Some things I see out there...

It's an off day while the Tigers settle back into Comerica Park and wait for the Red Sox to show up. So I've been reading around the web. These are some posts others have made about the Tigers that I thought were cool:

These two are from Baseball Musings- both about Tigers' pitching. The first is about Verlander vs. Greinke. The second article looks at the extremes seen in the Tigers' staff. Here's the money quote:

The Tigers, unfortunately, also produced the worst ERA in May...His (Galarraga's) 0-5 record helped keep the rest of the division in the pennant race.

Here is a look at how Edwin Jackson is improving while pitching for Detroit (via TigerTales).

Not to leave the batters out of the love, here is something Curtis Granderson wrote on his blog. Thanks to Ian at Bless You Boys for linking it.

The Detroit Tigers Weblog looks at where some of the ex-Tigers have ended up this year and how they are faring.

Mack Avenue Tigers looks at the catching situation.

Back to Verlander- Jason Beck tells us that Justin has been nominated for the MLB Clutch Performer of the Month (May) Award. Beck also tells us that Bonderman had a very good game last night for the Toledo Mudhens. Here's the quote you probably want to see:

"he looked like a Major League pitcher."

Looking at other teams in the AL Central there is some bad news for the Indians. Grady Sizemore was put on the DL for an imflammed elbow for 2 weeks. Apparently if rest doesn't help he will look at surgery, which could take him out for an additional 6 weeks.

I just saw that Cleveland has placed Rafael Betancourt on the DL also with a groin strain. Cleveland has 8 players on the DL right now. The Indians are 22-30 and 7 1/2 games behind the Tigers.

The White Sox are starting to put together a run up the standings again. Apparently their lead off guys are starting to figure some things out. On May 1st the White Sox were in 1st place in a very tight race. By May 15th they had dropped 4 games below .500 and 3 full games behind first place. Today they are back in 2nd place and 4 full games behind the Tigers, though they are on a 3 game winning streak. Detroit goes to Chicago for 4 games next week. It could be very interesting.

Week 8: 4 W- 3 L

Week in Review- Road Trip edition

This past week the Tigers ran into two men who seem to defy the laws of statistics: Matt Grienke pitching for the Royals and Luke Scott hitting for the Orioles. Other than that they played well. Here comes the science....

Detroit played a 3 game series against Kansas City early in the week. Verlander and Porcello dominated the Royals, Justin pitched a shutout through 7 and Porcello allowed only 2 through 6. Jackson ran into the amazing Matt Grienke pitching for the Royals. Grienke allowed 1 run and pitched an entire game. His ERA after that outing was 0.84! Detroit did nothing to damage his reputation.

Then Detroit went to Baltimore a.k.a. the Land of Luke Scott. Here is some perspective on Luke Scott- he was traded to Baltimore last year from Houston and since then has absolutely destroyed Tiger pitching. He has played in 13 games against Detriot and homered in 12 of them. It just seems that his purpose on earth is to keep the Orioles in games against the Tigers. Some of the best times of my week were spent reading the comments posted about Mr. Scott. Here are some of the best.

From Bless You Boys

i hate that guy

http://www.fromthecopa.blogspot.com

by rock n rye on May 29, 2009 8:18 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

From Roar of the Tigers read this, this and this.

All of this attention to Scott was deserved by the Tigers blogosphere. He hit the game winning home runs on Thursday, Friday and the game tying homerun on Saturday until Clete Thomas unloaded for his 2nd HR of the day to put Detroit ahead for good.

So, all in all the Tigers did well. They won more games than they lost on this road trip. In fact, they have not "lost" a week yet this year, playing at least .500 ball every week this year. Pitching and defense are keeping the team in the game until the batters put something together. The slugging percentage for the week was .407 and continues a 3 week slide in that category. Leyland keeps playing with the batting order to see what works the best. In fact today Granderson batted cleanup for the first time in his MLB career (and hit his 2nd HR in 2 days).

At the end of the week:
28 - 21
First place in the AL Central.

Team Place GB
Det 1 -
Chi 2 4
Min 3 4 1/2
KC 4 5 1/2
Cle 5 7 1/2