22nd
April
2008
Game 21: Verlander wins first; Santiago homers
posted in 2008 season |Tigers 10
Rangers 2
Recap:
- Jim Leyland had a big postgame announcement.
- Justin Verlander struggled at times, but allowed one run in six innings to earn his first victory of the year. His fastball was a bit better, but he threw 65 strikes in 110 pitches.
- Zach Miner, unfortunately for him, struggled some. He gave up two hits in three batters, and one scored.
- But the Tigers offense jumped all over Texas, starting with two runs in the second inning and then another five in the third.
- Magglio Ordonez and Miguel Cabrera hit back-to-back homers.
- Jacque Jones is starting to hit some. He really got the bat on the ball a few times today, but nothing went far enough for a homer. Probably has to learn not to hit the ball to dead center. But he’s going to be a part of the Tigers offense, so it’s good to see him making good contact. He went 2-for-3 with a walk.
- And don’t forget this one: Ramon Santiago homered. It went over the right fence and bounced into the darkness. Pretty cool. Especially because he hasn’t had a homer since… 2003, Jason Beck wrote.
- Oh, and Edgar Rentria went 4-for-4.
- The Tigers have now scored 27 runs in their past three games.
- The Tigers have now scored 5 or more runs in 9 of the 14 games since starting 0-7.
- They’re 7-2 when they score at least 5.
- They’ve also won 6 of the last 9 games, dating back to Leyland yelling after the team was shut out by the White Sox on back-to-back days.
Analysis
- Those fears we had are still somewhat present, I have to think. The bullpen could still take a turn for the worse, even though it’s been good recently. The offense is still aging. And the rotation is still struggling. Oh, and the defense isn’t a thing of beauty all the time either.
- But I have to think every single point is diminished from the life-and-death feel they had about a week ago after the previously mentioned White Sox series.
- I think we’re seeing the team we expected to see from the start of the season. It took two weeks for it to warm up, but the results we’ve been getting in the past two weeks look a lot more like what we expected to see. Yeah, they’re going to lose a close game now and then. Yeah, they’re going to get blown out now and then. But that’s baseball.
- I think it feels a little more important because they’re 5 games under .500, maybe, and human nature seems to be to look for signs of greatness or suckitude in sports when the truth is in the middle. (But if the rotation can clean up its act, it’s a lot closer to greatness.)
- I feel pretty good about the state of the Tigers right now, especially given the number of guys who will be coming off injuries (or visa problems) contributing to the team in the coming week.
Fun game tonight. I hate that there are all these continuing questions marks though. Primarily, I wish the coaching staff could figure out what’s the story with Verlander. I only caught a few of the early innings, but boy does it look like he’s scuffling along. It almost looked like he was afraid to throw the fastball. The past two years I remember a ton more fastballs with just a few breaking balls tossed in the mix. Tonight he seemed to love the yakker. The decreased velocity is mystifying to me. I think he was topping out at 95 or 96. Hopefully he’ll find the hot sauce later in the season.
As for the 1B to 3B swap, it just underlines that the Kitties have too many players right now. Do you move Thames? Inge? Sheff maybe? As for the defense, Guillen is going to look awfully stiff over at third. But that’s probably better than Cabrera. The scary outcome of this move is that we’re going to see more of Inge behind the plate. And the guy just cannot call a game.
It was nice to see Jacque Jones get going. The triple he had to center was a bomb, probably hit further than any of the homers during the game, but he just hit it to wrong part of the ball park.