Tigers Weekly 2007 Season

Week 4: 4/24/07 - 5/1/07

Say what you want about the Tigers, but the past seven
days were anything but boring.  Each game this week
provided great material.  Let's chronicle the
events...

Wedensday:  Chad Durbin pitches eight shutout innings,
Joel Zumaya almost blows it, Jones gets the save.  

Thursday: rain

Friday:  Nate Robertson pitches a great game, Zumaya
does blow it. 

Saturday:  Baserunning fiasco leads to ejections of
Ledezma and Leyland.  

Sunday:  Mike Maroth matches Johan Santana and Brandon
Inge cracks a walk-off.  

Monday:  Bean-balls fly and the benches clear. 
Sheffield destroys a Danny Cabrera pitch for his first
Comerica homer as a Tiger.  

Tuesday:  Tigers get some late-inning hitting and
Jones strands the tying run at third base.  

On top of all that the Tigers were 4-2 for the week. 
One sixth of the season is in the books and the Tigers
had a solid month of April.  The AL Central is living
up to the expectations, so far, of being a four-way
race.  We've only just begun...

New Subscriber...

Jen "Adam La"Roche

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Week of 4/24 - 5/1

Record:  4-2  W-LLWWW

Undy-Five-Hundy:  N/A

Up Next for the Tigers...

May 2     Baltimore
May 3     no game scheduled...
May 4-6   @ Kansas City
May 7     no game scheduled...
May 8-10  Seattle

AL Central Standings...

CLE  15  8 -
DET  15 11 1.5
MIN  15 11 1.5
CWS  12 12 3.5
KCR   8 19 8.5

Check This Out

AL East Standings...
BOS  16  9 -
TOR  13 13 3.5
BAL  12 15 5
TBD  11 15 5.5
NYY  10 14 5.5    how does last taste, Yankee fans?

Tigers News and Notes:  Jose Mesa made a rehab start
Tuesday night.  He could be back on the team this
week.  Mike Rabelo snapped his 0 for 16 skid with his
first major-league hit on Saturday.

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Tiger of the Week...
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No question here, the hottest Tiger this week was the hottest player in the American League: Magglio Ordonez. You can check out the 10-game log for yourself at Magglio's ESPN profile page. His mugshot here is pretty funny.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?
playerId=3728

http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=
20070430&content_id=1938746&vkey=news_det&fext=
.jsp&c_id=det

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Walker Returns to Detroit...
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This off-season the Tigers lost Jamie Walker to
free-agency, as Baltimore gave him a fat contract. 
Jamie is making his only trip to Comerica  right now,
and detroittigers.com did a little article on him. 
There is a also a little blurb, here, about Josh
Hancock, the Cardinals pitcher who was killed in a car
accident this Sunday.  

http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=
20070430&content_id=1938828&vkey=news_det&fext=
.jsp&c_id=det

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Poll Question...
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The city of Detroit has it pretty darned good these
days.  Both the Pistons and the Red Wings were the top
seeds in their conferences entering the playoffs and
the Tigers are the reigning American League Champions.
The Lions stink, but that's normal.  

Which city in America has it best, sports-wise?

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Game Linescores...
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April 25:  Detroit 6 - Chicago White Sox 2
Starters:  DET: Durbin 8IP - CWS: Danks 6IP
DET  300 010 002  6 13 0
CWS  000 000 002  2  4 0
W: Durbin (1-1)
L: Danks  (0-3)
S: Jones  (8)

April 26:  game postponed du to rain...

April 27:  Minnesota 5 - Detroit 3
Starters:  MIN: Ortiz 6IP - DET: Robertson 7IP
MIN  000 000 140  5 8 0
DET  001 001 100  3 9 0
W: Crain  (1-1)
L: Zumaya (0-1)
S: Nathan (7)

April 28:  Minnesota 11 - Detroit 3
Starters:  MIN: Silva 6IP - DET: Verlander 3IP
MIN  041 030 021  11 17 0
DET  201 000 000   3 11 2
W: Silva     (2-1)
L: Verlander (1-1)

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Toolie Sees a Ball Game...

Ahhh, the first game of the year, and it's not 40
degrees outside.  But it's also not 80 degrees
outside, meaning we're in the acceptable temperature
range for a day-game.  The crew for Game #1 was me, my
lovely fiance Lia, and future father-in-law Bob
Bottinelli.  We left early to get to the park for the
pre-game on-field clinic.  I figured I could add to
the clinic by teaching people how to rip singles and
catch fly balls in professional stadiums.  We parked
in the Greektown Casino lot and marched to the field.

This trip through the turnstiles brought to you by
Esurance.  I guess when you're good, everything gets
sponsored.  

The outfield was full of people so we trotted down the
aisles and stepped onto the immaculate dirt of
Comerica Park.  First up on our clinic agenda was
Vance Wilson teaching us how to hit the other way.  I
admired the quality of the turf as I spat sunflower
seed shells and imagined trying to patrol the enormous
outfield.  I gained a greater appreciation for Curtis
Granderson's ability to track down fly balls.  

Speak of the devil; the players rotated their stations
and Curtis Granderson came to our spot to teach us how
to run the bases.  He then took a lot of Q&A.  I
learned that Carlos Guillen is Granderson's Tiger and
that those blue things he wears around his neck are
titanium "healing" necklaces... and they're free.

The clinic ended and we made it up to our seats.  I
put a couple of dogs down and filled out my scorecard.
To my delight we were seeing the A-team (minus Pudge,
who was out with a slight injury).  

My delights from that point on were few and far
between.  Verlander was in big trouble in the first,
but weaseled out of it with a pick-off and a couple of
grounders.  The Tigers struck with two in the bottom
of the first, but the Twins just kept coming.  After
three straight hits, a Sean Casey error led to two
unearned runs and it was quickly 4-2.  The Tigers had
a shot to get back into the game in the third, but a
bit of bad luck and a baserunning mistake only allowed
them to score once.  After that it was all Twins. 
Biggie Bagel won the Dunkin' Donuts race to the
delight of section 214 and the rest of the Mezzanine. 
Leyland got tossed in the fifth inning, which fired up
the frustrated crowd.  Chants of "Jimmy" echoed across
the stadium as the Gruff One let the boys in blue have
a piece of his mind.

For as poorly as the Tigers played, I did get to add
to my list of Comerica lore.  Along with seeing the
first Comerica home run and the first Comerica playoff
game I witnessed Mike Rabelo's first hit: a single up
the middle off of Carlos Silva.  It wasn't the
greatest consoltation, but it was something (kind of
like when I got Jarrod Patterson's autograph in 2001
prior to a 14-5 drubbing, also at the hands of the
Twins).  

http://www.baseball-reference.com/p/patteja01.shtml

Post-game we hit up the Astoria Bakery (that place
OWNS) for bumpy-cake ice-cream and then the casino to
get our parking validated.  I scratched my gambling
itch with a spin of the roulette wheel and netted ten
bucks.  Then I cashed out.  Nick "The Greek" and Peter
"The Poet" Ciofani would have been proud.  I think
that was the first time I ever won at Greektown.  So
the day wasn't a total loss.  

Next game for me is going to be May 10th for another
day-game against the Mariners.  The MSU math
department will be there, rolling hard.  

---

April 29:  Minnesota 3 - Detroit 4
Starters:  MIN: Santana 6IP - DET: Maroth 6.2IP
MIN  000 201 000  3  9 0
DET  002 100 001  4 10 0
W: Jones (1-1)
L: Crain (1-2)

April 30:  Baltimore 4 - Detroit 8
Starters:  BAL: Cabrera 5IP - DET: Bonderman 5IP
BAL  200 101 000  4 9 1
DET  201 020 30X  8 6 1
W: Bonderman (1-0)
L: Cabrera   (1-3)
S: Rodney    (1)

May 1:  Baltimore 4 - Detroit 5
Starters:  BAL: Loewen 5IP - DET: Durbin 3.2IP
BAL  002 000 101  4  7 0
DET  000 030 02X  5 11 1
W: Zumaya (1-1)
L: Baez   (0-1)
S: Jones  (9)

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Readers Write In...
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Nick "The Greek" Ciofani...

That site (http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/) that
lists all the player salaries could be the single most
time consuming site out there if you are a fan of
baseball.  Thanks for the heads up Matt!

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Lia "The Scorekeeper" Bottinelli

"Centerfield" by CCR is the ULTIMATE baseball song.
I'm going to my first game of the year on Saturday.
Woohoo! 

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Nic "Gilby" Gilbert

So I was watching the game with Lindsay on Monday and
since the Pistons orginally were scheduled to play on
FSN Detroit, they put the game on FSN Plus.  Well I
turned on FSN Plus and there was the game, with
announcers and all, yet there was a slight problem. 
The announcers were not patched through.  Thus, I
watched the entire game with only the crowd mics live.
It was the strangest thing.  It was like being right
there in the stadium, only I was forced to watch the
comericals.  I dont think I want to watch a game like
that again.  Detroit actually has some of the better
announcers in the game.

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Toolie's Trashtalk...

What a week.  It didn't look good for a while, as the
Tigers were down 0-2 in the weekend series with the
Twins and Johan Santana was waiting to pitch on
Sunday.  If I were a Twins fan I would have come to
the ball park with broom in hand.  Big pat on the back
for Mike Maroth for his performance and to Magglio
Ordonez, who is the one Tiger that consistently hits
Santana (two-run homer in this game).  That win was
big for team morale in future series with the Twins. 
It was also critical to have a nice game after such a
disaster on Saturday.  

Who is Chad Durbin?  After two not-so-good starts to
start the year he pitches OK against the White Sox at
Comerica and then locks Chicago down with eight
innings of shutout ball.  No walks in that game. 
Tuesday against the O's Durbin walked six and couldn't
make it out of the fourth inning.  The Tigers were
fortunate to win.  Performances like Wednesday's are
nice, but I'd prefer more consistent mediocrity (kind
of like what Mike Maroth gives the team) to the
occasional blow-up.  The offense can get you through a
game where you give up four runs in six or seven
innings, but consistently getting lifted before the
end of the fifth inning takes a toll.  That 6.39 ERA
isn't helping either.  If you're wondering about other
options, you can take a look, here, at the stats of
the Toledo Mud Hens thus far this season.  

http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.
jsp?t=t_ibp&did=milb&cid=512

It looks like pitchers Tankersly and Vasquez have been
their top starters so far.  Take a close look at
Vasquez:  34 Ks to only six walks in 28 innings!  As
Darth Vader would say, "Impressive."  Last year's
April stud, Chris Shelton, is posting average numbers
(with a high whiff count of 28).  

Rod Allen is one of the funniest guys in broadcasting.
It took a while for him to grow on me, but I can't
help but smile when he gets fired up.  Today he said
that Sheffield had "pimped" his home-run from Monday
by strutting after hitting it.  That homer, by the
way, was heard all the way in Mackinac.  Given the
bench-clearing situation from Monday, the Tigers
pre-game show featured Rod Allen at his finest...
taking exception to getting plunked in the Japanese
Leagues!  Check out how winded Allen is at the end. 
Not sure if the Carp came out on top that day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw8iF9Zxaz0&mode=
related&search=

I'm curious to know what people think of Joel Zumaya. 
He endured a tough stretch this week with rough
outings against Chicago and Minnesota, but then
bounced back and has pitched pretty well.  One
semi-anonymous reader of the Weekly has written in and
expressed his feelings that Zumaya is, in fact, not
good.  I'm a results guy, and I think Zumaya has, for
the most part, gotten good results.  He does walk a
lot of people.  But if you look at Todd Jones, he gets
pretty good results without being uber-dominant. 
Zumaya has the capability to be dominant, but if he
goes on a walking-spree then he's nothing but a
Franklyn German with a stronger arm.  I'm not nearly
ready to say Zumaya is a bad pitcher.  It's still his
second year and he is an asset to the bullpen.  We'll
check in at the All-Star Break. 

The Ten Songs I would put on my Baseball Soundtrack
(in no particular order)

1. Centerfield, John Forgerty - no explanation
necessary

2. Car Wash, Rose Royce - for the claps

3. Glory Days, Bruce Springsteen - "Nettles got me,
bottom of the 9th."

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3j9drdqfh8

4. Green Onions , Booker T and the MGs - this great
instrumental reminds me of The Sandlot

5. Take Me Out to the Ball Game w/ Harry Caray. 

6. Go Get 'em Tigers

7. Your Love, The Outfield - They're called "The
Outfield!"  Would be a good in-between innings song.

8. Cheap Seats, Alabama - this one's all about
minor-league ball.  Go Lugnuts!

9. Eye of the Tiger, Survivor - Only really makes
sense for a Tiger fan... which I happen to be.

10. Theme from "The Natural" - for all those home
runs, the perfect bases-rounding tune.

Baltimore, Toronto, Tampa Bay.  I wouldn't be
surprised if these teams don't make the playoffs for
the next ten seasons.  Kansas City, while terrible,
can get into the race if they pony up and increase
their salary.  It's not so easy for those three AL
East teams.  Botson and New York are just too powerful
these days to compete with (despite NY's current
standing in the East).  Sure, Toronto finished ahead
of Boston last year, but it wasn't nearly enough to
get the Wild Card.  The fact that these teams are and
never will be in contention makes me less excited when
the Tigers play them.  At least KC has something to
offer being a divisional opponent.  

I'll be looking to get another baseball game together,
hopefully some Saturday in mid to late June.  Let me
know if you're interested in playing some ball.  

Until next week, 

I'm out.
 





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