The Game of the Ages...

It is Friday and my voice is just getting back to normal. That was, without question, one of the best baseball games I have ever watched (and I was only able to watch the last 4 innings on TV).

I missed seeing the Magglio home run in the 8th, but I was yelling and screaming in the car as Dan and Jim called the play. I missed seeing Rick Porcello strike out 8 men in under 7 innings, but thanks to Mike's text updates I knew he was doing it. My response was- "Kid Rick thinks he is JV jr!" and the now traditional "KKKKKKKK!"

By the time I got home it was the Twins' half of the 8th and Lyon was doing his thing. When Minnesota brought in Joe Nathan in the 8th and sent him out in the 9th I really thought we had it. For crying out loud, when the bases were loaded and Brandon Inge got hit by the pitch I thought we had it (wow did the ump blow that call)! For what it's worth, I really though Granderson was safe when he was doubled off 1st base on Magglio's bullet to short.

That game was not played. That game was fought. I know of people who don't even like baseball who could not turn off that game. That was a battle to the death. When the Twins finally pushed that winning run across home plate I could at least know that the Tigers did not give up. I could see that they tenaciously and ferociously battled back and forth with a team that was their equal in almost all ways. If you have to play an extra game then it should be balanced. If you watch a rookie make a blunder that sets up the tying run, then at least he should do it by trying to end the game on a difficult catch (yes, Raburn- that is you).

In the end, what cost the Tigers this game was the same thing that cost them the division- when they had men on base they could not get them home. Laird left 10 men on base, Inge left 8 and Polanco left 5. If you can't score then the great pitching and defense won't matter.

And I must give credit to Fernando Rodney! He faced 15 men before it was over. Leyland just sent him out there over and over again. I'm not impressed with Leyland there, but I am impressed with Rodney. He may never pitch for Detroit again, but that was an amazing performance.

I will be looking at the season in the days to come and as off season news happens I'll be putting my 2 cents worth in, but for now I will let my throat rest and relish the season that just ended.

Thank you Detroit Tigers for a crazy ride.

There can be only One...

I love the movie Highlander (the first one). An epic battle as our hero eliminates his opponents one by one until there is only the final battle to be completed, because there can be only one.

That is what this last month has felt like as I watch the Tigers slog their way through the American League Central. They started strong, fell flat and then picked themselves up and battled on. They could never quite put the Twins away though, and there is no script writer making sure our heroes prevail.

As today started the Magic # was 2. The Tigers, with Verlander on the mound and Granderson everywhere else, held the White Sox to 3 runs while scoring 5 themselves (Ryan Raburn with 2 home runs and Magglio Ordonez showing us that he can pull homers to left too). So the Tigers finally got a win in October and had to sit and wait to see if the Royals could overcome the Twins to end the race.

But that was not to be. The Twins beat the Royals 13-4.

So now there will be a one game, sudden death, winner take all, play off game. There can be only one. That game will be played in the HHH Dome. A truly horrible place to play a high pressure game if you are not a Minnesota Twin. (And we thought we were done with that place.)

The Tigers are 7 and 11 against the Twins this year. From what I can make out at Baseball-Reference.com the Tigers are 2-7 in the Dome this year. Rick Porcello will pitch for Detroit (according to Leyland after today's game). Rick is 1-2 in 4 starts against the Twins this year with a 3.09 ERA in 23 1/3 innings (according to my numbers). He did not win in the Dome.

But the Tigers have scored an average of 4.89 runs/ game off of the Twins this year so this should be a fight.

No matter what this has been a great ride. After 162 games the Tigers finished 86-76 in 1st place (tied of course)! I hoped that they would not embarrass themselves this year and that Dombrowski could make 2010 competitive, so to have 2009 be so competitive was great (and frustrating at times to be sure).

It all comes down to Tuesday night. The game is on TV on TBS.

There can be only one!

Week 26 Games back Elimination # Tigers -- -- Twins -- -- W. Sox 7 E Indians 21 E Royals 21 E

The End is Near?

It is 12:30 on October 4th. In 35 minutes the Tigers start their last regular season game of the year. Last night they lost to the White Sox and the Twins beat the Royals, so there is a tie between the Twins and Tigers for 1st place in the AL Central. The magic number is still 2. It hasn't moved all week. It was 2 after the Tigers and Twins split their four game series.

Going into the month of September the wisdom was that if the Tigers played .500 baseball they would win, unless the Twins played incredible baseball. Well, in the month of September the Twins have played solid baseball (16- 11) .591 and the Tigers played .571 baseball (16-12). Part of the problem is that the Twins have not had a losing streak of more than 3 games. The Tigers were very streaky at the beginning of September (6 W's followed by 5 L's). During that time the Twins went 4-7. Since then the Twins have played 15-5 (.750). The Tigers have played 8-10.

The point at the end of this proverbial stick is that we are not seeing a collapse on the part of the Tigers, this is the baseball they have played all year (actually September was their 2nd best month of the year). The Twins are playing way above their previous ability. I don't know if it's their manager or their system or the closing of the Dome. Regardless of the reason, the whole season comes down to today (and possibly Tuesday, but let's hope it doesn't get to that).

I am now going to get ready to watch The Game. Justin Verlander goes for his 19th win today, and a chance to win the pennant. Remember, nothing has changed all week- if the Tigers win and the Twins lose the Tigers clinch the AL Central crown.

Today is The Day!

The proverbial "wire"...

157 down, 5 to go.

What an awesome year this has been to be a Tigers' fan! According to my handy, dandy calendar the Tigers have been in first place since the end of April and have owned it all by themselves since May.

This is not a "blow your doors off" type of team. As we sit mid-way through the "most important series since 1987" I want to look at what we have in front of us.

Pitching: according to baseball-reference.com the team ERA for the Tigers is 4.27. They give up an average of 4.54 runs per game according to my numbers. I have mentioned this on a couple of the BYB game threads, but the Tigers have allowed 2 runs or less in 26% (41) of their games so far this year! In fact, so far this year they have allowed only 713 runs. The only team in the American League who is better is the Boston Red Sox (709). The Tigers hold their opponents to few runs consistently (with 9 shutouts so far).

The other piece of that puzzle is the defense. Again the Tigers have made huge improvements this year. Looking at Fangraphs you can see that in 2009 the Tigers are rated 3rd best team in Major League Baseball. In 2008 they were 26th! This was the drum I was beating last year: the pitchers couldn't trust the defense to make outs, so the starters had to make extra outs too often. This gave more and more opportunities to the opponents to score runs. This year that is not true at all. It simply makes the great starting pitchers and relievers more effective.

I give all of the credit on this to Dave Dombrowski. In 2008 he tried to win with another "murderers row". He traded off defense for runs. It didn't work at all. The Tigers scores lots of runs, but allowed so many more that they finished last in the AL Central. DD took his lumps and fixed it. He dumped Renteria and got Adam Everett. He got Gerald Laird, who is simply amazing on defense. He put Inge back at 3rd. Add that to the always awesome Placido Polanco and the ever improving Miguel Cabrera at 1st and we have a very solid infield making tons of amazing plays all year. The outfield is a little more porous. Magglio is not a fast as he used to be, so Clete Thomas has had lots of defensive playing time in RF. Guillen has settled in at LH now that he is no longer hurt. Granderson is not as purely awesome as he has been, but he is still an outstanding CF.

As far as scoring... well, as I said above- Dombrowski has now set up a lower scoring but better fielding team. So the Tigers have scored 722 runs this season so far. This is definitely worse than anyone expected from them, but it has been consistent. We can look at injuries and off years and age and all sorts of issues that effect hitting a baseball to the right spot consistently, but after 157 games we know what we have. The Tigers have scored 2 runs or less in 45 games (29%). This puts them right in the middle of the pack for runs (15th). Compare this to last year when they scored 821 (4th).

The important thing is that right now, as I wrap up my lunch break, they are in 1st place on September 30th. They have a 2 game lead over the Twins with 5 games left to play. They are a good team in a very weak division. They have every reason to be confident that they will win the AL Central, the pitching is there and the defense is there. They need to score some more runs, just one run more than their opponents for the last 5 games.

Ernie Harwell's good bye

I originally had this at the end of Week 24's update, but it deserves it's own spot.

Here is a wrap up of some of the tributes for Mr. Harwell as well as what he said in his own words.

Ernie said his farewell this past Wednesday. He knows that he won't be able to say good-bye later, so he did it now. There have been many tributes from all over baseball- Detroit News, Freep, USA Today. Major League Baseball will name one of their production studios after him.

Here is his speech to the fans at Comerica Wednesday night.
Here is his talk to the media that night.
Here he is on the Huge Show.

Here is how he ended his final regular broadcast in 2002. (thanks to USA Today)

"And rather than good-bye, please allow me to say thank you. Thank you for letting me be part of your family. Thank you for taking me with you to that cottage up north, to the beach, the picnic, your work place and your backyard.

"Thank you for sneaking your transistor under the pillow as you grew up loving the Tigers. Now I might have been a small part of your life. But you have been a very large part of mine. And it's my privilege and honor to share with you the greatest game of all."

Mr. Harwell you have certainly been a very big part of many of our lives. We thank you.

Week 24: How badly do they want this?

The Tigers have just completed their 2 worst weeks of the season after completing two of their best weeks before that. I guess that is just how this team plays the game. In this last week they did do one thing differently though: 3 of the 4 aspects of the game sucked for Detroit instead of only 1 or 2 areas lacking.

Starting Pitching: how about an ERA of 6.69? That is 27 earned runs in 36 1/3 innings pitched for the starting rotation this week. Believe it or not, the starter with the best game was Nate "Gum Time" Robertson! Nate returned from his injury with a 5 hit, 2 run performance over 5 innings on Sunday to salvage one game from the Twins in the H.H. Dome. Other than that it was: Verlander getting hung with 5 runs twice (although I think Leyland left him in too long on Saturday and he was tired). Washburn didn't make it into the 2nd inning giving up 4 runs from his injured knee. Jackson gave up 5 runs in 5 innings. Porcello pitched well with only 3 runs allowed in 6 innings, but the Tigers couldn't give him any run support in a 3-0 loss.

Bullpen: if a 6.69 ERA wasn't bad enough, how about adding 4.21 on top of it? 12 runs in 12 2/3 innings this week. That was certainly not stopping the leaks left by the starters. Casey Fien, Bonderman and Galarraga gave up the runs in batches (4,3,3 respectively). Certainly it was an improvement over Week 23's ERA of 9.35 but it still came out to an average of 2 runs per game. Add that to the 4.5 runs/ game the starters dished out and your are in a hole and need LOTS of run support to have a hope of winning. Which brings us to...

Lineup: I'm not sure "lineup" is the correct term for this week's performance. Perhaps "rollover" or "lay down" is more appropriate. The batters (whatever name you wish to give them) came into Sunday's game against the Twins scoring only 2.5 runs per game for the week. This was the 2nd weakest week of the season for runs scored (Sunday's game brought it up to 3/game for the week). In fact after this week the Tigers have been OUTSCORED for the season! Yup. The Tigers have scored 678 runs and allowed 681. To let you understand how completely the Tigers have given up the concept of scoring runs in the last two weeks, compare that stat to where they were just 2 weeks ago. On 9/13 they had scored 630 and allowed 607. In the last two weeks they have scored a total of 48 runs while allowing 74! Don't forget the teams they have played in the last 2 weeks- KC 6 games, Toronto 4 and Minnesota 3. KC! Really? KC? Yes. Detroit allowed KC to pull their own winning % up from .375 to .409.

The one area where the Tigers continued to excel was defense. This past week had zero errors charged to Detroit. The improvements made on defense this season have been amazing. Polanco is playing an amazing 2nd base (he is a free agent this year). Inge even makes great plays on foul balls, just because he can and we like to see it. Laird has been rock solid behind the plate and throws out more baserunners than anyone else. He cut down 2 men in Saturday's game like the sheriff in an old western- bang! bam! Go sit down! There were some miscues (like Kelly's losing a flyball in the Dome Saturday) but who hasn't done that in the Dome?

So where does that leave us? Well, for me personally it leaves me depressed that they have allowed this to become a race when it never should have been. But with 13 games left to play in this season the Tigers are 3 games ahead of the Twins and 6.5 over the White Sox. They are still in 1st place and other teams have to catch them. However the Twins have caught the Tigers at the last minute before (remember 2006 anyone?) and the Wildcard is not coming from the AL Central this year, so I'm pretending not to be nervous here.**

Here are your end of week standings with 13 games to play:

Week 24		Games back	Elimination #
	Tigers	--	--
	Twins	3	11
	W. Sox	6.5	7
	Indians	18	E
	Royals	18	E

Next up is a road series starting in Cleveland and then to Chicago. The last 7 games are in Detroit against, yup- the Twins and White Sox. I'm hoping that the Twins' series is simply prep for the ALDS against the Yankees.

(**note, when I first posted this I had 9 games remaining. It's like that test in grade school where you had the correct answer but second guessed yourself and then put the wrong answer. Regardless, there are indeed 13 games left to play as of 9/21).

Other things of interest from this past week:

Rookies have no right to dignity. (Bless You Boys)

We learned what some Tigers enjoy off of the field. (Roar of the Tigers)

We were exhorted to keep perspective by Kurt at Mack Ave Tigers

The wrap up of the "8th Inning" of 2009 from Detroit Tigers Weblog (this is a very cool analysis)