29th
May
2008
Game 53: Galarraga’s day
posted in 2008 season, LA Angels |Tigers 6
Angels 2
Recap:
- Armando Galarraga made the organization’s plan to keep him in the rotation look good tonight after stumbling in his first start after the information came out.
- He could have had the Tigers’ first complete-game since Justin Verlander’s shutout no-hitter last June, but nothing comes easy for the Tigers. (edit: Don’t blog after 1 a.m., kids!)
- He breezed into the ninth inning with the shutout before allowing a walk and giving up a home run to Maicer Izturis, who is listed at 5-8, 170 pounds, which means he’s probably 5-6, 150 or something.
- But a win’s a win, right?
- The other highlight, Marcus Thames hit two home runs. Both two-run home runs.
- Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco, Thames and Magglio Ordonez — AKA, the first fou batters — each had four hits.
- The Tigers are no longer in a last-place tie with the Kansas City Royals.
Analysis:
- Awesome job by Galarraga. Too bad the CGSO fell through, but nice of Leyland to give him the shot, and smart of him to warm up Todd Jones in the bullpen just in case.
- I think the Tigers’ decision to play Marcus Thames more often in left field will pay off. He’s no super man. He’s going to make outs, despite the stellar reputation he receives as a backup. But I think we can all agree: nothing else has worked and we like Marcus Thames.
- Too bad the Tigers have Thursday off. I have high hopes for the Seattle series myself, but what are we going to watch tomorrow with none of Detroit’s teams playing?
Great win. Marcus is a beast. Galaraaga and our starting pitching as a whole is coming together. Good move on Thames and letting Granderson start regularly from now on.
One thing-I hope Leyland leaves Inge at third for good. This guy is phenomonal and 110% better than Guillen at that position. He would have to be retarded to pull Inge from third. He is not only good, he is one of the best 3B in the league, defensively I mean.
” . . .nothing else has worked and we like Marcus Thames.”
That pretty much sums up the state of Tiger nation at this point, eh?
I’m fine with a night off. I need a break from all of these teams. They might give me a heart attack at age 26.
Detroit held the Angels to just six runs in the series, so that’s definitely a good sign. Starting pitching has been great. This team is tantalizingly close to breaking out of the doldrums. Unfortunately that was the theme for May and they have to do it sooner than later.
Inge at third is like night-and-day from Guillen/Cabrera. Has the team noticed that? He needs to be there.
Problem is, Inge still doesn’t know how to swing the bat.
Honestly, Cabrera was not that terrible at 3B in Florida, and it’s reasonable assume that he would have eventually adjusted just fine to 3B in Detroit. But Guillen’s inability to play 1B forced our hand. When I factor the lack of offense into Inge’s 3B ability, I’m still not sure that he is a net gain over Cabrera, but since Sheff is on the DL there is no reason for Inge to not play 3B at this point. Hopefully we continue to get offense from Thames and maybe Larish will provide a spark as well.
Oh, and it’s worth noting that infield defense really didn’t cost us at all in this series–neither of Guillen’s E5s in Game 1 led to runs. This team needs to get runs on the board. Inge went 1-7 in two games this series, after all, and is batting .216 this year.
I’ll give Guillen a pass this week because of his embarassing problem…
Honestly Joe, we tried the softball league method and all it added up to was the worst ERA in the league and a record under .500. While you can say Guillen’s errors didn’t contribute negatively this series, you can find any number of balls that got by him in past games that did hurt the team and lead to runs.
Me, I’d like to try to prevent a few more runs along the way. At some point, there’s a tradeoff between offense and defense. In theory, Inge’s offense is so bad, his run-saving defense is not enough to make up for it. Practically speaking, he’s sitting the bench while other people who can neither save runs nor create runs are playing. At least Inge does something that helps nine innings a game even when he leaves his hitting shoes at home.
Yeah, I can’t really argue that at this point, but geez, I wish Inge could be even a serviceable hitter. It just sucks putting an offensive black hole like that in the lineup when we are now struggling to score any runs, but I am hoping some of the role-type players like Thames and Larish will give us a spark.