Two wins for the Tigers today and their pitching was very solid in both contests. 6 pitchers combined on a two-hitter in beating the Blue Jays and another half-dozen hurlers help toppled the Mighty Nats in a split crew game, 8-2.
All eyes were on Dontrelle Willis and Jeremy Bonderman. Both did fine enough I suppose. Willis walks his first two batter but then rebounds smartly allowing only 1 run overall and two more baserunners. He even struck out 3 batters to match his 3 walks. A 1:1 K/BB ratio is nothing great of course but getting a modicum of whiffs for Dontrelle is good to see.
Bonderman had to pitch around errors by Johnny Damon and Brent Dlugach....he went 4.1 IP and allowed 1 ER on 5 hits and walk. He also uncorked one wild pitch. I'm most interested to hear the reviews of his outing and see if the split-fingered fastball was effective and perhaps helped cause the 7 groundball outs he induced versus only 4 flyball outs.
The stats are relatively meaningless of course for Spring Training when trying to judge Nate Robertson, Bonderman, and Willis. Its really all about how they look and how their stuff is impressing the powers that be. Joe Sheehan returned to Baseball Prospectus for a chat today and said something I wish I would have written, "Statistics are only meaningful when generated in the process of trying to win baseball games." This is a perfect way of expressing it my mind by Sheehan. Spring games are often not about winning...probably a lot more than "often". Its about working on new pitches, new batting approaches, seeing a kid in a certain situation, etc....winning on the back burner. So I guess it really comes to Jim Leyland, Rick Knapp, and Dave Dombrowski. How do Knapp and Leyland believe the three respective guys are throwing and how it will hold up when the bell rings. Will Dombrowski elect to keep all three on the roster when we know one at least will have to head to the bullpen.
On another topic there seems, among the fanbase, some optimism building for the '10 season due to the recent good play by the Tigers. I will admit that the error count is decent, the bullpen looks pretty solid, they are hitting okay most of the time, and the rotation might be deep enough. Is it a house of cards or is the real thing budding? I'm still not moved too far off of saying this is an 80 or 81 win ballclub. I'm encouraged to an extent....but we gotta see the real deal come April 5. The good news is there hasn't been a festering story of anyone struggling so badly that its creating a constant drumbeat of worry....its been "Camp Positivity" looking from the outside. Does that help win real games starting soon? We'll see....
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