Miggy

Tigers Win 7-2…

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the biggest beneficiary of the Jose Iglesias acquisition is going to turn out to be Rick Porcello.  Tigers fans have seen several times over the course of Ricky’s career where he gets opposing teams to hit the ball on the ground but they some how find holes.  The best case in point would be the Angels game back in April.  Ricky didn’t make it out of the first inning of that game and surrendered 9 earned runs.  But when you take a look at it the Angels had maybe 1 or 2 hard hit balls.  The bounces just weren’t going his way.

The second inning of last night’s game had the makings of one of those innings for Ricky.  Carlos Santana lead off with a ground ball down the right field line for a double.  Michael Brantley followed with a ground ball single.  At this point, flashes of the Angels game were going through my mind but the Incredible Iggy thwarted the disastrous inning before it could get started.  Asdrubal Cabrera followed Brantely with a ground ball that looked like it was headed for left field but Jose Iglesias flashed his leather.  Iggy pounced on the ball and started a 6-4-3 double play.

As long as Iggy continues to flash leather, I think were going to see Ricky’s numbers improve dramatically.

Ricky didn’t make it 6 innings but compared to the last 4 Tigers’ starts it was a gem.  Ricky pitched 5 and 2/3, allowed 5 hits, struck out 2 and walked 2.

The game was called after 7 inning due to rain.

Sanchez is on the hill tonight for game two.

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

Good Ole Dirksey

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Paced by seven strong innings from Rick Porcello and a 3 RBI day from Andy Dirks, the Tigers beat the Mets and swept the weekend series at Citifield.

With the Tigers down 3-2, Andy Dirks hit a two run homer in the top of the 6th, to give the Tigers the lead for good.

It was a one run game going into the 9th but the Tigers exploded for 7 runs to put the game out of reach and give Porcello his 10 win of the season.

Good Ole Dirksy drove in another run in the 9th when he drew a bases loaded walk driving in the Mighty Miggy.

Speaking of Miggy, he was 3-4 and drove in 2 on his 42nd home run of the season to get the Tigers started in the 1st.

Ricky gave the Tigers 7 good innings. He allowed 3 earned on 4 hits, struck out 4 and walked 3.

The A’s are at Comerica tomorrow for a four game series.

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

Tigers 6 Mets 1

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The Tigers beat the Mets tonight, 6-1, a Citifield.

With the game tied 1-1, the Tigers exploded for four runs in the second for a 5-1 lead.  As usual, Doug Fister, put up zeroes and shut the Mets out, with help from his friends in the pen.

The big blast in the second inning, came off the bat of the Mighty Miggy.  With two on and two out Miggy took the first pitch from Daisuke Matsuzaka and sent it over the left field wall for his 41st of the season.  Torii Hunter hit a solo shot in the first to get the Tigers started and AJax, Austin Jackson, capped off the scoring with a solo home run in the 7th.

This was the first start for Daisuke Matsuzaka in the big leagues in over a year and other than the second inning, I thought he pitched pretty well.  He gave the Mets 5 innings, allowed 5 earned runs on 6 hits.  He struck out 4 and walked 1.  If he could have avoided the long ball, his line would look a lot better.  If I were a Mets fan, I would be fairly happy with what Daisuke gave them.

For the Tigers, Fister, was aces.  But I think the important thing today was the pitching of Drew Smyly.  Smyly relieved Fister with one out in the 7th and inherited runners on 1st and 2nd.  Smyly got Eric Young Jr. on strikes and got Daniel Murphy to fly out to right to end the threat.  This was big because I thought Smyly struggled, just a bit, in his last few outings but looked impressive today.

Victor Martinez started at catcher tonight for the first time in two years or so and looked pretty good.  I’m not sure what I was expecting but Victor didn’t look broken down at all.  He actually looks like he’s feeling pretty well.  In fact, in the first inning, on the play that the Mets scored their only run, Victor made a nice play at the plate.  Don Kelly made a great throw from left field, and Victor received the ball well and did a good job of blocking the plate.  Although, the runner was safe, it was a solid play on both ends by DK and Victor and not one I would expect from an ailing catcher.

The Tigers got some bad news regarding Alex Avila today.  Apparently, he’s been playing in Toledo and has complained of headaches.  Concussions are tricky things and I hope this doesn’t linger.  That being said, I think Alex has looked broken down and beaten up since the end of the 2011 season and I think his declining offensive production is directly related to his ailing body.  While I hope his concussion problems get solved I think an extended period of rest would the be best for his career in the long term.  I think Alex is so beaten up that it will take more than a few months for him to recover.  If Victor feels ok, perhaps the Tigers should consider making Pena the starter, let Martinez spell him once a week or so, and just let Alex rest.  While I like Alex and wish nothing but the best for him, I think a six months to a year off would do the trick for him.  He needs to get healthy not only for the Tigers long term, but for himself.

Scherzer v Harvey tomorrow afternoon.

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

Jose Miguel Cabrera!

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in the words of John Kruk, “he’s just better than everybody else”.

Miggy started today’s game the way he ended yesterday’s.  He took the first pitch he saw from Royals’ starter, Bruce Chen, and deposited it over the left field wall for his 40th home run of the season.  Miggy’s blast gave the Tigers a 2-0 lead and the Tigers never looked back.  MIggy drove in another run with a single in the 3rd and finished the day 2-3, with a homer and 3 RBIs.

Here’s an animated GIF of Miggy’s 40th courtesy of the Bless You Boys Blog at SBNATION.

Miggy's 40th
Miggy’s 40th

After today’s game, Miggy is hitting .360, has 120 RBIs, and 40 home runs.

A bit over shadowed my Miggy’s performance was Max Scherzer.  Max picked up his 18th win of the season.  He pitched 8 innings allowed 2 earned, struck out 4 and didn’t give up a walk.  He and Roger Clemens are the only pitchers since 1919 to pick up 18 wins in their first 19 decisions.  He should be the runaway winner of this year’s Cy Young award.

Miggy was intentionally walked in the 5th.  The thing I’m wondering is, how long will any team continue to pitch to Cabrera?  I know if I was an opposing manager, I would pitch to him rarely especially while Prince Fielder isn’t hitting as well as his track record shows.  Additionally, teams really can’t pitch around Miggy, via the unintentional intentional walk, because he’s proved time and again that he can and will expand his strike zone and do major damage.

Tigers fans, you are seeing on a regular basis, the best hitter in baseball, and probably one of the best of all time.

Behind Miggy and Scherzer, the Tigers took the rubber game of this 5 game series and welcome the Twins to Comerica Park this Tuesday.

Update: Cleveland Indians second baseman, Jason Kipnis, tweeted this after the game, “Dear Miggy… You’re making the rest of us look bad.. Knock it off! – MLB Hitters”.  Hat Tip to Sark for pointing out the Kipnis tweet.  I’ve retweeted it and it can be seen on the right side of this page.

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

UGLY! Tigers Fall To Sale, White Sox 6-2.

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What started out looking pretty good turned really ugly, really fast.

The Tigers got on the board in the first with a Miggy solo shot.  Brayan Pena put the Tigers up 2-0 after two with an RBI double, but the Tigers would score no more tonight.

Chris Sale pitched a complete game.  He allowed two earned, walked 0 and struck out 6 on 109 pitches.

Doug Fister started out well but seemed to fall apart in the 4th inning.  With 1 out Gordon Beckham singled.  Fister got Alexei Ramirez to pop out but then walked Adam Dunn and the wheels began to fall off. A wild pitch moved the runners up to second and third.  A walk to Konerko loaded the bases and another wild pitch scored Beckham and the White Sox were on the board.  Fister got ex-Tiger Avisail Garcia to end the inning but Fister could never really recover.

Fister came out for the 5th, gave up three more runs, and the Sox never looked back,  In Fister’s defense, he ran in to some bad luck.  With one out and runners on first and second, Gordon Beckham hit a ground ball back to Fister, which at first was looking like an inning ending double play, but the ball went off of Fister’s leg past Infante and into right field and the Sox were rolling.

The Tigers had chances to score, they touched Sale for 9 hits but couldn’t get the big knock when they needed it.  A big part of the Tigers’ offensive struggles were that Jacskon and Hunter were a combined 0-8, which meant Miggy was always hitting with nobody on base.

The Tigers left 16 men on base tonight, Omar Infante, back in the lineup, for the first time in over a month was 0-4 with 6 LOB.

I’m starting to worry a little bit.  Since the streak ended, the Tigers have lost 3 of 4 to bad teams, the Yankees and the White Sox.  Everything that seemed to be going so well suddenly isn’t.  Fister was not good tonight.  He wasn’t horrible but he had trouble with the strike zone and didn’t put in a quality start.  Even more concerning is Al Alburquerque out of the pen.  The Amazing Al has been more of an abomination lately.  Tonight, for example, he pitched one inning, gave up 5 hits and 2 earned runs.  I don’t think he’s an option out of the pen anymore, he’s a nightmare.  And, where is the clutch hitting?  We could have used a big hit from Infante, but I’ll cut him some slack, since this was his first game back.

On the bright side, Iggy is really flashing leather.  He made an unbelievable play in the 6th. Josh Phegley hit a chopper that got over Fister’s head and looked like a sure infield hit.  But on came Iggy, who dove, barehanded the ball, and threw to first with both feet off of the ground to get Phegley at first.  Iggy also chipped in offensively with an infield single.

Bruce Rondon looked pretty good.  He came on in the 8th to clean up the Amazing Al’s mess.  With runners at second and third and nobody out Rondon surrendered a Texas Leaguer that got over the drawn in infield and a sacrifice fly but got Gordon Beckham to ground into an inning ending double play.  This was not a bad outing for Rondon considering what he inherited.

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

Miggy’s Bomb In The Bronx

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This is a gif I found at a blog called Bless You Boys at SBNATION.

This is Miggy’s homer off of Mariano Rivera Friday night at Yankee Stadium.  Up until this point, Miggy was 0-4 off of Rivera.

Miguel Cabrera Bomb in the Bronx
MIggy’s Bronx Bomb

He hit another one off of Rivera yesterday afternoon.  Unfortunately, both games ended in Tiger loses.

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

Random Thoughts

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Did you know Miggy’s real first name is Jose?  Here‘s a link to his bio on MLB.

Former Tiger prospect Jacob Turner is pitching well for the Marlins.  He has started 8 games.  He is 3-1 with a 2.33 earned run average.

Did anybody else find it comical that Luke Putkonen didn’t look the least bit worried or frightened when Ramirez acted like he was going to charge the mound?

This is the image of Reggie Jackson that in ingrained into my mind.  When I think of Reggie, this is the picture that appears.

Reggie Jackson
Reggie Jackson Home Run Swing

I’m hoping for a better game tonight against the Rangers.  The White Sox series made me sick.

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