Paul Konerko

Tigers 7 White Sox 6

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WOW!  Do I feel like an ass for leaving this game in the top of the 9th.

For the first 8.5 innings, I saw exactly what I expected.  After scoring 12 runs last night and facing who I believe to be the best pitcher in the American League, Chris Sale, the Tigers offense did next to nothing.

Chris Sale was dealing.  Except for Miggy, who had two hits against him, the rest of the lineup was completely and thoroughly dominated.

On the Tigers side of the ledger, Fredrick Alfred Porcello was fantastic.  For 6 and 2/3, Ricky was almost as good as Chris Sale.  Almost as good.  This was a match-up between an Ace and an Ace in waiting.  Ricky allowed only 6 hits and 2 runs while walked nobody and striking out 9.

I’m not sure what has gotten into him but Ricky has been getting a lot of swings and misses lately.  He struck out 10 in his previous start and 9 more today.  If Ricky and Iggy can stay healthy, Porcello will make a bid to win 20 games next year with an ERA well under 4, perhaps 3.50.

Tui was flashin leather tonight.   Jose Veras came in to relieve Ricky.  With two outs and the left handed hitting, White Sox catcher, Bryan Anderson at the plate.  The defense was shaded towards right.  Anderson hit a wounded quail to shallow left field and Tui made a fabulous diving catch to end the inning and save a run.

What can I say about Good Ole Dirksy?  He pinch hit for Tui in the bottom of the 9th with two on and nobody out and delivered a 3 run shot to pull the Tigers to within one run, 6-5.  Good for Andy.  It would be great if got to his 2012 form in time for the playoffs.

After Dirksy’s blast Infante walked bringing Santiago to the plate.  Ramon bunted Infante over to second.  I’m not sure how I feel about this play.  Generally, I don’t like bunting a guy from first to second.  In this case I didn’t particularly care for giving the White Sox pitcher an out when he was having trouble finding the plate.  Couple that with the Tigers’ bats perking up and nobody out and my initial reaction to the sacrifice was revulsion.  Looking back on it, however, it was the bottom of the 9th.  The Tigers were trailing by only a single run and it did get the tying run into scoring position.  It worked out this time but I’m still not sure if I would do it again should the occasion arise in the future.

Other than his inability to run, Miggy looked like his old self at the plate today.  He touched Sale for two hard hit singles and singled in the Tigers’ first run in the 9th.  He left the game with groin tightness and is listed as day to day.  It might be time to give him a day off.

Austin Jackson is struggling.  He was 0-5 with a walk tonight.  He had two hits last night, going 2-6, but he was 0-5 in the final game against the Mariners.  That makes him 2-16 in the last three games.  He needs to get on base so Miggy and Prince have a chance to drive in some runs.  That being said, AJax is a streaky hitter so hopefully he’ll go on a hot streak in time for the postseason.

The Amazing Al pitched well tonight.  He pitched two scoreless innings, the 11th and 12th, and got the win.  He allowed one hit, one walk, and struck out two.

Paul Konerko flashed some leather tonight as well.  He made a game saving, temporarily at least, backhanded pick in the 12th, on a throw in the dirt from third baseman Conor Gillaspie

The magic number is 2.

Sanchez is on the mound tomorrow.

It would be nice if the Astros could help the Tigers out tomorrow but I’m not counting on it.

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

Tigers Complete Perfect Homestand, Sweep White Sox 3-2.

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Behind 7 and 2/3 strong innings from Rick Porcello, the Tigers beat the White Sox 3-2, swept the series and finished the current home-stand 8-0.  And, they needed the win, as the Indians keep rolling.

Ricky allowed only one run, a home run to Adam Dunn, on 8 hits.  He struck out 4 and walked 1 while throwing 93 pitches.

The Tigers were leading 2-1 going into the top of the 9th.  Smyly came on to relieve Porcello with 2 out in the eighth and struck Adam Dunn out to end the inning.  In what can only be called an interesting move, Jim Leyland sent Smyly out for the 9th.  The first batter he faced in the 9th was right handed, power hitter, Paul Konerko.  Konerko hit Smyly’s second pitch, a 91 mph hour fast ball into the seats to tie the game.

The Tigers were unable to score in the bottom of the 9th so on they played into extra innings.

In the bottom of the 12th inning Miggy came in to pinch hit for Ramon Santiago and lead off with a single. Tui pinch-ran for Miggy and Jackson sacrificed Tui over to second with one out.  Torii Hunter stepped to the plate and delivered a single which scored Tui, ended the game, and gave the Tigers a perfect home-stand.

What was interesting about Leyland’s decision to leave Smyly in for the 9th, is that I thought this was the situation the Tigers got Veras for.  Benoit was unavailable today, so I wrongly assumed that Veras would be used to close the game.  Instead he left Smyly in to face the right handed hitting Konerko?  To make things more confusing, Veras was immediately brought in to replace Smyly and retired the next three White Sox in order.  I guess my question is, why not bring Veras in to start the 9th especially with a righty leading off?

Anyway, Veras pitched scoreless 9th and 10th innings and Bruce Rondon was money as he pitched the 11th and 12th allowing only 1 hit, striking out 3 and the big number, he walked 0, and got the win.

Two things really impressed me.  The first was Miggy’s ability to step to the plate after not playing for almost 5 games and deliver a lead-off single.  The second, was Bruce Rondon’s pitching.  For a guy who had problems finding the strike zone, he had nice command today.

A big series with the Indians starts tomorrow.  Perhaps the Tigers can break their will with a series win?  We’ll see.

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

Porcello, Perez Lead Tigers Past White Sox

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Ricky Porcello pitched 7 scoreless innings and Hernan Perez had two hits including a triple to pace the Tigers to a 6-2 win tonight in Chicago.

After the first inning, Ricky looked strong.  He recorded 9 ground ball outs, walked 3 and struck out 1.

I was a little worried in the first as I thought Porcello was getting squeezed on the inside corner to lefties and the outside corner to righties.  In the bottom of the first with two out, Alex Rios singled and stole second.  Then it looked like Ricky struck out Adam Dunn but didn’t get the call and Dunn went to first base.  The same corner gave Porcello problems when Konerko was at the plate.  Konerko walked to load the bases.  At this point Porcello could have come unglued but held it together and got Jeff Keppinger to ground out 5-3.

From then on, Porcello really didn’t face anymore trouble.  He left the game after 7 innings and 93 pitches.  Keep in mind that he threw 25 pitches in the first inning.

Al Alburquerque came on in the 8th and retired the Sox 1-2-3.  Leyland sent him back for the 9th and he walked the first two batters he faced.  This brought Benoit into the game who gave up a two run double to Konerko but retired Keppinger, Gillaspie and Viciedo to end the game.

A few things have me scratching my head.

  1. Tuiasosopo started and was replaced by Dirks again. I heard Leyland in an interview say he was trying to protect Tui from getting “eaten up” by a tough right handed pitcher.  But what about Dirks?  He’s not exaclty tearing the cover off of the ball.
  2. If Benoit is the closer, why is he being brought in when the score is 6-0?  The only thing I can think of is that Leyland wants him to get used to pitching the 9th.
  3. Jackson and Fielder are struggling.  If those two don’t hit, the Tigers can be in a lot of trouble.
  4. What is going on with Alex Avila?  I had hope after his 3 hit game a few nights ago and he did have two walks today but his other at bats were horrible.  He got caught looking both times and seemed like he didn’t have a clue on what was going on.
  5. It looks Alburquerque is a one inning pitcher.  When he came out for the ninth he couldn’t find the strike zone and this seems to be his MO.
  6. The Tigers need Miggy back.

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