruddy Lugo didn’t make it out of the first inning before allowing 8 runs. This wasn’t good and it saw Jeff Frazier pitch the last 2 innings, and not well.

Trenton6 Erie 9
Ryan Strievy is back int he lineup and he homered and singled. Andy Dirks doubled twice. Ronnie Bourquin, Alex Avila, and Brennan Boesch all had 2 hits apiece. Jonah Nickerson allowed 5 runs in 5 innings on 11 hits, 3 of which were homers. Cody Satterwhite fanned 2 and allowed 2 hits and a walk but no runs in 2.1 innings.

Fort Myers 3 Lakeland 1
Jordan Newton doubled twice. Audy Ciriaco went 2 for 2 with a walk and seems to love him some doubleheaders. Lauren Gagnier allowed 3 runs in 2.2 innings. Jared Gayhart has adapted well to the next level with 3.1 scoreless innings and just 1 hit allowed with against 2 K’s.

Fort Myers 4 Lakeland 1Justin Henry and Devin Thomas each had 2 hits. Trevor Feeney started and allowed 1 run on 3 hits in 4 innings. Brett Jacobson allowed 2 runs on 3 hits including a homer in 2 innings.

West Michigan 4 South Bend 5
Gustavo Nunez, Brent Wyatt, and Bill Nowlin all had 2 hits. Bryan Pounds walked 3 times and doubled. Mark Sorensen went 6 innings and allowed just 2 runs on 5 hits, 1 walk and 2 K’s.

Oneonta 8 Aberdeen 2
Rawley Bishop doubled twice, walked, and drove in 3. Keith Hernandez doubled twice and singled. Gary Perinar fanned 7 in 5 innings of 2 hit and 1 run ball. Jose Ortega struck out the side in his inning of work.

GCL Tigers 7 GCL Phillies 4
Luis Castillo and Elvin Soto each had 2 hits. Bruce Rondon struck out 6 in 4 innings. Giovanni Soto fanned 2 in a scoreless inning.

2009 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor Leauge Wrap 6/20/09

Toledo 9 Indianapolis 7
Scott Sizemore seems to like Toledo, although you wouldn’t know it by his photo which looks like a mugshot. He was 3 for 4 with a homer, his 9th extra base hit in his 14 games. Brent Dlugach and Mike Hessman doubled twice. Chris Lambert was knocked around for 7 runs on 10 hits in 5 innings. Jay Sborz, who was just promoted, pitched 2 perfect innings with 3 K’s. Ryan Perry got the save despite walking 2.

Trenton 3 Erie 5
Danny Worth doubled and singled. Alex Avila walked twice and doubled (Take 75 North recently pondered Avila). Ronnie Bourquin hit his first AA homer. Pat Stanley allowed 3 runs on 6 hits and 4 walks in 2 innings. Robbie Weinhardt made his AA debut and walked 2 and fanned 3 in 2 innings.

Lakeland PPD

West Michigan 1 South Bend 4
Billy Nowlin and Avisail Garcia each had 2 hits. Brandon Hamilton allowed 3 runs on 5 hits, 2 walks, and 3 K’s in 5 innings.

Oneonta PPD

GCL Tigers PPD

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.077: Tigers at A’s

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Galarraga and Ryan warm up before the start PREGAME: Gio Gonzalez takes on Armando Galarraga.

Galarraga continues to teeter on the edge of the rotation. Gonzalez makes just his 2nd start of the season. He was rocked in his first start and was knocked out in the 4th inning after allowing 10 hits (but with 6 K’s).

  1. Granderson
  2. Polanco
  3. Cabrera
  4. Thames
  5. Raburn
  6. Inge
  7. Ordonez
  8. Ryan
  9. Everett

Detroit vs. Oakland – June 30, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: This wasn’t the text book way to go about getting a win, but it’s a win.

bullpen You aren’t supposed to win when your starter gives up 6 walks, but the A’s didn’t hit Galarraga hard at all so there were only 2 baserunners via hits and only 1 run to show for all of their patience. I guess that’s what you call scattering your walks. But Galarraga did seem to have some bite on his slider and it was inducing some swings and misses – I just think he used it too often, like when he was ahead of Jack Cust 0-2 and he threw 3 straight sliders nowhere near the zone.

You aren’t supposed to win when you make 2 baserunning errors where outs are made between 3rd and home. Those are runs you have to have, or at least not toss away so easily. The baserunning mistakes, and the ill advised sacrifice bunt attempts early in the game against a struggling pitcher are why the Tigers only plated 3 runs off of Gio Gonzalez despite having 7 hits, 3 of which were for extra bases, and 2 walks in 5 innings.

You aren’t supposed to win when you make 3 error-like plays in the field. But Galarraga pitched around a dropped foul fly by Ryan Raburn, a fumbled grounder by Everett, and another play by Everett where the Tigers only got 1 out instead of 2.

You aren’t supposed to win when your closer allows 3 baserunners and a home run, but Rodney only let the game get to 2 runs before a double play grounder ended the night on 19 pitches. Oddly, it was Rodney’s fastball getting hit and really, his control improved after an initial walk.

  • Ryan Raburn and Placido Polanco were the offensive stars. Raburn hit everything hard. Polanco drove in 3 of the 5 runs and is on a mini-Marcus power surge as of late.
  • Inge was having a rough night offensively but he got a blooper to drop behind a drawn in infield to score an insurance run.
  • Dusty Ryan was patient, and he took called 3rd strikes his last 2 times up
  • Magglio, I don’t know. He did drive a ball to right field once, and a 2-0 count. He was also late on a 3-1 fastball. He also swung and missed a ball well off the plate as it looked like he was gearing up to try and pull a fastball.
  • Bobby Seay and Joel Zumaya (pictured above thanks to photos from westcoasttigerfan) had good games. Zumaya hit 102.7 and 102.6 matching his fastest pitches from the Cubs series.
2009 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 6/29/09

Toledo 5 Indianapolis 6
Scott Sizemore went 3 for 5 with 2 doubles. Brent Dlugach had 2 hits and Mike Hessman doubled and tripled. Eddie Bonine allowed 10 hits and 6 runs with 1 walk and 4 K’s in 4.2 innings.

Erie 5 Harrisburg 6 (11 inn)
Cale Iorg went 3 for 6. Casper Wells homered, singled, and walked. Alex Avila, Deik Scram, and Danny Worth all had 2 hits. Luis Marte allowed 3 homers, but only 4 runs in 7 innings with 1 walk and 4 K’s.

Fort Myers 5 Lakeland 1
Santo De Leon and Audy Ciriaco each had 2 hits. Charlie Furbush pitched 5.2 innings of 1 run ball with 4 K’s and no walks. Lester Oliveros allowed 3 runs on 2 hits and a walk in .2 innings.

West Michigan – DNP

Lowell 5 Oneonta 0
John Murrian had 2 hits. Nate Newman allowed 2 runs in 3 innings. Kevan Hess was knocked around for 5 hits and 2 runs in 2 innings.

GCL Blue Jays 3 GCL Tigers 0
Jordan Cruz doubled. Elvin Soto doubled twice. Ramon Lebron fanned 5 and walked 5 in 3 innings. Richard Zumaya fanned 3 and allowed just 1 hit in 2 innings.

GCL Tigers 2 GCL Blue Jays 3
Hernan Perez went 3 for 4 with 2 doubles. Jose Diaz allowed 3 runs on 4 hits in 3 innings.

2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.076: Tigers at A’s

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PREGAME: The Tigers once again find themselves in the middle of a very long road trip, next stop Oakland. The Tigers salvaged a happy plane ride at least after dropping 2 in Houston. The A’s meanwhile are scuffling having lost 5 in a row and their bloggers are deservedly restless.

As for the pitching match-up it will be Rick Porcello taking on Brett Anderson. Anderson faced the Tigers earlier in the year and his infield pretty much error-ed for the cycle as he allowed 9 runs, only 3 of which were earned. Anderson has a 45/18 K/BB ratio in 69 innings with 13 homers allowed.

Porcello turned in a QS when he faced the A’s in that same series. He’s allowed 21 baserunners in his last 2 outings spanning 10.2 innings, but he has limited the damage to 3 earned runs (5 runs total).

Detroit vs. Oakland – June 29, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: That was some kind of ugly. Porcello gave up a ton of baserunners and didn’t make it out of the 5th inning. There were some defensive lapses (and a couple nice plays to be fair) and the offense was shutdown by another pitcher with an ERA over 5.

The Tigers fanned 14 times in the game. They did make Anderson work and ran his pitch count up, but they sure couldn’t hit him. They couldn’t even make contact off him with 11 swinging strikes and 3 foul tips on 46 swings. That’s a 30.4% swing and miss rate which is just brutal and dumbfounding.

The only brightish spot was Fu-Te Ni making his debut (and wearing Todd Jones’ old number). He did allow a monster homer, but that was the only baserunner he allowed and he fanned 3 of the other 5 batters he faced.

2009 Season

The 4th Inning – 2009 Edition

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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 Fourth Inning is over with games through last Friday.

The Tigers had their best inning in terms of wins and losses, and that was despite much hand wringing during a 4 game skid. Remarkably they did it by outscoring their opponents by only 1 run over the 18 games. They did very well in close games, which is either good news (that they outperformed basic luck) or bad news (that it probably isn’t sustainable).

A couple things of note:

  • This is the homering-est inning for Tigers hitters since Sam started doing these reports in 2007.  A little bit surprising since a chunk of the games were played in NL parks without a DH
  • The run prevention has been very consistent in each inning. However this time around the Tigers relied very heavily on the bullpen.
2009 Season, Pitching, Roster Management

Figaro has shorter leash than Willis

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That didn’t take long. Alfredo Figaro is being bounced from the rotation and Luke French will make his first career start Friday night at the Metrodome. Figaro heads to Toledo, so he still ends up with a promotion in the deal.

Figaro did struggle in his 2nd start, and he pitched out of a number of jams in first effort. The optimist can look at his heat and the breaking ball he featured when it wasn’t being hung. The pessimist sees someone who doesn’t locate his pitches well enough to be effective. The two sides meet in the middle and say, maybe he just needs to refine his stuff a little in the minors.

French is left handed which could be a factor in this decision as well with the Tigers taking on Morneau, Mauer, and Kubel next weekend. (Kurt figured this out before the move was even made) French has also been pitching pretty good and has earned the promtion. He has quality starts in 5 of his last 6 outings, and the one where he didn’t it was 4 runs in 6.2 innings. Over those last 6 starts he has 41 K’s and 7 walks in 43.1 innings.

2009 Season, Minors

Tigers Minor League Wrap 6/28/09

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Toledo 1 Indianapolis 2 (10 innings)
Ian Snell recorded 17 of his 21 outs on strikeouts, so there isn’t much offense to speak of. Brooks Brown allowed just 1 run on 5 hits and 2 walks with 4 K’s in 7 innings.

Erie 4 Harrisburg 5
Casper Wells doubled and tripled. Alex Avila and Danny Worth each had doubles and singles. Thad Weber allowed 3 runs on 7 hits in 3 innings with 3 K’s and a walk.

Lakeland 3 Sarasota 5
Chris Carlson homered. Matt Hoffman was knocked around for 5 runs on 7 hits in 6.2 innings. Brett Jacobson allowed 1 hit in 1.1 innings with a strike out.

West Michigan 8 Great Lakes 0
Casey Crosby was the story in this one with 5 innings of no hit ball with only a walk to go with 6 K’s. Robert Waite allowed a double in his 4 innings, the only hit that the Caps would allow. Gustavo Nunez was 3 for 3 with a walk. Billy Nowlin also had 3 hits. Bryan Pounds doubled twice.

Lowell 3 Oneonta 9
Alexis Espinoza went 2 for 4. Michael Rockett singled twice and homered. Jamie Johnson went 2 for 5. Luis Angel Sanz allowed 3 runs in 4 innings with 5 K’s. Cory Hamilton (23rd rd) fanned 5 and allowed just 1 hit and no walks in 3 innings.

GCL Tigers DNP