If you haven’t been worried about Jose Veras now might be a good time to begin.
With the Tigers leading 3-0 going to the bottom of the 8th Veras took over for the Amazing Al. Jose lasted 1/3 of an inning and surrendered two runs on two hits and a walk. This forced The Puppet Master to ask Joaquin Benoit to get 5 outs and save the game.
Benoit got two outs to end the 8th but gave up a solo home run to Brian Dozier leading off the 9th. This was Benoit’s first blown save of the season but a lot of the blame has to fall on Veras.
That being said, it is a sad state of affairs for the offense that only managed 1 run against Twins starter, Mike Pelfrey, who had an ERA over 5.50 entering the game.
I’m very worried about Veras, and he has to take a lot of credit for this loss, but this game shouldn’t have been this close to begin with. I think the biggest problem is Austin Jackson. He managed 1 hit today but is 1 for his last 18.
JV was very good today. The only problem was his pitch count which forced him to exit after pitching 6 scoreless innings, during which he walked 3, and struke out 12. Verlander had only thrown 107 pitches after 6 so I was surprised he didn’t come out for the 7th. Instead, Smyly and Alburquerque came in to pitch the 7th.
Besides striking out 12 hitters JV was able to pitch out of a few jams without allowing any runs. The most impressive was the bottom of the 5th when Verlander allowed a lead off double to Alex Presley but managed to get out of the inning without allowing him to get any further. This type of pitching reminded me of the JV vintage 2011 and 2012. This was a very good sign.
The Amazing Al pitched very well tonight again. After Smyly started the 7th and allowed two singles, AA, was able to get Dozier, Willingham, and Pinto to end the inning and preserve the three run lead.
The magic number remains at 2 and I don’t think it’s a lock by any means. The Tigers have two more with the Twins but right now the season series is only Tigers 9 Twins 8. After Minnesota, the Tigers head to Miami where the team isn’t that great but they do have some starting pitching that could give a slumping offense problems.
God, I love baseball.” – Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Flashin' Leather 
This game pretty much sums this team up. Beat by a 4A team with a better manager. Veras sucks, make no mistake. When they got him I mentioned how he reminded me of the other Jose V we got from Houston. He is not a shutdown setup guy and should not be used in that situation, if at all.
This offense needs a real kick in the ass. As I was watching in disbelief as the hitters couldn’t do anything off Pelfrey, I thought about how Leyland was going to spin this one in his post game… You know ‘what a great pitching performance this guy put in’. Instead what this team needs was a message like the one he served up in April, 2006. I was at that garbage game and heard about this later. It went like this:
Leyland: We Stunk. Next question.
Reporter: What bothered you the most?
Leyland: It was lackluster, the whole ball of wax was lackluster. We had a chance to take the series, take 3 out of 4, and we came out like we brought our luggage to the park like we had to play a game before we went on the road. That’s not good enough.
Reporter: It seems like this was your worst loss…
Leyland: Yeah we stunk period. We stunk and that’s not good enough. This stuff has been going on here before and it’s not going to happen here. We had a chance to take a series. I’m not talking about anyone in particular. I’m talking about the team, myself, the coaches, and everybody else included. It’s my responsiblity to have the team ready to play today, and they weren’t ready to play. They were ready to get on the plane and go to Oakland. If they won it was okay and if they lost it was okay. That’s not good enough
He has often said you can only use this type of tirade once because the players would tune you out the next time. But now would be a good time for another, because only 4 players remain from that team. Just saying….
Chris, you’re spot-on about Jackson. He has always been the key to the offense.
Sark, I have a bad feeling about this road trip. I have for the last few days. This is dangerous. Neither team has anything to lose and both have decent pitching. The Twins starters suck but the pen is good. And the Marlins have good starting pitching. This could get very interesting.
We need to bring in our closer for a 5 out save against a team that is currently 66W/90L. What do you think this will look like against a team that is 90/66? JV stated that he threw the best braking ball he had all year. I thought that he did not command the fastball very well……….so hey I have a slider for 6 innings and then the pen. I am very afraid.
That’s the problem, JV pitched well but threw too many pitches. We needed him to go another inning and I don’t understand why he wasn’t sent out for 7th. He had only thrown 107 pitches. He could have thrown another 20 as he routinely does.
I’ve been hard on the Amazing Al, but his last two outings he’s looked good.
I think this is a case of the Puppet Master putting this one in the win column before the game was over. He probably figured with a 3-0 lead the game was over so he could give JV some semi-rest.
All that being said, 1 RUN OFF OF MIKE PELFREY? WTF?