Miner, Tigers whip Brewers
posted in Milwaukee Brewers, Out-of-Town Media |
The conundrum lately is a good one. Every day, the question seems to be, do I lead with the pitcher or the batters? If that’s the toughest question to answer on most nights, it’s going to be a great season indeed. Tonight, rookie Zach Miner has to be the story. He sent down 20 Brewers in a row — from the second till the ninth inning — as the Tigers batters pounded Milwaukee for a 10-1 victory. Magglio Ordonez took Milwaukee pitcher Rick Helling deep for two home runs in two innings to help with the rout.
Only a handful of pitches were struck sharply in that prolonged stretch of dominance that ended when Corey Koskie doubled to right with one down in the ninth. (Journal Sentinel story)
Koskie went on to score with two outs, taking away Miner’s complete game-shutout bid. This Kyle Farnsworth deal, which brought Miner to the Tigers orgainzation last year, looks better and better each game Miner pitches. Amazingly, rather than a dropoff when Mike Maroth was injured, Miner has give Detroit an even better rotation than before. Can he continue? Certainly looks like it, given the way he seems to go on prolonged spells of shutting down opposing offenses. Boston, Toronto, Milwaukee, he’s seen some good teams in his four MLB starts. He struck out five and allowed five hits to the Brewers. Each game since his debut, his batting average against is impressive. .182 to Toronto, .097 to Tampa. Today, it was .167. His ERA is down to 2.08, though that’s going to go back up. He still doesn’t seem to throw enough strikes and takes too many pitches, but it hasn’t bit him in the butt yet and he hasn’t walked more than two a game. There’s better numbers to look at, but none I have in front of me tonight. I’ll try to give him a closer look with some different statistics this week, because he’s certainly intriguing right now.
Some interesting stats I discovered when I was browsing the JS (and I’m sure this feature is available elsewhere but I hadn’t stumbled into it). The Tigers have now won 15 series this season, lost six and tied two. That’s a great way to go far during a season. They’re on a 6-game winning streak and have taken 12 of 13. The Detroit relievers have a 3.74 ERA, while the starters are a beautiful 3.43. And contrary to popular belief about Comerica Park being a pitchers’ park, the Tigers have thrown better away from CoPa. (To be fair, those numbers are probably influened by the yankees and indians both pounding the Tigers a couple of times in Detroit.)
There were an annoying (and sometimes bad) two weeks to start June and already, the Tigers are trying to match their 15-of-16 streak from May again.
The Final Out: The All-Star Game still decides home park advantage for the World Series. Given the Tigers have the best road record (28-10) in baseball — even better than their record at home — maybe we should root for the NL this year… just in case!
Sphere It
I was struck by the fact that Zack Miner changed from a long sleeve shirt to short sleeve just prior to his 20 batter string of outs. Is this another of these weird luck things the Tigers are using? Nate Robertson started this chew wads of bubblegum to spur comeback rallies.
An odd statisitic was Brewers starter Rick Helling striking out the first three batters on 9 pitches. This had never been done to the Tigers in any inning in their entire history. And only Sandy Koufax and Pedro Martinez had ever opened a game the same way, Helling’s in good company. But of course Helling’s 10th pitch to start the second inning was blasted into the left field seats by Magglio Ordonez.