Jayson Stark’s Rumblings

I was hoping that I’d be able to link to a story about how Adam Bernero has been demoted from the starting rotation after another ineffective outing. Alas, no such article exists…yet. Bernero’s ERA has climbed all the way to 6.05. He failed to go 4 innings for the second time in his last 4 starts, and hasn’t had a quality start since June 11.

What’s frustrating is that the Tigers have other options to take his spot. Wil Ledezma definitely comes to mind (although he didn’t help his cause giving up a couple runs last night). Also, Shane Loux has pitched well for Toledo (8-4, 2.79 ERA). I don’t know that Ledezma or Loux will be great starters, but given Bernero’s recent performance the time has come to give either one a chance.

Miscellaney Gene Kingsale cleared waivers and accepted an assignment to Toledo… Anthony Giarratano and Jay Sborz both signed, leaving Kyle Sleeth as the only one of the top 5 picks not signed.

Owner is mum, but Tigers’ play does the talking

Munson unlikely to play catcher

This discussion would have made sense before they had moved Eric to third base. He’s done an admirable job of making the switch, and I think another position change at this point might ruin him. Although, I would have given this more serious consideration if Travis Chapman were still on the roster.

From Jason Beck (MLB.com)

Really, there is very little tradeable value on the team. I heard one rumor that Houston was interested in Shane Halter, but I wouldn’t see the Tigers getting much in return. I don’t think any team would offer enough to get Dmitri Young away from the Tigers. First his salary is prohibitive. Second, if you take Dmitri off this team, you’re going to have a hard time spending that $18 million that frees up next year because no one will come here. They’ll have a tough enough time enticing free agents as it is.

The only other tradeable players are in the bullpen, and they are Jamie Walker and Steve Sparks. After Avery’s first few outings, he looked like a possible trade candidate (veteran/lefty/cheap). Unfortunately he has struggled since and probably has no trade value.

Other than some Detroit-Toledo shuffling, I would be surprised to see the Tigers roster change until the September call-ups.

At the half way point of the season, the Tigers are on pace to go 40-122. What’s surprising is that the Tigers won their second game in a row against the Blue Jays. It’s only the 4th time this season they’ve had a mulitple game win streak, and it will be thier first series win at home this year.

Matt Roney gave up 1 hit in 7 innings of shut out ball. Actually, the hit he did allow went off the glove of Shane Halter and may have been an error. In the end it was probably better that it was ruled a hit so that Tram wouldn’t have had to pull Roney with a no-hitter on the line (he threw 96 pitches). It was a tremendous performance from Roney, who failed to go 4 innings in his first two starts. Granted, those starts were at Coors and Fenway, two places that aren’t the pitcher friendly park that Comerica is. However, Comerica’s spacious outfield wasn’t really a factor because 12 of Roney’s outs were ground balls (okay, so the long infield grass may have helped).

Offensively the Tigers deposited two home runs over the temporary fence in left. Those two homers came from Craig Monroe in the first, and shockingly Ramon Santiago. It was Santiago’s first home run since June 19th, 2002. Santiago has reached base safely in all 5 games since assuming the starting shortstop role from Omar Infante. Trammell rewarded him by moving him up to the number two spot tonight.

Sidenote Welcome to all of you who are coming over from Baseball Musings. Thanks to Dave Pinto for the plug. His is a great site. Also, if you’re looking for a Toronto Blue Jays blog, check out the Batter’s Box.

Alan Trammell said that when the weather warmed up, so would the bats. Unfortunately it was the opponents bats who got hot. The Tiger pitchers had a brutal month with a team ERA of 5.36, almost a run a game higher than they had coming into the month. Everybody thought that the Tiger pitching staff was a pleasant surprise so far. I hope this isn’t a sign that they are returning to their “true” talent level. Nate Cornejo had a particularly rough month going 0-3 in 6 starts with a 6.96 ERA. (I’m working on some additional Nate Cornejo analysis that I should have in a week or so). Jeremy Bonderman on the other hand had a pretty strong month. He led Tiger pitchers in innings for the month. Don’t worry, he’s not being abused as pitch counts in his six starts were 92-81-91-90-91-106. He has a string of 5 consecutive quality starts and he hasn’t allowed a walk in 27.2 innings. Not surprisingly, Tram shook up the rotation, inserting Matt Roney and demoting Gary Knotts.

The offense put up very similar numbers in June as they did in May. This seems to indicate that this team is in fact a .245 hitting team, and not just hitting poorly for 3 months. The most disturbing drop-off is in walks. In May, the Tigers did a good job of drawing walks. In June, their walks dropped by a third. I don’t know if this is because pitchers aren’t the least bit afraid of the Tigers, or if it’s because the Tiger hitters are pressing and swinging at more bad pitches. As far as individual performances go, Dmitri Young continues to swing well (.326/.414/.652) and will actually be a legitimate All-Star instead of just the token Tiger rep. Also, despite a recent slump, Eric Munson has hit .282/.313/.500 for the month (despite some shaky defense). Kevin Witt has filled in nicely for Carlos Pena hitting .289/.304/.434. Warren Morris has been a pleasant surprise and has added some offense to the number 2 slot. The rest of the team has still been bad. Especially bad has been Bobby Higginson. For the month he has hit Inge-like numbers of .156/.230/.195. That type of production isn’t acceptable from a back-up catcher-let alone your corner outfielder/number 3 hitter.

June also marked the start of the Toledo-Detroit shuttle bus. Brandon Inge, Omar Infante, Franklyn German, Gary Knotts, and Gene Kingsale were all sent down this month. Andres Torres recently began his second tour of duty, and Ernie Young has already come and gone. It’s hard to say what other moves we can expect in July. I would suspect that Steve Avery is close to making a Toledo return. Since his first couple outings, he’s been hit hard. Also Adam Bernero is probably close to losing his spot in the rotation. The likely candidates to replace him are Wil Ledezma or Shane Loux.

Highlight of the MonthAfter taking the first two games against San Diego, the Tigers weren’t the worst team in baseball. A distinction they held for all of 17 hours
Lowlight of the MonthPretty much everything since then.

When the Tigers beat the Blue Jays last night, they not only snapped a nine game losing streak, they also broke a string of 7 straight losses to Toronto. Maroth pitched well, giving up 2 runs in 7 innings, and this time he had something to show for it. With the exception of a bloop induced jam in the 7th, it was the only time Maroth ran into trouble. Chris Mears came on and pitched 2 scoreless innings, with some nice defense from Pena and Torres.

Offensively, the Tigers dropped 3 bunts for hits, and Ramon Santiago reached base 3 times (twice on HBP’s). The difference was the Tigers got hits with men on. Morris doubled in a run, Munson had a pinch hit single with the bases loaded, and AJ Hinch hit a two run homer.

For the second game in a row the Tigers went with Sanchez in center, and Torres in right. While Torres isn’t great defensively, he can get to more balls than Sanchez can. I’m just not sure why Sanchez continues to play center. Regardless, the Tigers got number 19. Let’s just hope that 20 comes soon.

The Tigers have 5 losing streaks of 7 or more games this season. That’s offset by 3 winning streaks of 2 or more games. After being swept by the Diamondbacks, their current losing streak is at nine. The Diamondbacks lineup is almost as obscure (due to injuries) as the Tigers (due to…well you know why) and yet they handled the Tigers easily this weekend. This further contributes to the frustration. Even other young inexperienced teams manage to beat up on the Tigers. Just ask the Indians who are also rebuilding have gone 8-2 against the Tigers. They are almost as offensively inept, averaging 3.8 runs per game when they’re not playing the Tigers (when they average 6.1 rpg). So it’s obvious the Tigers are going to have trouble with good teams, but it becomes even more difficult to watch when they struggle agaisnt teams in the same situation.

In any case, I’m heading down to the game tonight. With Maroth going against Toronto, I’m not holding my breath for this streak to end. I’ll have a look back at the month of June tomorrow.

I always look forward to Lynn Henning’s Sunday Tiger columns. He typically is right on the nose with his analysis. He’s clearly the best Tiger writer in the city, with Danny Knobler of the Ann Arbor news probably second. The Freep is getting better though. Just this week they were talking about OPS for the first time that I can remember.

German sent to Toledo; Mears joins Tigers – 6/29/03 And he’ll probably stay there until he remembers how to throw strikes.
Update To make room for Mears, Kingsale was designated for assignment

This has been a particularly frustrating week, even by Tiger standards. It’s getting harder and harder to write about this team. Wednesday night I was watching the game, and I was preparing to write about how Trammell finally shook up the lineup. He shifted from the speedy-centerfielder has to lead off philosophy, and put Higginson on top, which makes sense.
Higgy definitely hasn’t been hitting like a number 3 hitter (or even a right fielder) with a .340 slugging percentage. However, with an OBA in the .330’s, that is pretty good in the context of the Tiger lineup. And in the first inning he drew a walk, and that was great. I was also going to write about how Maroth was throwing a great game, and how I thought Tram pulled him at the right time, because he definitely labored in the 7th. And I was going to talk about one of Omar Infante’s at-bats that showed promise, but ultimately showed how he’s just not there. He got behind 1-2 early, fouled off some balls, fought back to a full count, and then weakly swung at a shoulder high pitch to strike out.

But then while 1 of the 8 runs in the 8th scored, I realized how silly it is to analyze the minutiae on this team. It’s not like one at-bat, or one good performance, or a good managerial decision will fix this team. Any sort of analysis will show that the team isn’t very good, and probably won’t be anytime soon.

However, in the interest of continuity, I will mention that Omar Infante was sent down to make room for Carlos Pena today.

Sometimes I think I just need to write these venting posts.