Mariano Rivera’s final performance.
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
So Long Mo!
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Baseball
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Marlins 2 Tigers 1
I could talk about Joaquin Benoit blowing his second save in less than a week. I could talk about Evan Reed pitching himself off of the post season roster. Instead, I’m laying this loss right at the feet of the offense.
This offense is embarrassing. No team can pitch well enough to win with an offense like this. I know, I know, they didn’t play their A lineup the entire game. This isn’t a one game thing. This is a two season thing and frankly the lines between the A, B and C lineup are blurred beyond recognition.
This is maddening.
With the offensive explosion today the Tigers have scored 11 runs in the last five games.
Tonight they scored only one run on nine hits.
I don’t have much more to say. I’m speechless. If there is any bright spot it is that Peralta got two hits tonight and looks like he might be able to pull this left field trick off. At this point, however, I’m not sure it’s going to be enough.
I have to mention Don Kelly Flashin Leather tonight. He made a nice running catch in right for the second out in the bottom of the ninth.
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Marlins 3 Tigers 2
This series in Miami is like spring training and although you always want to win, the most important thing is evaluating your talent.
The Tigers would have needed a sweep of the Marlins and have Oakland lose 2 of 3 to the Mariners in order to get home field advantage. That didn’t happen. The Tigers will start in Oakland next Friday.
It looks like Ricky is going to the bullpen for the post season and he looked pretty good in relief of Jose Alvarez in the third. He pitched an inning and a third allowing two hits, one a wounded quail, and no earned runs. Ricky is going to be fine however the Tigers use him.
Luke Putkonen, who I’m expecting to be on the post season roster, looked good as well.
Jhonny Peralta was 1-4 and looked pretty good in left field. After one game it is hard to tell but remember, Delmon Young was the ALCS MVP last season and nobody would mistake him for Gary Pettis.
Like Dick Allen said, when asked how to play good defense, “Swing the bat!”.
Hmmm, I’m wondering if Tui will be on the playoff roster? I’m sure Dirks will be.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Tigers 1 Twins 0
Max Scherzer got his 21st win of the season and the Tigers clinched the Central Division for the 3rd straight season.
I’m not excited. I’m not excited about a team that has won 93 games. I can’t get the frustrated flailing of an inconsistent offense out of my mind.
I’m glad they won but for me it is World Series Champion or bust. The Tigers have won only one World Series in my lifetime, in 1984. It has been 29 years. I’ve been a season ticket holder for 8 years. I’m tired of waiting but I feel like this team is the same as last year’s team. Similar to the 2012 Tigers, the 2013 edition, just can’t score on a consistent basis and asks way too much the pitching staff.
The Tigers managed only 8 runs in this 3 game series with the Twins and managed to win 2. This is a tribute to excellent starting pitching and enough arms out of the pen to pick up a terrible offense.
Miggy looks horrible. He’s had only 2 extra base hits since August 26th and took his second straight ohfer. I think the Tigers are going to pay for not putting him on the 15 day DL at the end of August. I hope I’m wrong.
This was an odd game for Max. He pitched 7 innings, allowed only 2 hits, struck out 10 but walked 6. Max struggled with his command all game long but still managed to shut out the Twins.
Max Scherzer should win the American League Cy Young Award. The object of the game is to win and Max has done that better than anybody else in the league. Other pitchers should get consideration but 21 wins is 21 wins and Scherzer should take home the hardware.
At times this year I’ve been hard on Jimmy Leyland but I think he’s done the best with what he has. I don’t think there is anything he can do about the offense. These guys are supposed to hit and he can’t do that for them.
I’m excited to see Peralta in left field.
I’m excited for the playoffs to start.
I hope the Tigers can pull it off. They will probably go as far as their starting pitching takes them
It’s on to Miami and then probably off to Oakland.
Hopefully, like Victor Martinez earlier in the year, the offense will prove me wrong.
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Here we go…
the era of Jhonny Peralta in left field for the Tigers is about to begin.
From the Detroit News: Hat Tip Nebraska Knows!
Tigers minor leaguers: Jhonny Peralta ‘a natural’ as outfielder
Tigers fans are vastly uneasy about Jhonny Peralta’s ongoing transition to left field. But two outfielders currently playing alongside the former shortstop have a message for you.
Calm down.
“He’s a natural,” said Austin Scotts, a Tigers prospect who played center field while Peralta played left in an instructional league game Monday.
“Can’t really tell he’s new to the position.”
Said Connor Harrell, another outfield prospect also working out in Lakeland, Fla.: “I think he looks really good out there — pretty natural, honestly.”
Peralta, 31, has been in Lakeland since the middle of the month, shagging countless flyballs and getting his bat back into shape.
He is expected to hear from the Tigers today regarding their plans — and it’s widely believe they will welcome him back for their final regular-season series this weekend in Miami, then for the postseason, as his 50-game suspension for his Biogenesis involvement comes to an end.
Keep reading at DetNews dot com here.
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Offensive inconsistency nagging at Leyland
Perhaps I’m not the only one bothered by this offense?
“We have to score runs, fellas. It’s as simple as that,” he interjected. “We keep talking about the pitching and the bullpen and everything, but we’re not scoring runs. We have to score runs. We’ve had some blowouts once in a while when our numbers go up. We need to score runs, plain and simple. I’ll make it that simple for you. We need to get on the board with some runs.”
Entering play Tuesday, the Tigers led the Majors with a .285 batting average, 2,442 total bases and 163 go-ahead RBIs. They trailed only the Red Sox with 788 runs scored, 759 RBIs and a .787 OPS. However, Detroit also led baseball with 1,120 runners left on base, 45 more than the Red Sox, and 1,239 double plays grounded into.
Realistically, though, the Tigers’ offensive questions are better seen in the game-to-game numbers. Detroit and Boston are the only teams in baseball averaging five runs a game. The Tigers have scored double-digit runs in 18 of their 91 wins entering Tuesday, though just twice in September. However, they’ve also been shut out 11 times, three times in September. They’ve been held to one run in nine other games, three of those in September; one of them was a 1-0 win over the White Sox in Chicago.
keep reading here from MLB dot com.
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Tigers 4 Twins 2
Whew! Fister and the pen got it done reducing the Tigers’ magic number to 1.
The Tigers always seem to make it interesting.
Despite scoring 4 runs the offense was pathetic again. They scored all their runs in the 4th inning but missed several chances to blow this game wide open and take some pressure off the pitching staff. The biggest blown opportunity was in the second inning when the Tigers loaded the bases with nobody out and couldn’t push across a single run.
Cabrera left 4 runners on base and took an 0-4. Fielder was 1-4 and left 3 on base. Matt Tuiasosopo and Alex Avila each took ohfers and stranded 3 runners a piece. The bright spot on offense was Austin Jackson. AJax has been struggling but went 3-5 and drove in the winning runs with a two run big-bingo to put the Tigers up 4-1.
Fister was good, the bullpen was better. Fistet pitched 6.1, allowed 8 hits, one run, struck out 7 and walked one.
Smyly and The Amazing Al got the final two outs in the 7th stranding Twins at first and second.
Conspicuously, Bruce Rondon was called upon to pitch the 8th and was very impressive striking out the side. Hmmm does anybody else find it interesting that Veras was brought in to pitch the 8th? Maybe the Puppet Master isn’t getting the warm and fuzzies from Veras either.
The Tigers are getting nothing offensively from left field. If they can clinch tomorrow perhaps they should start Jhonny Peralta all three game is left in Miami and see what they’ve got. Offensively, it is hard to imagine doing any worse than the platoon of Dirks, Tui, and DK. (Hat Tip Rossie for this suggestion).
I’ll say this one more time, WTF is up with this offense?
Scherzer goes for number 21 and the division tomorrow.
Get it done!
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
The Astros had a 0.0 TV rating
The most profitable team in MLB history has a 0.0 television rating for their game against the Indians on Sunday.
From the CBS Houston:
ZERO-POINT-ZERO
The Houston Chronicle explains that it doesn’t necessarily mean that there wasn’t one person who tuned in, it just means that not a single, solitary Nielsen household tuned in to watch the Astros.
“There are a couple of asterisks involved here, of course,” the Houston Chronicle explained. “For one thing, Nielsen persists with the statistically supportable but still head-shaking concept that it can measure what millions of television viewers are watching by monitoring the behavior of hundreds.”
So what was it?
Keep reading here.
“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Twins 4 Tigers 3
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
White Sox 6 Tigers 3
After an emotional come from behind victory last night the Tigers fell to the White Sox today. That coupled with another Indians victory over the Astros and the Tigers’ magic number remains at 2.
Anibal Sanchez didn’t have it today. He surrendered 4 earned over 5 innings, striking out 6 while walking 2.
The Tigers made a bid to repeat last night’s 9th inning magic but fell short when Austin Jackson struck out swinging.
Jackson was hitless again today taking an 0-4 dropping his batting average to .269.
I didn’t see this one coming. After last night’s heroics and Sanchez on the mound I really thought the Tigers would pull off the sweep.
In another interesting move, The Puppet Master had Brayan Pena pinch hit for Alex Avila to lead off the 9th. Alex was 3-3 and has been swinging a hot bat. In fact, his batting average is closing in on .230. Not bad for a guy who was hitting in the .160s in June. With left-hander Donnie Veal pitching I guess he was playing the left right match-up, and it did work out, Pena doubled, but it seemed like a questionable move to me at least.
Anyway, there’s not much more to say about this game other than Fielder’s home run the game was kind of a dud.
Hopefully the Tigers can get back on track in Minnesota tomorrow and clinch the division ASAP.
Verlander against Pelfrey in the opener.
God, I love baseball.” – Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Flashin' Leather 