10th
May
2009
Bunt Singles: May 10
posted in 2009 season, bunt singles |- First things first, this is the first time the Tigers have been four games over .500 since the end of the 2007 season. (The most the Tigers were above .500 last year was three games on July 30.) That bit of information comes from @OFFICIAL_TIGERS for you folks who follow Twitter and a glance at Baseball Reference.
- Also gleaned from B-R, the Tigers spent exactly zero nights in first in place in 2008. No wonder I get so excited when they end a day in first now.
- There’s a couple of new Tigers-related blogs out there I want to point you toward
- The Always a Tiger blog was started by occasional commenter BigJP. Good luck to him!
- Second, a fantasy baseball slash Tigers blog was started by Tigers fan J Ellet Lambie. It’s called Hazaa, I’m pretty sure. Recently he looked at the first 1/6 of the season, analyzing the offense, defense and pitching. Give it a look!
- Over at the Detroit Tigers Weblog, Billfer looked at Justin Verlander’s slider, which has been around a bit longer than Rod Allen thought.
- Pitching wins games. And the Tigers have pitching. The team ERA was 3.87 heading into Sunday’s game, according to ESPN.com. So after allowing three runs today, it’s slightly better now. The Tigers likely surpassed Oakland to move into second in that ranking. Detroit leads the AL with five shutouts. (Starting to sound like 2006 when I say something like that!)
- The pitching staff is fifth in walks allowed (99), in a relatively tight bunch with Baltimore (98) Kansas City (96), and the Angels (95). It is tied for sixthin the AL in strikeouts (201). All the teams above them have played more games.
- Oh, and Edwin Jackson is third in the AL in ERA (2.60). Justin Verlander (56) is three strikeouts behind AL-leader Zack Greinke (59).
- The Tigers are helped by a .701 defensive efficiency, which is good for third in the AL according to Baseball Prospectus.
- Speaking of Jackson, Lynn Henning wrote a terrific article about him in today’s online edition of the Detroit News. Apparently Detroit was not a new town for Jackson, who was traded here from Tampa this offseason. He had been taking regular trips there with his family for years. So that’s pretty cool. Be sure to check it out.
- Via Ian at Bless You Boys, there’s a cool New York Times article about the Tigers tipping the pitch to Mickey Mantle in 1968 in order to help him get his 535th home run. It turned out to be the second-to-last in Mantle’s career. Tigers radio color man Jim Price plays a bit part in the article, as he was the catcher that day.
- And finaly, the Freep’s Jon Paul Morosi is apparently moving on to Foxsports.com to continue his baseball-writing career. He has a fine article about Miguel Cabrera in today’s newspaper. Morosi was a heck of a writer and reporter, a real asset to the Tigers beat. I hate to see him move on, but getting away from the fishwrap industry isn’t a bad decision on his part. Good luck to him!
Did you see T. Hunter’s catch last night? It was basically what Granderson did earlier this week.
Thanks for the mention, Kurt. I hope to someday make my site as good as yours is. Go Tigers
Phil — Torii’s catch was nice, and useful to the Tigers. So that was good. Grandy’s edges it because he took away the walkoff. But thanks to Torii nonetheless.
BigJP — no problem! good luck to ya