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The Tigers eight-game winning streak came to an end
this week, but the team has bounced back and are 4-2
since then. As mentioned before, the upcoming
schedule is a real doozy. Thanks to rain tonight, the
Tigers will play a day-night double-header against the
Red Sox Thursday before returning home to face the
Cardinals in a revenge series. I hear Leyland has the
pitchers out fielding grounders at all hours of the
night.
These series with Cleveland looming in the near future
should be great. Talking with Tribe Fan Nick Ciofani,
it sounds like these series are getting as much hype
in Cleveland as the possible Pistons/Cavs series in
the NBA playoffs. One thing I love about the
unbalanced schedule is how often you play divisional
opponents. The Tigers play the Tribe in each of the
remaining months. If this can blossom into a
competitive rivalry it will make for a fun summer.
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"Week" of 5/9 - 5/16
Record: 4-3 LWWWLLW-
Up Next for the Tigers...
May 17 @ Boston (double-header)
May 18-20 St. Louis
May 21 no game scheduled...
May 22-24 Anaheim
AL Central Standings...
DET 24 14 -
CLE 23 14 0.5
CWS 19 17 4
MIN 18 21 6.5
KCR 14 27 11.5
Tigers Division...
Tigers News and Notes: OK, so to make room for Virgil
Vasquez the Tigers optioned Aquilino Lopez one day
after picking up a nice three-inning save. After
Vasquez's start he was returned to Toledo and Tim
Byrdak was called up to fill the bullpen void (Lopez
has to wait for a while until he can be recalled).
Byrdak had some nice innings on Monday. Finally,
Jeremy Bonderman is going on the DL to get all things
fixed with regards to his finger. Andrew Miller is
expected to be called up from Erie to start on Friday
against St. Louis. Last year's first round draft
choice will start until Bonderman comes back and then
will be sent back.
This from detroittigers.com
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The Tigers and White Sox will make up their April 26
rainout with a day-night doubleheader on Tuesday, July
24. The first game will start at 2:05 p.m. ET ahead of
the regularly-scheduled night game at 8:11 p.m. ET.
That makes the Tigers' trip to Chicago a five-game,
four-day series to kick off what will now be an
11-game, 10-day road trip that includes a two-city
trek to the West Coast to end July.
---
Sounds like a tough stretch. Also, looking at the
schedule, I see that the Tigers are scheduled to play
Oakland in August once again. Oakland isn't
steamrolling now, but they are perennially unstoppable
in August. The Tigers always seem to be on the wrong
side of these hot streaks. Every season from
2000-2005 the Tigers played Oakland in August, going
11-19 over that span.
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Tiger of the Week...
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Twice the Twins have sent Johan Santana to the mound
to earn a win over the Tigers. Twice Johan Santana
has been outpitched by... Mike Maroth! Yes, that's Cy
Young winner Johan Santana and former 21-game loser
Mike Maroth. Mike's numbers aren't going to wow
anybody, but the results of every Maroth start have
been positive; the Tigers are perfect in
Maroth-started games! It's great to see Maroth a part
of the success after he had to miss most of the
magical 2006 season. Maroth really earned his stripes
pitching through the tough times. He has earned a
place as one of my favorite Tigers. I'm hoping that
Maroth will stick around for his entire career. His
stats aren't so good that some team will offer him a
"can't say no" contract and he has done a lot of
community work in the Detroit area. Mike Maroth is a
great guy and is your Tiger of the Week.
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Set Your TiVo...
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For those of you lucky enough to have DVR
capabilities, you may want to set things up to record
the May 24 afternoon game against Anaheim. Rod Allen
will be out for the day and will be replaced by Ernie
Harwell! Rod and Mario are great, but it will be a
real treat to hear Ernie call a game again (or at
least part of it). It was too cool hearing him in the
booth calling some of the Yankees/Tigers ALDS. Big
Poppa Oats, I expect this game to be saved when I come
home over Memorial Day weekend!
http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=
20070510&content_id=1957309&vkey=news_det&fext=.jsp
&c_id=det
In my opinion, they should do more of this. Get
George Kell back for some games as well. I'm sure the
current broadcasters wouldn't mind an extra day off
here and there, and the fans would eat it up.
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Poll Question...
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Sammy Sosa hit another home run tonight and sits at
597 for his career. Does anybody care that he's about
to top 600? I think it's sort of a big deal, but I
hear nearly nothing about the upcoming milestone.
Also, does hitting a boatload of home runs qualify you
automatically for the Hall of Fame (in your opinion)?
For example, Fred McGriff hit 493 homers in his
career, close to the "automatic" 500 mark. Is he in?
What is your metric for determining a player's
worthiness for the Hall?
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Game Linescores...
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May 9: Seattle 9 - Detroit 2
Starters: SEA: Baek 9IP - DET: Robertson 4.2IP
SEA 000 333 000 9 16 0
DET 110 000 000 2 6 1
W: Baek (1-0)
L: Robertson (3-2)
May 10: Seattle 3 - Detroit 7
Starters: SEA: Weaver 5IP - DET: Verlander 5.1IP
SEA 000 020 001 3 12 0
DET 310 110 01X 7 13 0
W: Verlander (3-1)
L: Weaver (0-6)
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Toolie Sees a Ball Game...
After a hiatus of one year the MSU Math Department
spring game was back. Instead of going during finals
week we waited until the week after when people had a
good deal of free time. Nine of us (it would have
been ten had it not been for Jim "I'm in Chicago"
Freitag) met at Wells Hall and left for Detroit.
After stopping at a gas station in Webberville that,
according to Jeff "Harry" Chapin, had "40 different
kinds of porn" and grabbing lunch at the famed Walled
Lake - Wixom exit on I-96 (fast-food heaven) we made
it to Detroit. Parking at Greektown was free as ever,
and we strolled into the left-field entrance in the
middle of the first.
As soon as we entered Gary Sheffield hit a sacrifice
fly and the Tigers were up 1-0. "This would be a good
time to use the restroom," I thought to myself. While
inside I heard the roar of the crowd and realized that
Magglio had probably just went deep (caught with my
pants down!). He did, and the shot was a mammoth one.
Lucky for me there would be a couple of other good
plays that game.
Our seats were in the upper deck on the left-field
line. It was a pretty nice day for a day-game:
partly cloudy but warm. I ended up almost sunburned,
which is perfect.
Jeff Weaver was very generous to his old team,
something that would have been appreciated in Game
Five of the World Series. After Magglio's blast,
Brandon Inge hit a bomb that clanged off the
left-field "foul" pole. We had an argument about
whether it was the fair pole or the foul pole (leave
it to mathematicians to squabble over definitions). I
don't really care what you call it. If the ball hits
it, it's a dinger. That's it. Later in the game,
Curtis Granderson made a sweet over-the-shoulder catch
while running back in center. Verlander was a totally
different pitcher than I had seen pitch against the
Twins.
I have to compliment the ice-cream guy who worked our
section. When I asked him for a ice-cream cookie
sandwich (those things are amazing) he was out. One
inning later he came back to our section reloaded with
the goods. What a guy.
Cuppy Coffee (curse him) won the Dunkin' Donuts race.
Post-game we had dinner at the New Parthenon and then
some drinks at Fishbone's ($2 domestics before 6PM...
not bad). Then, of course, a stop at the Astoria
Bakery. In the spirit of things I tried one of their
Tiger Tails. It was pretty good, but there are other
things there that I would rather have. The win puts
me at 1-1 on the year... not surprising, as I always
seem to have a pretty even record when it comes to the
Tigers. Next game is slated to be early June when the
Mets come to town.
---
May 11: Detroit 7 - Minnesota 3
Starters: DET: Maroth 6.2IP - MIN: Santana 6IP
DET 110 000 212 7 13 1
MIN 100 000 020 3 11 0
W: Maroth (3-0)
L: Santana (4-3)
May 12: Detroit 8 - Minnesota 2
Starters: DET: Durbin 6IP - MIN: Ponson 4IP
DET 201 320 000 8 10 0
MIN 000 002 000 2 10 1
W: Durbin (3-1)
L: Ponson (2-5)
S: Lopez (1)
May 13: Detroit 4 - Minnesota 16
Starters: DET: Vasquez 2.2IP - MIN: Bonser 5IP
DET 210 010 000 4 8 1
MIN 402 211 33X 16 22 1
W: Bonser (1-1)
L: Vasquez (0-1)
May 14: Detroit 1 - Boston 7
Starters: DET: Robertson 5IP - BOS: Matsuzaka 9IP
DET 001 000 000 1 6 0
BOS 001 110 04X 7 15 1
W: Matsuzaka (5-2)
L: Robertson (3-3)
May 15: Detroit 7 - Boston 2
Starers: DET: Verlander 7.2IP - BOS: Wakefield 7IP
DET 004 000 030 7 12 0
BOS 100 000 010 2 8 0
W: Verlander (4-1)
L: Wakefield (4-4)
May 16: game postponed due to rain... makeup May 17
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Readers Write In...
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Sara Jo "Safeco" Pietraszewski
Hey O'Toole,
Just a friendly note to say that I feel pretty good
about your home-town boys doing well on Thursday when
Detroit plays Seattle and Weaver. Let's just say last
week when I was in the stands for Weaver's attempt to
right his failing pitching career against the
gosh-awful KC Royals (and Gil Meche pitching for them
which I thought said something for our chances) he was
booed by the crowd at Safeco just trying to record the
first out. We're a pretty friendly crowd up here in
the NW (unless A-Rod shows up and then people still
throw money at him etc.) so that says something. He
gave up something like 8 runs and got pulled with only
one out recorded in the top of the first. Go Tigers
and Mariners!
Sara Jo
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Nick "The Greek" Ciofani
Oh no, Grady Sizmore just made the cover of SI. He's
going to get injured now because of the curse.
Noooooooooooo!
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Anthony "Ferny" Morano
It's been an interesting year so far for the tigers. I
try to watch every game via direct tv baseball
package. (I survived the royals announcers for 3 gms)
I've been saying this for yrs: people in the -D- don't
appreciate rod and mario. I lost it last night when
they were campaigning to let the guy in for free (see
attached photo). Rod asked if mario left a pass.
As far as roger clemens goes I think it's a joke
he leaves the team when he's not starting. What a
teammate! Just like kevin brown and his private plane
with the dodgers just a joke!
Losing the intimidating zoomaya will be huge, but
the way bobby "bou" sheay been pitching might help
out. I disagree with cleveland being #1 sport city
(mistake on the lake for a reason) + they took the
lumberjacks from us! I will be covering the
Ducks/Wings series when it comes out west here in the
OC. Go wings and can't wait to return to Ske Town to
see Wierd Al for summer celebration !
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Steve "Stone" Sprague
I know you didn't expect me to pass on this weeks
question.
I can't freaking stand Clemens. My reasons for
disliking him have been documented in the weekly
before. What he has done the last few years though is
just pathetic. Doing the whole "I'm not sure if I'm
going to retire or not" thing every off-season since
2003 is just disgusting. Making the same three teams,
Yankees, Red Sox and Astros, beg every year for the
right to pay him in the neighborhood of $20 mil, and
then take on the added stress of dealing with divaish
demands that J-Lo would find reasonable is just plain
greedy. Then to interupt a game in Yankee stadium to
announce that he has come back to save the game is so
ridiculous and arrogant that even Rickey Henderson was
probably saying he should tone it down.
On the plus side it did pave the way for a year's
worth of Brokeback Bronx jokes involving Clemens and
Andy Pettitte.
TOOLIE: maybe they can have Clemens saying to a dollar
bill "I wish I knew how to quit you..."
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Adam "Doc" Goyt
Hey Matt,
I had the pleasure of watching the Tigers clinch their
brief homestand against Seattle today, May 10. It's
interesting how I ended up at the game so I thought I
would share. I had jury duty on Monday May 7 and was
selected to sit on a jury for a trial that is still
going on, so I'll leave the details out. Anyway, the
plaintiff rested their case yesterday and
the defense rested their case today, and at about
10:30 this morning the judge turns to us (the jury)
and says, "You can have the rest of the day off.
See you on Monday at 9:00 am." I was already downtown
at the Coleman Young building, so I hopped on the
people mover got off at Grand Circus and
caught me a baseball game. It was a fabulous day. I
sat in stands working on a math problem for the two
hour preceding the game and then between innings.
This is my second game of the year and I'm surely
going to at least one more.
Best Wishes,
Adam
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Toolie's Trashtalk...
For all of the injuries to Tigers pitchers, I don't
think there has been a single position player that has
spent time on the DL that didn't start the season
there (Vance Wilson). After Jeremy went on the DL
this week I felt like the Tigers had it pretty rough
(Kenny and Zumaya also on the shelf), but the health
of the hitters have helped to balance things out.
On Monday, two consecutive plays that should have been
ruled errors on the Tigers were ruled infield hits.
Rod Allen commented "it's no wonder these guys
(Boston) lead the league in hitting every year." It
made me wonder if there are teams whose official
scorers cook the books for their team, or at least for
certain players. I wonder if these scorers are under
more intense scrutiny when there is a tight race for
the batting title (like last year's AL race between
Joe Mauer and Derek Jeter).
The Tigers have been playing really well lately, but
the rest of the country is probably having a hard time
believing it. The Tigs and Twins were on national TV
this Saturday (W) and Sunday (Big L). Sadly, not much
of the national audience (I read it was 8%) were shown
the Tigers win on FOX on Saturday and everyone (100%)
saw the Tigers get schlacked Sunday night on ESPN. I
don't think there are any respect issues to worry
about, but it would be nice if they could put on a
good show when the spotlight is on.
Make sure to check out the website
www.tigersweekly.com for Weekly Trivia and other
features. Remember that if you attend professional
games anywhere you are encouraged to send select
photos and we will post them on the website in the
Reader Photos section. You may even include captions
with the photos and those will be included as well.
If you have some good photos (doesn't have to be
Tigers games, or MLB games for that matter), send them
in... it would spruce up the website a bit. Thanks!
That's all for this week. Wednesday's are going to be
the day for a good part of the summer. Let's hope that
the Tigers can at least split this double-header
tomorrow so we don't have to eat too much crow from
our Chowda-head friends (like my Uncle Denny!).
I'm out!
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Play Ball!
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