Dailies

Royals 5 Tigers 1

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Well this game was a cacophony of nonsense.  Verlander was just short of terrible.  The hitting was horrible. The fielding was sub-par and the base running was embarrassing.  The Tigers, tonight, were hard to watch.

The big news, however, was the release of general manager Dave Dombrowski.  I wasn’t completely surprised.  I figured that since he hadn’t been extended he was probably gone.  I just didn’t expect it to be now.

I don’t know much about Al Avila but I was hoping Dombrowski’s replacement would be an advanced metrics person. Perhaps the former Angels’ GM?  I’m sick and tired of the same old thing. I want to see something new; a change of direction. I want to see new ideas.  I’m afraid we are going to get more of the same.

Or perhaps the Tigers could get a real old school GM that believes in good base running, moving runners over, scoring runners at third with less than two outs, not bouncing into five double plays a game. I want to see something other than the garbage I’ve watched this season.  I want to see another World Series champion.

Tigers 9 Orioles 8

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With the Tigers leading the O’s 9-2 I said to sometimes contributor inlovewithbaseball, ‘what if the Tigers make a run? What if all these moves change the chemistry?  What if JV keeps pitching they way he has in three out if his last four starts and Sanchez pitches well, and Lobstein comes back? That gives the Tigers three quality starters and hey, the offense is showing signs of life’.

What an idiot!!

All it took was a nine run outburst for me to lose my head and forget what I’ve watched for 100 games.  I forgot how many times the offense has tricked me with one game explosions.  And how could I forget what was lurking in the bullpen.  I think the Shane Greene bullpen experiment needs to be over although I’m not sure there are anymore options.

Where would the 2015 Tigers be without Alex Wilson, 20 games under .500?  He has to be the team.

The ball hit in the seventh or eighth inning that ate up Nick The Quick, does anyone think that should have been an error? Would an average third basemen have made he play?  I’m not sure?  It was a shot.

Oh well, I’ll take a W anyway they can get them.  Wins are hard to come by.

Mariners 11 Tigers 9

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If there was any hope for the Tigers left in the 2015 season Franklin Gutierrez ended it in the eighth inning last night.  His pinch hit grand slam off of Neftali Feliz should make it clear to the Tigers brass that 2016 is what they need to start concentrating on.  For all intents and purposes, 2015 is over.

Lost is this debacle was a mammoth home run by J.D. Martinez. J.D. continued his impressive season with an absolute CONNIPTION shot to straight away center field to give the Tigers signs of life in the third inning.  If Miggy can’t come back it should be fun watching J.D. the rest of the way.

O’s 9 Tigers 3

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Nebraska sent me an article that that the fire sale has begun in Cincinnati.  I think it should begin in Detroit as well. Verlander was horrible. The offense wasn’t far behind.

It appears JV’s start in Minnesota was the anomaly. He gave up seven earned again today and wasn’t fooling anybody.  He couldn’t make it out of the third.

The offense could manage only three runs despited getting 14 hits.  There was pretty much nothing to like except Iggy’s four hit day.

This is going to get ugly but it doesn’t have to stay ugly for long.  I just don’t want to sit through another 2003.

O’s 3 Tigers 0

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This was actually a pretty well played game.  It lacked offense but I like a pitcher’s dual once in a while;  just as long as I don’t have to tip my cap to every ham & egger toes the slab against us. Both Price and Tillman were smokin balls.  The Tigers should have cashed a run in the bottom of the first when they had a runner on third with one out but Tillman looked like a top of the rotation guy last night.

David Price gutted out seven impressive innings allowing a single run on a solo shot by Manny Machado while striking out 12 and walking 1. Alex Wilson did what he does and pitched a clean 8th. Krol got a LONG out to lead off the 9th. Then Rondon essentially put the game out of reach by giving up two runs.  He needs to a bus ticket south about an hour.

Rondon did not pitch well and I can’t and won’t defend him.  But Anthony Gose could have bailed him out by making a catch he makes 9 out of 10 times.

It seems like things just are not working out for this team.  It doesn’t seem to be in the cards.  Unfortunately, I listened to 97.1 for a few minutes yesterday and some blow hard was talking about how if he were a season ticket holder he would be offended if the Tigers traded David Price.  I am a season ticket holder and here’s what offends me, charging $10.50 for three chicken fingers.

Tigers 7 Orioles 3

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During his first two at-bats I thought J.D. Martinez was going into another funk. He was swinging at bad first pitches and immediately finding himself in 0-2 holes.   He changed that in his third at-bat by hitting his 26th home run.

J.D. also flashed some leather robbing Chris Davis of a home run with a a nice catch at the wall in right.  This is slowly becoming the J.D. Martinez show.

They got enough pitching from Anibal and the pen, although, Soria scares me, to piece this one together. It’s nice to start the “second half” off with a win.

Twins 7 Tigers 1

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I’m late with this post.  I was under the weather most of last week and the weekend.  The Tigers play didn’t help any either.  They finished the theoretical first half .500 and were fortunate to do so.  The first few months of the season they couldn’t score consistently. Their pitching, including the bullpen, paced them to an impressive early season record.

The bats woke up the first week of June. The starting pitching imploded and the bullpen had a Fukushima like meltdown.  Since May 16th the Tigers have the worst record in the American league.  In June the Tigers bullpen ranked 29th in ERA. In July, so far, some how, they rank only 28th.

What has this taught me?  An old lesson that I guess I need to learn over and over no matter how much baseball I watch. If you can’t pitch you can’t win.  It is a lot more entertaining to watch a team that hits until you wake and realize you team sucks and isn’t going anywhere.

If your team can pitch it can win no matter how crappy the hitting is.  I guess we’ve seen this in practice over the last five to six years.  We had sit through an inconsistent offense that would score 10 runs one game then nothing for a week and they found a way to make it to the post season.  Granted, we are still waiting for a World Series but we are looking at a team right now that is scoring over six runs a game but can’t pitch a lick.  We are seeing a tale of two seasons in one this year.  The first two months of the season the Tigers could pitch and couldn’t hit but were winning.  The last month and a half they are hitting and can’t pitch and are one of the worst teams in baseball.

Here’s another conclusion i’ve come to.  I don’t want to trade Nick “The Quick” Castellanos.  I’ve been critical of him.  However, He’s young. He’s show’s flashes.  He’s homegrown.  They need somebody on this team that’s homegrown. Geez.  Look around this team  Avila and Nick.  That’s it.

Speaking of A Squared Money.  There’s no hope that Avila is going to hit if he stays behind the plate.  I don’t know why they didn’t leave him at first and leave McCann behind the plate.  They’re not getting anything from Kraus offensively.  His .135 is worse than Avila’s .192.  What exactly did they think Kraus was going to give them?  Put Avila back a first. McCann behind the plate.  Wait for Miggy to come back.  Get what you can for Price.  He’s not staying.  The Tigers aren’t going anywhere this year. Start planning for 2016.

FYI:  You need a whole bullpen.

Twins 8 Tigers 6

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Perhaps for only one game but Justin Verlander looked liked the Cy Young JV.  He was, in two words, SMOKIN BALLS.  Unfortunately, he turned over a five run lead to the bullpen in the ninth and they couldn’t hold it.

Despite the meltdown from Bruce Rondon and Joakim Soria there was a lot to like about this game. The offense scored six more runs, JV was on fire and Yoenis Cepedes made a nice catch in left to rob Joe Mauer of a double.

I’m trying not get upset at what the Tigers don’t have anymore.  They haven’t had a bullpen for as long as I can remember so anything they get from them I’m gong to consider house money.