PREGAME: The Tigers will turn to Andrew Miller to try and turn the starting rotation around. Miller will try to get past the 5th inning which is something he hasn’t done in his last 3 starts.

The Angels will send out a young pitcher of their own in Joe Saunders. Saunders just rejoined the rotation last week and shut down the Twins to the tune of 2 runs on 6 hits in 7 innings of work. He’s made 6 starts this year and has a 2.89 ERA despite not striking out many (only 19 in 37 1/3 innings). His strength his keeping the ball in the park with only 2 homers allowed. Left handed hitters only have 32 PA’s but have a meager 194/219/226 line. We’ll see if Leyland goes with his regulars or the Toledo crew for the National TV tilt.

Game Time 3:55

DET @ LAA, Saturday, July 28, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

PREGAME: Back to the left coast, and in search of some sort of groove. The Tigers have been playing pretty uneven since sweeping the Twins. Tonight they’ll take on a team that is in first place despite being in a little bit of a funk. Remind you of another team?

The Tigers will be up against Jered Weaver who they rocked earlier in the year chasing him in the 2nd inning. It was one of only 2 starts this year where he’s surrendered more than 4 earned runs.

The Tigers will send out Nate Robertson. Robertson was knocked around for 11 hits and survived 6 innings allowing 4 earned runs his last time out. Surprisingly this is his first career start against the Angels.

The Tigers will run out the regular lineup which means Sheffield is back batting 3rd. It also means that Craig Monroe is playing left field.

Game Time 10:05
DET @ LAA, Friday, July 27, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

PREGAME: Finally the series that wouldn’t end reaches the rubber game. It’s Justin Verlander and John Danks. No Carlos Guillen or Gary Sheffield so Magglio will be lonely in the middle of the lineup.

Game Time 2:05

POSTGAME: I’m usually bummed with get-away day games because I’m at work and the best case scenario is I can listen. I think I was lucky to miss the bulk of this game, and while they are replaying it as I write this I really have no desire to watch it. And yes the bullpen blew it. And they didn’t even really give the White Sox a chance to beat them. They just kind of handed it to them by their inability to throw strikes. Yes, it really really sucks. That’s all I have.

PREGAME: Kenny Rogers and Jose Contreras. Here’s hoping for better than yesterday.

UPDATE: Sheffield is out with a sore shoulder, and he may miss tomorrow also.

Game Time 8:11pm

DET @ CHW, Wednesday, July 25, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Great bounce back win. Going to bed real quick here but first:

• Kenny was awful. Even as the team kept coming back the ball kept leaving the yard.
• Ryan Raburn drove in as many as Kenny let in. So he was anti-awful.
• Great outing for Byrdak as well with 2 perfect innings.
• Bullpen picked up 15 outs and only allowed 2 runs. Nice job.
• That was a lot of offense with 1/3 of the regular lineup out.

PREGAME Ah, the day night double header. In the first game it will be Jeremy Bonderman taking on Javier Vazquez. Once upon a time there was a rumor that the Tigers had a deal worked out for Vazquez where they sent Joel Zumaya and Curtis Granderson to the Diamondbacks. Glad that didn’t work out.

But Vazquez has been pretty good this year with a 3.73 ERA. He’s fanning nearly a batter an inning and has a 4:1 K:BB ratio. He can be taken deep though with 17 homers allowed, and it isn’t just a product of playing in the Cell because he allows long balls at the same rate on the road.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Bonderman will be looking for his 6th straight quality start. He allowed 10 base runners in 6 2/3 innings his last time out, but limited the damage to 3 runs thanks in part to 6 strikeouts.

Game Time 2:05

DET @ CHW, Tuesday, July 24, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

PREGAME: The Tigers head to Chicago for a 5, yes 5 game series. The extra game is the result of a rain out that oddly didn’t produce any rain. Hmmm. Now the White Sox find themselves with a 3 game losing streak and tied for 4th or last place (depending on your point of view) in the division.

In any case, tonight it is a battle of left handers. One who is just beginning his career, and one just got a big payday.

Andrew Miller takes the bump for the Tigers. Pitch efficiency will be an objective tonight with Miller racking up pitch counts in the high 90’s through just 5 innings in 3 of his last 4 starts.

On the other side will be Mark Buerhle. He can be that model of efficiency for Miller. In 6 of his last 7 starts Buerhle went at least 7 innings and completed 8 innings in 3 of them. His last time out he allowed 10 hits to the Indians, but limited the damage to just 1 run. He hasn’t allowed more than 2 earned runs in a game since June 5th.

Mike Hessman jumps right into the lineup and will bat 8th. Curtis Granderson gets a rare start against a tough left hander and will be in his familiar spot on top the order. The rest of the usual suspects are in the lineup.

Game Time 8:11

DET @ CHW, Monday, July 23, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: This game had some of everything, in fact too much of somethings. Those 5th and 6th innings were excruciating to say the least. Andrew Miller once again racked up a huge pitch count early on and relied on his bullpen to get 12 outs. With the 7 K’s you can see good he can be, and with the 5 walks and back to back pitches to the backstop you can see he still has some work to do.

Jason Grilli turned in an awful inning with 2 walks and a 2 strike HBP to score the go ahead run. And then he comes out in the 7th and gets the first 1-2-3 inning of the night for the Tigers.

McBride, Seay, and Miner kept the game in check until they handed the ball to Todd Jones. Jones turned in a 1-2-3 inning, as if we’d expect anything else. Right?

• Reaching bases all 5 times makes for a nice boost to the OBP. A homer and a double make for a nice boost to the slugging percentage. And with the bulk of the damage coming off of a left hander, Curtis Granderson was easily player of the game.
• It’s not often teams knock around Buehrle like the Tigers did tonight, so it was important to come out on top.
• The Tigers offense was exactly explosive tonight, but they put the ball in play and it really seemed to work out. The Tigers blooped and snorted their way to 9 runs.
• Of course the White Sox had some luck as 2 choppers turned into hits in the 4th and another roller was to slow to turn a double play on.
• Here’s hoping Bonderman can put up 7 or 8 innings in the matinee tomorrow to keep the pen from being too taxed on a doubleheader.

PREGAME: And the homestand is over today. For the Tigers it will be Nate Robertson who is coming off of his best start of the season in Minnesota. He’ll take on Brian Bannister.

Bannister has been the mark of consistency going at least 5 innings in his last 11 starts, and allowing 4 runs or less in 10 of them. His biggest asset is keeping the ball in the park with only 7 homers allowed on the season – and 3 of those came in his last start.

Game time 1:05

POSTSERIES: Seeing as I missed wrapping last night’s game (a little up North time) I figured I just knock out the series here. In all, blah. But not at all unexpected. I just had the feeling that the Tigers were pretty burnt after the Twins series. I don’t mean to imply they played tired or without effort. That’s pretty hard to judge on TV regardless and any effort without a lot of offense can give that impression.

Plus, the Royals are playing really good baseball right now as they cleaned up on the road in Cleveland, Boston, and now Detroit. The Tigers were just out played, plain and simple.

• As for Todd Jones, I read the ire in the comments. Early in the year Jones was getting hit hard with regularity, and/or he was walking people. That wasn’t the case Saturday night. He was mostly ahead in the count and was inducing weak contact. The weak contact found holes, and so did some decent contact. It had nothing to do with the size of the lead. Jones isn’t a strikeout pitcher, and that’s what happens when you don’t have strikeout pitchers.
• Craig Monroe looks to be getting back on track. He had 3 big hits the last 2 days, but still left quite a few on base with pop outs or strike outs. Still, production is better than non-production. And I was happy to see him start today over Timo Perez.
• I thoguht the Tigers would get to Bannister today when the first 3 hitters all reached full counts. At the very least I thought they might get him out of the game. And even after a 7 pitch 2nd inning, the first trip through involved 5 full counts. But that was about it, and when you measure offensive production in terms of full counts you can tell it was a slow day.
• Brandon Inge had been on quite the roll with highlight plays at the corner, but had a miscue on Saturday night (not coming home on a slow roller) as well as throwing a bunt away today. But he redeemed himself on one account with the walk off homer.
• I admittedly only saw parts of today’s game, but whenever I’d come back into the room it seemed that the Royals had a man on third base. Nate was pitching in stressful situations all day today.

Now back to Harry Potter…

PREGAME: In the retro uni’s tonight will be Justin Verlander taking on Jorge de la Rosa.

I was looking at de la Rosa’s game logs trying to get a feel for tendencies, and I really have no idea what to expect. He has decent control except when he doesn’t, and he strikes out a decent amount except when he doesn’t. What I do see on his splits page is that right handers have a 893 OPS against versus a .687 mark for lefties. And right handers account for 15 of the 16 homers he’s allowed. So I’m guessing/hoping that either Ryan Raburn or Craig Monroe have left field duties tonight.

Justin Verlander hasn’t been quite the unhittable pitcher we saw in June, but has still pitched through the 7th in his last 2 starts while fanning 13 and walking only 1.

Game time 7:05pm

KCR @ DET, Saturday, July 21, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

PREGAME: The Tigers have come home, for a whole weekend no less. And sure the Tigers are taking on the last place team in the division, but this will be no easy task.

Now I realize I run the risk of sounding Lou Holtz-ish here, but Kansas City has been playing some inspired ball. Over their last 17 games they are 10-7. They also have allowed a division best 3.76 runs per game over that stretch. This isn’t the same Kansas City team that we’ve seen the last couple years – or at least they’re not playing like it.

Tonight they send out their ace Gil Meche. Meche has a 3.69 ERA for the year and the last time he faced the Tigers he allowed only 3 unearned runs in 8 innings. But he’s been in a bit of a funk in his last 2 starts where he didn’t make it past the 6th inning either time and surrendered 4 runs in one game and 6 in the other.

Meche actually has fared a little better against righties this year with a 739OPS against righties and 725 versus lefties. Curtis Granderson has cited him as one of the toughest pitchers for him to face. And Jim Leyland will go with Timo Perez again in left field.

Don’t be surprised to see the Tigers swinging early in the count. When the first pitch is put in play against Meche, hitters are posting a 1.272 OPS with 6 homers.

The Tigers send out Kenny Rogers. Rogers struggled with a tight zone in his last start and ended up walking 4 and not striking out any before surrendering a grand slam.

Game Time 7:05pm

KCR @ DET, Friday, July 20, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Bad pitching, bad fielding, bad hitting. That about covers it. There’s really not a whole lot else to say. Brandon Inge made a sweet barehanded play, Magglio Ordonez picked up another RBI ripping a ball between third and short, and Gary Sheffield homered. That’s about it for noteworthy performances.

Retro uni’s tomorrow night and that has to bode well right?

PREGAME: A Metrodome sweep would be sweet for the good guys, but the series has been a success already.

Today will be Jeremy Bonderman matching up with Scott Baker. It’s actually a rematch of the Sunday night 1-0 game. The difference maker in that game was of course the Marcus Thames homer. Unfortunately Thames won’t be available today, or any time over the next 15 days as he hit the DL after blowing his hammy. Timo Perez is your newest Perez on the roster.

Perez’s last productive season was 2002. He has been raking for Toledo, but we’ll see how that translates. Hopefully this is a short term stop gap.

Game Time 1:10

DET @ MIN, Thursday, July 19, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: I’m writing this blind. I was at work and didn’t see the game, but I did hear parts on the radio, and saw part of the replay, and of course read all the commentary here. So take all this with a grain of salt.

• The Timo Perez era begins, and it was a rocky start. Twice he came up with runners on 1st and 2nd, and twice he failed. But his second turn was a decent at-bat with a line drive to second. He later singled and walked so it wasn’t a bad debut. Given his Major League numbers I’m still very skeptical, but if he can carry the stick he was swinging in Toledo for a couple weeks it might work out.
• Pretty impressive to scratch a run across against Joe Nathan, even if it was in his 2nd inning of work.
• The bullpen came up big again today. They’ve had narrow margins to work with as of late, and they’ve made it stand up. Including and especially Todd Jones who had to face the middle of the order with a 1 run lead each of the last 2 nights.
• Bonderman seemed pretty good today, until he started to falter that 3rd time through the lineup. Given that the bottom half of the Twins lineup was hardly intimidating today, I’d say it was a pretty average outing for Bondo.
• These 3 games were exhausting as a fan so I’m sure the players are feeling it as well. But it should be a happy flight home. Here’s hoping that there’s no let up once they are home and taking on the Royals. Gil Meche is a good pitcher, even if he is overpaid.

PREGAME: Do the Tigers have a third straight 1-0 win in them? Probably not, but getting more than 1 run would be a feat against Johan Santana. It’s the second half of the season, and that’s when Santana is at his best. Over his career Santana allows a .583 OPS in the 2nd half of the season.

Detroit has faced Santana 3 times this year, and they’ve handed him a loss, a win, and a no decision. They have taken him deep 4 times in those 3 games, but that’s about the only chink.

The Tigers will send out a lefty of their own in rookie Andrew Miller. Miller was doing pretty well in his last outing until a single and a couple walks loaded the bases and set up the remarkable weirdness that involved Guillen and Beltre and Froemming oh my. This will be his 2nd start against Minnesota. In the first, he didn’t pitch that bad, but 6 of the 8 baserunners he allowed ended up scoring.

Granderson is 0 for his career against Santana so Ryan Raburn will lead off and play centerfield tonight as part of an all righty lineup.

DET @ MIN, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

Game Time 8:10pm

POSTGAME: Another battle with the Twins, and another compelling game. I won’t say a great game because if you’re a Twins fan this had to be a real tough loss. The Twins put pressure on the Tigers with a baserunner (or more) in every inning, yet could only muster 2 runs. And one of those runs was when Miller plunked in a run. Plus they had their ace, pitching very ace like, and couldn’t turn it into a win.

But, for Tigers fans it’s a great win where the bullpen held up and Magglio Ordonez appears to have returned to form. We’ve fretted a little over the last couple weeks about Maggs not driving the ball. Twice tonight he hammered balls to left center and that’s where he’s at his best. Although I think Maggs would be happy to share RBI duties with the rest of the lineup.

• Twelve tenuous outs and only 1 run. In the end the pen got the job done again.
• The Tigers lost both left fielders tonight. I’m not sure of Craig Monroe’s ailment, but Thames did something to his left hamstring when he made a spectacular catch in the 8th inning. I’m guessing Ryan Raburn starts and if the DL is involved we’ll see Timo Perez. I’m sure Leyland was going to look to give either Maggs or Guillen or Polanco or some combination the day off tomorrow, but they may be short handed.
• Speaking of the catch, it was incredible, but thank goodness he made it. If he doesn’t get it we’re looking at a tie game.
• Carlos Guillen’s 15 pitch at-bat was pretty incredible. Plate appearances that long are rare to begin with, but I wonder how often Santana has ever had to work that hard for an out. That was an innings worth of pitches.
• A decent outing for Andrew Miller. He looked good at times, but struggled with control other times (4 walks and a HBP).

UPDATE: In Leyland’s post game presser he said that Marcus Thames “is not good.” If Thames hits the DL, it very well may be Chris Shelton who comes up. If Monroe isn’t hurt, then the outfield is covered, but there is no back up first baseman (although Rayburn could probably do that as well).

PREGAME: The Tigers return to almost normal start times as they escape the West Coast, at least for a little while. They’ll take on a Twins team that has won all 4 games since the break and Matt Garza who hasn’t allowed a run in his first 8 innings of the year. This will be his second start of the season, and second career start against the Tigers.

In his start last year against the Tigers, he allowed 4 runs on 5 hits, 4 walks, and 6 K’s in 4 1/3 innings. The Tigers lost though and Wil Ledezma literally ate his hat.

The Tigers will send out lefty Nate Robertson. Not sure what we’ll get as Nate has been very good at times, very bad at times, and everywhere in between.

Game Time 8:10pm

POSTGAME:Tonight was as good as Nate Robertson has been all season. He had great command, and made a number of very good strike two pitches that were called balls. I’m not saying he was squeezed, but the zone seemed to be pretty tight for both teams.

This game reminded me quite a bit of the games against the Twins in the second half of last season. Games that came down to the very end, games that were a matter of attrition. Games where afterwards I’d receive emails, or send emails to Twins bloggers that were simply a tip of the cap to the other team after a great game. This time the Tigers took advantage of a Twins misplay on a night where the margin of error was zero.

• Curtis Granderson started to build another case for AL Player of the Week by reaching base all 4 times up on a night when offense was stymied.
• Magglio Ordonez pulled a pitch for a hit. For awhile it seemed like he was trying so hard to not do too much with the bat, that he ended up doing too little. With the homer on Sunday, and the ground ball through the hole today, here’s hoping the stroke is back.
• I was only half paying attention to Leyland’s post game presser on FSN, but I could have sworn I heard him say that Granderson “eats right.” I don’t know what this has to do with anything but I found it hilarious.
• Also on the FSN postgame they interviewed Sparky Anderson. I know he frustrated many as a manager, but the guy is captivating. I had the opportunity to meet him at a press event last year and he was one of the most engaging people I’ve ever met. I can’t really explain it, he’s just a neat dude. By the way, he picked the Tigers to win the World Series and gave Mike Illitch credit for spending to get the guys they needed. Here’s hoping that the Tigers right a wrong and get his name on the wall.
• Todd Jones made it look easy tonight. He gets hammered when stuff goes bad, he deserves credit when they go well.

Tigers 1 Twins 0