John Lowe

By The Numbers

Crippy Baseball, Detroit Tigers , ,

John Lowe at the FREEP has another article today documenting two things that we’ve been talking about here at Flashin Leather, the Tigers lack or a run defense and the struggles of the Amazing Al.

Al Alburquerque has played a prominent postseason role in each of his first two seasons with the Tigers. It remains to be seen if he will do any important pitching in any potential postseason games this October.

The right-handed reliever gave up two homers in Boston on Wednesday night and has allowed five this season. He never gave up a regular-season homer in his first two seasons.

His ERA is 5.58. That’s up from 1.87 in his rookie season. It’s up from 0.68 last year, when he appeared in fewer than 10 regular-season games because of elbow surgery.

But most notably, Alburquerque has not been throwing his best pitch, the slider, for strikes consistently.

Keep reading here.

Thanks again to Nebraska for pointing this article out.

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

John Lowe – Speed

Crippy Baseball, Detroit Tigers , , , , , ,

Hat Tip to Nebraska for pointing this article out.

It appears John Lowe of the Freep dot com has come to the same conclusion readers of this blog have come to.  Namely, the biggest problem the Tigers have is their inability to throw out runners.

On a night when the Tigers set a team record for home runs allowed in a game with eight, the significant question that emerged nonetheless dealt not with power, but with speed:

If there is a Tigers-Red Sox playoff series next month, could the Tigers lose because of their inability to prevent stolen bases?

Ominously, that inability is what allowed the East-leading Red Sox to score the run that put them ahead to stay in a 20-4 thumping of the Central-leading Tigers on Wednesday night at Fenway Park.

Keep reading here.

The part of the Tigers’ inability to throw runners out that baffles me is that they don’t have ANYBODY that can shut down the running game.  Can all the blame go to the pitching staff?  Are they that bad at holding runners close?  It seems to me that the catchers have to start sharing the blame. Avila, Holaday, Pena, none of them can throw anybody out.

Perhaps speed defense should have been addressed at the trade deadline.

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