Game 2: Rings and other Grand things
posted in 2007 season, Central Division wrap, Toronto Blue Jays |Toronto Blue Jays @ Detroit Tigers, 1 p.m., FSN
RHP A.J. Burnett vs. LHP Nate Robertson
Fangraphs.com live boxscore and win probability
JAYS
- Johnson, LF
- Overbay, 1B
- Wells, CF
- Thomas, DH
- Glaus, 3B
- Rios, RF
- Hill, 2B
- Zaun, C
- Clayton, SS
TIGERS
- Granderson, CF
- Polanco, 2B
- Sheffield, DH
- Ordonez, RF
- Guillen, SS
- Rodriguez, C
- Casey, 1B
- Monroe, LF
- Inge, 3B
My pregame thoughts: The first day of celebration ended Monday when the Tigers began the day by raising the American League pennant and ended it by losing to the Blue Jays in extra innings. Today, they’ll receive their AL championship rings. Kenny Rogers may even be there to pick up his ring in person. (Update: He made it.) From that point on, it’s baseball.
Which is good. That first inning Monday was a doozy. Whether that’s because Jeremy Bonderman continued his first inning struggles, as Daily Fungo Mike thought, or if it’s because every Tiger had an Opening Day ceremony hangover and every Blue Jay had hopes of spoiling the party, I don’t know. But I sure hope not to see a repeat when Nate Robertson takes the mound. There’s a lot of right-handed batters for Toronto, and Nate had an ERA of 9+ last season against them, so it should be interesting to see if he can overcome that.
Jason Beck’s preview pointed out Sean Casey is 12-for-20 against Burnett.
Update: The weather apparently stinks but they’re going to try to get it in. It’s pretty white way up north, so if it does half this in Detroit anytime soon, the Tigs may take tomorrow off.
Yesterday in the Central: The Twins went 2-0 on the year by defeating Baltimore, 3-2, behind a strong bullpen performance. Beck watched and shared his belief many people wrote off the Twins too quickly. The rest of the Central was off.
Postgame thoughts: 10-9 Tigers. What the deuce!? Seriously. After Curtis Granderson helped put an 8-spot snowman on the board and Craig Monroe helped make it 9-0, the Tigers had, oh, about a 99.9 percent chance of winning. I’m not sure how many digits Fangraph goes out on its probability, but I have to guess it would have spat out something high like that. Nate Robertson had a slight stumble, but it’s still 10-2 when I think “Well this one’s in the bag. Why don’t I get something done at the gym?” It’s 10-9 when I step on the treadmill? What. The. Deuce?! The box score tells me Jason Grilli had a bad day. And Fernando Rodney didn’t really help matters.
So I’ll concentrate on what I did see, which was good and bad. Robertson’s dealing for five innings was decent. A lefty against a righty lineup, Robertson could have been excused if he had any struggles, but he pitched right through the lineup without giving up a run until the sixth inning. That was nice to see. For the game, he got 11 groundballs and 2 flyballs — a nice ratio — and struck out four in 5-2/3 innings. Granderson was obviously a good point, with his grandslam and triple, though he did strike out twice. Pretty much, I could mention most of the first six batters and say they had a good day at the plate. Placido Polanco continued his Spring Training tear with another 3-hit game, and Pudgey had four hits.
But you can nitpick this thing, too. I’m waiting for Fangraphs play-by-play and going off the top of my head, but I believe Carlos Guillen swung at the first pitch with bases loaded and flew out. He swung at the first pitch in another instance too. I believe a couple guys swung at first pitches in the middle of rallies to kill them. And, of course, Brandon Inge and Craig Monroe are really struggling at the plate. Sean Casey failed to get a runner home from third when he batted with the bases loaded twice, throwing fuel on the fire for Chris Shelton’s supporters, but I’d remind them it’s still early and just one game. He scooped up some pretty crappy throws to save errors to earn his keep today.
I’ll probably have a second post with a more detailed look at the game when some better stats come out.
Sphere It
Speaking of snow…the Tigers put up a snowman in the 3rd
I like to think of that the power of being (C)Kurt.
Okay, that was hokey. But 8 runs, that was great.