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Round two with the Cleveland Indians is over and this
one was a lot easier to swallow... most parts of it
anyway. After dropping the opener, the Tigers roared
back and enjoyed a comfortable lead for most of the
game. The 9th inning, however, was a total meltdown
as the Tribe scored five runs off Todd Jones to win.
The response of the team to this catastrophe was
phenomenal, as the D won the final two games of the
series and earn a split. Ridiculousness resumed in
Texas, as Nate Robertson was unable to record an out
and was tagged for six runs before being lifted for
Jason Grilli. Though the bullpen allowed only one run
in the following eight innings, the deficit was too
large to overcome. How did the Tigers come back from
that? Try a shutout with ten runs of support. This
week was better than last, the Bengals are proving to
be one of the most feared lineups in the league.
Pitching injuries continue to hinder elongated winning
streaks, but Kenny Rogers is due back soon and the
hitting is keeping the ship afloat. One more game
with Texas (a win would split the road trip 5-5) and
then the Tigers return home to face a pair of National
League division leaders: the Mets and the Brewers.
New Subscribers...
Chris "Shelton" Aemisegger
Peggy, Harold, Larry, and Diane "The Band" Shields
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Week of 5/31 - 6/6
Record: 3-3 LLWW-LW
Up Next for the Tigers...
June 7 @ Texas
June 8-10 New York Mets
June 11 no game scheduled...
June 12-14 Milwaukee
AL Central Standings...
CLE 35 22 -
DET 33 25 2.5
MIN 29 29 6.5
CWS 26 29 8
KCR 22 38 14.5
Tigers Division...
BOS 37 21 -
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SDP 35 23 2
ARI 36 24 2
LAD 34 25 3.5
DET 33 25 4
MIL 33 27 5
ATL 33 27 5
Tigers News and Notes: Lots going on this week.
Fernando Rodney returned from the disabled list, and
instead of designating somebody to Toledo, the Tigers
released Jose Mesa (more below). Nate Robertson,
after a horrendous start in Texas, was placed on the
15-day DL with a tired arm. Andrew Miller will be
recalled to start on Sunday against the Mets (and
luckily I'll be there to see it). Both Brandon Inge
and Carlos Guillen missed the entire Cleveland series,
leaving Neifi and Infante to patrol the left side of
the infield. The injuries were minor and the two have
since returned.
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Tiger of the Week...
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The bullpen really struggled this week, but there was
one shining star of the bunch. After a rocky start
this season, Jason Grilli has put together a string of
great outings. In the two wins over Cleveland Grilli
worked a total of three scoreless innings, giving up a
pair of hits. On Tuesday, he stopped the bleeding in
Texas, coming on for Nate Robertson with no outs in
the first. Grilli went four scoreless against a
good-hitting club giving up three hits and fanning
five. No walks in those seven innings of work...
somthing that is key to bullpen success. More weeks
like this will help get the Tiger pen back in the
groove they were in last season. Grilli has been
pretty streaky; let's hope that the current streak
continues.
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Clearing The Table...
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Jose Mesa's short tenure with the Tigers has come to a
merciful end. The club released Mesa on Sunday after
their game with the Indians.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2892176
Mesa was supposed to help bolster a bullpen that lost
Jamie Walker to free agency, but he had very little
success in the innings he pitched. His final stats
with Detroit:
11.2IP, 12.34 ERA, 6BB, 9K, .365 OPP AVG.
Two months was apparantly all the time that management
was going to give the reliever. Fernando Rodney
returns from the DL to take Mesa's roster spot. Mesa
seemed to take it like a man. I've got nothing
against the guy. It's too bad things didn't work out.
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Sheffield Sounds Off...
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We knew, when he was acquired, that Gary Sheffield was
opinionated. Sheff has recently, in a magazine
interview, offered an opinion as to why there are
fewer black ball-players in baseball these days. His
claim is that Latinos are easier to "control," and so
they are more readily promoted to the big leagues.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2891875
Sheff has been asked about his comments and offered a
response:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19013033/
The initial comments seemed to have the potential to
cause serious division on the team, with prominent
Latinos Carlos Guillen, Pudge Rodriguez, and Magglio
Ordonez, but these players have actually come out in
full support of Sheffield's statements.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20070606/SPORTS0104/706060374/1129
With Sheffield's past, I initially dismissed his
comment as typical Gary running his mouth, but the
response of his teammates adds serious weight to the
charges. It will be interesting to see if Major
League Baseball issues a response.
Meanwhile, Gary continues to rake at the plate, adding
two more homers Wednesday night to bump his total to
15. Like Rod Allen says; he hits lasers.
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First Platoon...
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The strategy of platooning players is normally
employed when you have one player that hits
left-handed pitching well and another that hits
right-handed pitching well. This allows a manager to
always have a favorable match-up.
Something we've seen a lot of this season is Marcus
Thames getting starts at first base. This normally
happens only when the Tigers are facing a left-handed
pitcher (Casey is a left-handed hitter and Thames is
right-handed). Marcus, however, is not nearly as good
a defender at first as is Casey. What ends up
happening is that once the opposing left-handed
pitcher is removed from the game, Leyland will replace
Thames with Casey. In games where the Tigers are
hitting well, the switch often happens in the fifth or
sixth inning, a strange time for a defensive
substitution. It's not necessarily a good or a bad
thing, just a unique situation that doesn't occur
often that I thought was worth mentioning. This is
also the reason that Thames hasn't played nearly as
much left-field.
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Girls Softball...
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I noticed some stats from an NCAA College World Series
softball game where the winning pitcher struck out 17
batters. Softball games are only seven innings, so
only four of the outs recorded were not by strikeout.
And that's pretty much the ridiculous norm for
softball. The best pitchers fan almost everybody.
Why don't girls play baseball? They have shown that
they are well capable of this (see the 1940s).
Baseball is inifinitely more fun to watch and requires
a good deal more strategy. I would think that girls
would want to play baseball. Whatever. I just don't
see why you'd settle for a game that has so much less
to offer.
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Poll Question...
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Last week, A-Rod go into hot water when he "caused" a
Toronto player to drop an infield pop-up by yelling at
him as he ran by. The infielders claim that Rodriguez
yelled "mine," but a slo-mo replay that I saw showed
that A-Rod either yelled "Hey" or "Hah." This isn't
the first time that A-Rod has been accused of being
dirty. In the 2004 ALCS, Rodriguez slapped at the
glove of Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo, dislodging
the ball. The umpires saw the move and ruled A-Rod
out. The third-baseman was widely ridiculed by many
members of the baseball community.
Do you think this latest act was a dishonorable move
by A-Rod or is it an acceptable form of gamesmanship?
What other types of "dirty" tricks do you think border
on the edge of being crafty/bush league?
Definition of gamesmanship:
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/gamesmanship
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Game Linescores...
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May 31: Detroit 5 - Cleveland 11
Starters: DET: Verlander 5IP - CLE: Sabathia 7.1IP
DET 013 000 010 5 10 1
CLE 200 041 04X 11 13 0
W: Sabathia (8-1)
L: Verlander (5-2)
June 1: Detroit 11 - Cleveland 12
Starters: DET: Maroth 6IP - CLE: Carmona 6IP
DET 200 102 402 11 15 1
CLE 000 104 025 12 16 0
W: Hernandez (3-1)
L: Jones (1-3)
June 2: Detroit 9 - Cleveland 5
Starters: DET: Durbin 5.1IP - CLE: Lee 4.1IP
DET 013 013 010 9 16 0
CLE 103 001 000 5 13 3
W: Durbin (5-1)
L: Lee (2-3)
June 3: Detroit 9 - Cleveland 2
Starters: DET: Bonderman 6.2IP - CLE: Sowers 4IP
DET 210 220 002 9 14 1
CLE 200 000 000 2 7 0
W: Bonderman (5-0)
L: Sowers (1-6)
June 4: no game scheduled...
June 5: Detroit 4 - Texas 7
Starters: DET: Robertson 0IP - TEX: Rheinecker 3IP
DET 030 100 000 4 9 0
TEX 600 000 01X 7 11 0
W: Eyre (2-2)
L: Robertson (4-6)
S: Gagne (5)
June 6: Detroit 10 - Texas 0
Starters: DET: Verlander 7IP - TEX: Millwood 3.2IP
DET 204 121 000 10 14 0
TEX 000 000 000 0 5 0
W: Verlander (6-2)
L: Millwood (2-5)
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Readers Write In...
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Adam "Doc" Goyt
Hey Matt,
In response to your question. I feel that Zumaya is
by far the most missed pitcher at the moment. Our
relief hasn't been very good; especially with that
embarassing performance by Todd "I'm a Douche Bag"
Jones last night.
Peace Out,
Adam "Dr." Goyt
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Bob "Jerry" Maguire
Matt,
Thanks for the palaver—this is a fun space. Allow me
some comments, too!”
I agree with Grey Fox's "biggest concern" that
so many of the Tigers are half-swinging or not
swinging at the right stuff or swinging at the wrong
stuff. Monroe is starting to turn into his friend
Carlos Pena meaning that the trouble with his game
is twixt the ears. I think he thinks he hasta be
Gary Sheffield; don't imitate your hero's style,
imbibe his wisdom in your own way, Craig! And I hafta
say, for as much as I like Inge, he should probably do
something to clear his mind too.
What do you all think, do we need a genuine
professional hitting coach as badly as we need a
genuine professional closer?
Pitching. I say, put Miner in the rotation.
Demote Todd (Jesus@) Jones to the ranks of
the 7th and 8th inning guys. Make Nate ("Awesome the
First Time Through the Batting Order but Too
Transparent Thereafter") Robertson our Closer.
Last topic for this vent's running. Why aren't
Granderson, Infante, Inge, Thames, and Monroe
STEALING? Our 38-year-old DH leads the team in SB with
7. Monroe , in 52 games, has 0. Projecting that to a
full season is left as an exercise for the student.
Bob Maguire
Livonia, MI
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Nick "The Greek" Ciofani...
I attended the Cleveland/Detroit game on Sunday.
Since my Tribe lost, you will not get the detailed
recap, since I'm not enjoying writing this. Which
makes me an even bigger fan of Matt, because I have no
idea how he used to do Tigers Weekly when they were
horrible.
There was a little over 30,000 people there. Sat in
the upper deck right behind home plate. Around half of
the people in the upper deck were Tigers fans, so when
the Tigers got a hit (and they got plenty) there was
noticeable cheers for them. I'd estimate there were
probably around 3-5k Tiger fans. And they were
certainly happy, until the Indians fans started
ripping on the Pistons.
The weather was great, just perfect. Needless to say
the Tigers won 9 - 2. The Tribe had a couple of
opportunities to score, but couldn't come through in
the clutch, unlike the Tigers who took batting
practice off of Jeremy Sowers.
The two things which made the game manageable was the
fact that the Indians still lead the Tigers and the
Cavs beat the Pistons.
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Nic "Gilby" Gilbert
So I was watching the broadcast of the Tigers game on
tuesday night and they gave an unthinkable statistic
about Polanco. They said, of the 442 swings Polanco
has taken this year, he has only swong and missed on
13 of them. That means he has made contact with 429
of the 442 swings he has taken. That is considered a
pure hitter I'd say.
Nic
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Toolie's Trashtalk...
What a week to watch baseball. I was on the precipice
of baseball hari-kari Friday night as I watched a
four-run lead in the ninth vanish. It wasn't the
worst meltdown of even the week, though. Tampa Bay
blew a FIVE run ninth inning lead to Toronto. Yikes.
"Yeah, hello Rolaids? Send some relief ASAP."
With seven games in the book, here are the Indians
that I hate...
#5 Travis Hafner - Pronk is the dumbest nickname is
the history of nicknames.
#4 Rafael Betancourt - Would you throw the damned
ball already? Sergio Garcia moves faster.
#3 Victor Martinez - He has 6 homers in seven games.
What's not to hate?
#2 Ryan Garko - This young guy hit us hard and looks
like a jerk.
#1 Casey Blake - I'll say it forever: this guy KILLS
the Tigers. A .279 hitter, Blake is .375 this season
against Detroit with three homers. His career average
against MoTown is .307 (the only AL team he hits
better is the Red Sox) and he has 19 longballs (more
than against any other team by 6). Just plunk him!
The Tigers got a raw deal with game times on this road
trip, if you ask me. Normally, the last game of a
series is scheduled as a day game. This is so that
the team(s) that have to travel can have do so during
the afternoon/evening and get full rest for their game
the next day. On this trip, the Tigers had to play
series finales at night in Tampa and Texas. In both
cases, the Tigers had a game scheduled for the
following day. I broke out my pocket schedule and
checked out the stats.
Of the series at Comerica, all but five series end
with a day game, and one of those was because the
Tigers and Indians were scheduled for Sunday Night
Baseball. So there were only four series where the
Tigers didn't give the other team time to travel. For
the Tigers, the farthest they have to travel after one
of those games is to Kansas City. In contrast, the
Tigers got the short night seven times (once due to
Sunday Night baseball... and another if you count the
home game that was Sunday Night). One of these games
was rained out. It can't be fun to play a night game
and then have to fly to another city and play the next
day. The difference isn't too big, but I wonder what
goes into deciding when these games are scheduled. So
far the Tigers are 2-4 in games where they played late
and traveled the night before.
Again, let me know if you are interested in playing
some baseball this summer. It is always a good time
and there is a chance that more than two teams will be
playing (possible double-header for everyone).
The next two and a half weeks will be all interleague
play. After this six-game homestand the Tigers go
back for another long road trip: nine games at
Philadelphia, Washington, and Atlanta. Watching the
pitchers bat is always good for a laugh (remember
Rodney batting at Chicago last year?)
Late again this week. Graduate league softball is
getting me all out of whack.
I'm out.
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