Game 123: Silent bats, holey bats, Tigers
posted in Texas Rangers |Well. That’s a relief. I thought the Tigers just couldn’t hit White Sox pitchers. It turns out I was wrong.
They can’t hit David Wells or a Texas AAA pitcher either. Well, I feel much better. Er, not. Detroit lost, 3-1, Saturday, due to two unearned runs scoring after an Omar Infante error, and the Tigers bats falling silent against… what’s his name? Robinson Tejada. And his ERA was awful. Still is. Sounds like an adventure. And until the fifth inning, it was, as he had a perfect game.
Our own Nate Robertson had a perfect game through four innings until the radio guys went and jinxed it, resulting in a first-pitch home run by Mark Teixeira. Robertson allowed a second hit for the day, also to Teixeira. He’s a real tough-luck pitcher, picking up yet another loss when he pitched a quality start. That makes five, for third in the American League. Nate doesn’t actually have the worst record among pitchers in the AL’s top 10 in ERA. It just feels like it.
So, we can only attribute that to the Tigers’ woeful offensive production. This week, run totals of 1, 1 and 4 against Texas; 4 and 3 against Boston; and 3, 3 and 0 against Chicago. Last week, they added games of 2 and 4 against Minnesota to go with a 1 and 4 against Cleveland. It’s an offensive funk, and a bad one. In August the Tigers have the 11th best production... of 14 teams. They rank in the middle of the league in strikeouts this month, but 10th in walks taken and in slugging, 11th in average and 12th in OBP.
I guess it’s good to see the pitching is going so well. Pitching wins games. Just not recently. We knew it was going to be a tough August, but this is getting insane.
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