Rodney suspended...

It's a good thing Brandon Lyon has been practicing his closing skills. Fernando Rodney has been suspended for 3 games. Rodney has appealed, but he will probably serve it sooner or later.

After his near-meltdown on Friday night Rodney threw the ball into the stands. He claims he was "in the moment" and "throwing it to fans". It appeared to baseball writers that he was frustrated and chucked it, apparently with some velocity on it, towards them. Apparently the Commissioner's office also felt it was more than just giving souvenirs.

Here is what Jason Beck reports happened...

The heave came after Rodney gave up two runs in the ninth inning but still held on to save a 4-3 Tigers win over the Rays. After giving up an RBI single and double, Rodney stranded the potential tying run at third base and go-ahead run at second with a groundout. Rodney got the ball from first baseman Miguel Cabrera and flung it towards the seats behind the plate. The ball hit off the front row of the press seats and bounced into the back of the press box.

Don't worry Rodney. If you hadn't gotten that last out most of the Tigers' fans would have wanted to chuck the ball at you!

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

Grady Sizemore out for the rest of the year...

(photo from mlb.com)


MLB.com is reporting that Grady Sizemore will have surgery on his left elbow.

This is another blow for the Indians, after they traded away Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez in an effort to bring in more talent and rebuild for the future.

I guess it makes sense to have the surgery now from their points of view. It gives Sizemore almost 6 months to get ready for spring training next year and the Indians are currently 14 games behind the Tigers, so their season is also pretty much over.

Sizemore has not had as good of a year this year as he has in the past, and the sore elbow has surely had an impact. Coming into this season he was averaging .281 for the past 4 years. This season he is hitting only .248 and his OPS % is down 88 points from 2008.

This is too bad. Sizemore is a great player. I love it when Detroit plays Cleveland because I believe that Sizemore and Granderson are two of the best center fielders in the game. They are both fast on the basepaths and in the field, both hit for lots of extra bases. It is not the same division with the Indians struggling as much as they are (but I'll take it).

Ernie Harwell has cancer...

Sad news this morning. It is being reported at the Detroit News that Ernie Harwell has inoperable cancer. He has been in and out of the hospital this year for different reasons, but Ernie said yesterday that he has cancer in his bile duct which cannot be treated. Reading the article it sounds like his prognosis is less than a year. He has a great outlook though...

"Whatever is in store, I'm ready for a new adventure."

Quotes worth sharing

Two quick quotes that are worth sharing today:

First from Justin Verlander (via Jason Beck's Twitter page)

Verlander: "Nate [Robertson] pulled out Gum Time again today. Hadn't seen that since 2006."

Secondly from Bob Wojnowski's article in this morning's Detroit News:

"I knew it (his HR Sunday) had a chance when I hit it," Polanco said. "I was blowing and kind of pushing it, saying, 'Go, go, please go.' "

Hey, maybe a Tigers theme for the season: Go, go, please go.

Week 21... Signs of life?

Week 21
4 Wins, 2 Losses

Soooo, perhaps this team can compete in a playoff series after all? It seems to look more and more like it. You might ask "Are you crazy?!" and you might ask with good reason, but here is what I am seeing right now that makes me believe that this team might advance in the post-season.

Exhibit A: this past week the 1st place Detroit Tigers took a series in LA against the Angels. The Angels are another 1st place team and have a better record (74 - 48 when the series started) than the Tigers (65-58 at the time). The Angels (36-22), like the Tigers (40-20), play very well at home this year. Yet Detroit came in and took the first 2 games (and the Season Series) this week. Washburn and Verlander each won their games, and neither was especially dominating. Each gave up 8 hits and Verlander walked 4, but they didn't allow those runners to score.

Exhibit B: after taking down the Angels the Tigers came home to face the defending AL champion Tampa Bay Rays. Tampa is another good team (69-58 at the start of the series) who score lots of runs but don't allow many. But Detroit in Detroit is nearly unbeatable and they have proven it so far in this series. Friday they scored 6 runs and allowed only 2 (Porcello picked up the win). Saturday they seemed t0 sleep (again) losing 1-3 but Sunday Polanco provided an 8th inning 3 run HR to give the Tigers a 4-3 win. Once again, a good team beaten at a crucial time.

Exhibit C: this one is more historical. So far in Leyland's tenure as manager the month of August has not been a good month for Tigers' baseball. They were a combined 31-50 in the past 3 Augusts (2006-2008). In 2006 and 2007 they watched their division rivals over take them in the Dog Days. (Of course in 2008 they didn't worry about being chased). Yet this year the Tigers are 15-12 with one game to go. Whether is is the young talent coming up from the farm system (Avila, Thomas) or the pick ups of Guillen off of the DL and Washburn in a late trade. Magglio Ordonez has gotten hot with his bat (yes, I know that he still isn't hitting home runs but he is still the second best hitter since the All Star Break) (thanks to Spot Starters for doing the work on that). Cabrera is smok'n hot right now. Inge and Granderson are starting to warm up again after slowing way down. (Maybe it's the tattoos on Inge?) Who cares?

In the "month of August" (weeks 18-21) the hitters have scored 114 runs (4.38/ game) on 228 hits (.258 BA) and a Slugging % of .436. Compare this to July (weeks 14-17) where they scored 91 runs (4.14/ game) on 186 hits (.249 BA) and SLG % of .391 and they were 10-12.

This is a good thing because it appears that the pitchers are starting to show that they are human (at least the starters). The ERA for the starters has risen to 4.57 in August. The WHIP hasn't risen a great deal, but the number of HR they have given up has risen. Home runs per 9 innings pitched in August was 1.52, by far the worst month of the season for that stat.

I don't have the stats set up to break down the Bull Pen's numbers, but Tiger Tales has done a much better job of it than I could, so look here to see that the Pen is doing well.

Defensively the Tigers allowed 16 errors weeks 18 through 21, an average of .62 per game. This has been pretty consistent all year.

So, to wrap up- August is basically over and the Tigers made it through better than any time in the last 3 years. 80% of the season has been played and our Detroit Tigers are still in first place!

here are the standings....

Tigers 1st
Twins 2nd 4.5 back
W. Sox 3rd 6.0 back
Clev 4th 11.5 back
Royals 5th 19.5 back

Week 20

3 Wins, 3 Losses

The week started out fairly positive. After their first day off in 17 days the Tigers took a home series from the Mariners. This is almost becoming so routine it may become boring. So far in 2009 the Tigers are 40-20 at home. So they basically win 2 of every 3 they play in CoPa. That is just amazing.

What is not nearly so amazing (because that is a positive word and this isn't positive) is that they are 25-38 on the road. That is only .396, slightly worse than the opposite of their home record. It is this road record that is the only reason there is a race for the AL Central right now. If the Tigers could even get to .450 on the road they would walk away with it.

The final series of the week showed this well against the A's. The Tigers won the opener on the strength of their pitching (Jackson) and their defense (Polonco in the 9th with an amazing stop). But Saturday they lost 2-3 and Sunday they got smacked 4-9.

At home they find ways to win. On the road they don't. They generally get good pitching regardless of where they play. But on the road the bats fall silent.

This week they continue their road trip to visit the Angles. LA has won 6 of their last 10 and lead the AL West by 5 1/2 games as the series starts. They are a very good team (both at home and away). The Tigers have Verlander, Washburn and Jackson going up against them- so pitching probably won't be the problem. We will just have to see if the bats join them.

Standings-

Tigers 1st
W. Sox 2nd 2.5 back
Twins 3rd 4.5 back (and gaining)
Cleveland 11 back
KC 18 back