Tonight’s game was a battle of aces that lived up to its billing. Lester and Scherzer both pitched well with Lester and the Red Sox evening the series courtesy of their 2-1 victory.
Mike Napoli didn’t start tonight but he did pinch hit in the 8th inning against Luke Putkonen. I would have loved for Luke to have drilled that shit bird but it wasn’t the time. The score was 2-1 with runners on first and second and only 1 out. It was more important to prevent the Sox from extending their lead than evening the score with Crapoli.
Speaking of Putkonen, he has been very impressive and may be pitching himself onto the post season roster. He came in last Thursday and stopped the bleeding against Oakland which eventually allowed the Tigers to rally late and save the last game of the series.
Putkonen came in again today in a pressure situation. Scherzer came out to pitch the 8th but didn’t retire either batter he faced. He left the game with runners at first and second and nobody out. Coke came in and got David Ortiz to fly out. Putkonen then relieved Coke. With runners at first and second and one out he gave up a single to Crapoli to load the bases. He then got Jonny Gomes to pop out and Stephen Drew to ground out, both to Iggy, to end the inning.
What does all of this mean?
First, Putkonen and Coke are making cases for spots on the post season roster.
Second, the burden falls on Ricky tomorrow to win the rubber game and hold Crapoli accountable for his Dave Rozema karate kick on Iggy during Monday’s game. It seems like these things fall on Porcello a lot. As has been documented here at Flashin Leather, Ricky hit Youkilis in August of 2009, then beat him into a conniption when he rushed the mound. Then earlier this year in Tampa Bay, after The Crooked Hat threw at Miggy’s head the night before, Ricky lit Zobrists’ rib cage up to defend the MVP the following game.
Third, and this is the most important take away from tonight’s game, Tommy “The Windmill” Brookens is the worst third base coach in baseball history. He always manages to get the call exactly wrong. Today, The Windmill got Brayan Pena thrown out at the plate in the second inning. With Pena on first and Infante on third, Iggy doubled, scoring Infante easily. Brookens, then, mistook the 5’9″ 230 lbs Pena for Rickey Henderson and sent him home. Although the play was considerably closer than most of The Windmill’s sends, Pena was still out by 30 feet.
I love Tommy but not as the third base coach. The Tigers need Geno back at 3rd. Let Tommy move to first or to the bench.
It would be nice to come out of Boston with Napoli’s ribs bruised and a series win.
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Flashin' Leather 
Agree that Brookens needs to go. It’s one thing to get guys thrown out at home plate, but it’s another for them to be out by such a wide margin. This is at least the fourth time it wasn’t even close.
This was a good game, but as it entered the 4th inning it was pretty clear Max was going to have to throw a shutout to win. With the exception of a couple bad pitches to the bottom of the order he nearly pulled it off.
I would be shocked if Ricky doesn’t drill Napoli tomorrow. He will probably get suspended, but can string out the appeal until an unimportant stretch of games. I would do it on the 2nd or 3rd at-bat to at least get a few innings in to save the bullpen. Looking for some offense tomorrow against a subpar Ryan Dempster.
Sark, Dempster is another shit bird I can’t stand. He such a tool, he made me feel bad for A Rod when he threw at him in the first inning of a Sunday night game a few weeks back. Who does he think he is? Sitting in judgement on some high horse. F-him in the ear.
Well pitching and defense…..however you get thrown out by 15 feet in the ( Fill in the game here)…that’s not on the 25 man roster. 2 to 1 this was not a bad game just the wrong end of the score. Well yea that’s bad. As far as Crapoli goes….unless the game is way out of hand one way or the other that may need to wait till another day. We want home field now we have his #. As far as Coke and Putkonen and Amazing Al and whomever well I suspect that we are going to have an interesting time getting to October and a post season pen.
Nebraska, you’re probably right. I’d rather have the win and save the ribs for another time.
Do you see the Amazing Al on the post season roster?
Do I see the Amazing A? Well as I said couple days back……….the Tigers don’t quite know what the post season pen is…..so I suspect we will see lots of tinkering with Amazing, Coke, Putkonen and whomever. As for Amazing if he can control the walks yes…..if not…I just don’t know I think the brain trust is REALLY working on pitching and that scares me.
Well I guess we know about the not so amazing al………