Grinding it out....

This will be mostly a catch up post because I couldn't possibly do the past weeks justice.

The Tigers are still in first place. As of right NOW they are 2.5 games ahead of the White Sox and 6 games over the Twins (but both of those teams are playing (and losing) as I write this, so stay tuned).

It is awesome that Detroit is leading the AL Central. Mainly because in either other division this year they would be lost in the pack. The Yankees are starting to walk away with the AL East and the Angels are 5 games ahead in the West. The Tigers have a .530 winning per centage and that would put them at 4th place in the East and 3rd in the West.

But, the reality is that they are in the Central. Maybe this is something like "reigning in hell", but it beats trying to catch the Yankees or Boston. So far this year Detroit has played well against everyone but the AL East. They are 17 and 10 against the West (thank you Texas!) and, even more importantly, they are 27 and 20 when facing the AL Central.

The glaring reason they are in 1st place is the same reason they weren't last year- pitching.

• Justin Verlander is an absolute stud. He has had two bad outings in the last couple of weeks, but his ERA is still only 3.28 and he has 194 strike outs in his 13 wins. He was the only pitcher who could shut down the Red Sox last week.
• Edwin Jackson has not been as totally dominant as he was earlier in the summer, but he is still coming in with a 2.94 ERA. Both Verlander and Jackson face an average of only 4.1 batters per inning. That shows that they are keeping men off the basepaths (and as a result, it is hard to score off of them).
• The Kid (Porcello) has also been having a Rookie of the Year season (IMHO). He has 10 wins and a 4.34 ERA. His WHIP is only 1.39. And let's not forget that he flipped Kevin Youkilis to the ground during the only fight of the year- pretty good for a 20 year old!

The bullpen hasn't been slouching either.

• Bobby Seay has slipped a bit in the past few weeks, but he still allows only 1.06 batters to reach per inning. He just gave up his first 2 homeruns of the year.
• Brandon Lyon was slow to start but he has established himself as a firewall to any rally the other team might consider putting together. In 44 appearances he has allowed only 17 earned runs. His WHIP is only 1.05.
• Then there is Ni. He can barely speak any English, but he has struck out 17 batter in only 21 innings pitched while only walking 7. There is just a metric ton of confidence in these guys taking the ball right now.
• Rodney is no longer perfect in saves, but as scary as he is- he gets the job done.

If the bats coud keep up with the pitchers the race for the AL Central would be over. But the bats are anemic so the Tigers win on pitching. Detroit has played 23 games where the opposing team scored 1 run or less. That is almost 1/3 of their 62 wins so far. The down side is that they have played in 21 games where they have scored 1 run or less. They have won only 2 of those games. That ties the number of games like that from last season (although last year there were many more shutouts against Detroit).

Today the Tigers traded for Aubrey Huff from the Orioles. I don't know much about him yet. He has 72 RBI so far this year, so maybe can help the area the Tigers are worst at - hitting with men in scoring position. In the past 3 weeks the Tigers have left 332 men on base, 332! Huff is a left handed batter who, until this year, was a power hitter. All I remember is reading that he threw dirt in Brandon Inge's face during a game a couple of weeks ago- apparently they are friends.

Ordonez is hitting again. Guillen is hitting. Cabrera never really stopped hitting. Maybe Huff is the guy they need.

But I don't think the Twins can catch them. The White Sox can (and might) but I think Detroit can and should win the division. And with their pitching the playoffs could be sweet.

It's time for bed.

Week 19
Place - 1st

Tigers -
W. Sox 2.5
Twins 6
Indians 11
Royals 16

only 46 games in regular season.

Runs per game?

David Pinto, at Baseball Musings, is doing his spring analysis of how many runs per game each team may do, based on all kinds of cool math stuff.

Because the heart of Detroit's line up is playing for Venezuela right now we can't really get a good read for how they are doing. Thankfully Mr. Pinto is going to help us out with that...

• Best lineup: 5.16 runs per game
• Probable lineup: 5.08 runs per game
• Worst lineup: 4.78 runs per game
• Regressed lineup: 4.70 runs per game

The Tigers scored 5.07 runs per game in 2008.
So about the same as last year. Perhaps the doom and gloom about Everett's bat is unnecessary? It looks that way.

How about the rest of the division?

White Sox:

• Best lineup: 5.30 runs per game
• Probable lineup: 5.17 runs per game
• Worst lineup: 4.96 runs per game
• Regressed lineup: 4.76 runs per game

The White Sox scored 4.98 runs per game in 2008.

Indians:

• Best lineup: 5.55 runs per game
• Probable lineup: 5.49 runs per game
• Worst lineup: 5.34 runs per game
• Regressed lineup: 4.95 runs per game

The Indians scored 4.97 runs per game in 2008.

Twins:

• Best lineup: 5.13 runs per game
• Probable lineup: 5.05 runs per game
• Worst lineup: 4.73 runs per game
• Regressed lineup: 4.68 runs per game

The Twins scored 5.09 runs per game in 2008.

The Royals aren't done yet. I still think they may not be push overs this year (actually, they weren't last year at all- does 0-7 ring any bells?)

Based on this no one will dominate the AL Central this season with their bats. Pitching and defense win the games.

BTW: If you are inclined, David Pinto is running his annual fund drive. Support him if you can. He always has interesting stuff from all over baseball.

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.

Almost there!

Rockies 1, Tigers 7

Detroit continues to rack up wins at an impressive rate. It is almost too good to be true. They have won 15 of their last 19 games (.790 ball). They have won their last 5 series (with back to back sweeps!). Tonight they finally have more Runs Scored (382) than Runs Against (380). That's not a lot more, but it's better than have more Runs Against. As of the end of tonight's play they are 1 game below .500. That sounds much better than it is, but it still sounds sooo sweet after being 8 full games below .500 on June 1st.

There is no single standout on the team. Marcus Thames was hitting a home run every time he hit the ball for about 2 weeks, but now Granderson and Sheffield (returned from 2 weeks on the DL) are taking their turn. The "a walk's as good as a hit" line that my coach used to tell me ('cause he knew I couldn't hit) turned out to be true when Clete Thomas drew two (2!) bases loaded walks against the Cardinals to "drive" in the first and third (game winning) runs.

Nate Robertson pitched 6.1 innings and gave up 11 hits- but 0 earned runs. Jason Beck reports that no Tiger has done that since 1956. I don't know if that is great or terrible pitching, but add another W to the column.

So far this week Detroit is 4 and 1 with one more game this week. This is the last series against National League Teams and then it is back to AL play. All of the American League Teams play well against the NL, but Detroit is just crazy. This year they are 11 and 5 with 2 games to go. They beat the Cards and the Padres, two teams picked by many to contend for the playoffs this year. Tigers just love NL teams!

Today they attempt to hit the .500 mark for the first time since March 30th.

Week 12

This week saw most of a road trip to the west coast for Interleague Play against the San Fransisco Giants and the San Diego Padres (with the end of a homestand last Sunday against the LA Dodgers).

Results- 6 Wins against 2 Losses. Not too shabby at all. Let's break it down some more...

Starters- Robertson had the best outing on Sunday against the Dodgers (0 earned runs in 6 innings facing only 21 batters). Robertson also had the worst outing last night against the Padres with 5 earned runs in 6 innings with 26 batters faced). But, both ended up in W's for the Tigers! Galarraga continued to impress with 0 earned runs in 6 innings on Wednesday against the Giants. Verlander had a good outing on Monday with only 2 earned runs and 7 strikeouts over 6 innings, but the Tigers took the loss on one of 2 bullpen implosions this week (we'll get to that later). Rogers was dealing on Wednesday with 1 earned run in 7 innings and finally got a win for his efforts. Bonine (aka "the New Guy") pitched pretty well on Friday (2 earned runs in 7 innings) but Bull Pen Implosion #2 cost the Tigers a win. By my figures the Starters ERA was 2.37 for the week! (10 earned runs over 38 innings pitched). That will win a lot of ballgames!

Relivers- The Bull Pen saw the return of Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumuya this week, 2 of the best arms of the incredible 2006 season. Both had been on the DL all summer. Bautista and Lopez were sent to Toledo to make room for the dynamic duo with the Tigers. Lopez will be pitching longer to possibly prepare him for a starter role later on (if necessary). Well, the only 2 losses of the week were directly the result of the Bull Pen. Tuesday Justin Verlander pitched well and handed it over after 6 innings and a one run lead- Dolsi did well at first, but in the 8th he couldn't get an out. Well, we've got Rodney back don't we? Let's see what he can do... Bless You Boys has the best graphical representation of the results. Rodney faced 5 batters and allowed 3 runs on 3 hits and a walk. Before it is all over the score is 8 to 4. Detroit did score 2 in the 9th to make it an 8-6 final, but it wasn't pretty. You can pretty much repeat the story for Friday's game (except it was tied up at 2 instead of Detroit having a 1 run lead). Rodney gets the ball after a strong start by Bonine and .... Ian brings out his nuclear fire ball again (he will run out of images before long if this continues). Rodney did not record an out but gave up 2 runs on 2 hits, 2 walks and never got anyone out. His ERA at that point is 135. Fossum tried to put out the fire but couldn't. The tie game was now a 2-6 game with 3 outs left for the Tigers, sorry. The good news is that, aside from those two games, the bull pen did well giving up only 4 runs.

Batters- There are really only two words for the week: Marcus Thames! He hit a home run almost everytime he went to the plate this week. And they were key hits too, the kind that win the game. Overall there were 10 homeruns this week and they scored 5.3 runs per game! That will do it. SLG % was up to .473.

They committed 4 errors this past week.

So they won 4 and lost 2. Again the Starters gave strong performances and the Batters scored runs. This is a good combination. Detroit is now in 3rd place and 6 games behind the White Sox.

Lunch Time

It's lunch time and that gives me a few minutes to reflect on last week for our Detroit Tigers.

Week 11 had 6 Wins and 1 Loss- the best 7 day performance of the year.

Four of the Starters (Robertson, Verlander, Rogers and Galarraga) had a quality start (6 innings pitched with 3 earned runs or less). Dontrelle Willis made a terrible start against the Indians on Monday and Eddie Bonine made an "Okay" start against the Dodgers on Saturday. By my figures* their ERA in Week 11 was 4.55. If you take Willis' meltdown (8 runs in 1.1 innings) out of the picture the Starters ERA drops to 2.90! Galarraga allowed 2 and 0, Rogers and Verlander allowed 1 each and Robertson allowed 3.

The Lineup produced 5.3 runs per game, a definite improvement over most other weeks. This probably won't shock anyone, but when the Tigers average more than 5 runs per game they win more than they lose. This season they have scored over 5 RPG over the course of a week 4 times. Those are the weeks where they have had winning records (Week 3, 4, 8, and 11). Over those weeks their record is 19 and 8.

The Defense is still not really improving (despite Inge at 3rd more) a whole lot. There were 5 errors last week, higher than their average for the year, but most of those came in a very sloppy game on Saturday. Overall they are doing better defensively than they did in '07 or '06.

For the most part the Relief staff did very well this week. Bautista stepped in to stop the blood bath on Monday for Willis and from there on they just rolled. Their combined ERA was 1.00 over 18 innings pitched. That is outstanding!

So all of this together meant 6 wins. Going into the week Detroit was 10 games behind a White Sox team that had won 5 in a row. Coming out of the week Detroit has humbled those White Sox with a 3 game sweep and taken advantage of a weak Dodgers team with a second 3 game sweep! They are now 6 games behind the White Sox. The Tigers continue their Interleague play with 3 games against the San Fransisco Giants and 3 against the San Diego Padres. Both teams are beatable so it may be another good week.

*My ERA figures are open to question so don't bet your mortgage payment on them or anything. My spreadsheet is a work in progress and I'm always tweaking it and looking for errors in it. Just so you know...