Baseball

Royals 1 Tigers 0

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This was a tough loss to take but no that surprising.  Both Fister and Santana pitched like aces but the “top rated” Tigers offense could not produce a single run.

I understand that Santana has had a good season and pitched well tonight but with the money the Tigers have invested in their offense it is not unreasonable to expect better.

This game has it’s share of leather flashin.  Royals’ short stop Alcides Escobar made several nice plays.  Torii Hunter threw a seed from right field to gun down Chris Getz trying to take third on a fly ball in the top of the 8th.  Miguel Cabrera and Alex Avila teamed up to cut down Eric Hosmer trying to score from third and a ground ball in the first.  And the play of the game was a relay from Alex Gordon to Alcides Escobar to Salvador Perez to cut down Prince Fielder at the plate to end the game.

Objectively speaking this was a really well played game.  The only problem is that the Tigers offense couldn’t come up with a single run.  This seems to be the story of the last two seasons, no consistency on offense.  They score a lot of runs one game then go into hibernation for a week. It is very frustrating and sometimes painful to watch.

There are two plays in particular I’d like to address.

  1. In the bottom of the sixth Iggy led off with a bunt single.  At this point it was obvious runs were going to be at a premium.  I was hoping the Tigers would give Iggy the green light to try to swipe second.  I’m not big on bunting a guy over from first to second but I am a fan of the stolen base.  Instead, Jackson followed with a fielders choice then Hunter and Cabrera flew out to end the inning.  If Iggy could have stolen second he could have gone to third on Jackson’s ground ball and scored on Hunters fly out.  Instead the Tigers settled for nothing.  I understand speed is not the Tigers game but Iggy does bring this dimension to the team.  This would have been the perfect time to try something new instead of just going to the plate and taking your hacks against a pitcher that’s been dominating you.  I could have lived with Iggy getting thrown out at second.  But I can’t live with doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
  2. In the bottom of the 8th Miggy came to the plate following a Hunter double.  This put Hunter a second with two out.  Cabrera then ended the inning with a ground out to second base on the first pitch.  I know it is hard to complain about Miggy but he has been horrible the last few weeks and I’m not sure it is all injury related.

On the bright side Fister did pick off Emilio Bonifacio at first base in the top of the third inning.  With pick offs and runners thrown out at second the Tigers seem to be making strides at slowing down the opposing team’s running game.  Now if they could manufacture a run or two of their own they might have something.  Still with this lineup they really have no excuse for being shut out ever, let alone, 11 times this season.

Let’s see if Max can get is 20th win of the season in the rubber game tomorrow.

“God, I love baseball.” – Roy Hobbs | The Natural

Tigers 6 Royals 3

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On a cold autumn night in Detroit the Tigers got Just enough.  They got just enough starting pitching.  Just enough offense.  Just enough relief pitching.

JV turned in a typical 2013 JV outing.  He went 6 and 2/3.  He allowed 9 hits, 3 earned runs and struck out 7 while throwing 111 pitches.

The inning that bothered me was the top of the 6th.  After the Tigers scored 3 runs to extend the lead to 6-1 in the bottom of the 5th, JV gave two back in the top half of the 6th.  I know it was a 5 run lead but the old JV made a habit of putting up zeroes after his team got him some runs.  That being said, It was a quality start and the Tigers will take it.

After continuing to make Bruce Chen look like Cliff Lee for 3 more innings, the Tigers finally got 2 in the 4th and 3 in the 5th to take a 6-1 lead.  Torii Hunter and Prince fielder each drove in 3 runs and provided the bulk of the Tigers offensive output tonight.  Prince increased his RBI total to 102.

Jose Veras is scaring me.  He pitched 1/3 of an inning.  Walked 1 and hit another batter.  Veras threw 11 total pitches and only 3 of them were strikes.  The Tigers can’t have guys coming out of the bullpen that can’t find the strike zone.  He’s officially on the list.

Billy Butler continues to own JV with 2 more hits against him tonight.  Verlander has to find a way to get him out or just start walking him.  This is getting ridiculous now.

Fister and Santana face off tomorrow.  Let’s hope the Tigers don’t continue the trend of winning the first game of a three game set then dropping the final two.

“God, I love baseball.” – Roy Hobbs | The Natural

Tigers 1 White Sox 0

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Anibal Sanchez continues to make his case for this year’s AL Cy Young award.  He improved his record to 14-7 and lowered his league leading ERA to 2.50.  Anibal was masterful tonight in spite of an asinine strike zone from home plate umpire Larry Hanover.

Even with a strike zone that nobody could figure out, Sanchez managed to pitch 7 and 1/3 without allowing any runs.  He gave up only 5 hits, walked 4 and struck out 10.

A few weeks ago I thought Max Scherzer had the Cy Young locked up but Anibal is right on his heels along with Yu Darvish of the Rangers and Chris Sale of the White Sox.

The offense was pathetic tonight which is pretty much what I expected.  After scoring 9 runs last night. the Tigers managed only 1 run on 10 hits.  They were 1 for 11 with men in scoring position.

I’m not sure what the issue is but Miguel Cabrera doesn’t not look good at all.  I’m not sure if he just needs to get his timing back or if his injuries are plaguing him much more than we are lead to believe.  However, if continues hitting the way he did on this road trip, the Tigers are in trouble.

Veras, Smyly and Benoit were aces coming out of the bull pen to preserve the 1-0 win for Sanchez.

Nick Castellanos was 1-4 tonight.  I thought his most impressive at bat came in the first inning.  After falling behind 1-2 he worked the count back to even.  He then fouled off three pitches then took ball three to move the count to full.  He ended up striking out but he did make Jose Quintana throw him 9 pitches.

The Tigers lead in the central is back up to 6.5 games courtesy of the Indians loss to the Royals earlier in the day.

This was a nice win.  After losing the opening game, and third in a row, they managed to win the final two and take the series.

The Royals come to Comerica Park this weekend.  Friday’s game features Justin Verlander against Bruce Chen.  Let’s hope it goes better than the last time these two faced each other.

“God, I love baseball.” – Roy Hobbs | The Natural

Yost kills Royals with awful ninth inning – SweetSpot Blog – ESPN

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Hat Tip, again, to Nebraska for this link.

It looks like some Royals fans are not happy with Ned Yost.

Congratulations, Ned Yost, you just managed the worst inning of the season.

The situation: The Kansas City Royals trailed the Cleveland Indians 4-3 entering the top of the ninth. The Indians summoned closer Chris Perez from the bullpen, a guy who has been awful of late. In his previous 13 appearances Perez had faced 60 batters and allowed 18 hits — including four home runs — and four walks. In September, he’d pitched four innings and allowed eight hits.

Salvador Perez led off with a base hit to left field. Mike Moustakas walked on four pitches. Pinch-runners for both were on base. Lorenzo Cain, Jarrod Dyson and Alcides Escobar — the bottom of the order — were due up. You have a struggling pitcher who just walked a batter on four pitches. What do you do?

Here’s what you don’t do: Give Perez an out.

David Lough pinch-hit for Cain and sacrificed. Didn’t take a pitch. Didn’t make Perez throw at least one strike. He bunted the first pitch.

Look, it’s not just the sabermetric crowd who is anti-bunt. Managers have become anti-bunt, not sacrificing nearly as often as they used to. It’s a one-run strategy with minimal payoff in a world where more hitters than ever can drive the ball for extra bases or out of the park. A bunt may slightly increase your chance to score one run but it also decreases your chance for multiple runs. It’s a strategy from an era when singles were more common, but in this age of increasing strikeouts and declining batting averages, singles are less likely than ever to occur.

In this specific instance, though, why give an out to a pitcher who has been a train wreck of late? Why make him get only two outs in an inning instead of three?

You can read the entire post here.

“God, I love baseball.” – Roy Hobbs | The Natural

 

Tigers 9 White Sox 1

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The Tigers ended their 3 game skid with a 9-1 victory over the White Sox tonight at US Cellular field in Chicago.

The story of this game was Rick Porcello.  Ricky pitched the first complete game of his career,  He allowed one earned run, seven hits, walked one, and struck out 5.  He really looked good tonight and the Tigers needed it.

The offense put up 9 runs but you’ll forgive me if I don’t get too excited.  Five of the nine runs scored were unearned.  The White Sox defense aided the Tigers offense with four errors, three of them by third baseman Conor Gillaspie.

Prince and Alex Avila each had 4 hits tonight but Miggy was 0-5 and something just doesn’t look right with him.

The Indians lost tonight so the Tigers’ lead is back up to 5.5.

Let’s see what the offense does tomorrow with Anibal Sanchez on the mound in the rubber game of the series.

On a another note, I heard that Jhonny Peralta will rejoin the team for the last week of the season.  From what I can make out of Dombrowski’s comments, he is definitely not coming back to play shortstop.  John Keating said on the pre-game that Peralta was fielding fly balls.  Does this mean that the Tigers plan to put Peralta in left?  That’s the only thing I can think of and if he hits, it might not be a bad idea.  I think the Tigers have run out of corner outfield experiments.  I don’t think Dirks, Tui, or Castellanos are legitimate options for an everyday left fielder.  I guess I’m not sure Peralta is either but how much worse can he be?  I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

“God, I love baseball.” – Roy Hobbs | The Natural

Sark’s Comment from June 30th, 2013

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When Sark wrote this comment on June 30th, I was hoping it wouldn’t play out.

I’m having second thoughts.

Here’s what he said:

I agree they have become as unwatchable as ever. The 2003 team was more interesting simply because they were terrible, but we knew that going in. This team is supposed to be the best since 27 Yankees, or so we’ve been sold. There are so many holes in this team its hard to figure which to fill first. They simply can’t perform in the clutch. I would love to see a statistic that evaluates how many runners reach first base and then touch home plate. Can’t be a very good ratio on this team.

I can see them out of first place at the all-star break, though that will be the case much sooner on this road trip. Hate to say it but they’re going to need a change of manager to put a spark into this team. Things are getting too stale and the players are becoming a reflection of the manager. You know – ‘it’s a long season and the talent will win out’. Dangerous attitude to have when there are hungry teams in the chase.

Here‘s a link to the original post, “Just About Unwatchable”.

“God, I love baseball.” – Roy Hobbs | The Natural

White Sox 5 Tigers 1

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This game started out bad and kept getting worse.

For the second time this season Miguel Cabrera got thrown out of a game during an at bat.  In the first inning, home plate umpire, Brian Gorman, ruled that Cabrera swung at a pitch that ultimately hit him.  Cabrera asked for the appeal to first but Gorman refused.  Replay showed that Cabrera probably didn’t go around.  However, Miggy needs to keep his F***ING mouth shut.  There is nothing he can say that is going to change the call so shut up and finish the at bat.

Miggy does not get star treatment.  I don’t remember seeing a game where I thought he got a borderline call because of his past accomplishments.  I can’t say for sure why but maybe shutting his trap would help.  Instead he gets kicked out of the game in the first inning and the Tigers have Ramon Santiago batting third for the rest of the game against arguably, the best pitcher in the American League, Chris Sale.

Speaking of pitching, Max Scherzer has had a great year.  He may even win the Cy Young award but he is not a staff ace.  A staff ace can be counted on to stop the bleeding.  They prevent long losing streaks and they pick the team up when they are slumping.  The Tigers are slumping and this is the second time in a month that the Tigers needed Max to be a stopper and twice he has come up with horrible performances.

The Tigers don’t have an ace.  They have a good staff but with Verlander not pitching well they don’t have a stopper.  Right now if you asked me who I would want to pitch a one game playoff, I wouldn’t have an answer.

Nice offense.  The vaunted Tiger offense put up one run today.  That makes six runs scored in the last three games.  The part that is so frustrating is that it never looks like the Tigers offense makes adjustments during a game.  As has often been discussed here, opposing teams seem to have better at bats against Tigers pitching in the 4th and 5th innings, or the second time through the order.  Most of the time this year, the Tigers’ staff has been able to readjust, but the Tigers offense never seems to try anything different.  They go up there time after time with the same approach and just hope that it works.  That’s one of the reasons their offense is so streaky.

I’m sure this isn’t the case but the only person on the team with any spark, that looks like they give shit, is Jose Iglesias.  You don’t want a team to be too uptight but this team looks too loose.  On that note, I’m not sure about anyone else, but I’ve have had just about enough of Torii Hunter’s clowning antics in right field.  I like when players have fun but this is your profession, act like a professional.

It is looking more and more like wheels on this bandwagon are falling off.  The Tigers lead has been cut to 4.5 games courtesy of the Indians victory over the Royals.

Does anybody want to change their vote in yesterday’s poll?

“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural

What team is on pace to become the most profitible baseball team in history?

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2013 Houston Astros
If you answered the Houston Astros, you’d be correct.

From Deadspin courtesy of Nebraska:

“The big benefactor is TV money. Regional sports networks aren’t just for successful or popular teams anymore! The Astros, Rockets, and NBC launched CSN Houston last fall, and the deal pays the Astros a whopping $80 million a year—on par with the Red Sox, Mets, and Rangers, and ahead of every team except the Dodgers, Angels, and Yankees. It’s been argued here and elsewhere (though it’s far from unanimous) that the TV rights bubble can’t continue to swell indefinitely, but no matter the long-term, the Astros got in before it popped.”

“God I love baseball.” -Roy Hobbs | The Natural