18th
May
2008
Game 43: Tigers hold on
posted in 2008 season, Arizona Diamondbacks |Tigers 3
D-Backs 2
Recap:
- The Tigers finally got a win when scoring less than 5 runs. Now they’re 1-23 is it? It used to be easier to keep track before the number got too big.
- In a tightly contested game, Carlos Guillen drove the first two runs in, in the fifth inning, after the Tigers loaded the bases with two outs, starting with a walk by Armando Galarraga.
- Matt Joyce provided the eventual game-winner with a solo home run in the 7th, giving the Tigers a 3-0 leads.
- Galarraga gave back two of the runs in the bottom half of the inning with a little help from his friends.
- He came out to the mound at 97 pitches, curious, though you could kind of guess Leyland was hoping to get through to the left-handed batter who was due up third. Galarraga walked both guys he faced. The first one looked like he took strike three but the ump saw it otherwise. Both runs eventually scored when Clay Rapada walked the third baserunner, then gave way to Aquilino Lopez.
- Given that he came into a bases loaded with no outs game, I guess Lopez did well enough. He preserved the win, allowing a sac to score a run, gave up a one-run single, and forced the third guy to ground into a double play.
- The eighth inning saw the veteran catcher Pudge Rodriguez thinking quick on his feet. He let Orlando Hudson’s poor pop-up bunt drop into fair territory. (I’m surprised that isn’t covered under the infield fly rule. Like corollary: the infield popup rule). Hudson started for the dugout dejected, but Pudge let the ball drop to set up the double play and the Tigers pulled it off to perfection. Hudson did realize what was happening but it was too late for him to do anything about it.
- Todd Jones had an adventure, but none of the frighteningly hard-hit balls left the playing field. So he got his first save since April.
Analysis:
- Pitching continues to settle in nicely. Had they been throwing this week a month ago we wouldn’t be in this disgusting situation we now find ourselves, five games out of first place and near the bottom of the American League.
- Galarraga always seems to live on the edge but in five games, it’s only bitten him like once. At some point maybe you have to stop calling it luck and just says he bucks the trend. It’s too small a sample to say that yet, but hey. Galarraga could stay in the rotation for the rest of the year pitching like this, though the Tigers will see it otherwise when Willis is healthy.
- That’s mainly because, although Rogers stank up the joint last time, he had three strong games before that, so Galarraga wouldn’t replace him. None of the starting pitchers are throwing bad enough recently to be replaced by Galarraga, in reality.
- Miguel Cabrera has hit safely in six of his last seven games, including three two-hit days.
- Curtis Granderson has hits in three of four games, including a two-hit day Saturday.
Infield fly rule only applies when the are runners on first and second base. (not sure about bunts) If there is only one runner on it is assumed the batter is running the play out so intentionally dropping it would only result in one out if there is only one runner on.
nice to see em win…definitely not taking wins for granted with this team
I actually just read a short blurb in Referee Magazine about the infield fly rule the other day that said that you cannot have an infield fly rule called on a bunt that is popped up. I thought that was interesting, as I didn’t know that either (not a baseball umpire). The blurb was about the new Kansas City manager Trey Hillman, who prior to the season gave all his players a rules quiz. It said that the bunt pop up question was answered wrong by just about every player on his team.