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!

Week 9- Boston and LAA

Week 9 ended up as the first losing week of the season for the Tigers, who lost 4 and won 2.

Many people have mentioned it, but it must be said again- this team is not hitting right now for a lick! At least not when it counts. Here are the numbers....

Week 9 had a total of 44 hits in 187 At Bats, for a Batting Average of only .235. Their BA has been dropping like a rock for the past 4 weeks. In Week 6 they had a .304 BA, Week 7 was .260, Week 8 .272 and now .235. The number of runs scored per game has, of course, dropped right with it to 3.50 this week. And there is no power to make up for the lack of hits- Week 9 had 9 extra base hits (and only 1 home run- Thomas' grand slam today against the Angels).

Pitching is the biggest reason that this team is still in this race at all (that and a weak Central division). Here is a stat the entire pitching staff should be proud of: The Tigers have allowed the fewest runs in the American League. And it really isn't close- Detroit has allowed 241. The next best is Boston at 257 allowed. The starters' ERA is 3.92 for the year. Verlander earned Pitcher Of the Month for the AL in May. Porcello earned Rookie of the Month for the AL in May. Jackson just quietly shut down everything in front of him in May.

Defense also continues to be strength for the Tigers this season. As of today they have the 3rd best fielding percentage in the American League (.988) and have only committed 25 errors in 55 games. This past week was actually one of their worst with 5 errors committed.

Verlander and Jackson allowed a total of 1 run this week over 17 innings. The only blemish on the starters' record was Willis' melt down. There are many calls for his head because of his "performance" on Thursday (where he allowed 5 runs on 5 walks in the 3rd inning after shutting Boston down in the 1st and 2nd).

Another episode in Tiger related life was the on again, off again "final" destruction of Tigers' Stadium. I have great memories of seeing games in Tigers' Stadium when I was younger. But I have great memories of seeing games in Comerica Park too. As long as I have a place to see the Tigers play I'm a happy camper.

Week 9
2 W, 4 L
1st place

Place Games Back
Det 1st -
Min 2nd 3.0
Chi 3rd 4.5
KC 4th 6.5
Cle 5th 7.0

Next week is a rare 5 game series with the White Sox and then the start of the happy hunting grounds of Interleague play!

Week 7: 5 Wins, 2 Losses

Lots of W's, not so many R's...

The Tiger's finished up what was, overall, an impressive week at home. They won 5 out of 7. They finished up a sweep of Oakland. Then they swept Texas. They lost the final series to Colorado.

Pitching: Galarraga continues to struggle badly. He had two starts and gave up 9 runs in a total of 6 innings over 2 starts. The first start lasted only 2/3 of an inning with 5 runs. The next one was better, but 4 runs over 5 1/3 wasn't enough to prevent the first loss of the homestand. Verlander continues to dominate everyone he pitches (77 strikeouts in 56 1/3 innings- 2nd in the Major Leagues behind Peavy). Willis had 2 good starts (actually one great start and one good start). Jackson and Porcello also had solid starts.

Hitting: After starting very strong the bats kind of lost it this weekend against the Rockies. Both Marquis and Hammel pitched very good games for Colorado and Detroit only put up 4 runs in the last two games of the week. But prior to that they were averaging 5.6 runs per game as they swept their way through Oakland and Texas.

Defense: Tigers' defense this week was very solid. There were many great plays and only 1 error for the week. Lee Panas at Tiger Tales writes up the difference in defense between last year and this year. It adds up to a great cycle of "win"- the defense helps the pitchers and the pitchers help the defense. Starters go longer into games. Last week the starters averaged 5.5 innings of work (and that includes Galarraga's 2/3 inning).

Overall: This week saw the 40 game mark that Sparky used as his bench mark for determining if a team had what it takes to compete. Well, at the 40 game mark of 2009 the Detroit Tigers were 24 and 16. Their starting rotation has an ERA of 4.0 and the Bullpen has an ERA of 4.58. They are scoring an average of 5.29 runs per game. They have 2 lights out starters (Verlander and Jackson). Porcello, at 20 years old, leads the team with 5 wins and looks like a great pitchers. The team is in 1st place of the AL Central by 3 games and just had an 8 game winning streak. So far, this looks like a very solid team and one that the rest of the League won't be able to ignore.

I'm back!

My Blogger dashboard tells me that I have not posted since August 10th. I have to believe that 2 1/2 months is plenty of time for a break. So let's jump back into this - shall we?

Let's sum up- in 2008 the Tigers spent more money on payroll than anybody but the Yankees. They started out 0-7 and never really recovered. They flirted with .500 but only enough to tease all of their fans before sliding backward, ever backward. They ended up finishing 74-88 for the year, good enough for last place in the AL Central. Even the Royals were a better club! For those of you who are looking forward to a weekly recap of those last 6 weeks or so that I didn't cover here- well... the Tigers sucked. That should about cover it.

So, now what do they do? Well, conventional wisdom says that they need pitching. They don't have a solid closer (now that Todd Jones has hung up his spikes). They are weak in the set up roles (with Zumaya a huge question mark and Rodney a series of different symbols followed by an exclamation point! For example: "What the @#$% just happened?!") The starters are just as uncertain. Verlander is still amazing, but his numbers aren't. Bonderman is hopefully recovering from shoulder surgery. Rogers will (or won't) retire- he won't say just yet. Willis and Robertson are mainly there to drive fans (who remember how solid they can be) just crazy. They fired the pitching coach. Maybe that will matter, maybe it won't. I don't know.

Their defense wasn't exactly helping the pitchers this year. They are statistically worse almost everywhere. The only player who really shined this year defensively was a pitcher. Not exactly what you're looking for at a payroll just north of $138,000,000. So Jim Leyland announced that Brandon Inge would be the starting 3rd baseman in 2009. I'm sure that will plug some of the holes on the left side of the infield. But that doesn't solve everything. Polanco is still a great 2nd baseman. Cabrera seems to be getting pretty good at 1st base. Everyone is talking about Shortstop and Edgar Rentaria. I'm not sure that he is that much of a problem. He didn't hit for squat in the first half of the season, but after that he was improving. In fact he shows some real good stats as you can see at Tiger Tales. I think that, with the limited payroll options the Tigers have right now that there are other places to spend their money. The outfield will be another area to focus on. Center is solid with Granderson. Right seems solid with Ordonez (assuming that he stays in Detroit). Left has been a question mark for a long time, but Leyland said that Carlos Guillen will be the starting Left Fielder. I'm not sure about that, but Leyland is better at this than I am so we'll see.

So the Tigers have a lot of questions to answer and apparently not a lot of money to solve them with. I think that it is fair to say that nobody is going to pre-maturely buy their World Series tickets this year. Hopefully they will do better than last place.

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.