Not a good week...

This past week has not been a good one for the Tigers. They went 1-4 (with 2 off days). Well, actually they seemed to have more than 2 “off” days, but there were 2 days they weren’t scheduled.

They wrapped up their last West Coast road trip against the Mariners before coming home to start a 4 game series against the A’s.

For one of those reasons that make no sense the Tigers cannot seem to beat the Mariners. The Mariners have not been a good team in 2010. They have good pitching and don’t allow that many runs (189 through the Tigers’ series or 4.1 per game) but they score even fewer (163 or 3.5 per game). With Verlander and Bonderman pitching for Detroit you might think that things look pretty good for a short series win. Yet the Mariners were able to score 5 runs in each game while the Tigers scored only 3 and then 4. Bondo actually pitched a great game, but Ryan Perry didn’t, giving up 5 hits and 4 runs in 1/3 of an inning to turn an apparent 4-1 win into a definite 4-5 loss. In fact, this was not a good week for Ryan Perry at all, but we’ll get to that later. So the Tigers again gave the Mariners a reason to feel good about themselves. So far the Tigers are 1-4 against Seattle this year, providing the Mariners with almost 20% of their wins for the year.

After losing to Seattle (and presumably stocking up on coffee) the Tigers headed home to face the A’s. Now the A’s are a decent team. They are contending in the West and have some good players. The Tigers had beaten them in a short series last week. Now they had a 4 game series here in Detroit. The Tigers are very good, strong at home (14-6 starting the series). Well, things didn’t work out exactly as hoped for. Willis pitched 5 1/3 innings of very interesting baseball, allowing 3 runs on 5 hits and one walk. The Bullpen took over and, for the second time this week Perry could not get it done, allowing 2 runs on a hit and a walk (Ni allowing at least one of the runs to score). Even with newly-minted father Miguel Cabrara hitting 3 home runs the Tigers couldn’t get Willis the win. The next night (Friday) the Tigers bats simply didn’t show up (5 hits and 0 runs). Porcello pitched a pretty good game (2 earned runs in 6 1/3 on 7 hits and 2 walks). The Pen allowed 4 runs in another weak showing, but with 0 runs on the Tigers’ side of the scoreboard it didn’t really matter much.

This raises a question for me about the pitchers- can we have good showings from both the Rotation and the Bullpen in the same week? This week the Rotation had one weak outing (Verlander on Tuesday) but other than that Bonderman, Willis, Porcello and Scherzer each pitched well with 3 or fewer runs allowed. This is the dominant rotation that we have been begging for all year! Here it is! The Rotation’s ERA for the week was 2.84! Their WHIP was 1.17. This stuff can win some ball games! Before the week started the Tigers’ Bullpen was lights-out. Their ERA was 2.32 and their WHIP was 1.23. It has climbed to 2.85 and 1.27. Add the 2 losses (both, unfortunately, assigned to Perry but he had some help in giving them away) and we see a bad week. I’m hoping that this was simply that- a bad week- and not some horrible Greek-economy-type slide toward failure. I say this because I’m not sure where the bailout might come from.

Related to dominance of the Rotation- Dontrelle Willis was Designated for Assignment last night to make room for Max Scherzer. Dontrelle seems to be the happiest (and luckiest) pitcher in baseball but his on again- off again relationship with the strike zone had finally become too much for Dombrowski. With Scherzer having figured out his issues down in Toledo the Tigers needed to make some room on the roster. Galarraga had pitched well enough to stay, so Willis was DFA’d. I must say that I admire what the Tigers have done for Willis. Something happened inside his head and he lost his game. Unfortunately this happed right after Dombrowski signed him to a 3 year worth $29 million. The Tigers gave him every opportunity to turn it around (for both their own interest and his), but ultimately they decided that they could do better.

The bats remain a story of split personality. The top 5 are the best in baseball (in my opinion). The bottom 4 have been terrible. Overall the OPS is .755 for the last 13 games, but the squandering by the bottom has been epic. Inge is hitting .215 and that is the best of the group. Everett is .189 and Laird/ Avila is .154 It is a fair question as to how long these guys can hit like that and stay on the lineup card. I don’t know the answers to this problem, but there has to be a SS or Catcher out there who can hit better than what we have with enough defense to make the outs. If something doesn’t happen with these guys soon then Willis may have only been the first to be shown the door.

So, as Memorial Day starts off the summer season here in Michigan we have a team that is going through some changes and challenges. Their Bullpen slipped but their Rotation stepped up. The bats have been slumbering but woke up in a big way today to support Scherzer. The team is 26-23 and sits 3 games behind the Twins. They are certainly in the race. This upcoming week they finish the 4th game with the A’s and then host the Indians for 3 before going to KC for 3. These are not good teams, these are teams that Detroit should dominate. This should be a good week to be a Tigers’ fan.
Go Tigers!

OMG! (or "I think this is starting to happen!")...

When this week started the Tigers had to finish one game of their 4 game series against the Tampa Bay Rays and then play the Indians before leaving on a road trip to Tampa Bay and KC. Back then the Tigers were 3 1/2 games ahead of the Twins.

Tonight the Tigers have just completed a run of 6 consecutive victories and have put a full 7 games between themselves and the Twins.

The starting pitchers have really allowed this to happen. Washburn and Galarraga did not pitch well in their starts. Washburn allowed 8 earned runs in 5 2/3 innings on Monday. That was the final game of the home Tampa series and did not seem like a good start to the week. It was later learned that Washburn had a sore knee (and has had one for much of the season).

But for most of the rest of the week it was the starters who controlled the games for Detroit. Porcello came in the next day and held the Indians to only 2 runs in 7 innings. Nate Robertson followed up his debut with an even better performance, allowing no runs in 6 innings. Verlander continued his Cy Young worthy season with a 1 run performance to start the Tigers' road trip in Tampa Bay. Galarraga was the only fly in the ointment as he allowed 6 runs in 2 1/3 innings on Saturday. This afternoon Jackson allowed only 3 runs in 8 innings.

So, for the week the starters allowed 24 runs over 7 games (3.4 runs/ game) with 14 of those runs in only 2 games.

The bull pen has been pretty amazing this week. The best example was the game Galarraga started. The pen took over in the 3rd inning and stopped the Rays in their tracks. Six pitchers combined for 0 runs in 6 2/3 innings. But for the entire week the pen allowed only 9 runs. The only two bad performances were from Ni on Thursday (3 runs on 1/3 inning) and Rodney's nearly blown save on Friday (2 runs in 1 inning).

All of this pitching has allowed time for the batters to do their thing, and they have started to do just that. In every game in Tampa the Tigers have trailed until late in the game. Friday night they won it with an 8th inning rally. Saturday they did the same thing. Sunday they waited until the 9th to take the lead.

The bats have not been dominating. The team batting average for the week was .277, respectable but not dominating. The slugging % was .483, again not particularily great. The runs per game was 5.71 though, so the hits were timely. And what hits they were too. Polanco hit game winning hits both Thursday and Friday. Saturday it was Everett with a Suicide Squeeze. Inge hit a 9th inning Grand Slam on Sunday to reverse a 3-1 Rays lead- plenty of drama on that one! Earlier in the week the home run led the way as they beat the Indians on Tuesday.

So the Tigers completed back to back sweeps over the Indians and the Rays. They are 11-4 in games against the Indians in 2009 and they finished up 5-2 against the AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays.

This week they have a trip to Kansas City for 3 games before heading home for a 4 game series with the Blue Jays. Detroit hasn't played Toronto since the open series of the year. Let's hope the Tigers do better this time around.

	Games back	Elimination #
Tigers	--	--
Twins	7	20
W. Sox	8	18
Indians	15	15
Royals	24	3

Week 4 Wrap

The Tigers split 6 games this week against the Royals, Yankees and Indians.

The Good:

Verlander pitched 7 shut out innings against the Yankees 4/27 with 9 strikeouts.
Jackson followed the next day with 6 innings of shutout ball.
Brandon Inge continues to get on base. He has been on base in every game so far this year and finished the week with 7 home runs.

The Ugly:

The 7th inning of Jackson's game on the 28th. I was dozing off and every time I woke up the Yankees were still batting. Perry gave up 4 runs in 1/3 of that inning. Robertson also gave up 4 runs in 1/3 of an inning. Lyon comes in and gives up a grand slam before finally getting the final out. 14 batters scored 10 runs in that endless inning. Jackson's shut out became a blowout that the Yankees won 11 to 0. that is the first shutout against the Tigers so far this year.

The Bad:

Week 4 was the first week this year that the Tigers didn't score at least 5 runs per game (only 4.50 last week).
Also for the first time this last week the Bullpen was not very good (of course giving up 10 runs in one inning will certainly skew the results). They gave up 16 walks and only 11 stikeouts. They also gave up 4 home runs.

The end result wasn't all that horribly bad. They finished the week 1/2 game out of first tied for 2nd with the White Sox. They were 12 and 11 for the year.

The month of May has lots of AL Central play for Detroit. They continue to play the Indians and then the Twins for 2 and then the White Sox for 2 and then the Indians again to finish up the week.

Bad Pitching beats Good Hitting every time!

First off I owe an apology. It has been brought to my attention that while I was blogging more regularly the Tigers were winning more regularly. Since I have been away from Section 148 they have not played as well. So I offer my deepest and most heartfelt apologies to all Tiger fans! I honestly had no idea the impact such a tiny spec of the blogosphere could have on an an institution such as my beloved Tigers. I have let down not only all of my fans but all Tigers’ fans. It is inexcusable, but I ask for your grace none-the-less.

So where did the Tigers end up during my absence?

July: W/L 13-13

Runs Scored 152

Runs Against 129

Batting Avg .286

Slugging % .466

Runs Scored/Game 5.85

Starting ERA 5.14

Bullpen ERA 3.96

Runs Against/ Game 5.00

Where exactly do you look to start pulling this together? I must say that the offense seems to be cranking out runs pretty nicely. They did accumulate their 11^th shutout of the year last week, but even with those 0’s in the equation they average 5.07 runs/ game over the year. In the last 14 games they have averaged 5.65! Miguel Cabrera won the Player of the Month award! Ordonez is going for his second consecutive batting title! Maybe later I’ll look at the distribution of those runs (they score 0 runs 7/28 and 14 runs 7/30) but even so, almost 6 runs per game is pretty good and where the numbers showed they would be in the pre-season.

So how about them pitchers! Wow. Just “Wow!!”

Starting pitchers- well their ERA for the month was 5.14 and they averaged 5 2/3 innings pitched per start. To put that into perspective – June showed a 3.53 ERA and an average of 6 1/3 innings per start. What is probably contributing to this is the homeruns. July had 23 HR hit off of the Starters (1.38 per 9 innings pitched). June had 16 HR (0.87 per 9 innings pitched). The worst offender was Nate Robertson (his name is going to come up in a negative context a lot here) with a HR/9 of 2.59 (9 HR in 31 1/3 IP). Walks + Hits/ Inning Pitched (WHIP) was 1.42 in July (up from 1.33 in June). Again Nate had the worst at 1.85. That means roughly a combination of almost 2 baserunners per inning pitched. You put that many guys on base, and then serve up nice fat meatballs to knock out of the park 2.59 times per 9 innings and you end up with an ERA of 8.62 for the month for Mr. Robertson. Now in June he had a WHIP of 1.52 but HR/9 of only 0.87! Something horrible happened to Nate during July (and it’s not getting cured in August). But although Robertson was the worst, he was not alone. Verlander had an ERA of 4.70, Rogers’ was 4.73! The best pitcher was Galarraga with an ERA of 3.23 and WHIP of 1.21.

(If you would like to, statistically, dessicate Nate go here.) Apparently he is the worst starter in Tigers' history. At least he has that going for him!

So the Bullpen takes over somewhere in the 6^th inning and then what happens? The Bullpen’s ERA was 5.00 (43 earned runs in 97 2/3 IP). Their biggest issues seems to be walks, they do that a lot (59 BB in those 97 2/3 IP or 5.43 BB per 9/IP). The WHIP for the Bullpen was 1.52 for July. That is actually not any worse than June’s (1.52). But those homeruns again- HR/9 was 1.20 in July and only 0.36 in June! So you put a guy on and then let the guy behind him hit it out of the park.

Jones got demoted (and diagnosed with tendinitis) at the end of the month. But there really isn’t anyone who can close better than Jones on the team right now (at least when he’s healthy). Zumaya can’t seem to control that amazing fastball of his (7.85 BB/9). Rodney has been horrible in many of his appearances (5.45 BB/9). The best relief pitcher Detroit has right now is Bobby Seay. He had 1 earned run over 11 1/3 IP and struck out 13. He is really the only arm I would trust right now.

So, in spite of scoring 5.85 runs in the average game the Tigers allowed 5.0 in an average game in July. That certainly sounds like a .500 team doesn’t it? That, my dear Reader, is what we are looking at right now, a mediocre team. We have an outstanding line up, but below average pitchers which averages out to average. I hate to admit this, but this team will not catch the Twins or the White Sox to win the Central. I predict that the Twins will win it. They played .600 ball in July and averaged .9 runs scored more than their opponents over that time. The Tigers had the same run differential, but I just don’t see them doing anything but losing games late in the game as their weak pitching wastes good hitting.