I was able to watch quite a bit of that ballgame tonight except the final two outs.....its always fun to see the Tigers win....but it also wasn't the prettiest game. No style points in the standings. The Tigers will take it.
I thought the Tigers outfield defense was in fine form tonight. Austin Jackson made a couple of dandy catches and Don Kelly made a nice running grab right at the fence while also pulling a foul ball out of the stands for the third out of the third inning. Even Boesch moves nimbly for guy his size I think.
The first run allowed was probably unneccessary...Justin Verlander had bit of a lazy moment when he easily could have gotten the lead runner who had strayed off base. But he never bothered to look. Now....it may not have mattered since if Iwomura had gotten into a run down long enough the runner at first may have been able to scoot down to second, so the run would have scored on Andrew McCutchen's laser double.
Its kind of funny....Verlander had a two-hitter going for quite a while, but I was not impressed with him tonight. He allowed a lot of scorched flyballs that his outfielders ran down. He walked more than he struck out (4BB/3K) and he allowed twice as many flyouts to groundouts (12/6). What I ended up thinking is that after seeing Stephen Strasburg utterly dominate the rather scared looking Bucs the other night, it was going to be hard for any pitcher to look that good in the days following. That's okay....Verlander doesn't have to be as good as Strasburg...he's just gotta keep pitching well.
Around the minors.....not a great night. Lakeland was idle. Erie got beat 4-0. West Michigan lost 8-3 as Ramon Lebron didn't make it out of the first inning allowing 7 runs. Only Toledo had a good night. They won 8-4. Scott Sizemore continues to do solid work from the leadoff spot. 2-5 w/1 2B, 2 R tonight. Ryan Strieby was "only" 1-5...but he did have a huge three-run homer in the 9th to put his club ahead. He ended up w/4 RBI on the night.
I'm very happy to see that the Tigers have remained patient with Alex Avila and Brandon Inge...they are looking better. Will they keep it up? Dunno...but I think they both can contribute. Avila is a good example of not making too much out of 50 or so at-bats early in the year....its a long season.
Brennen Boesch.....he keeps rolling along. Very impressive. It was very fun to see him emerge in Erie last year and gain his power stroke....and I did expect a short term power boost for the club when he came up in April. But I didn't expect he'd sustain his good play into Mid-June w/o many hiccups. Fingers crossed....keep it up Brennan.
Jeremy Bonderman versus Paul Maholm tomorrow night. If Bonderman can keep McCutchen off the bases its really hard to imagine the Pirates mounting a ton of offense.....we'll have to see if Jose Tabata is in the lineup in the 1-hole tomorrow w/McCutchen sliding down to the three-hole. Tabata gives them another solid looking prospect at the top of the order to deal with. It would be great for the Tigers to get that game tomorrow, secure the series-win, and then go after the bonus of sweeping on Sunday....here's hoping.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
50 Games Down....112 to go
June 1st, 26-24, 2nd place, 4.5 back, 85-win pace
Not bad. About where I figured this crew would be...(I predicted 85 wins for BillyTuttle's list...but had felt they were an 80 to 86 win ballclub all the off-season)
The recent stretch of going 5-8 has put some folks in a funk about where this club is heading. We'll see.....a 6-2 stretch would perk up plenty of folks.
Verlander, Porcello, and Scherzer. This season hinged on these three guys more than any others in my opinion. Certainly that has not gone well overall. Some positive moments....but not the steadiness needed to enable the club to exceed expectations thus far. However we now see Scherzer regaining his velocity and, if it continues, that gives him a good chance to compete and post some good starts for the club. Verlander is coming into form. Porcello has looked a bit better at times. Then Bonderman has gotten into a decent rythm. This rotation could do good things this summer with a few breaks.
The bullpen has been relatively solid for two months. Some nights of stellar work including picking up emergency "bullpen games" when Willis was not ready to answer the bell.
Defensively this year the corner outfield play has been poor. The Tigers overall have fallen back to 22nd in Team Defensive Efficiency. But they've been rising a bit of late. We'll see what Guillen's addition to the infield means on a regular basis. (at least until the DL comes calling)
Offensively......a bit sporadic. Better than last season for the most part until the last week or so. Top heavy in the batting order as we know. I think some of the under-performers will play a bit better and inch back to their career norms as happens a lot in baseball. How long will A-Jax/Boesch continue to contribute? That's a bigger question over worrying about Laird/Everett in my opinion.
The Farm is still a work in progress. I coined the farm system to be "craptastic" in '09....but they've come on since then. Much more middle-of-the-road now with some guys coming along and a surprise or two possible like Rawley Bishop. Still, the system is a little light on position talent and a couple of the big arms haven't been ready like Casey Crosby.
The Tigers took a new course last off-season. It was needed and very justified. They have a chance to shed some of the bad Hindenburg Contracts over the next year and install some homegrown talent into the 25-man roster. Its the best way to build a ballclub in my opinion. While I haven't been a full bodied voice behind "the 2012 will be great!" Movement, I get the sentiment behind it. The club almost had a lucky playoff appearance in '09. They missed. But they weren't good enough as consituted to do much more than what we saw last year (in my opinion). Dombrowski hamstrung himself w/lousy contracts....but since he didn't get canned, he has to dig himself out. I think he chose the right course....younger talent has been installed, some more will return that didn't take on the first go-round, and more is coming. Spending flexibility is coming as well...that's a double-edged sword of course, he can't repeat the mistakes of '07/'08....but this has always been, in my mind, a transition year to the chance for something better. They brought in Damon/Valverde to still maintain their shot this season....and that still has a shot to work out.
No, I've enjoyed these 50 games that some seem to be bored with. They are building a younger team on the whole and investing in their organization. Hopefully they will spend their way into a couple of overslot signings to bolster the system in next week's draft as well. They need to identify a young guy or two and pay them out of going to college or to leave college early.....making up for losing the draft choice for signing Valverde (their only highly questionable move of the off-season) is critical to me. They need to keep amassing young talent to move forward with. (keep an eye out for Levon Washington...or Tyrell Jenkins)
We'll know a lot more after game 100....can't wait to see where they're headed then.
Not bad. About where I figured this crew would be...(I predicted 85 wins for BillyTuttle's list...but had felt they were an 80 to 86 win ballclub all the off-season)
The recent stretch of going 5-8 has put some folks in a funk about where this club is heading. We'll see.....a 6-2 stretch would perk up plenty of folks.
Verlander, Porcello, and Scherzer. This season hinged on these three guys more than any others in my opinion. Certainly that has not gone well overall. Some positive moments....but not the steadiness needed to enable the club to exceed expectations thus far. However we now see Scherzer regaining his velocity and, if it continues, that gives him a good chance to compete and post some good starts for the club. Verlander is coming into form. Porcello has looked a bit better at times. Then Bonderman has gotten into a decent rythm. This rotation could do good things this summer with a few breaks.
The bullpen has been relatively solid for two months. Some nights of stellar work including picking up emergency "bullpen games" when Willis was not ready to answer the bell.
Defensively this year the corner outfield play has been poor. The Tigers overall have fallen back to 22nd in Team Defensive Efficiency. But they've been rising a bit of late. We'll see what Guillen's addition to the infield means on a regular basis. (at least until the DL comes calling)
Offensively......a bit sporadic. Better than last season for the most part until the last week or so. Top heavy in the batting order as we know. I think some of the under-performers will play a bit better and inch back to their career norms as happens a lot in baseball. How long will A-Jax/Boesch continue to contribute? That's a bigger question over worrying about Laird/Everett in my opinion.
The Farm is still a work in progress. I coined the farm system to be "craptastic" in '09....but they've come on since then. Much more middle-of-the-road now with some guys coming along and a surprise or two possible like Rawley Bishop. Still, the system is a little light on position talent and a couple of the big arms haven't been ready like Casey Crosby.
The Tigers took a new course last off-season. It was needed and very justified. They have a chance to shed some of the bad Hindenburg Contracts over the next year and install some homegrown talent into the 25-man roster. Its the best way to build a ballclub in my opinion. While I haven't been a full bodied voice behind "the 2012 will be great!" Movement, I get the sentiment behind it. The club almost had a lucky playoff appearance in '09. They missed. But they weren't good enough as consituted to do much more than what we saw last year (in my opinion). Dombrowski hamstrung himself w/lousy contracts....but since he didn't get canned, he has to dig himself out. I think he chose the right course....younger talent has been installed, some more will return that didn't take on the first go-round, and more is coming. Spending flexibility is coming as well...that's a double-edged sword of course, he can't repeat the mistakes of '07/'08....but this has always been, in my mind, a transition year to the chance for something better. They brought in Damon/Valverde to still maintain their shot this season....and that still has a shot to work out.
No, I've enjoyed these 50 games that some seem to be bored with. They are building a younger team on the whole and investing in their organization. Hopefully they will spend their way into a couple of overslot signings to bolster the system in next week's draft as well. They need to identify a young guy or two and pay them out of going to college or to leave college early.....making up for losing the draft choice for signing Valverde (their only highly questionable move of the off-season) is critical to me. They need to keep amassing young talent to move forward with. (keep an eye out for Levon Washington...or Tyrell Jenkins)
We'll know a lot more after game 100....can't wait to see where they're headed then.
Re-visiting the "Nate v. Dontrelle" decision....
A few have mentioned how a mistake was made by paying off the Marlins to accept Nate Robertson and keeping Dontrelle.....he has "won" 4 games thus far (against 4 losses) and sports a 4.30 ERA.
That pretty much ends the positives however. He's striking out fewer batters then even his career mark and he's walking more. His groundball percentage is down as well. (For those familiar w/"FIP", that's around 5. This is where his ERA "should" be)
Nate is benefiting from pitching in the weaker league, pitching to pitchers, and pitching in a cavernous park. I'm hopeful he has the appearance of a "good" season as I've always liked Nate very much....and I would have been fine with keeping him for one more spin if the Tigers had gone that route....but I don't miss him much and I don't think he would have held up nearly as well in the American League as he is thus far in the NL. I don't think it was a "mistake" to opt for Dontrelle this Spring. They felt Dontrelle had more of the coveted "upside" if he could harness his stuff....judging by a couple of Dontrelle's solid outings that was probably true...but he just couldn't sustain anything so a move was made.
Getting out from under the morass of poor contracts given out in the '07/'08 timeframe is going to take some time...slowly but surely they whittle away and hopefully DD has changed his approach moving forward.
That pretty much ends the positives however. He's striking out fewer batters then even his career mark and he's walking more. His groundball percentage is down as well. (For those familiar w/"FIP", that's around 5. This is where his ERA "should" be)
Nate is benefiting from pitching in the weaker league, pitching to pitchers, and pitching in a cavernous park. I'm hopeful he has the appearance of a "good" season as I've always liked Nate very much....and I would have been fine with keeping him for one more spin if the Tigers had gone that route....but I don't miss him much and I don't think he would have held up nearly as well in the American League as he is thus far in the NL. I don't think it was a "mistake" to opt for Dontrelle this Spring. They felt Dontrelle had more of the coveted "upside" if he could harness his stuff....judging by a couple of Dontrelle's solid outings that was probably true...but he just couldn't sustain anything so a move was made.
Getting out from under the morass of poor contracts given out in the '07/'08 timeframe is going to take some time...slowly but surely they whittle away and hopefully DD has changed his approach moving forward.
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