Detroit Tigers: 48-38, 1st Place (3.5 ahead of Cleveland). 

Detroit continued its dominance of the division rival Cleveland Indians last night, with a 9-4 win which featured a good 5-inning return by Anibal Sanchez. The Tigers have now taken 7 in a row from the Tribe, and 8-of-10 for the season. The Tigers have already outscored Cleveland 16-4 in this series, and 49-22 over the 7-game run, which led the Indians to hold a players meeting after the game. Manager Terry Francona promised “we’ll show up tomorrow.”

The All-Star rosters were announced, and the Tigers have at least 6 players going. Miguel Cabrera finally landed a starting spot at 3rd base, and the pitching staff features Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander (manager’s pick…Leyland preemptively defends his pick). Jhonny Peralta, Torii Hunter, and Prince Fielder all made the team as reserves (I am mildly surprised about Fielder).

One more Tiger has a chance to make the team: this year’s AL Final Vote contest for the last spot uniquely features all relief pitchers, including Tiger Joaquin Benoit. Are you an MLB.TV subscriber? No? Then if you vote in the Final Vote you are eligible for a free 14-day MLB.TV trial.

Random stat of the day: Torii Hunter had a double, triple, and home run last night for Detroit. The 37-year old Hunter is the oldest player to do that since 39-year old Dave Winfield did it back in 1991. But you knew that.

In bullpen news, Darin Downs has been placed on the 15-day DL with left rotator cuff tendinitis, and has been replaced on the roster by Evan “White Flag” Reed.

Today’s Player of the Pre-game:  Austin Jackson. AJax sets the table for the 3 All-Stars hitting behind him.

Today’s Same As Yesterday Lineup:

1. Jackson, CF
2. Hunter, RF
3. Cabrera, 3B
4. Fielder, 1B
5. Martinez, DH
6. Peralta, SS
7. Dirks, LF
8. Avila, C
9. Santiago, 2B

Detroit Tigers: 47-38, 1st Place (2.5 ahead of Cleveland). 

Yes, it’s that time of the season, that 4th of July lull where DTW game threads only draw a couple of comments and places like ESPN resort to discussing topics such as the All-Star game snubs before the teams are actually named. Snub predictions, I guess.

Anyway, despite the lulliness of the week the Tigers are in gear to put some space in between themselves and Cleveland before the break, after a 7-0 series opener.  That makes it 6 games in a row now that the Tigers have taken from the Indians, which should give Indians fans serious pause when considering their playoff contention hopes, as should the Cleveland record of 18-29 vs. teams with a winning record.

For the Tigers, aside from gaining a game in the standings, the win over the Indians was encouraging because of how well Rick Porcello pitched. Jason Beck notes that Rick Porcello has started doing something that Max Scherzer has been doing all season–increasing his use of the curve, especially against left-handed hitters. In fact, Porcello got 5 outs against lefties in the first 4 innings of last night’s game with the curveball. Can we get a +1 for the coaching staff?

Tonight’s game features the much-anticipated return of Anibal Sanchez to the starting lineup. Anibal will be on a limited pitch-count, so the bullpen should get plenty of work.

Today’s Player of the Pre-game:  Victor Martinez. Martinez continues to hit his ex-teams well. Yesterday’s performance leaves him with a 2013 average of .382 against Cleveland (.954 OPS), and a career BA of .364 (.995). He also hits Boston well (.318, .920). Strangely, the one team Martinez never hit well was Detroit, only putting up .244/.722. I would expect that to change if he ever becomes an ex-Tiger, based on the above.

Today’s Hit the Ball for Anibal Lineup:

1. Jackson, CF
2. Hunter, RF
3. Cabrera, 3B
4. Fielder, 1B
5. Martinez, DH
6. Peralta, SS
7. Dirks, LF
8. Avila, C
9. Santiago, 2B

Detroit Tigers: 46-38, 1st Place (1.5 ahead of Cleveland).

Somehow the Tigers have pulled the Bengal-Bus into Cleveland in first place, and even-up on the road trip, pulling 3 of 4 from the previously-hot Blue Jays despite the lack of Cabrera and Infante in the Independence-Day-in-a-Foreign-Land-Finale.

(Although I will go on record here as saying that Kansas City will turn out to be the real division rival, despite the Franconized Indians).

In fact, the bench…OK, let’s have some respect here: The Bench…excelled: Santiago and Kelly were a combined 5-for-9, Jackson, Dirks, and Hunter followed up with a top of the order binge, and Justin Verlander remembered who he was. Perhaps he realized that he has to work harder, now that he is getting old and all, as Jack Morris says

Tonight Cleveland sends out the Other Justin, Justin Masterson, to face The Appealing Rick Porcello.

Jose Valverde is working hard too. In fact his minor league stint should only last a couple of weeks. The Potato will surely rise again after the All-Star break, n’est-ce pas?

Max Scherzer,  on the other hand, needs to work a bit harder. According to SI, if the Cy Young were to be handed out today, he would have to be happy with the Bronze.

Oh, and you will notice this is game 85 already. There are those out there who will be talking about the halfway point of the season “approaching.” Here, we realize that point has passed a few days ago. Nonetheless, it will be worth looking at the various halfway-point (even though the halfway-point is long gone) assessments. For example, did you realize that the Tigers could actually be doing better?

Today’s Player of the Pre-game:  Don Kelly. The Donkey has now raised his batting average to .240. I have a hunch that Kelly will follow up on his big game yesterday with a hit or two today.

Today’s Oh, No Omar Lineup:

1. Jackson, CF
2. Dirks, LF
3. Hunter, RF
4. Cabrera, 3B
5. Fielder, 1B
6. Martinez, DH
7. Peralta, SS
8. Kelly, RF
9. Avila, C
10. Santiago, 2B

45-38, 1st place again, 0.5 ahead of Cleveland.

Happy 4th of July, everyone. Let us pause to appreciate the value of civil society and all that it took to get here. Let us pause to admire America the Beautiful. Let us pause to consider the possibility of America the More Beautiful.

Max Scherzer is 13-0. Wow. Question: Would we as easily recognize how out of this world consistent and consistently good he has been if he was, say, 9-4 right now? Probably not. It’s one thing to recognize how overrated a stat the W-L of a starter is, and another thing entirely to overthrow how programmed we are to ooh and aah about it. Let me throw something out there: 31-6. If you know what that is, and I’m sure you do, it proves my point. These things end up tattooed on our brains. Recognize 24-5? I’m sure there are others you could pull out of your hat with ease. Do you know Denny McLain’s 1968 WHIP, SO/BB, or FIP off the top of your head? Me, either.

Justin Verlander v. Esmil Rogers tonight. On the face of it, this is a mismatch, but Rogers has been pitching well of late, while Verlander… hasn’t been pitching like Verlander for a while now, notwithstanding all the excuses made for it.

No Miguel Cabrera in the lineup tonight. His back needs the rest. Is it really a turf thing? Don’t know. Being an alarmist, I worry about the possibility of a nagging injury that Miggy will insist on playing through that will drag him down to greater and lesser degrees for the rest of the season. The Tigers can absolutely not afford that. Their lineup has consisted of The Big Two, The Little Five, and the Flat Tire Two. Let there be no doubt that Cabrera and Fielder have carried the offense on their considerable shoulders through 83 games, and Miggy has been the consistent one.

No Omar Infante tonight, either, following his left shin contusion from last night’s game. If that’s all it is, he shouldn’t be out long, and I speak from personal experience on this one. I’m not sold on the “dirtiness” of the Colby Rasmus takeout slide, myself.

It’s nice to see Alex Avila and Victor Martinez having good games. Two months of consistently good performance and I’ll be sold on it, and not until. Half the season is in the books, and these guys are way in the red.

It’s nice that Jim Leyland thinks the bullpen situation is shaping up nicely. To me, the bullpen is still Smyly, Benoit, and Next Please. So much to-do about Which Inning and How Often. What an unnecessary diversion the Valverde Experiment has revealed itself to be, eh? The true cost of all that was using a spot on the staff that would have been better devoted to What’s Working Now and Next Please. Oh, well.

I’m pretty sure that this is the time of year when the Tigers catch fire and start to run away with the division. That’s the script I got, anyway. It all starts with a remarkably successful road trip on the heels of a disappointing home stand.

Jim hasn’t called me back about the lineup yet, so I’ll take a stab at it myself and correct it later. Feel free to join me in the guessing contest.

Tonight’s Independence Day lineup guess:

CF Jackson
LF Dirks
RF Hunter
1B Fielder
DH Martinez
SS Peralta
C Avila
3B Kelly
2B Santiago

44-38, 2nd place, 0.5 GB Cleveland.

Triple-A Tigers All-Stars.

Miggy?

Leyland likes it.

Max’s milestones.

Tonight’s lineup:

CF Jackson
RF Hunter
3B Cabrera
1B Fielder
DH Martinez
SS Peralta
LF Dirks
2B Infante
C Avila

43-38, 2nd place, 0.5 GB Cleveland.

Porcello suspended and Sanchez returning.

Lee Panas checks out the D of C’s in the D.

Long-awaited return of the heavy lumber will save our city.

Long-awaited return of the heavy lumber will save our city, this time without the sarcasm.

Tonight’s lineup:

CF Jackson
RF Hunter
3B Cabrera
1B Fielder
DH Martinez
SS Peralta
LF Dirks
2B Infante
C Avila

43-37, 1st place tie with Cleveland.

The Detroit Tigers first went to 6 games over .500 on May 3 with a dramatic win over the Houston Astros. And here we are at 6 games over .500 again. Hmmm. Quite a few teams would be happy to say that. Hmmm. Tigers. Aren’t they that team with Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder and Justin Verlander? Hmmm.

A Monday day game seems a bit odd, but that’s what they’re doing in Toronto today. For that reason I won’t be able to post the starting lineup. Sorry.

43-36, 1st place, 1 game up on Cle…

Well, last night was incredibly disappointing, and the Rondon outing led to an outcry of criticism regarding Leyland’s bullpen management.  Hop over here if you want to discuss.

Even more concerning that the bullpen issue is Justin Verlander. Yes, he went 8 and allowed only 2 ER, but he allowed 9 hits and 4 walks. That’s a 1.625 WHIP. With only 4 Ks. Not a good outing. As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, I couldn’t find league-wide count specific data, so I decided to list the same counts, with JV’s OPS+ against:

For whatever reason, JV gets hammered on 1-1 and 2-1 pitches. Note, even when the next pitch isn’t put into play, the OPS+ against for all events after 1-1 is 137, and after 2-1 is 147. He’s having a lot of difficulty when he gets behind in counts. Let me rephrase that, because I’m certain that every pitcher has a lot of difficulty after they get behind in counts. JV is having an unreasonable, and unusual, amount of trouble once he’s behind in the count.

The Tigers have baseball ops guys who I’m sure have all of these stats, plus some, so JV knows or will know all of these things. Curious to see when he gets it worked out.

************

Porcello gets the call in today’s rubber match. The last two times out have been pretty bad for the kid, but we’ve seen stretches of good stuff from Porcello. And those stretches seem to be getting longer and longer.

He’ll be opposing Jeremy Hellickson, who would be 4-0 with a 1.87 ERA in June if you remove an 8 earned in 5 2/3 inning outing vs. the Royals in the middle there. On the season Hellickson is getting a lot of run support. Despite a 5.11 ERA he’s 6-3.  He doesn’t strike out many (6.74/9), and gives up nearly 1 HR per start. He’s given up 10 to lefties already this year. In 16 starts this year he’s given up 5 or more ER 6 times. He’s got 6 quality starts, 3 of those in his last 4 outings.

Also, let’s not forget the Rodney – Cabrera subplot which came to the forefront during post game interviews. In case you missed it, Cabby took a shot at Rodney by shooting an imaginary arrow into the rafters after the win on Friday night. Rodney responded by buzzing Cabby last night. Cabrera struck out on the next pitch. Leyland wasn’t too pleased, though I’m not sure if we can coin Leyland’s response as a “threat”. Considering the thin ice that is the bullpen these days, I’d prefer to focus on winning the game without getting anyone ejected. The best way to show-up Rodney and TB would be to win a series on their home field.

We gotta win series.

Today’s Lineup:

1. Jackson, CF
2. Hunter, RF
3. Cabrera, 3B
4. Fielder, 1B
5. Martinez, DH
6. Dirks, LF
7. Infante, 2B
8. Santiago, SS
9. Holaday, C

43-35, 1st place, 2 games ahead of Cle (did you see their sweep over Chi yesterday? 46 total runs between the teams. Check out these box scores).

Now, that was a fun game. Miggy went 4-4 with 2 no-doubters, and Prince hit a rafter. He would have hit it out of the stadium had it been hit in a stadium. According to the ESPN, Fielder’s homerun was estimated at 414 feet, which is a bit embarassing matched up against Miggy’s second at 432 feet. It sure looked like Fielder’s ball would have gone much, much further hat it not been impeded by the rafter. We’ll never know.

And then there’s Mad Max Scherzer. Max is now the first pitcher since Roger Clemens in 1986 to start a season 12-0. He very may well be starting the All Star game in two weeks. Though I’m going to get very queasy when they put up a graphic titled “Last Tiger to Start the All-Star Game…”

Justin Verlander throws today. Well, hopefully, he’ll be pitching today. He’s definitely lost his paintbrush as of late, and it’s cause for concern. Earlier this month, I posted that JV’s peripherals suggested that he’s been unlucky, but otherwise pitching near career norms. Since then he’s had 1 brilliant game (which was lost by Toledo’s current closer) and 2 awful ones. Over his last 9 games Just-another-guy Verlander is 3-3, with a 6.04 ERA, 1.64 WHIP, and 3.90 BB/9. All of those are simply awful (though curiously, he’s still posting an extremely impressive K rate – 10.65 K/9). We’ve discussed the foul ball issue on here and I started looking for foul ball stats. I couldn’t find any (if you can find them, please let me know and I’ll take a look), so then I started looking for reasons why (a) his BABIP against is so high and (b) he’s getting a lot of foul balls. My feeble baseball mind suggested less movement on his pitches and poor counts. Let’s take a closer look.

Look at this chart which reflects what happens on balls in play on certain counts.

I omitted 1-0 and 2-0 because there were so few balls in play.

Obviously, 1-1 and 2-1 count events are astonishing. I know that I’m presenting this without league or team averages, so it makes it difficult to really draw any conclusions, but the numbers speak for themselves. (I ran out of time and plan to do that part tonight or early tomorrow – so stay tuned).

Now, JV throws his fastball more than anything else. His fastball contact rate this season is 86%, versus 81.2% for 2012, and 83.6% for his career. His fastball swinging strike rate is 7.1% in 2013, down from 9.9% in 2012 and 8.3% for his career. Those are significant changes.

So his fastball is either slower, or not moving. Or, gasp, both. Well, his average fastball this year is 93.6 MPH, compared to 94.7 last year and 94.8 for his career. And, using PitchFX data, we can conclude that it’s not moving as much in 2013. I believe that this partially explains why the BABIP against and foul ball numbers are so high.

Thus, we’re left with “what does this mean?” Far from my area of expertise, but I would guess that it’s something mechanical, or mental, considering his age. But a full season of this and the high innings over the past three years are going to get heavier and heavier.

****************

Tonight’s Potential Series Clinching Lineup:

1. Jackson, CF
2. Dirks, LF
3. The Man, 3B
4. Fielder, 1B
5. Martinez, DH
6. Peralta, SS
7. Kelly, RF
8. Infante, 2B
9. Pena, C

42-35, 1st place, 2.5 games up on Cle.

Being in first place is tough. Everyone is gunning for you. Even the LAA Angels, who now own an 8 game winning streak over our boys. I know, it sounds crazy. Just one of those quirky baseball streaks. Like Phil Coke losing 5 games in a row. Hilarious.

There’s a lot not to like about the Angels series and yesterday’s game in particular, but we’ve all read it and lamented to our uninterested wives (well, at least my wife isn’t too interested in why Coke was left in to face 2 righties, who as a group have a .900 OPS against him), so let’s move on.

We’re still in first place, no one else in the division is getting any better, and we’ve got a lot of time to figure out (trade for) a bullpen. Let’s enjoy a good baseball weekend.

Help is on the way. Or more precisely, Bruce Rondon should be in the bullpen tonight (Reed down). He will not be the closer . ! I don’t have high expectations for him in the short-term, as I don’t think the he’s seasoned enough for the bigs. On the flip side, this could be the shot in the arm that the bullpen needs to feel less annoyed, man. I think it’s a great, low-risk, move.

If you want to drink beers with Jose Valverde, I think this is your chance. You’ll just have to do it in Toledo (wait until next Wednesday).

Tonight’s Lineup:

1. Jackson, CF
2. Hunter, RF
3. Cabrera, 3B
4. Fielder, 1B
5. Martinez, DH
6. Peralta, SS
7. Kelly, LF
8. Infante, 2B
9. Pena, C

Detroit Tigers: 42-34, 1st Place (2.5 ahead of Cleveland).

The Angels continued their befuddling mastery of the Tigers last night with a 7-4 victory which put them at 5-for-5 for the season, a stretch in which they have outscored Detroit by a whopping 43-16. Their Pythagorean winning percentage should probably be at least 1.000.  Home, away, it doesn’t seem to matter.

This afternoon Los Anaheim looks to make it a perfect 6-for-6 2013 sweep.

What has gone wrong? Even though there have been a few outbursts of power and a few runs scored, the hitting has been lackluster at best, hitting .247 for the season, with a meager .676 OPS, which puts the team as a whole almost exactly in Avisail Garcia territory. And this against the team with a pitching staff that has been one of the shakiest in the league: they are 13th in team ERA with a hefty 4.39, and better than only Houston in Runs Per Game, at 4.74.

Not that the Tiger pitchers have fared any better against the Angels. Oh no. The Tiger hurlers have been bombed to the tune of a 6.65 ERA and a ridiculous .325 Batting Average Against. Oh, and that ERA doesn’t include the 6 Runs on Errors; yes, the fielding has been awful also.

The good news is that the one pitcher that has been immune so far has been today’s starter, Doug Fister. In his previous start against the Angels he went 7 innings of shutout baseball, holding them to 5 hits, though the bullpen eventually lost the game. Perhaps he could try to make it 8 innings today?

The other good news is that regardless of what happens today, Detroit has seen the last of the Angels for this year. It doesn’t get any easier though: on deck is an 11-game road trip with 3 in Tampa Bay, 4 at the hot Toronto Blue Jays, and then finishing with 4 at the Cleveland Indians, who are right back in the race.

Today’s Player of the Pre-game:  Torii Hunter again. Torii was a good call yesterday, going 2-for-5 and flexing some muscle with a home run and a double. The Ex-Angel now has hit his former team to the tune of .400 with a 1.128 OPS, 2nd only to Miguel Cabrera (.474/1.388).

Today’s Return of Ramon Lineup:

1. Jackson, CF
2. Hunter, RF
3. Cabrera, 3B
4. Fielder, 1B
5. Martinez, DH
6. Peralta, SS
7. Dirks, LF
8. Pena, C
9. Santiago, 2B