Tag Archives: max scherzer

You can’t spell Scherzer without K

In honor of Max Scherzer’s 14 strikeout effort, here are 14 thoughts/items/factoids about today’s 10-2 much needed win against Oakland.

  1. The progress that Scherzer displayed in his 15 AAA innings was very much transferrable and nearly as effective. The velocity that came from his newly reacquired proper arm slot was the biggest difference. Just see the data from the pitch f/x system below which compares his last start to Sunday’s effort.

    image

  2. And just because I took the time to generate the chart, here is the plot of Scherzer’s horizontal and vertical movement. The larger the dot, the faster the pitch.image
  3. The one downside to all the strikeouts was an inflated pitch count in the 6th inning. While matching Mickey Lolich’s 16 K record would have been sweet, it was time for Scherzer to come out after the walk and the hit by pitch. The gaudy K total and the shorter outing meant that according to Baseball Tonight, Scherzer’s percentage of outs recorded via strikeout was the highest since 1900.
  4. Things were less tenuous though because the offense finally perked up against Dallas Braden and the managed to score early and late despite failing in R3L2O situations.
  5. The production came throughout the lineup, which was a welcome change. Two homers came from the bottom half of the lineup. Of course the fact that Carlos Guillen resides in the bottom half should certainly help things. Brandon Inge contributed with the bat as well with a homer and 2 doubles.
  6. This deserves it’s own bullet as well.  Gerald Laird had a multi hit game. It was just his 3rd multi hit game of the season.
  7. Meanwhile Miguel Cabrera made a case for player of the week, despite playing in only 3 games. He hit another homer as part of a 4 hit day and has driven in 8 runs the last 3 days padding his RBI lead which had narrowed and pushing his slugging percentage to .670.
  8. Magglio Ordonez continues to rip the ball, and had 2 well hit balls caught. It was only fitting that a jam shot fell for him in the 8th inning to make up for it.
  9. One guy who has had quietly had a few rough outings is Phil Coke. He was hit hard on Friday night but escaped. He gave up both runs in Sunday’s game.
  10. I said I was going to watch Joel Zumaya’s velocity after he was a little shy of his “normal” velocity in Los Angeles. Today he maxed out at 102.2 and averaged 99.78. I’m going to stop watching his velocity.
  11. When Zumaya struggles people complain that he gets too fastball happy. Today he threw the heater 29 out of 32 times and didn’t get the curve over for a strike. Yet nobody is complaining today.
  12. Baseball-Reference Blog » Blog Archive » Scherzer’s 14 Strikeouts
  13. Johnny Damon drew 2 more walks today (and picked up a hit). Coming into today Damon and Ordonez were tied for 10th in the AL. They both hit in front of Miguel Cabrera. Kind of makes you wonder about lineup protection and having a threat to insure guys get pitches to hit.
  14. I’m out of stuff. Good thing I got to 14.

Tigers Minor League Wrap 5.25.10

Toledo 6 Syracuse 3
Carlos Guillen picked up 3 doubles, and the dinner tab. Max Scherzer went 7 innings and allowed just 1 run on 3 hits and a walk with 7 K’s. Scott Sizemore was 2 for 4. Ryan Strieby had 2 hits and drove in 5.

Erie 0 Trenton 4
Thad Weber gave up 10 hits and fanned only 1 but allowed just 4 runs in 6.2 innings. Shawn Roof had 2 of the 3 hits for the Seawolves.

Tampa 3 Lakeland 10
It was yet another electric night for Charlie Furbush. He went 8 innings and allowed a solo homer along with 3 other hits. But he walked none and fanned 12! That’s 44 strikeouts and 2 walks in his last 28 innings. Brent Wyatt and Rawley Bishop had 3 hit nights. Kody Kaiser and Daniel Fields each went 2 for 4.

West Michigan 3 Lansing 0
Giovany Soto pitched the 7 inning complete game shut out notching 6 K’s. Michael Rockett doubled in 2 runs.

West Michigan 1 Lansing 7
Avisail Garcia, Luis Palacios and Billy Alvino had the 3 hits. Victor Larez didn’t make it out of the 3rd inning before surrendering 6 runs on 9 hits.

Scoreboard – MiLB.com Scoreboard – The Official Site of Minor League Baseball

Tigers Minor League Wrap 5.20.2010

Durham 0 Toledo 4
Max Scherzer made his first start since being sent down to work on his mechanics. I think it is working. Scherzer pitched a 1 hitter for 8 innings. He walked one guy while fanning 10 in 103 pitches. Robbie Weinhardt preserved the shut out. Jeff Frazier homered and doubled. Ryan Raburn added his 6th double and a single.

The Tigers have sent 3 players to Toledo. So far the early returns have been good. We covered Scherzer, but Ryan Raburn and Scott Sizemore are also finding their way so far.

  • Ryan Raburn: 444/483/667 line in 7 games.
  • Scott Sizemore: 286/333/429 in 4 games

Erie 1 Richmond 5

There was no offense to speak of with only 6 singles and 2 walks for the Seawolves. Thad Weber went 7.2 innings and allowed 4 runs on just 5 hits and 3 walks despite his defense turning 4 double plays behind him.

St. Lucie 4 Lakeland  5 (11 innings)
Charlie Furbush starred again with 10 strikeouts in 6.2 innings. He allowed 2 runs on 2 hits and a walk. Furbush has a 39:4 K:BB ratio and a 1.67 ERA in his last 4 starts .Brent Wyatt went 3 for 4 with 2 walks and 2 steals. Gustavo Nunez also had 3 hits including a double. Daniel Fields doubled and tripled. Francisco Martinez had 2 hits. Martinez and Jimmy Gulliver were added from EST with Josh Workman and Bryan Pounds hitting the DL.

Lake County 15 West Michigan 5
Hernan Perez had 2 hits. Alexis Espinoza singled and walked. Lots of pitchers got beat up pretty good, but Ramon Lebron was the starter. He fanned 6 in 3 innings, but he also allowed 5 runs on 6 hits and 4 walks.

Tigers option Sizemore and Scherzer – Guillen to play 2B

The Tigers have optioned Scott Sizemore and Max Scherzer to Toledo. In their place come Armando Galarraga and Danny Worth. Worth wasn’t on the 40 man roster so his contract was purchased.

The Galarraga move isn’t the least bit surprising, he was the scheduled starter. The fact that the Tigers think Scherzer isn’t close enough to correcting his problems in side sessions is pretty telling and disappointing.

Also disappointing has been Sizemore’s performance offensively where he hasn’t been able to find that line drive stroke that produced an 889 OPS between AA and AAA last year.

Danny Worth was drafted by the Tigers in 2007 and his defense earned him a quick assignment at Lakeland. The question all along has been his bat. Worth is OPS’ing .665 for Toledo this year so it hasn’t exactly blossomed. My guess is this is a chance for Sizemore to fix some things while putting some pressure on Adam Everett as the defensive specialist.

Also, it should be noted that Worth was selected over Brent Dlugach who has very similar rate stats (673 OPS this year) but who is striking out at an epic rate with 52 K’s in 149 at-bats.

Also factoring into the middle infield situation is the fact that Carlos Guillen will need  a spot in a couple weeks and Brennan Boesch is playing too well to sit. Guillen has begun taking infield at both second base and shortstop.

UPDATE: Carlos Guillen will be the regular second baseman when he comes off the DL. When was the last season without a major position shift for Guillen?

Another Scherzer slugfest

Something is wrong with Max Scherzer. Tonight’s first inning was some kind of awful as Scherzer couldn’t locate his offspeed pitches and his fastball wasn’t so deceptive either. It’s one thing to have a rough go of it, but two of the last three starts saw the Tigers out of the game after the first inning.

Even when Scherzer could get ahead, he couldn’t finish off a hitter. He hung a 2 strike change-up to Marco Scutaro. He got to two strikes on Dustin Pedroia before Pedroia landed one in the bullpen. He went ahead of Kevin Youkilis 0-2 and 4 pitches later it was a walk.

I don’t know what is wrong with Scherzer, but something isn’t right. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear before his next start that he has been tipping pitches and they think they’ve got it figured out. Or that it was a simple mechanical fix. Or that Scherzer has a shoulder or elbow injury.

Scherzer isn’t getting hitters out with any sort of consistency, and this goes far beyond the fact he went from the NL to the AL. He has lost nearly 2mph off his fastball from last year, and his other pitches have seen similar drops. If it is measurement error, so be it. But if the result is due to injury and/or mechanics there is a larger problem. The Hardball Times examined the impact of velocity on runs allowed and did find a relationship, but even then it wouldn’t account for all of Scherzer’s struggles this year.

The Rest

  • The Tigers exercised patience and generated some baserunners by picking up six walks. Unfortunately Magglio Ordonez was the only Tigers hitter able to get hits (3 for 3 with a walk). The Tigers had a few chances to narrow the gap but couldn’t get the big hit.
  • Miguel Cabrera was completely stymied for the first time in awhile.
  • Brennan Boesch managed an RBI single on a breaking pitch low and away. It was a great pitch, and a better piece of hitting.
  • Brad Thomas had a very nice game, eating 3 innings. He threw 30 of his 43 pitches for strikes and fanned 3 and didn’t walk a hitter.
  • This didn’t impact the game at all, but in the first inning Austin Jackson led off with a walk. Granted, the Tigers were down 5 but Jackson is fast and Victor Martinez has thrown out 11% of runners this year. Yet Jackson stayed tethered to first base. I don’t understand this.

Maxed Out

Max Scherzer didn’t really give his team a chance to win, and that’s pretty much the game story in a nutshell. Speaking of shells, Scherzer was pummeled early and often and the Tigers were down 7-0 nothing before they even got their bearings at Target Field.

In the first inning Jim Thome drove in the first run on a pitch low and away. Thome did a nice job with a tough pitch. The rest were pitches up and in the middle and pitches that Scherzer can’t make.

In Max’s defense Jim Reynolds wouldn’t give him calls on the edges of the strike zone, but Scherzer has to do a better job. Especially after the Tigers started to chip away. In a way the 5th inning which featured 2 walks after the Tigers had cut it to a 4 run deficit were just as damaging as the early inning barrage.

  • Brad Thomas didn’t exactly clean up Scherzer’s mess, but he did go 3.2 innings to finish the game.
  • Austin Jackson is damn entertaining to watch. He ended up with another 3 hits and a strike out free game. He has 5 games without a strikeout, 4 of them are against the Twins.
  • Brennan Boesch continues to impress at the plate with 2 more hits of his own and he just missed his 2nd homer.
  • Detroit went 0 for 11 with RISP. A couple of those outs did plate runs, but it also kep the rallies short and harmless.

Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins – May 3, 2010 – MLB.com Wrap

Game 2010.022: Twins at Tigers

Hey, at least Scott Baker can’t be quite as good as Francisco Liriano was last night can he?

Baker goes for the Twins after getting beat up for 10 hits and 6 runs in 5.2 innings against Cleveland his last time out. Baker has continued his reverse platoon splits from last year into this young season where right handers hit him better than left handers.

Max Scherzer is coming off a strong outing that earned him a quality start on a 7 K, 2 BB, 7 inning effort in Arlington. He’s never started against the Twins.

Your lefty heavy lineup is:

  1. Jackson, CF
  2. Damon, DH
  3. Ordonez, RF
  4. Cabrera, 1B
  5. Boesch, LF
  6. Inge, 3B
  7. Raburn, 2B
  8. Avila, C
  9. Santiago, SS

Questioning the IBB

In my opinion these are the hardest losses to swallow. On a night when the team had to have been tired they really did battle. They fought against a closer with an electric arm and tied up a game in the 9th. But then there was a failure. A failure of execution and of strategy. A game where it seems like the manager let his team down.

I wish that Fox Sports Detroit did a post game with Jim Leyland because I’d love to know the thinking in walking Ryan Garko to get to Nelson Cruz. I don’t always agree with Leyland’s decision making process, but I can usually see his side. In this case I don’t really see another side at all. I’m dumbfounded. Given the effort his team gave him in the top of the 9th, they deserved better.

Perhaps I’m making too much of the IBB. The win expectancy only went down 1% for the Tigers. It was actually the smallest WE event of the inning.

Of course Leyland wasn’t the one who walked Justin Smoak, or Nelson Cruz for that matter. Fu-Te Ni’s control has been poor this season (8 walks and 2 HBP in 6 innings). Ryan Perry has to make a better pitch with 2 strikes to Elvis Andrus. If Perry comes in and doesn’t get Garko out, I don’t have a beef with the manager. In this case though it seems like Leyland walked right into what Ron Washington wanted.

The downside is that I spent 3 paragraphs lamenting negative instead of talking about the top of the 9th inning, which was terrific. The at-bats were all solid. Don Kelly fanned but it took 7 pitches. Ramon Santiago had a 13 pitch at-bat that resulted in an out but had to certainly wear on Neftali Feliz. Austin Jackson was determined to not strike out for a 4th time and put the first pitch in play, and Johnny Damon fought off a couple pitches before getting a bloop hit. And of course Magglio Ordonez with the line drive to right to tie the game. Great stuff that should be remembered.

And we haven’t even mentioned Brennan Boesch’s debut which saw him hit a double and a single (and later make a baserunning mistake). We haven’t mentioned Max Scherzer who went 7 innings and fanned 7 in a quality start. There was quite a bit of good in this game, and the players deserved the same from their manager.

  • It’s a quality start Scherzer because one of the runs was unearned and was the result of a charged error when Alex Avila used his mask to corral a ball.
  • Avila did gun down both attempted base stealers.
  • Scott Sizemore had a rough night at the dish with 3 uncomfortable looking strike outs. A pinch hitting appearance by Don Kelly may have spared him the sombrero.
  • Ordonez looked a little off balance at times on the west coast, but he reached base 4 times.
  • Miguel Cabrera’s 5 game double streak came to an end, but Austin Jackson’s 16 game strikeout streak and Johnny Damon’s 10 game hitting streak are still intact.

A Discouraging Turn

The Tigers have taken two turns through the rotation. The first was largely encouraging. A Max Scherzer 1 run effort and reasons for hope from Dontrelle Willis and Jeremy Bonderman highlighted the pass with rough but acceptable outings from Justin Verlander and Rick Porcello. This second turn though…oh man.

Using the Baseball Musings Day by Day Database it is easy to see how the starters have fared over the last 5 games and it isn’t pretty. The 12 walks issued over the 5 starts is borderline acceptable. But outside of that it is a matter of picking which number is most troublesome. Is it the 42 hits or the run-an-inning pace or the fact that strikeouts are few and far between? Or do you go with the result of all the ineffectiveness which is a bunch of short outings?

Starting Rotation via Baseball Musings

This isn’t rocket science. The starters have to pitch better. All of them. With only 4 of the hits being homers, there is some hope that the BABIP will drop. But the teams that the Tigers have faced (Indians/Royals/Mariners) are far from offensive juggernauts making this all the more concerning.

The third pass through the rotation begins today with Justin Verlander. The Tigers are the only team to not have a starter record an out after the 6th inning. That needs to change and the sooner the better.

Perusing PECOTA

Baseball Prospectus released the first run of their 2010 PECOTA numbers this week, which makes for much fun in the stat-centric baseball community. PECOTA differentiates itself from many of the other predictors by finding pools of comparable players to make their predictions. While the numbers are premium content (and can also be found in the printed annual), I will share a few of the items that jumped out at me about the Tigers.

The system puts the Tigers at 78-84 which is 3rd place in the AL Central behind the division leading Twins (83-79) and the second place White Sox (80-82). The Tigers run prevention is pegged at 2nd in the division at 776 runs allowed; the White Sox are first at 751. But an offense full of questions from young and old players alike is expected to be the division’s worst.

Continue reading Perusing PECOTA

More notes on the trade

UPDATE 7:30 PM: Freddy Dolsi and Dusty Ryan were designated for assignment. I’m surprised by both moves with other seemingly expendable players on the 40 man roster…Jason Beck spoke with Gerald Laird and got his take…Beck also spoke with Dombrowski and Phil Coke’s role has been left open…Danny Knobler sees the Tigers as potentially big spenders after this season.

UPDATE: 4:50 PM: The press conference just ended Dave Dombrowski fielded most of the questions. Here are the notes:

  • Dombrowski: team needed to make adjustments. Wanted to get a young starter and a young centerfielder to start. Team is trying to stay competitive and set themselves up for the future.
  • On Schlereth: He was a player the team considered drafting in 2008. For the Diamondbacks to include him, they were going to need a second arm which brought in the Yankees.
  • On Austin Jackson: they are counting on Jackson to make the big league club. They have been scouting him for a while. “Jim Leyland breaks in young players as well as anybody.”
  • Cashman on Granderson: After speaking about how hard it was to give up the young players that they did he went on to say he’s a premiere player and an exceptional character guy. He can step in right away as an established player which was important with potential departure of Damon and Matsui
  • Dombrowski on trading Granderson and his popularity: It’s difficult and he told Granderson it was one of the more difficult calls he’s made in his career. Granderson has meant a lot to the franchise, the city, and the state but it is a business decision. He’s a unique individual. Hope is that they have acquired more players that the fans will learn to love.

UPDATE: 4:08 PM: Now pretty much every writer says its official and the presser comes at 4:30. Also John Lowe has a story on Leyland’s media session this afternoon and his concerns about the youth of the team and the right handedness of the lineup.

UPDATE 3:35 PM: Joel Sherman just tweeted that the trade is official. Expect press releases and a news conference very shortly.

UPDATE: 2:10 It sounds as if Jim Leyland is holding court with some reporters at the moment. Kevin ‘Duk Kaduk of Big League Stew (@bigleaguestew) has been tweeting the notes. Leyland is frustrated to be talking about players he used to have and is worried his lineup is too right handed. Sounds like a familiar refrain.

It looks like there will be plenty of news, notes, and opinion on the trade that will come out today – along with a formal announcement and quotes galore. I’ll use this post to try and capture some of the more salient information.

As of 11:15 AM what’s being reported is:

What the Tigers got

As unpleasant as giving up Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson is, the Tigers did manage to net themselves a handful of players who will be able to help in 2010. For the most part these aren’t prospects where fans need to hope that they pan out. The Tigers added a starting pitcher, 2 bullpen arms, and hopefully a centerfielder for the near future.

Max Scherzer

Max Scherzer is headliner of the group and he will take over Edwin Jackson’s spot in the rotation. Scherzer is a year younger than Jackson, but with only a year and a half of service time he won’t reach free agency until the 2015 season. The righty was Arizona’s top pick in the 2006 draft.

In 2009 Scherzer fanned better than a batter an inning and his 3.87 FIP was impressive. He’s a fastball (94ish), slider (84ish), change-up pitcher (85ish). Even if ‘09 was a breakout year for Jackson, Scherzer’s year was better.

Plus Scherzer is sabermetrically inclined so that should be fun.

Scherzer image credit: tunnelarmr on Flickr Continue reading What the Tigers got