I thought it was going to change Friday night, I really did. The Tig’s had played a great game through 9 innings. They had a second consecutive solid start from Nate Cornejo, Higgy hit his first home run of the season, and Franklyn “Fear Factor” German looked untouchable k’ing 5 out of the 6 batters he faced. Then the 10th inning came, and the Royals started it out with a groundball single (Trammell pinch hit for Infante in the top of the 10th, and Halter was playing short at the time. If Infante is still in the game, this is a routine out). Then a couple of bunts-including a fabulous back-up play by Santiago- and the Royals have the bases loaded with nobody out. Anderson then throws a force out, a pop out, and a strike out and the Tigers get out of the inning. Fox Sports showed the dugout, and you could see something was different. I haven’t seen that much life in the team this year. I truly believed the Tigers were going to win this game. Then Anderson hung an 0-2 curveball to start the 11th and it was all gone.
A blowout loss on Saturday followed as Gary Knotts had no control, and made his first bad start of the year.
Then on Sunday, Mike Maroth pitches another great game. He got a little bit of support, 3 runs this time, and the Tigers still manage to lose. This time baserunning and fielding were the culprits.
So where does that leave us? The record says 1-16. My question is does the record matter? We knew this was going to be a bad year, and people were generally expecting a 100 losses. Now none of us expected 1 win in 17 games. Because the record is so bad does it start to mean something? I’m trying to look at how the team is playing, and at least there are some good signs there. What troubled me most about Sunday’s loss is that they looked like the Tigers of old-bad baserunning and defense. In short, a team that just doesn’t know how to win. Which raises another dichotomy, part of what we were looking for Trammell and Gibson to bring to this team was sound fundamental baseball. Baseball where you don’t see the mental lapses. The flip-side is that we have a very young team and that we should expect some mistakes.
So I guess my big questions are: 1. At what point does the won-loss record start to become an issue (for many it probably already has) and 2. How do you evaluate how this team is doing?
Notes On Friday the Tigers made their first roster move designating Hiram Bocachica for assignment and calling up Craig Monroe. Monroe has been a solid minor league hitter for several years. Last year he had 5 stints with the Tigers, but never got to play (only 25 AB’s). This weekend Trammell gave him a shot and he started all 3 games in left going 1 for 12 with an RBI single. Mr. Monroe also had several extended discussions with Kirk Gibson after having a tough time defensively. Even given his defensive short comings, I’d like to see Tram stick with him for a little while to see if we can get some more pop in the line-up.
Also, does anyone have any nickname ideas for Franklyn German? The guy definitely needs a nickname.