13th
May
2008
Game 39: SUPER MEH
posted in 2008 season |Royals 3
Tigers 2
Recap:
- Carlos Guillen drove in a run with a double.
- Matt Joyce hit a home run.
- That completes the Tigers’ portion of the scoring. One out into the second inning. Uh oh.
- Jose Guillen knocked in a pair of Royals runs on Tigers starter Nate Robertson to tie the game in the third.
- So it’s 2-2 after seven innings. Robertson pitched a quality start and left the game after 82 pitches (53 strikes).
- So the Royals won the game in the 8th inning when Jose Guillen doubled and Billy Butler walked. Then Guillen scored after Edgar Renteria tried to make a spectacular play on a ball hit up the middle, but instead sent the ball into center field the middle of no where.
- There were two outs at the time. He could have eaten the ball, leaving the bases loaded and a play anywhere. His error gave the Royals the winning run.
- Francisco Cruceta took the loss.
Analysis:
- I don’t quite get why Robertson was pulled when he was pitching well and had a low pitch count. But of course if he blew up in the 8th inning we’d not get why he wasn’t pulled probably. But back seat coaching aside, he should have continued pitching. He got a 1-2-3 seventh inning. Why wouldn’t he keep pitching? He had a great game.
- I don’t quite get why the hitting is so inconsistent.
- Curtis Granderson has been pretty much awful since diving in center field last week against Boston and coming up holding his hand. He may be playing through something he’s not talking about.
- Can we end this damned Gary Sheffield experiment already? He can’t hit and the Tigers are DHing rookie Matt Joyce, who can field. Sheffield didn’t contribute to the loss, far as I could tell from the radio, but he sure isn’t helping win any games either.
- The Tigers are an awful baseball team. They are not a good baseball team going through bad times. Most of the season, except for that week playing the Yankees and Rangers, has been awful. They started off the season 7 games under .500 by going 0-7. They won some games. They returned to 7 games under .500.
- There is no reason to believe they are anything but a bad club.
- And that deserves a
I hate to say this, but it really may be time to close the book on the hopes for this year and start thinking about how to get the team back to contention next year. Right now the team is dealing with BOTH big trades smacking them about the neck, chest, face area. Both Jair and Miller are starting to hit grooves (Marlins in 1st place btw) and we’ve got a pudgy 1B man who is learning the position and a creaky/streaky SS. It’s just not good. And frankly? Nothing is working right now.
The central — though odd — is too talented to keep hovering around mediocrity. At some point, one of these teams is going to pull away. The problem for the Tigers is that EVERYTHING has fallen apart.
Now the changes:
(1) Leyland? Maybe after this year he doesn’t want to manage this team anymore. I could see him walking out of frustration.
(2) Chuck? I agree it would be scapegoating but I think you’ve got to try a change. The pitching staff is just uniformly bad. To do nothing is just to accept it. I think they’ve got to unload him.
(3) Trade the old bats? Try to dump Sheff to a streaking contender at the end of the year? Maybe do that with Pudge?
I hope I’m wrong, but there’s just no juice right now. Maybe the team needs to play “I Will Survive” in the locker room with a bull dog wearing a tiger sweatshirt that rhythmically covers his eyes with his paws. Maybe not.
I can’t make myself go quite as far as saying they’re done for the year just yet. It’s still early. That being said, things aren’t all that promising. I wonder what the real issue is. Are they just not that talented? Are they trying their hardest? Do they think they’ll be able to turn it on in June and still make a playoff push? I don’t get what’s going on.
It’s kind of like quicksand, it just keeps getting worse and worse.
sheffield DID contribute to the loss as far as I can tell…he hit into a double play (yet again) in the early inings and darn near did it again a couple innings later (he ended up beating out a throw to first after the K.C. third baseman bobbLED INITIALLY. i AGREE 100%…STOP THE SHEFFIELD EXPERIMENT….
I’d love to get Sheffield out of town as much as the next person but how are they going to do it? I don’t see many clubs beating the door down for a 39 year old guy who can’t hit anymore and is on the hook for about $15 million next year. The only team that would ever do that is the Yankees and I’m pretty sure they want nothing to do with him, again.
It may be the amount of alcohol I drank tonight, but I think the Tigers lost again. Can you confirm? Ok all — Back to the best of the Pet Shop Boys. Go Tigers.
They definitely lost, it wasn’t Jim Beam lying to you.
Man. Pina Coladas actually. Coconut cream still couldn’t help timely hitting. Man.