Week in Review 15 (... or why the Twins?)

It is an absolutely beautiful Sunday morning. I am out on the deck drinking a cup of coffee, listening to the birds and writing this blog. I feel that this perfection of the writing situation is necessary to balance out the wretchedness I must convey, the disappointment and sorrow that is Week 15 of Tigers' baseball 2008.

Last Sunday started out with Nate Robertson pitching 9 full innings and allowing only 1 run to the Mariners. That was not enough to win though, so most of the bullpen came out and pitched what turned out to be a 15 inning game that Detroit won 2 to 1 against Seattle. There are many outstanding things about that game:

• Nate Robertson pitching 9 innings with only 1 run allowed and only 4 hits. That is the best game I can remember Nate pitching- ever. His ERA is over 5 and his WalksHitsperInningPitched (WHIP) is 1.14 (even after that game). So he is not your typical dominant pitcher. But he was playing ace stud out there on Sunday.
• This was the 4th game against Seattle and the last one of a road trip. It is easy to just roll over and think about being home again. Instead they "ground it out" and put together a close win (2 to 1 in the end) over the course of 15 innings. It showed that this team knows every game counts and they were not going to give up anything. That was the biggest thing for me.
• The bullpen sent 4 guys out there to cover 6 innings and they combined for 2 hits, 3 walks and 3 strikeouts. If only they pitched like that everyday!

That was Sunday. Then there was a mini-series with the Indians at Comerica. The Tigers beat the Indians both games, but that second one was a serious come from behind win. By the 6th inning Detroit was down by 4 runs and Eddie Bonine was not only sent to the Tigers' showers, but all the way to AA Lake Erie to figure out the whole "pitching to AL batters" thing.

So the Tigers win the first 3 games of the week! But...

The Twins come to Comerica for a four game series to go into the All Star Break. Game 1 had the Twins come back from being 4 runs down to win. Game 2 and 3 they win by one run each game. Lee Panas of Tiger Tales does a great job of evaluating the Twins and proving statistically that they should not be winning so many #$%^ games! But they do. So far this month the Twins are playing .727 ball (Tigers are .324). The Twins outscore their opponents by .9 runs per game in July (Tigers give up .2 runs per game). The bottom line is that the Twins got hot in June and are still hot. Detroit got hot in June and have cooled down. The White Sox are also continuing to win most of their games (.636 in July).

For the Week 15:
Starters' ERA 4.17
Bullpen ERA 2.78
Runs Allowed/Game 4.2
Batting SLG % .444
Batting AVG % .261
Runs Scored/ Game 5.33

3 Wins and 3 Losses and 8 games behind the White Sox in 3rd place.

Week 16 is a short one (because of the All Star Game). The Tigers try to take the last game of the series with the Twins today and then head to Baltimore on Thursday for 4 games against the Orioles (who are 45 and 47 as of this morning).

Carlos Guillen is representing the Tigers at the All Star Game. He is a good choice (though I would have chosen Magglio Ordonez if he were not on the DL). But in reality, it's hard to put any of these guys on the All Star Team based on 2008 alone.