Will these be the week that we find out whether or not this Tiger team can compete for anything? The Tigers seem to have reached many of these critical points over the last month or so – and despite all these defining moments the team is pretty much right where it has been all season.

Three weeks ago today, the Tigers were 36-36 with a 6 game homestand about to commence – starting with the White Sox. This was to be a big week for the Tigers as we found out what they were made of. After dropping 5 of the 6 games, and the first two games in Clevland the Tigers record stood at 37-46 and the season looked over.

In typical Tigers fashion, just when it looked like all hope was lost they managed to win 5 of 6 going into the break. Now after a disappointing split against the Royals, things are looking bleak again. The Tigers head into Chicago to play the White Sox who just won 4 in a row in Cleveland. The struggling Tigers are going on the road to take on a hot team. That is followed up with 8 games against the Twins. Of course things don’t look good, but this team as a way of responding. I don’t know what will happen, and the losses to inferior clubs are frustrating, but I’m not ready to write this team off.

Much has been made of two numbers lately, 5 and 7. Tiger optimists point to the fact that the team is only 5 games out of the wild card. Tiger pessimists point to the fact that they are 7 teams away from the wild card, and only 3 teams have a worse record than the Tigers. I agree that the chances of the Tigers leaping 7 teams are slim, why shouldn’t they consider themselves in it?

There are 8 teams within 5 games of each other. Granted, Detroit is at the bottom of that ladder (tied with Toronto), but where is the cutoff point for teams who are in it? Of course Minnesota and New York have a shot since they are on top right now. But then Baltimore is only a half game behind them. So those 3 teams are in it. Of course Texas is still in at only 2 games back, and Oakland has climbed to only 2.5 games back. And then there is Cleveland, who is only a half game behind Oakland. Despite their 5 game losing streak you can’t count out Cleveland…we can go on and on.

What I’m getting at is that despite the Tigers struggles, the overall mediocrity of the league has kept them in it. It would be great to be a couple games or teams closer, but they haven’t put themselves in an insurmountable hole. Also, of the 7 teams ahead of them, they still play a number of games against all but Texas and New York. Maybe I’m an optimist, maybe it is all over, but why not stick it out a little bit longer?

I’d like to say the next 8 games are key to defining the Tigers fate, but I’ve thought that too many times lately.

Zumaya Wild
Joel Zumaya made his AAA debut and had some control issues. He only lasted 3 1/3 with 4 walks, two hit batters, and a wild pitch. For someone who improved his control so much this season, this outing was a disappointment. It will be interesting to see how he responds in his next start.

As for Justin Verlander, he’ll be starting tonight for Erie and you can listen to it here: http://www.seawolves.com/live.htm

While the fight may have been exciting to some, I was more frustrated than anything else. For those of you that were actually excited about it let me point these items out:

1. Runyelvs Hernandez is a punk. This has been established. What he did to Carlos Guillen was intentional and inexcusable. But as near as I can figure, nobody actually fought with him.

2. It is great that Jeremy Bonderman wanted to stick up for his teammates. By now the pitching staff should have definitely earned the respect of the hitters. Between this and Nate Robertson in Tampa, the hitters know they will be protected. But did anybody really want to see Bonderman in the middle of that? The term “career ending injury” just kept running through my head.

3. Yes, Kyle Farnsworth is Superman and the take down was very entertaining. But I’m not sure what he did could be construed as protecting anyone. I don’t know what Jeremy Affeldt did or said, so I can’t really say whether or not he “deserved” it. What I can say is that instead of talking about Farnsworth striking out the side on Saturday night and possible future bullpen roles, I’m talking about a tackle instead.

As for suspensions, the Tigers will be without Bonderman’s and Farnsworth’s services for a couple of days. Carlos Guillen shouldn’t receive any suspension. He was hit twice in the same at-bat, and went to first base. Yes he needed an escort, and he said his piece but the guy just got hit in the head.

The suspensions I’d really like to hear about are those for the umpiring crew. They did a good job issuing warnings early on. However, the home plate umpire missed Guillen getting hit in the foot. If he calls that, Guillen takes his base and there is no brawl. Even setting that aside, the bigger issue is that they failed to get Hernandez off the field. Hernandez came towards Guillen unrestrained. Hernandez’s presence and actions on the field are what allowed this to escalate. The serious fighting came after Guillen had gone to first only to have Hernandez approach him. If Hernandez is in the dugout it would have been over with only some shoving and words being exchanged. The umpires are as culpable as any player (except for Hernandez) for not controlling the situation.

Sunday will mark the 4 year anniversary of this blog. This is actually the first year I remembered it coming up, so instead breaking down last night’s 12-9 loss to the Royals, we’ll look back at the last 4 years.

In the beginning, I started this with 3 other authors. The term author is generous because we didn’t write very much. A typical post consisted of a link and a snarky comment. It didn’t take long for a couple of the authors to get bored and drop off. Russ had a little more fortitude and managed to stick around a couple of years.

So why did I start the site? I had discovered blogging earlier that year, and had been maintaining my personal (and now defunct) blog Zesty when I came across the site Baseball News which had links to various baseball blogs. Now 4 years ago, there weren’t that many (TwinsGeek and DuckSnorts to name a couple) and there certainly weren’t any Tigers blogs. As a fan and emerging blogger I saw a niche and started http://detroittigers.blogspot.com. Courtesy of the Way Back Machine, here is what the site looked like. I know, pretty awful huh?

In 2002 I moved the site off of Blogspot to a Comcast page. It stayed there briefly until I sprung for web hosting and a domain name. With the domain name came a redesign that has only changed minimally in subsequent years.

The first post was simply that new father Bobby Higginson was named AL Player of the Week. My first attempt at analysis and use of statistics came when I showed that Higginson’s 2000 season wasn’t all fueled by Juan Gonzalez’s presence in the lineup. Russ did some follow up work that improved on my methodology but didn’t really change the conclusions (although it weakened the argument). Unfortunately Russ never posted these findings.

My most prohpetic (and really only) moment came on April 5th 2002 when I wrote:

Of course on April 8th Garner and Smith were fired, Luis Pujols was named interim manager and Alan Trammell became the Tigers manager the following offseason. Unfortunately I think I was averaging about 12 hits a day (4 of them were me) and nobody really saw it. And I haven’t come close to being that accurate since.

But enough of that stuff, how about some statistics? Using David Pinto’s Day by Day Database, here is what the Tigers have accomplished since my first post:

General

Games:         645
Record:    239-406 (.371)
Runs Scored:  2685
Runs Allowed: 3394
Players:       125

Offense:

 BA:  .255
OBA:  .313
SLG:  .402
HRs:   608
RBI:  2547
BBs:  1728
SOs:  4261

Pitching:

ERA:  4.88
HRs:   717
BBs:  2011
SOs:  3434
CGs:    35
SVs:   126
SHO:     8

And how about some top 5’s?

So there are the stats, as unimpressive as they are. I’ve blogged through some dark times to be sure, but looking at it in the aggregate I’m really not sure why I’ve stuck around.

As for the immediate future, things are looking good. Readership is at an all time high. I’ve got several ideas and interviews that I hope to see through before the season ends.

In conclusion, I want to say thanks for reading in general, and thanks for indulging me in this anniversary post. I really appreciate all the emails and comments. As always, if you have ideas or suggestions, please let me know. I can’t guarantee I’ll do it, but I’m always looking for things to write about. Also, if you have anything you don’t like about the site, let me know. Again, I won’t guarantee I’ll change it but I will definitely give all ideas consideration. Thanks again.

Tom Gage reported on 1270 that Troy Percival has been placed on the 15 day disabled list with a recurrence of the flexor/pronator muscle mass injury.

Craig Dingman’s contract has been purchased from Toledo. Dingman has been solid this year striking out 67 with only 13 walks in 48 innings. I’m still waiting to hear who has been removed fromt the 40 man roster to make room for Dingman.

Unfortunately, this would have been the perfect time to call up Matt Roney and add him to the 40 man roster. Fortunately, Trammell can give Kyle Farnsworth a shot at the closers’ role without controversy. Given Percival’s struggles, this might not be a bad thing. Hopefully Farnsworth will take to the role, and Franklyn German can pitch effectively in the 8th inning.

First came the announcement two years ago. Then came the preparation and the hype. Finally All Star week arrived and 3 days later it is all done. I know all the events are just an exhibition (whether or not This One Counts), but they are still significant. It was the first time the game was held here in my lifetime, and the next time it comes back I’ll be an old man – and it will probably be in a brand new stadium. And because it is all over, I’m a little bit sad today.

That’s not to say we didn’t have a great time…

• We got down to Comerica around 2:30 yesterday – not with the express purpose of attending the Red Carpet Show, but just to get a spot in the Grand Cirus deck and take in some atmosphere. We ended up snagging a piece of fence at the beginning of the carpet and had a pretty good view of the festivities. The players seemed to really be enjoying themselves, and it was a good chance for fans to get up close and see their heroes (and their heroes wives – wow!!). While the TV portion of it may have been cheesy, for the fans attending it was great.
• While the police were out in force, we had a heck of a time finding a taxi. After the Red Carpet Show we were planning to cab to Marios for a BBQ Buffet. We started off walking that direction and taking in some of the blight Detroit didn’t get cleaned up. By the time we saw a cab a mile and a half later, we were only 6 blocks from the restaurant and it hardly seemed worth it.
• After stuffing ourselves on pasta and kabobs we shuttled down to the game, and used our favorite entrance. It’s our favorite because there is never a line and it has close proximity to beer.
• Brian McKnight performed a very simple and appropriate rendition of the National Anthem. As with any major sporting event it came with a flyover which is always a thrill – especially so when it is a B-2 Stealth Bomber. Other festivities included first pitches by Willie Horton and Al Kaline.

  At the stadium we weren’t privy to the rude treatment that Ernie Harwell received on the national broadcast. It wasn’t being simulcast in the stadium, probably due to whatever delay they had built in. That was probably for the best because if you thought Kenny Rogers got it bad, it would have been ugly had someone disrespected Harwell. It’s one thing to prevent Jeremy Bonderman from pitching in front of his hometown fans. It’s a whole other thing to mess with Ernie. I think Bat-Girl may have said it best…

  I mean, do you remember the pregame? Your broadcasters got to interview one of the greatest baseball announcers of all time. They got to talk to Ernie Harwell! And you know what happened? He talked for a bit and Jeannie Zelasko cut him off. She cut him off. It was sort of like when I cut off a Yo Yo Ma performance of Bach’s “Prelude to Cello Suite No. 1” to play “When the Saints Go Marching In” on my recorder.

  And you know why she cut him off? So they could show some schlub from Texas participating in the Taco Bell Throw The Ball At The Damn Target. Jeannie Zelasko cut off Ernie Harwell to sell freakin’ chalupas.

• Since you all probably had a better view of the game than I did, I’ll skip game details and share some other stuff. For example, in between innings they ran a feature called “Off the hook with Dmitri Young.” Basically it is Dmitri talking to different players. In other words – high comedic potential.

  Young to Mark Buerhle: “If you were a super hero, who would you be”
  Buerhle: Probably Superman
  Young: Uh-uh. You can’t be Superman. Kyle Farnsworth is Superman.

  Later, Torii Hunter is asking Dmitri about a certain look he had while with the Reds.

  Torii: (I have to paraphrase here) So when you were with the Reds you had all this (pointing to the beard/goatee type growth on Young) and all this (pointing to Dmitri’s hair) dyed yellow. What was up with that?
  Dmitri: Just kind of sheepishly giggles
  Torii: You know who you looked like? The dude from the Kentucky Fried Chicken
  Dmitri: I was just representin my love of fried chicken

• The longest ovation of the night was for Ernie Harwell. After playing a video, with Harwell’s “A game for All America” as the narration, they showed Harwell in the booth. The ovation went on for at least 3 minutes. It felt like it was 90 degrees and I still had goosebumps
• After Kenny Rogers gave up the home run, the fans had a hard time expressing their emotion. It was a mix of boos as just a signal of the displeasure with Rogers mere presence. Combined with cheers of joy to see Rogers failing miserably.
• I just want to point out how great the city did. We all wanted Detroit to represent itself well, and it turned out better than I could have hoped for. The city of Detroit and the Tigers organization did a tremendous job. Everybody I came in contact with was extremely friendly and great ambassadors. Great job volunteers, great job Detroit.

After the game, we weren’t really in a hurry to leave, so we lingered in the park for about 25 minutes. We eventually left and made it to our car in the Grand Circus parking deck. As we were driving down Bagley none of us were really anxious to see the night end. So we decided to head over to Casey’s. If you’ve been reading this blog a while, you know that Casey’s is my favorite place to go before a game. However, with all the craziness, we hadn’t made it there at all during the All Star goings on. A pitcher with friends was probably the best way to cap off the night and unwind.

On the way, we crept past Tiger Stadium. We drive past there all the time, but the fact there was so much excitement a couple blocks away while she sat there all alone, dark and desolate…it was just really sad.

Once again I tried the audioblogging – this time the sound quality was poor so I didn’t post. In any case, we had a great time at the home run derby last night. Balls were traveling to parts of the ballpark that I had never seen before – in batting practice or a game. Which of course leads me to believe that the balls had a little something extra in them. Whether or not they did, it was a great night.

• Watching Bobby Abreu and David Ortiz launch an all out assault on the right field seats made me think about how much the Tigers lineup could be helped with a power hitting left handed bat. Carlos Pena was supposed to be that guy, but that hasn’t happened yet. Also, a non-slumping Dmitri Young or a healthy Carlos Guillen could help there as well.
• It was great to see Pudge represent as well as he did. It was awesome to be in the crowd cheering for a home town guy. Once again, it made me long for a day when the Tigers are playing significant games late in the season with a full house. The place was electric when Pudge was up. And that shot to the Al Kaline statue was just incredible.
• The giveaway for the Future’s game was a ticket holder, which was perfect. We were hoping for a similar freebie at the Home Run Derby. However, Century 21 handed out these goofy roll-up Century 21 banners instead. Ours promptly went in the garbage. Unfortunately, the kids sitting in front of us loved theirs. They loved them so much they’d hold them up pretty much the entire time completely blocking our view of everything. I can see how they’d be fun to play with if you’re a kid, so I’m not that upset with the youngster. I’m more disappointed in the giveaway itself.
• David Ortiz needed to either 1. Bring a different pitcher, or 2. Not take so many pitches. His at-bats were excruciatingly long.
• We stopped by the Baseball Tonight set where they were broadcasting Sportscenter. I’m a Peter Gammons fan, so it was cool to see him up close. Dan Patrick had a ton of make-up on and John Kruk is a large man.
• It was great being downtown last night. The city is looking good and seems to be doing okay. However, there are still the little things that are just unexplainable. For example, as people were leaving last night, the sprinklers in Grand Circus park were all on. Not a big deal, but with everybody walking through it just didn’t make a lot of sense. And a Cobo Hall, the escalator to the People Mover wasn’t working. The city is getting better, and a ton has been done. But things like that just make me shake my head.
• James Denton, aka Mike Delfino from Desperate Housewives, was taking in Fanfest yesterday. No entourage, no throng of people. Just a guy in an Oakland A’s T-shirt and jeans enjoying baseball stuff.
• I stepped in the fastest video batting cage (i believe it was 70mph) against Jeremy Bonderman. I had contact on all 5 pitches – four of them actually going forward, none of them hit hard. And really, if you haven’t made it down to Fanfest yet, find a way to get there if you can today. It’s a really great experience.

As much fun as I had last night, I don’t see myself clamoring to go to another home run derby. It was something that was great to experience – once. The night did end up getting pretty long and tedious at some points. The breaks between actualy happenings on the field were very long – especially towards the end.

If you’re heading down to the game tonight, I’m in row 18 in section 324. Stop by and say hi. Before the game, I’ll be going to Mario’s for the CATCH fundraiser. It’s $25 for a BBQ buffet, parking, and a shuttle to and from the game.

Here is Joel Zumaya’s delivery at the Future’s Game as captured by my friend Russ. After hearing how violent his delivery was supposed to be, I was pleasantly surprised. It actually seemed quite under control.

So I tried the AudioBlogging thing, but I screwed up the first time and hung up before publishing the post. When I went back to try it again, it wouldn’t let me post without purchasing more posts from the website. I don’t entirely understand that because the service is touted as being free. Even now I don’t see anyway to pay for additional posts. I’ll try it again tonight, so we’ll see what happens. On to the report…

The crowd was a little bit sparser than I would have hoped/expected. Comerica and the surrounding area looked pretty good, at least for Detroit. While neither game was full, there was a decent crowd on hand for the legends/celebrity softball game.

As for the Future’s game, our seats are right in the upper deck, 3 rows from the top. We’re looking right down the 3rd base line. So while we have a good view, I can’t really tell you how Verlander or Zumaya looked with any sort of detail. I can say they both hit 99mph on the stadium gun. Both received a nice ovation – especially Justin Verlander.

For the softball game, the fans got warmed up for Kenny Rogers appearance by thoroughly booing Chris Webber. Sweet Lou Whitaker probably got the largest ovation…at least for someone with out breasts. As a Whitaker fan, it was awesome to hear Louuuuuuuuu resonate throughout Comerica each time he touched the ball or came to bat.

Jennie Finch pitched for the National League team, and if you needed another reason to like Finch, she wears the old fashioned stir-ups – and she wears them high.

Other Comments/Observations

• It’s been experience that the concession experience at Comerica Park can be mixed. I’ve had some good experiences, and some very awful experiences as well. Yesterday the experiences were all positive. There were more vendors in the stands, and all of the stations were well staffed. SportsService brought in additional help from Cincinnati and Cleveland to help out – and so far it’s working.
• I was surprised to see how many bleachers were removed for media tables in right field. While they did take out the back rows of bleachers, it looks like the auxilliary media will get their fare share of home run balls.
• Budweiser took over the parking lots beyond the outfield. They have a stage set up, and they even brought the clydesdales. However, yesterday nobody was over there. While the city looked good, nobody was really buzzing about downtown. Hopefully that will change today and tomorrow. I’d love to see the city more alive.

Typically when I do one of these post, its out of laziness. This time, there are a lot of things I want to cover – briefly.

Matt Roney leaves
While this actually happened a week ago, I just never had a chance to comment. Matt Roney, as those of you who survived the 2003 season remember, was a Tigers Rule 5 pick. He had mixed results out of the bullpen for the Tigers that season. Last year he went to AA Erie and worked as a starter posting an unremarkable 4.93 ERA and 6.01 K/9.

This year Roney moved to relief and split time at Erie and AAA Toledo. Betweent he two clubs he struck out 50 and walked 17 in 50 innings. He also allowed only one home run.

Roney had a clause that if he wasn’t on the 40 man roster by July 1st he could request his release, and he excercised that right. Why is this an issue? Matt Roney is only 25 and was striking out a batter an inning. Meanwhile he was blocked on the roster by Mark Woodyard and Doug Creek. Now Woodyard has been doing okay for Toledo, and is 26. Doug Creek has been struggling for the Tigers (6 homers in 15 innings) and is 36. For a team trying to build and maintain young depth allowing Matt Roney to walk made little sense.

Wish List
Beyond the Boxscores recently posted a team of All Time All Stars he’d like to see take the field. It’s a pretty interesting concept and Brian’s list is pretty thorough.

Lou Whitaker and his game breaking speed
One of the things that Lou Whitaker didn’t possess that any HoF second basemen have is a high stolen base total. However, in the midst of a recent study by Tom Ruane (found via Studes at Hardball Times) there was a piece on the value of stolen bases. Specifically he looked at the context of each stolen base and found out which were the most important.

Lo and behold that Whitaker showed up 7th on the list of players who’s stolen base value was higher than their raw totals would indicate. Now I just need to find the address of the Veteran’s Committe to get this information to them.

Dmitri’s Struggles
I know that many of you want to see Dmitri Young traded. I also know that this is driven partly by Chris Shelton’s emergence, but also in large part due to Young’s struggles his year. However, Dmitri Young will be extremely hard to move because he has an option that is most likely to vest, and he’s been struggling. So Young will be here for awhile.

Fortunately he’s hit the ball pretty hard the last couple games. And actually, until his recent spiral downwards he had been hitting the ball pretty hard – just without the results. He’s 36th in the AL in line drive percentage which means he’s still hitting the ball hard. Thirty-sixth isn’t a reason to get excited, but it should probably indicate a better line than 244/307/461.

So don’t worry, Young will get better – but he isn’t going anywhere.

Audioblogging
I will give the audioblogging thing a shot. Unfortunately I don’t really have any ability to control appearance, or add titles, or basically anything else. So check back during the Futures Game and Legends game for audio updates. I’m not sure how they’ll turn out, what with blogging from a stadium full of ambient noise, but we’ll see.

Fanfest
I took the family to FanFest yesterday and I was very impressed. You could easily spend 3-4 hours there, and there is something for all ages. I was particularly impressed with the volunteer staff. There were very friendly orange-shirted staff everywhere who were great ambassadors for visitors to Detroit.

Every week Dave Studeman writes a “Ten Things I Didn’t Know Last Week” column which always inspires further analysis. A couple weeks ago one of his items was about the White Sox distribution of runs scored. He found the White Sox were making the most of the runs they were scoring. To concisely summarize, when a team scores runs 2-7, those runs do the most to increase your chances of winning. The White Sox have been good at scoring 2, 4, 5, and 6 runs a game, while being held to 1 run or less infrequently. Dave posted a follow up article about run distribution, which has more detail and more research. This all made me curious about how the Tigers were scoring their runs.

Below are charts that show 1. How often the Tigers scored each number of runs in a game (the total height of each bar) 2. Their record when scoring at a certain level (the mix of orange=wins and blue=losses), and 3. The cumulative percentage which is plotted on the right hand axis (ie The Tigers score 2 runs or less about 28% of the time.) I’ve done a chart just for the Tigers, as well as all of baseball so far this season.

Now of course the distribution for the majors is smoother than for the Tigers, just because there are more games. While the Tigers are about league average being at being held to less than two runs, they have a huge spike at 3 runs. As a result while the league scores 3 runs or less 41% of the time, the Tigers are held to that mark 50% of the time.

Now what about runs allowed? Below is the same graph, only by runs allowed.

You can see that the Tigers are much more likely to allow 4 runs, which tyically isn’t a bad thing. This year when opponents score 4 runs, the winning percentage is .527. Unfortunately, the Tigers have won only 7 of the 17 games in which they allowed 4 runs. Looking back at the runs scored chart and that spike at 3 may help explain this.

As far as win expectancy goes, Dave showed what the winning percentage was from 2000-2004 based on runs scored. Using Dave’s numbers and multiplying by the Tigers actual distrubtion, the Tigers expected wins would be 38.2. Being that run scoring is down slightly this year, I also peformed the same analysis based just on this year’s data. The result for the Tigers was 39.1 wins. Keeping in mind that this data doesn’t include Thursday’s game, both measures nailed the Tigers actual record of 39-43.

Conversely, based on the runs allowed distribution the Tigers expected record would be 43-39. Now the fact that the Tigers actual record matched what their runs scored would predict, and not what their runs allowed would predict is interesting – if not confusing. I’m not really sure what to draw from that and if anybody had ideas, please share. And just to throw one more measure out there, going into last night’s game the Tigers pythagorean record was 41-41.

UPDATE 11-12-05: Versions of these graphs for the whole 2005 season can be found here