With the second pick the Tigers picked Jay Sborz, a right handed high school pitcher. Unfortunately I don’t know much about him except that he’s a power pitcher and signed with Arizona State. Click here for more information

With the third pick in the draft the Tigers selected pitcher Kyle Sleeth from Wake Forest. Sleeth is a hard throwing 6-5 200lb right hander. He has a mid 90’s fastball, a change, a curve and a slider. For Team USA he was 7-1 with 56K/16BB in 56.1 innings. The Tigers selected Sleeth over fellow pitcher, Tim Stauffer. Stauffer was supposed to be the more polished of the two, and closer to the bigs. However, Sleeth is supposed to be a harder thrower. With Richmond Stauffer had 135K/16BB in 106 IP. Based on these numbers, I think I would have preferred Stauffer. Regardless, I think the Tigers made a solid pick given that Richie Weeks had already gone to Milwaukee.
Kyle Sleeth Links:
Wake Forest Bio
ESPN-John Sickels
Prospectreport.com

Highs and Lows from the Yankees series, including Clemens bid for 300
High: A Comerica Park record crowd of 44K+ showed up to watch the game. For the weekend the Tigers drew 97,000 fans. Regardless the reasons for the surge, it was fun to see people in Detroit care about baseball again.
Low: Shut out number 10 came on Friday night as the Tigers had 4 hits and 1 walk.
High: Carlos Pena’s pinch hit to bring the Tigers back within one. Also, Eric Munson picking up 3 hits on both Saturday and Sunday pushing his average to .217
Low: The Tigers walked 4 times in 139 plate appearances over the 3 games, including two in 69 PA’s on Sunday.
High: Detroit’s ability to battle back when they seemed doomed. Granted, the Yankees did everything in their power to make it easier on them. Nonetheless, the Tigers still managed to tie up the game, and even when they fell behind by two in the 17th, they got one of them back instead of rolling over.
Low: Jeremy Bonderman continued to struggle. He was having a tough time getting his offspeed pitches over for strikes, and was behind often. He ended up allowing 4 walks. What’s reassuring is that in his last few starts when he’s missing with the slider, he’s missing by inches instead of feet. To me, that means he’s getting closer. Also, not being an established pitcher, he’s not getting the calls on the pitch that is 1-2 inches off the plate.
High: The Tigers bullpen did an excellent job-especially loser Steve Sparks. In twelve and a third innings they allowed 3 runs. Sparks line looked like that of a starter in that he allowed two runs in 7 2/3 innings.
Low: Franklyn German threw 8 balls to the two batter he faced. When German is on, he is scary-good. However, there are too many times when he comes into games and can’t find the plate.
High: What’s better than listening to Ernie Harwell for 9 innings? Listening to Ernie Harwell for 17 innings. It seemed that it took Mario Impemba a couple innings to adjust to Ernie. Specifically, Ernie’s belief that you don’t always have to be talking during a game-that the sounds of a game are enough to the listener. That seemed to throw Impemba at first, but he adjusted as the game went on.

Notes
-Bobby Higginson is in a 2-23 slump.
-Alex Sanchez is 4 for 4 in stolen bases
-Ramon Santiago has 8 sacrifice bunts this season. That’s as many as the Texas Rangers, and more than the Yankees(5) and Blue Jays combined(2). The Tigers as a team have 30 successful sacrifice bunts on the season. This doesn’t even include the numerous failed attempts. The next closest team is Baltimore with 18. I know the argument that the Tigers are struggling to score runs, and need to manufacture as many as possible. However, combined with their caught stealing rate (21 times in 44 attempts) that is a ton of outs to give away.
-Is it me, or is Alex Sanchez playing way deep in centerfield. I couldn’t see his positioning on TV, but it seemed to take him a long time to get to ground balls through the middle. Also, Gene Kingsale coming from left beat him to a ball in short center.

Lynn Henning reviews the first two months of the season

Eric Neel spends a week watching the Tigers-and survives

Yesterday Connolly threw a complete game for West Michigan striking out 3 and allowing 7 hits, no walks, and 1 run. This raised his season ERA to 0.79.

New York Times on athletes skipping their senior season of high school. Part of the article is about Jeremy Bonderman. (From Baseball Primer)

The one positive thing you could say about the Tigers this year is that they’ve been healthy. Fifty-one games in and the starting rotation is intact, and the only person to spend time on the DL is Dean Palmer (which should never be considered a surprise). Sure Omar Infante missed a couple games to a stiff back, and Dmitri has lost a couple AB’s to various ailments, but the team has been healthy. That was until Carlos Pena tore a tendon behind his knee. Now according to Dr. Pena, the injury isn’t that serious (from the Free Press) “The tendon that I tore is one you don’t really need or use,” Pena said. “Once there’s no more bleeding and the swelling goes down, I should be OK. In fact, the doctor told me my leg probably will end up feeling better than it did before.” Hopefully Carlos is right.

Mike Maroth had to leave yesterday’s game in the second inning after his hamstring tightened up when backing up home plate. It’s too early to know whether or not he’ll miss his next turn.

Yesterday was my third trip down to Comerica this year, and I took the whole family. Billy, my two year old, attended his second game this year. Katilyn, my 2 month old attended her first game ever. Needless to say I only saw parts of the game. Luckily, two very nice gentleman approached us while we were in line for tickets, and gave us two that they weren’t using. Turns out the two were 12 rows behind the Tiger dugout. Despite the way the Tigers played it was a beautiful day and I can’t think of many other places I’d rather be on a weekday afternoon than at a baseball game. Unfortunately the place was pretty empty, the paid attendance was 17,000 but actual attendance I’d put around 10,000. The lack of turnout is really disheartening. I know the team is pitiful this year, but weekday afternoon games still used to be a decent draw. And I’m not talking about the “good ole days.” I’m talking like 98-99. It speaks to just how bad this organization has been for so long, that people don’t even think about coming out.

Even with a bad team, there is still something inherently enjoyable about sitting outside on a sunny day, having some hot dogs, drinking some beer and watching baseball. Billy loves going to games, and at two he doesn’t understand what’s going on on the field. He just likes seeing the stadium, and eating hot dogs, and sitting in the seats (and no we don’t do the carousel and ferris wheel stuff). With Clemens going for 300, I hope that it generates enough interest to fill the stadium. I’d be going if my wife wasn’t working that day. I know that I can only expect so much support for a 13-38 team. Still, I just want people to remember that going to a game is still fun.

Other Stuff:
-After playing solid 3B for the bulk of the season, Eric Munson has committed errors in 3 of his last 4 games
-Alex Sanchez debuted with a single, and then easily stole second. He had a huge jump, and was two strides from the bag before the ball got to home plate. The Tigers are now 20 for 41 in stolen bases. Opponents have been successful 30 of 41 times, including 1-2 in attempts to steal home.
-Wil Ledezma pitched 3 2/3 innings (career high) and looked alright. He walked 2 and allowed 3 hits. No runs were charged to him, although two runners he inherited from Maroth scored in the second
-Dmitri Young hit only the 11th homer in Comerica Park history into the centerfield ivy
-With two doubles yesterday Brandon Inge’s OPS has topped .500 for the first time this season

Tigers pick up lockerroom cancer
For some unfathomable reason the Tigers traded for Alex Sanchez. The gave up Noochie Varner-who’s been playing well at Erie- and left hander Chad Petty. For more info on Sanchez, check out this glowing piece from the Journal Sentinel. Sanchez lost his starting CF job in Milwaukee. He’s hitting .282 on the season, but has only walked 7 times in 170 plate appearances.

I know I was just complaining about the lack of production from our leadoff spot, but a .316OBA doesn’t seem worth giving up Varner.

It was nice to see the Tigers fight back yesterday, and I was particularly happy to see Brandon Inge get the go ahead home run. Earlier in the game Inge had 3 solid at-bats with nothing to show for it (I included his weak grounder to second on a hit and run as a “good” at-bat because he had to get the bat on the ball). Franklyn German had another solid outing picking up the save. Bonderman pitched his best game since his turn in Oakland and looked real sharp (7K/1BB). He had to leave after 6 innings and 82 pitches due to a blister-but that might not be such a bad thing anyway. Avery “earned” the win by giving up a 3 run homer to tie the game. In all fairness, those 3 runs were the first he’d allowed this year.

Speaking of which, Avery’s call up has kept Wil Ledezma off the mound. Since Avery’s May 10th call up, Ledezma has only pitched in two games (5/15 and 5/21) and both opportunities were “inning-eaters” when the team was trailing. Based on what Jayson Stark and Peter Gammons have reported, Ledezma has starter-quality stuff. One article compared him to Johan Santana. While I appreciate Avery’s comeback, and that we have him cheap, why not use Ledezma more? I don’t know that he will be a contributor on this team in two years, or even next year. However, he’s much more likely to be a member of this team beyond this season than Avery. What’s frustrating is that you’d like to see Ledezma get work, but because he’s a Rule V guy, he has to stay and wallow in the bullpen.

I guess the bright side to Ledezma’s lack of work is that the starting pitching has been better than expected, and for the most part worked deeper into games than expected. The rotation is still intact, which has to have surprised everyone. Only the A’s, Yankee’s, and Mariner’s can say the same-and that is some good company to be in.

A first glance at Bobby Higginson’s numbers this month to date are pretty reassuring. He’s hitting .345/.444/.476. He’s also scored 16 runs during the month so far. What is troubling is his lack of RBI, for the month he only has 7. Frankly I don’t know if it’s because he’s not hitting well with men on base, or if he just isn’t having opportunities with men on base. I suspect it is a little bit of the former and a whole lot of the latter. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to dig into this deeper right now. However, I do know that the hitters occupying the 1-2 slots, Torres/Kingsale/Santiago/Infante all seem to bunt more than they swing away. I know that Tram has been handcuffed with very little production out of most of the order-which makes finding a good lineup futile. However, with Pena starting to emerge from his slump, Young hitting better, the emergence of the Kevin Witt/Craig Monroe platoon, and Eric Munson’s plate discipline, it may be time to shuffle the lineup. Why not move Munson to the number 2 spot in the order. Sure, his .301 OBA isn’t particularly impressive, but neither is Santiago’s .297 or Infante’s .285. Also, at least Munson is working the count more. He’s averagine 3.92 pitches/plate appearance compared to 3.80 for Infante and 3.22 for Santiago. I know you are giving up some speed, but speed on the bench isn’t particularly useful.

The Tigers 3 game win streak came to an end yesterday on a 12th inning home run by Joe Crede. The walk-off was set up when Eric Munson threw high to first on what would have been the third out. Despite that, the weekend featured some fine defensive plays, and excellent pitching by the Tigers. Mike Maroth won his first game of the year on Friday and Gary Knotts pitched a strong game on the road for the first time this year. It seems like only last week I wrote about how he couldn’t get anybody out away from Comerica.

I just have a couple of comments about Tram’s moves yesterday. I was a little disappointed to see him pinch-hit for Kevin Witt in the 8th inning yesterday against lefty Kelly Wunsch. While Witt has only one AB agsint left handed pitching this year, he was still 2-3 with a home run in game. Furthermore, Wunsch had given up a double, a 4 pitch walk, and a HBP. Clearly he was wild and having trouble finding the plate. By going to the right handed Monroe, it invited the Sox to take Wunsch out of the game. That being said, the Tigers did tie it up, but Monroe didn’t do any of the damage. The big hit was a jam shot from fellow pinch hitter Torres. The second issue is much easier to second guess since it didn’t work out, and that was walking Konerko to get to Crede. Looking at how each has fared against Sparks the move didn’t make a lot of sense. Konerko was 8 for 33 lifetime, and 7 of those hits were singles (one was a home run). Crede, was 3 for 8 with a home run. Furthermore, if you look at their splits by situation “Close and Late” (7th inning or later and the game within a run) Crede still had the better numbers. Konerko is 3 for 22 on the season and Crede was 8 for 22.