PREGAME: The Tigers enter the final leg of a 10 game road trip by journeying to Arlington. When I was a kid it seemed that Channel 4 always televised the Texas series, so when ever the Tigers head down to take on the Rangers I always think of George Kell drawling out “and the Tigers’ll be in ARlington on Tooosday night.” I miss Kell.

Anyways, things are getting back to normal for the Tigers. Carlos Guillen and Brandon Inge return to the lineup tonight and Fernando Rodney was officially activated from the DL. The Pudge-as-leadoff-hitter experiment seems to be over because for the 2nd straight game, Omar Infante it atop the lineup against a southpaw.

The southpaw in question is John Rheinecker who is fresh off a AAA rehab stint as well as the 60 day DL. He’s a late substitution for Vincente Padilla. Rheinecker split time in the rotation and pen for the Rangers last year accruing 70 2/3 innings. He allowed 6 homers, 104 hits, 19 walks and 28 strikeouts. So people will put the ball in play against him.

The Tigers counter with Nate Robertson who is still trying to right the ship. Robertson hasn’t made it through the 6th innings since May 2nd. His biggest problem as of late is walks with 10 over his last 3 starts, and only 8 K’s.

Game Time 8:35

PREGAME: With that pesky first win out of the way, the Tigers can now focus on splitting the 4 game set. It will be a matchup of Jeremy’s with Bonderman taking on Sowers.

Bonderman returned strong from the disabled list with 2 solid starts against the Angels and Rays.

Jeremy Sowers had a rough start to his season, but actually turned in a couple decent performances his last time out. He still has more walks than strikeouts on the season though. He’s had more success at home this year with a 4.74 ERA at Jacobs Field and a 7.13 ERA everywhere else.

Game Time 1:05pm

POSTGAME: Sorry for being so quiet this weekend. I was out late watching the Pistons and Tigers Saturday night, and up early to head to Cleveland for Sunday’s game. I’ll have more on my trip and thoughts on the state of team tomorrow night.

For now I’ll just say that things feel a lot better today than they did 48 hours ago.

PREGAME: The Tigers enter the 2nd third of the season still looking for their first win against the Indians. Given the crappiness of the last week, it is still pretty surprising that the Tigers are on pace to win 90 games which is about what I expected. Plus they are still the wild card team. And they’ve done it with a number of injuries. As dark as the last week has been, the season is far from over.

As for tonight’s game, it will be Chad Durbin taking on Cliff Lee. Lee has been quite hittable this year, and has only lasted past the 6th inning one time this year.

Craig Monroe is out tonight with Marcus Thames playing left. Pudge Rodriguez returns to the lineup and Brandon Inge and Carlos Guillen are still out.

Game Time 7:05

PREGAME: The Tigers are looking for some way, some how to get their first W against the Tribe. Tonight it will be a rematch of Mike Maroth and Fausto Carmona.

Maroth was touched for a 4 run first inning, but then only allowed 6 more baserunners and managed to stick around for 8 innings.

Against Carmona the Tigers picked up 11 baserunners but could only push across 3 runs.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: So it only took 24 hours to find a new most frustrating game. On a night when a third of your lineup is occupied by bench players, and your offense musters 11 runs against a good pitching staff, and you have a 4 run lead in the 9th, a loss is simply inexcusable. There’s that old axiom of “win and lose as a team” but that simply doesn’t hold true tonight. You can pin this one on two people.

First of all Todd Jones. Jones was awful and there is no getting around it. I’m not upset about the first run in the 8th inning. That was a scratch hit and the second run came on an error. But the 9th inning was despicable. At the same time, he was put in a position to fail and I have to place as much blame on the shoulders of Jim Leyland.

It was easy to see that Jones didn’t have it. He was walking guys which is the first red flag. With a low K-rate, Jones relies on his fielders making plays. He can’t afford the luxury of free passes. And yet Jim Leyland repeatedly refused to make a move. After the Martinez homer, the first long ball Jones had allowed on the season, it was time for someone to get up immediately. A conference at the mound would have been a nice stall tactic. Then after the Jhonny Perralta double another arm would have been warm enough to come in.

Instead Jones stayed in and managed to retire Ryan Garko, running his pitch count up to 36 in the process. Eric Wedge had already brought in his pinch hitters, so a lefty-lefty match-up was certainly in order. Instead the decision was inexplicably made to put the go ahead runner on base, and leave your closer who had already thrown 40 pitches in the game.

And when Jones failed to retire the right handed Josh Barfield and the game was tied, Leyland still stuck with Jones. Now 2 batters ago, Leyland thought that Jones wasn’t well suited to pitch to lefty Trot Nixon. Yet now with the game tied and a runner on 3rd Jones should be able to retire lefty Dave Dellucci? Of course Dellucci ended with a line drive up the middle.

Leyland should have lifted Jones after the Perralta double. He should have lifted him and brought in Bobby Seay who was warm to face Trot Nixon instead of walking him. And he should have lifted Jones and brought in Seay to face Dellucci after the Barfield single. He had ample opportunities to do something, and he didn’t make a move.

If you’ve read this blog for awhile, you know that I hate to assign losses to managers. Most of the time I can at least understand decisions even if I don’t agree with them. And there is no guaranteeing the result regardless. However tonight Leyland blew this game as much, if not more, than Jones did. I don’t know how Seay would have fared, but it would have given the team a better chance to win. I waited to write this until after the post game presser, but the portion shown on FSN involved no questions as to why Jones was allowed to completely give that game away.

I’ve often disagreed with Leyland’s tactical decisions. But even though I can’t quantify it, I felt that his greatest strength last year was in managing the clubhouse and getting guys to believe. I just wonder how he addresses a team tomorrow that scored 11 runs only to not have it be enough, or a closer who he hung out to dry.

PREGAME: C.C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander will have a rematch from last Saturday’s Tigers loss. It’s the first of a 4 game series that is kinda important.

The Tigers had some chances against Sabathia, but couldn’t cash enough in.

The Tigers roster is one or two injuries away from being held together by duct tape so a split would be pretty cool.

Mostly I’d just like the Tigers to pick up a win here so we don’t hear about the Indians owning the Tigers.

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: There have been some frustrating losses this year, but this one might just trump them all. Maybe it is the freshness. Maybe it is the culmination of recent struggles. I don’t know, but I actually had to turn the game off for an hour or so. Which was really ashame because for the first 4 innings it was actually a very good game.

Sabathia was actually hittable tonight, and the Tigers even with a depleted lineup were actually able to take advantage of it. But Justin Verlander struggled with control and Jose Mesa made damn sure that the team had absolutely no shot.

While I still think it was a cheap ejection for Sheffield, he wasn’t smart. Not when the bench consists of exactly 2 players. And spazzing when your geriatric manager is trying to hold you back – just not cool.

I’ve got nothing else to say tonight. Yeah there were bright spots like Marcus Thames making the most of “regular” playing time and picking up a couple hits – one of which to the opposite field with a runner on 3rd. And Curtis Granderson hit the ball well repeatedly against lefties and layed down a sweet drag bunt. And Neifi Perez saved a run with a slick play at short. But in the mess that was the 2nd half of that game, it’s easy to either a) forget the good stuff or b) not even care.

PREGAME: The Tigers will try and take the series against the Rays. But to do so they’ll have to find success off a good pitcher. And it’s not Scott Kazimir. I know, it’s weird.

I must confess, I didn’t know anything about James Shields until I went to type this up. All his number look pretty good. He fans 7.8 per nine innings and walks only one fourth that many. He’s allowed only 59 hits in 74 1/3 innings. The only slight blemish is 9 homers which still isn’t bad. Plus he’s efficient, last through at least 7 innings in each of his last 7 starts. Who knew?

The Tigers will send out Nate Robertson who is getting torched lately. He’s allowed 37 hits over his last 4 starts spanning 20 1/3 innings and he’s walked 7 while fanning only 8. He thinks he’s figured out the problem which would be timely.

POSTGAME: Things looked so good when the Tigers picked up 2 hits on 2 swings and ultimately plated 3 runs in the first inning. But James Shields started doing what he’s been doing all season and shut down a pretty good offense.

• This is the first game in a while that offense was really shut down. Sure they’ve had some low run totals, but in the other games they were still hitting balls hard and getting baserunners. Tonight it was one inning of offense and 8 innings of nothing. And aside from Granderson’s triple and Thames single those were the only hard hit balls. Even in the rally they were turf hits.
• And Shields was efficient enough that he could stick around the whole game. You’d like to see the hitters run up the pitch count, but he was throwing strikes. They just couldn’t manage solid contact.
• Nate Robertson started off great. He was getting swings and misses and not a lot of solid contact. But then the pitch counts started running up and the baserunners started to accumulate. And again he couldn’t get out of the 6th inning.
• Plus he allowed 2 more homers bringing his total to 5 in the last 2 games.
• A couple of the runs came across as the result of miscues. The first was when Marcus Thames misplayed a grounder in the hole. Thames looked simply devastated on the bench after a wild pitch and a double scored the first run. Without the misplay Nate gives up 2 less hits, throws fewer pitches, and saves a run.
• The other run Nate got himself into with a wild pickoff throw that there was nothing Thames could do about that allowed the runner to advance to 3rd.
• Magglio’s hit streak came to an end. It’s also the first game in a while where he didn’t have a hard hit ball. Ordonez still drew a walk, but never made solid contact. This includes fouling off a couple of hittable fastballs in his first at-bat. I’m not knocking him at all and it’s only one game. I just hope he’s not slowing down because he’s been amazing to watch. Plus if Guillen is out, Ordonez probably won’t see as many good pitches.

Game Time 7:10pm

PREGAME: Minimalist post this time. Family obligations have kept me from writing the past few days. Today is me and Mrs. Billfer’s anniversary, so I won’t be witnessing the game, commenting on it, or writing about it after the fact. Probably not minor league wrap tonight either. Sorry bout that, but on occasion things trump the Tigers.

In any case, it’s Jeremy Bonderman and Casey Fossum as the Tigers try to stem a 4 game losing skid.

Game Time 7:10

Toledo 0 Scranton 2
Some guy named Roger Clemens started this one and held the offense to 2 hits. The Hens only amassed 3 total. Cory Hamman started and allowed only 1 run on 6 hits over 6 innings

Erie 5 Akron 4
Kody Kirkland homered and added a single. Erick Almonte also had 2 hits. Dallas Trahern started and allowed 4 runs on 7 hits over 6 1/3 innings. He induced 12 ground outs against only 3 flyballs.

Lakeland – DNP

Fort Wayne 5 West Michigan 11
Brennan Boesch and Scott Sizemore each picked up 4 hits and Gorkys Hernandez added 3. Duane Below needed all the help he could get giving up 5 runs on 6 hits, including 2 homers, in 5 1/3 innings.

Minors News

Matt is now a member of the working media. Way to go Matt!

PREGAME: The Tigers head to Tampa to try and heal from a home sweep at the hands of the Indians. The Devil Rays have a history of helping teams heal, however they aren’t the pushover they once were, at least offensively where they rank in the middle of the AL in runs scored. However, they walk in the bottom third of the league and lead all teams in strikeouts so you can pitch to them.

Chad Durbin will be doing that pitching tonight for the Tigers. Durbin has done about what you can expect and hope for from a 5th starter. He’s giving the team 5 plus inning each time up and holding the opponents to 3 or fewer runs.

The Tigers will be opposed by Edwin Jackson. Jackson posts a very solid 7.5 K/9 rate. And that’s the only positive. He’s walked 23 in 37 innings and allowed 48 hits. Of course the Tigers have had their share of struggles with struggling pitchers at times this year. Here’s hoping this isn’t one of those times.

Game Time 7:10pm

PREGAME: If you notice this is only game 49 and a loss would drop the Tigers to all of 2.5 games back of the league leading Indians. Clearly it’s not a must win situation, but it certainly is a nice to win situation. If only to keep from the impending overreactions if the Tigers are swept.

They’ll have their work cut out facing Fausto Carmona. After watching him in the closer role last year, who would have ever thought the previous sentence would be written. Still, Carmona comes in with a 2.73 ERA. Now that ERA is probably a little better than it should be with a K/9 of 3.25. But like his rotation mates Sabathia and Byrd he doesn’t walk many with only 15 in 55 1/3 innings pitched. Limiting the free passes and extra base hits (opponents are only slugging 380) keeps the runs down.

The Tigers will send out Mike Maroth and would love to see him get through 7 innings. The key will be to keep the ball in the park. Maroth has already been tagged for 10 round trippers, and Cleveland certainly has the offense to add to that total.

With Placido Polanco out, Craig Monroe will assume the #2 spot in the order and Omar Infante will man second base.

Game Time 8:09 on ESPN. Let’s see if Joe Morgan has learned the names of any other Tigers besides Gary Sheffield. I’m a little disappointed that Jason Verlander won’t be pitching tonight.

PREGAME: The Tigers are on pseudo national TV today. It’s one of Fox’s games of the week, but once again it is the 3rd game on the schedule. It’s really ashame when there are 2 very good teams and a very good pitching match-up with C.C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander going at it.

The weather has been sketchy today, so hopefully they can get it in.

Game Time 3:55pm

POSTGAME: Ugh. Not so much the final outcome, but the fact that the injury count for the day matched the runs on the board. I guess in some warped way it’s a good thing the Tigers didn’t score more. The rest of the day is just so much more frustrating than the final score in this one.

• There was really only one hard hit ball off of Verlander. However, he was working behind in the count and 4 walks and a hit batsman helped chase him an inning earlier than his counterpart Sabathia. The Tigers had a few more hard hit balls, but Sabathia didn’t issue the free passes and kept his pitch count low.
• Even still, Verlander comes back to start the 7th inning if Jhonny Peralta doesn’t poke that single over Guillen’s head. It extended the inning 2 more batters and pushed his pitch count from 96 to over 100.
• Not sure what the official scorer was thinking on the Omar Infante error/triple. Yes the ball was hit a long ways, but Infante got back in time and the ball hit him in the glove. That catch has to be made, and no way do you score that a hit when it was the first of the game.
• Nice game today by Marcus Thames. I can’t believe how far the broken bat homer went, and he added a sharp double as well.
• Not a nice game today by Infante. He looked horrible at the plate, and of course had the aforementioned drop in centerfield. Not really what you want to see when you hear that your starting second baseman has a strained oblique.
• And of course the bullpen. As nice as it would be to have Leyland leave his starters out there another inning, he can’t do it with the pitch counts they’ve been running up. A combination of Seay/Byrdak/Grilli in the 7-8 innings of close games could make for a long couple of weeks. I don’t fault any of those guys especially. It’s just not what anybody pictured for the pen.
• Of course Grilli might not be a part of that picture. After the homer he took a liner off the leg adding injury to insult. I know Grilli is a popular whipping boy, and I’ve even taken part to an extent. But things are getting very thin.

PREGAME: The Indians roll into town for the first time this season, but we’ll be pretty well acquainted 2 weeks from now. Seven of the Tigers next 10 are against the Indians.

The Indians and Tigers have of course been hanging tight on top of the Central for the last couple weeks.

Tonight the Tigers will take on Paul Byrd. Last year it was Byrd who pitched the game that inspired the Leyland tirade. The Tigers faced him twice more, once scoring 7 runs off of him (and still losing 12-7 when the Indians scored 7 in the first) and beating him 4-3 in the other game.

This year the story on Byrd is control. He’s walked 3 batters…the whole season. His last walk was April 26th against Texas. Because of the low walk rate, and low strike out rate he’s been pitching deep into games. His last 3 starts have all been 7 innings and he hasn’t even needed 100 pitches to do it.

In terms of individual match-ups, Byrd has owned Magglio Ordonez only allowing 4 hits in 29 at-bats. Let’s hope that changes. It’s just fun to see Magglio do well right now.

The Tigers send out Nate Robertson. Robertson has been battling his last couple starts, and racking up big pitch counts. In each of his last 2 starts he’s topped 100 pitches after 5 innings.

Game Time 7:05pm

UPDATE: Beck says Fernando Rodney is still out. Good thing Bondo went deep yesterday.

POSTGAME: Kathy in the comments summed this one up pretty succinctly:

Between Nate’s so-so pitching, Indians great hitters, C-Mo’s robbed HR we got beat. Good game but we came out on the short end. Tomorrow’s game should be a doozie.

I’d just add that the middle relief actually was pretty good. Ledezma was very strong, and even Mesa did his job.

After a nice lengthy stretch of hitting pretty well, Brandon Inge has ended the bulk of his ABs the last 3 games either shaking his head or flipping his bat in disgust. But it looks like he’s currently the only cold player in the lineup with Craig Monroe hitting a couple balls that were homer worthy and Sean Casey at least picking up a bunch of singles.