One game down, one to go. Rick Porcello did his part to stymie the Yankees and save the bullpen. Can Jeremy Bonderman beat Phil Hughes tonight as well?

The Tigers were rained out for the second time in a week. This time though they’ll try to do a double header with this being the Yankees only trip to Detroit.

Rick Porcello will face off against Javier Vazquez in the early game. Both pitchers are off to rough starts.

Vazquez has combined a horrible walk rate with a career high fly ball rate (and subsequently 8 homers in 23.1 innings) to a 9.78 ERA.

Porcello is still getting ground balls (55%) but quite a few are turning into hits. He has a .339 BABIP against on ground balls and a normal rate is closer to .260. He’s also only stranding 58% of runners which is leading to longer innings and shorter outings.

The Tigers went to the reliever well once again, and again the bullpen delivered. Brad Thomas survived, Eddie Bonine bridged the gap, and the back end bent but didn’t break. In the end the Tigers got a much needed (and unexpected) win against a premiere team  after what was a pretty lousy five game road trip.

Thomas wasn’t exactly sharp. He barely threw more strikes than balls and pitched with runners on in each of his 3 innings. He didn’t strike out a batter. But he made it through 3 innings with minimal damage and for a spot start he certainly did what he needed to. Eddie Bonine got the ball to Joel Zumaya which this year has been a good feeling.

Zumaya pitched out of Bonine’s jam in the 6th, and had a very efficient 7th inning. With only 18 pitches thrown Leyland tried to get another inning out of him.  I can’t argue with the decision. On a night where you were burning the the bullpen, getting one more inning and saving another pitcher or two would have been huge. It didn’t work out.

Zumaya ended up being charged with 2 runs after a couple walks and infield hits. Fortunately Phil Coke and Ryan Perry finished the inning and the now 1 run lead was preserved thanks to a terrific play by Magglio Ordonez off the bat of Derek Jeter. (Watch the replay and watch Perry, he never went to back up anything thinking Maggs had it all the way)

Then it was Papa Grande’s turn and he fanned the side in the 9th with a devastating split finger pitch. I was sitting near the left field foul pole, and even there I could see the pitches absolutely dive for the dirt.

Brennan Boesch drove in 3 of the Tigers runs. I don’t know why any team throws him a first pitch fastball for a strike at this point as once again his triple came on the first pitch, right down the middle.  Johnny Damon had the fun of taking his former team deep.

• The Ernie Harwell ceremony was terrific. Understated and respectful, much like Ernie.
• Valverde must have thrown 70-80 pitches in the bullpen. He got up and threw in the 6th inning, not hard, just getting loose. Then he threw the bulk of the 8th inning. And then in between the 8th and the 9th.
• Adam Everett nearly had a great game. He almost made a great play in the 8th, laying out for a line drive that hit off his glove. He added a single and a nicely executed sacrifice bunt (that was the time to sac bunt) leading to a run.

For the second time in the last couple weeks Dontrelle Willis will miss his scheduled start due to flu like symptoms. Understudy Brad Thomas will once again fill in. Here’s hoping that he can give the Tigers 50-60 pitches and that those pitches span at least 3 innings.

Sergio Mitre goes for the Yankees. This is Mitre’s first start of the season, so at least Thomas has the edge in games started.

For those heading down to the game tonight, the team will be honoring Ernie Harwell. At 6:15 the Fox Sports Ernie Harwell special will air on the scoreboard. There will also be a flag raised with Harwell’s initials and long time broadcast partner Paul Carey will throw out the first pitch which will be delivered by Ray Lane. Finally, Jose Feliciano will sing the National Anthem.

On paper this doesn’t look like it will be a good game for Tigers fans. I think we all should approach it like Ernie would. The first time I interviewed Dan Dickerson I asked him about what it was like broadcasting for a really bad team, and he harkened back to advice Ernie gave him:

It really goes back to some advice Ernie gave me early in my career, when in 2001 the Tigers started 9-23, and that was supposed to be a pretty good team with the Juan Gonzalez trade and the deals they made. I said “How do you do this?” This was my team, they are 9-23 and I was down. He said “Remember, every game stands on its own.” That advice was very simple but it really stuck. You might see something you’ve never seen before, you might see a great individual performance, you might see a great game between two bad teams. And it’s true, it sounds so simple and I think all fans realize that, and that’s why you have fans at games. For some reason, just to hear him say that, it really stuck with me and I found it’s true.

Let’s just see what this game has in store for us tonight.

New York Yankees at Detroit Tigers – May 10, 2010

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. The Tigers will try and help you celebrate with a rain-truncated sweep of the Indians. That responsibility will fall in large part on the arm of Max Scherzer.

Scherzer is probably just happy to not be facing the Twins. In his 4 starts not against the Twins he has allowed 11 runs. In two turns against Minnesota he has surrendered 16 runs. He’s never face the Indians.

Mitch Talbot goes for the Indians. He sports a 2.88 ERA and I have no idea how. In 34.1 innings he has 15 walks and only 12 strikeouts and he’s given up 5 homers. And aside from 1 start against the White Sox where he induced 19 ground balls, he isn’t keeping the ball on the ground either. Lefties are only OPS’ing him at a .593 pace due in large part to a .163 BABIP.

Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians – May 9, 2010 – MLB.com Preview

On a day when mother nature was serving up gusts in excess of 50mph, Tigers pitchers had Indians hitters adding some wind of their own. Of the 27 outs recorded by Detroit, 15 were via the strike out.

Justin Verlander had one of those in-between type days. He was perfect for the first 10 outs. Then he got a little erratic. Then he couldn’t put away hitters quickly. It ended up being a quality start and he ended up with 9 strike outs in 6 innings. A good outing to be sure, but it didn’t seem to be quite as good as it should have been.

He handed the ball off to Joel Zumaya who bordered between hitable and unhitable. He had 5 K’s in 2 innings, but also allowed 3 straight hits in the 8th leading to a run. Again, not complaining here.

The big potato picked up the 1-2-3 save and added the last strike out.

Offensively the Tigers managed to claw out a number of two out runs. Scott Sizemore and Miguel Cabrera had bases loaded knocks to drive in 5 of the Tigers 6 runs.

• Mike “corn flakes” Reilly (a named bestowed by Ernie Harwell due to Reilly’s Battle Creeek hometown) had a HUGE zone at the beginning of the game. The outside corner was spacious to say the least, but he pulled that in about the 4th innings. Pitches that were strikes earlier ceased to be so, and that’s when Verlander started walking some folks.
• The Tigers added 11 strikeouts of their own. Two by Johnny Damon who didn’t put a ball in play in 5 plate appearances, he walked 3 times.

Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians – May 8, 2010 – MLB.com Wrap

We’ll try this again, although the conditions don’t look much better than last night. Dan Dickerson reports that there are 60mph win gusts in Cleveland. Regardless of the direction of the wind, it will certainly making catching the ball a challenge.

That wind would certainly seem to favor Justin Masterson who gets 56.8% of balls hit on the ground as opposed to the other Justin, Justin Verlander who only has a 38.2% ground ball rate.

Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians – May 8, 2010 – MLB.com Preview