PREGAME: The Tigers and Armando Galarraga take on the Orioles and Jeremy Guthrie. Guthrie has a 3.49 ERA this year. None of his peripherals are exceptional, but he does 2.6 walks per 9. Lefties have a 90 point OPS advantage, but even then they’re only hitting 255/312/405 against Guthrie. He’s most hittable in the first inning so hopefully the Tigers can make some early noise.

Galarraga has pitched okay of late, but has had efficiency issues. He hasn’t recorded an out beyond the 6thinning since June 13th.

Guillen is still in Detroit and Renteria’s hamstring is still hurting. Renteria will play, and of course Guillen won’t. And Freddy Dolsi cut off all of Fernando Rodney’s hair. No word on how it will effect the tilt of his cap.

1. Granderson, CF
2. Polanco, 2B
3. Joyce, LF
4. Ordonez, RF
5. Cabrera, 1B
6. Thames, DH
7. Rodriguez, C
8. Renteria, SS
9. Inge, 3B

DET @ BAL, Friday, July 18, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05

PREGAME: As the second half kicks off it will be Kenny Rogers taking on Garrett Olson. Olson has struggled in his last 2 starts surrendering 13 runs in 9 innings. He has a 5.65 ERA this year but is better at home.

Carlos Guillen is out of the lineup because he’s in Detroit. He’s with his wife who needed surgery due to complications from giving birth last week.

The Tigers send out the following lineup:

1. Granderson, CF
2. Polanco, 2B
3. Thames, LF
4. Ordonez, RF
5. Cabrera, 1B
6. Sheffield, DH
7. Rodriguez, C
8. Renteria, SS
9. Inge, 3B

DET @ BAL, Thursday, July 17, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: The second half gets off to a smashing start as everybody’s favorite whipping boys come up big. Gary Sheffield walked and went deep twice. True, one of them was taken away by Jay Payton. Edgar Renteria had two hits and a walk. One of the hits was even a double. And Brandon Inge even managed a two run, go ahead homer to go along with some nifty defense. And in typical Todd Jones fashion he made the ninth inning very interesting. But in his defense his defense didn’t help him at short and he needed 4 outs. Finally, Fernando Rodney even managed to retire the one batter he faced.

Kenny Rogers wasn’t good today. The Orioles battered him with line drives all over the place. His saving grace was some horrendous baserunning. The Tigers managed to turn a 5-4-2 double play and a 7-4 double play. To cap it off they managed a 3-2 put out.

And while there was much consternation about the Tigers-O’s game being the only AL game today, the good news is they picked up a half game on both teams they are chasing in the division and they gained on EVERY team they’re chasing in the Wild Card race.

PREGAME: Another day game on Fox, another Twins starter the Tigers struggle against. This time it’s Scott Baker.

Nate Robertson is on the mound for Detroit. He went 9 innings of excellent work against the Mariners. But the start prior to that the Twins handed him his worst start of the year and the only one in which he allowed more than 5 runs this season.

MIN @ DET, Saturday, July 12, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 3:55

POSTGAME: Another one run loss to the Twins. I don’t have a lot to say. One point I will make is that I don’t usually get too upset about strikeouts. It’s just another out right? And the Tigers team isn’t particularly prone to fanning (9 AL teams have whiffed more often). But in this series the Tigers have saved their strikeouts when they mattered most.

Thursday we Jeff Larish and Pudge Rodriguez K in the 9th inning with the winning run 90 feet away.

Friday it was Thames and Rodriguez each striking out with men on second.

Today it was Granderson fanning with a runner on second and 1 out in the third. Miguel Cabrera struck out with 2 men on and nobody out in the 8th. And then in the 9th Sheffield, Larish (who’s last 3 at-bats have come against Nathan. How much fun is that?), and Granderson all fanned.

Their clutch striking out the last 3 games, all one run losses, has been demoralizing to say the least.

PREGAME: Those of you who believe in momentum may have had your beliefs shaken after yesterday’s gut-wrencher. Armando Galarraga faces the one team that he seems to struggle the most with, the Twins. He’s managed to last 6 innings in each of his starts, but his 10:8 K:BB ratio in 18 innings isn’t all that inspiring.

Glenn Perkins takes the mound for the Twins. Perkins has stymied the Tigers twice already this season and has given up no more than 3 runs in any of his last 6 starts.

And I’m going to this game so there will most definitely be a rain delay.

MIN @ DET, Friday, July 11, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05

PREGAME: If you’re a believer in momentum you have to like this series for the Tigers. The Tigers make a 6 run come back for a walk-off win and the Twins were swept by the Red Sox with an 18-5 loss to finish the series. As for my views on momentum, I’m in agreement with Jim Leyland that mo is the next day’s starter.

In Detroit’s case that would be Kenny Rogers. In Rogers last start against the Twins he struck out 6 in 6 innings, but that game is remembered as the one where the Tigers scored 6 in the first and still lost.

On the Twins side it will be Kevin Slowey. Slowey has 60 K’s against only 11 walks. Like most Twins pitchers he’s a strike throwing machine. In fact, he’s gone to a 3 ball count in only 39 of 311 plate appearances this year. Lefties hit him considerably better so I’d anticipate the all left handed outfield this afternoon.

Given Slowey’s 1.04 WHIP the hope here is that Rogers keeps them in the game long enough to get into a bruised and battered Twins bullpen.

MIN @ DET, Thursday, July 10, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 1:05 (I have no idea why this is a day game)

POSTGAME: Some prognosticator I am. Keep it close against the starter and then beat up on the bullpen. Yeah. Not so much. This game blows for so many reasons. It’s the polar opposite of last night. One game starts out awful and ends up glorious. This one starts great and ends as a huge punch to the gut.

The story of this game comes down to a wicked combination of Not Good and Not Good Enough.

The offense managed 6 runs off a Twins starter which is a feat for them this year. But it proved not to be good enough. They managed to load the bases against Joe Nathan, but it wasn’t good enough.

Matt Joyce homered and doubled which was good. But he made a costly error and failed to lay down a bunt making his day not good enough.

Jeff Larish had 3 hits which is good. But he failed to drive in the winning run, or even put a bat on the ball meaning it wasn’t good enough.

Todd Jones was not good. Not even in the vicinity of good.

Freddy Dolsi went 2.1 innings, but he gave up the winning run to an unstoppable Justin Morneau. Not good enough.

Fernando Rodney got 3 weak ground outs. But it was after a moonshot double to that freakin Justin Morneau. Not good enough.

Marcus Thames went 3 for 4 before being yanked. He was actually good.

Granderson and Polanco each drove in a run, but combined to go 2 for 12. Not good enough.

Miguel Cabrera launched a shot to right field with runners on first and third, but it was caught at the wall. Not good enough.

Losses happen. It’s one of 162, but it certainly feels like more. The Tigers struggle to score runs against the Twins starters, and yet they managed 6. And they combined it with a volatile, yet in the end effective starting performance. This game was theirs. It was one for the win column. But they let it get away.

Scranton 1 Toledo 2
Timo Perez homered again and Mike Hessman tripled and singled. Brandon Inge was 0 for 4 with 2 K’s. Virgil Vasquez went 7.1 innings fanning 5 and walking none in allowing 1 run. Francisco Cruceta went 1.2 innings with 2 K’s and no baserunners.

Erie 6 Reading 1
Wil Rhymes and Wilkin Ramirez each had two hits. Dusty Ryan who will participate in the EL All Star Home Run Derby went deep for the 14th time and walked twice. Juan Cedeno pitched 4.2 shut out innings.

Lakeland 5 Brevard County 1
Cale Iorg went 3 for 5. Brennan Boesch had 2 hits and 3 RBI. Guillermo Moscoso allowed 1 unearned run in 5 innings while fanning 9 and walking 2.

Clinton 3 West Michigan 5
Ronnie Bourquin doubled and walked. Jon Kibler was strong with 7 K’s, 2 walks, 4 hits, and only 1 run in 8 innings.

Oneonta 5 Staten Island 4
Ben Guez and Brandon Douglas each went 2 for 4 with an RBI. Matt Hoffman went 4 shut out innings on 3 strikeouts, 1 walk, and 3 hits.

GCL Indians 5 GCL Tigers 1
Brett Anderson was 2 for 3. Darlin Duran allowed 4 hits in just 3.1 innings. Cory Satterwhite allowed 2 hits, but also fanned 2 in 1 inning of work.

GCL Tigers 11 GCL Indians 9
Josh Workman was 4 for 5 with a triple and a walk. Alexis Espinoza singled, doubled, and walked. Brayan Villareal allowed 4 runs in 4 innings. Richard Zumaya struggled allowing 4 hits and a walk and 2 runs crossed the plate in .2 innings.

PREGAME: Eddie Bonine tries to rebound tonight as he takes on Paul Byrd.

Byrd has given up at least 4 runs in 6 of his last 7 starts. The one start he didn’t you ask? When he held the Tigers to 2 runs in 7 innings sending them to a season low 12 games below .500. Jim Leyland, looking to avoid a similar fate sends out this gauntlet of a lineup:

1. Granderson, CF
2. Thomas, LF
3. Guillen, 3B
4. Cabrera, 1B
5. Joyce, RF
6. Sheffield, DH
7. Renteria, SS
8. Santiago, 2B
9. Sardinha, C

Byrd has allowed 23 homers, so it probably makes sense to keep the team leader in homers on the bench.
CLE @ DET, Wednesday, July 9, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: There was a time in my life that I despised Rafael Betancourt. Partly I hated him because he dominated the Tigers. But I thought I hated him because he worked sooo slow. After seeing the Tigers beat him up a couple times, I think it was the former that fueled my hate. I didn’t even notice him working slow tonight.

This game was downright ugly for the first 5 and a half innings. Bonine wasn’t good. The defense wasn’t good. Clete Thomas fought the sun and lost on a first inning fly ball and Carlos Guillen made a run costing error in the sixth. Meanwhile the offense couldn’t do more than tring 2 singles together at a time. So coming back from a 6-0 deficit didn’t really seem likely – especially with a less than primetime line-up.

But comeback they did.

• What was the biggest hit? Guillen’s bases loaded double? Matt Joyce’s 2 strike homer? Miguel Cabrera’s walk-off? Does it matter?
• Casey Fossum went 3.1 eventful innings. He loaded the bases with nobody out before fanning the side. In the end he finished with 5 K’s and kept the team in the game before handing it over to Joel Zumaya and Todd Jones.
• Todd Jones needs to be buying dinner for Carlos Guillen tonight who turned 2 slick plays, one kept the Indians off the board.
• Walk-offs and big comebacks are fun when your team does the coming back and walking off
• FSN does a nice job with their postgame show. But one item was severely lacking tonight. When Matt Joyce was interviewed on the field there was no mention of the kitten. How does this happen?

PREGAME: I’m not big on advocating games as must-win. The term is way overused and it’s something I’ve heard thrown around at least a dozen times already this season for the Tigers. So I won’t call this a must-win. Instead I’ll call it “they better freakin’ win.” It’s not that the game holds that many ramifications. But the Tigers send out their ace against a replacement starter. A replacement starter with a 7.53 ERA and half as many homers as strikeouts. It’s time for the Tigers lineup to wake up.

Jeremy Sowers takes the mound for the Indians. The last 2 times he faced Detroit he went 4 innings and allowed 5 runs on 7 hits. I’d take that again. If you look at his splits, they are all bad except for when the hitter is down 0-2. So Tigers hitters, don’t do that.

Justin Verlander, who was moved up a spot with the off day allowing him to make 2 starts on the homestand, will look to be more efficient. He’s been racking up strikeouts, but racking up walks as well with 12 in his last 17 innings.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Prior to tonight’s game Placido Polanco will become a US citizen. So we’ll have to remember this day to check his splits by citizenship.

CLE @ DET, Tuesday, July 8, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: Well 9-2 will certainly do. I have to admit I was worried at the outset. Verlander needed 25 pitches to get through a 2 run first inning, while it took the Tigers 9 batters before they hit a ball hard. But then it all got better.

The Tigers remembered they were facing Jeremy Sowers. Justin Verlander remembered he was a stud and the rest was gravy.

• Very happy to see Verlander have a light workload with only 99 pitches. He’d been piling up the pitch counts as of late.
• Miguel Cabrera seems to be hitting better with the bad hip flexor with a 4 hit night including a couple of sore leg friendly homers.
• Marcus Thames stopped the sucking with a double and a opposite field homer yet he still isn’t allowed to finish a game.
• And Edgar Renteria reached on an error. He seemed to like his time on base because he ripped a solid single to center his next time up snapping an “awful for his last lot of at-bats” funk.
• Aquilino Lopez looked good. Real good.

PREGAME:: Nate Robertson and Ryan Rowland-Smith. Rowland-Smith has 2 last names. That’s enough motivation to want and beat him right there.

DET @ SEA, Sunday, July 6, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 4:10

POSTGAME: Well, I’m back from my weekend escape. It was nice to stay offline, even though I did see most of the baseball this weekend. And today there was a lot of baseball to see with a 15 inning event.

Nate Robertson was awesome today. Some jumpy Seattle hitters put the ball in play early and Robertson went 9 innings only allowing 4 hits, 2 of which were infield singles. He “pitched to contact” with great results and the only 2 walks allowed were intentional.

The bullpen was also impressive with Joel Zumaya, Freddy Dolsi, and Aquilino Lopez preceding Todd Jones. The group through 5 scoreless innings.

As for the Tigers offense. Eh. Marcus Thames and Edgar Renteria struggled mightily. And Pudge Rodriguez put together 4 hits, but none were of the rocket variety. Two bloops, a grounder through the middle and a groundball that hit first base and changed direction.

The offense did one thing right and they were quite selective. They drew 9 walks throughout the day and ran up pitch counts. Rowland-Smith was done after 5 innings and 87 pitches. His replacement lasted only an inning throwing 38 pitches. Corcoran got through 2 innings on 21 pitches, but Batista and Green followed with 20 pitch innings before giving way to Jimenez who pitched 4 easy shutout innings.

Basically the Tigers won this one on attrition when the Mariners turned to Jamie Burke, the back-up catcher who featured an arsenal of 84mph fastballs around the plate. Cabrera torched one for a double. But the Tigers didn’t rock him. A wild pitch and a sac fly were the all the damage they could muster against what was essentially a BP pitcher.

The Tigers needed to notch one for the left hand column, which they did. And while a loss would have been pretty crippling, the win doesn’t feel that great either. But the red-eye flight home will be a little more pleasant.

PREGAME: Armando Galarraga, nominee for June Rookie of the Month honors (you can vote and stuff), takes on R.A. Dickey.

Dickey has spent time in the pen and rotation this year with this being his 6th start of 14 appearances. Righties have a 851 OPS against him but lefties are only tagging him at a 593. As a starter he’s being lit up at a .839 rate.

Galarraga is coming off a very rough start with little defensive support (3 errors, coulda been more). This will be his first outing against Seattle.

DET @ SEA, Saturday, July 5th, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 10:10 – the last one of these for the season

PREGAME: Happy 4th of July everyone. I’m going to unplug for a day or. It’s been about a year and a half since I went a day without checking email and working on the blog. With traffic usually quiet around here on holidays I thought that this would be a nice time.

As for today’s game it will be Kenny Rogers and Erik Bedard. It was just a matter of time until the Tigers got Bedard. He’s been good this year, but not like in he has been in the past. He’s only striking out 7.8/9 innings which is a far cry from the 221 K’s in 182 innings he posted last year. But he’s only allowed 4 runs over his last 4 starts and only 1 homer in his last 7.

Rogers hasn’t fared well against the Mariners. He’s faced them once a year while with Detroit and he’s allowed 14 runs in his 17.1 innings with 8 walks, 3 homers, and 3 K’s.

DET @ SEA, Friday, July 4, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 4:10

PREGAME: Losing streaks aren’t any fun. So let’s keep this one to just two games okay? The Tigers face Carlos Silva which has been good for Detroit this year with the 4.2 innings in his 2 starts and 14 runs.

The Tigers send out Justin Verlander who has been a)striking out more people as of late, b)walking quite a few, and c)racking up big pitch counts. Verlander threw 118 and 115 pitches in his last 2 starts and didn’t make it through the 6th in either. In fact Verlander has broken the 110 pitch mark in 5 of his last 7 starts.

Miguel Cabrera is back in the lineup, but Marcus Thames sits in favor of one of Matt Joyce or Clete Thomas. I’m not a fan of Joyce hitting between Cabrera and Sheffield and I’m not a fan of Thames sitting. But the Tigers actually have more lefties than righties in the lineup tonight.

1. Granderson, CF
2. Polanco, 2B
3. Guillen, 3B
4. Cabrera, 1B
5. Joyce, RF
6. Sheffield, DH
7. Thomas, LF
8. Rodriguez, C
9. Hollimon, SS

DET @ SEA, Thursday, July 3, 2008 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 10:10

POSTGAME: This one didn’t start out so pretty. Carlos Silva got outs. Justin Verlander needed 25 pitches in the first inning. But things worked themselves out as the night wore on.

The Tigers started hitting line drives off of Carlos Silva and strung enough of them together to score in 4 consecutive innings starting in the 3rd. Justin Verlander continued to struggle with his command, but somehow made it through 6 innings and he kept the Mariners off the board.

• Some dumb blogger complained about Matt Joyce and his position in the lineup. Of course Joyce gets player of the game honors with 2 doubles and 2 singles.
• Mike Hollimon gets his first homer and first on field post-game interview and there’s no shaving cream treatment? Disappointing. This team has no chemistry (I’m kidding).
• I’m a little worried about Justin Verlander’s workload this year. He’s averaging the most pitches per game in the bigs. I don’t feel he’s been abused, but there is talk of moving Verlander up with the off day next week. An extra day of rest might not hurt. This is 3 consecutive games where he hasn’t had real good command. I don’t know if there is a fatigue issue, but it is something to consider.
• Todd Jones=not good tonight. What was supposed to be an inning of work turned into 24 pitches of hell.
• Joel Zumaya=good tonight. A couple of hits, but both were weak. Thirteen pitches and nine for strikes. Can’t complain about that.
• Very nice defense by Clete Thomas. A couple nice catches and an outfield assist.