Detroit 7, Seattle 3

First off, I liked Jeff Weaver. I even admitted to that before the World Series. Then he won two World Series games against the Tigers. Now I still want Jeff Weaver not to stink so bad, but I enjoyed all six runs the Tigers scored on his watch. But this isn’t a post about schadenfreuding on Weaver.

No, this is a post about Mike Rabelo getting not just one hit, not just two hits, but three(!) hits including a triple. That’s the second game in three days a Tiger came off the bench and had a great showing. Omar Infante did it Tuesday. Well, and Marcus Thames came off the bench and scored a run, but Thames always seems to do something even if his average is walking the Mendonza line.

Gonna make this paragraph a hot key pretty soon: Placido Polanco had a three-hit day. Magglio Ordonez had a home run.

On the pitching side of things, Justin Verlander didn’t throw a real great game by his standards. He kept finding himself in trouble. But he kept finding ways out of the trouble until the sixth inning. Bobby Seay baled him out in that one and threw the seventh inning, getting his ERA down to 2.45. This man is fast becoming the most reliable in the bullpen. Oh, and Fernando Rodney blew threw the eighth in three batters and 12 pitches. Wil Ledezma had a not-so-good ninth.

Around the Central: 

The Tigers are now alone in first place, as the Indians got blown out by the Anaheim Angels, 8-0. The White Sox beat the Twins — who host Detroit Friday — 3-0.

Share/Email This

Tigers 13, Kansas City 4

Sometimes you look at a score that’s close and you say, “but it really wasn’t that close.” Or you look at a lopsided victory and say “but it was a lot closer than that.”  This is a case where the difference was nine runs, but it may as well have been 20. Chad Durbin pitched seven shutout innings and stumbled a bit in the eighth, then Aqualino bailed him out but stubbed his toe in the ninth. Tigers win 13-4, but it may as well have been 20-0.

Detroit went up 6-0 in the second inning alone based on three home runs off KC starter Zach Greinke. Craig Monroe, Curtis Granderson and Gary Sheffield each put up two-run shots. Granderson finished the game a double away from the cycle; Monroe a triple.

We’ll fast forward a bit to the most amazing happening of the day: Neifi Perez hit a 3-run home run. Lemme repeat. Neifi. Perez. Homered. It happened in the seventh inning. It sounds like it was hardly a homer, but it goes in the stats books under the HR column. Good for Neifi. He takes a lot of crap (and he’s in way over his head), but it’s nice for him to have some success. Believe it or not, he actually had nine home runs in 2005.

This gives Detroit a seven-game winning streak heading into an off day before hosting the Mariners.

Box

Around the Central:

Cleveland 9, Baltimore 6 –  The Indians kept pace with the Tigers — or vice versa — with a victory over the Orioles. Trot Nixon went 5-for-5 with four RBIs for the Indians.

Boston 4, Minnesota 3 –  Twins lost but Torii Hunter extended his hitting streak to 21 games

Chicago vs. Angels – 3-3 tie in the ninth

Share/Email This

Tigers 7, KC 5

(AP Photo/Ed Zurga)

Detroit’s win streak hit six with another come-from-behind victory and another great showing by Magglio Ordonez and Placido Polanco. But the more important news of the day is that Joel Zumaya left the stadium with an unknown injury to his pitching hand. He was warming up in the bullpen and heard a pop.

Jason Beck said the injury was to the top knuckle on the middle finger.

Not sure how severe the injury is, but Leyland expected they’d have to call up another pitcher for Sunday.

Danny Knobler had more info at Mlive

“He looked at me and said, `I think I dislocated my finger,’ ” Jones said. “I’ve never seen that before. I’ve seen just about everything, but I’ve never seen that.”

Knobler added an MRI will be done back in Detroit Sunday, so we may not learn anything until Monday. It sounds bad. Click both links, I didn’t want to repost their entire offering.

UPDATE: Tom Gage reports Zumaya was placed on the DL with a “finger strain’ and Aqualino Lopez was called up to replace him a day after he was sent back to AAA. 

As for the game, the Tigers fell behind 3-0 early. Thus, they had the Royals right where they wanted them, I figured. Marcus Thames and doubled in the sixth, and Magglio homered solo-style, and suddenly it’s 4-4. Maggs struck again in the eighth with a two-run double to give the Tigers the lead. Here’s the part where I point out the obvious: any time Marcus Thames gets to play is a good time for the Tigers. That, and Maggs is awesome. But you knew that.

Pitching side, Maroth gave up a pair of homers. Wil Ledezma walked in a run and got into trouble, which Jose Mesa cleaned up for him. Bobby Seay bounced back and Todd Jones was uneventful.

So it was just another typical Tigers-KC game. Whether the Tigers lead or trail early, they win in the end. In other news, the Tigers are now tied for first place with the Indians.

Around the Central

Baltimore 8, Cleveland 2 – So the team that the Tigers handled bounced back well against the Indians. That’s great to see.

Minnesota 2, Boston 1 – Two early runs were all Johan Santana and four relievers needed to get by the BoSox.

Chicago 6, Angels 3 – Darin Erstad contributed at the plate, and Jon Garland did so on the mound.

DTown Baseball has a Central Division news roundup.

Share/Email This

Game 28: Detroit (16-11) at Kansas City (10-19), 8 p.m.
TV: FSN
Pitchers: Justin Verlander (1-1, 2.79) vs. Brian Bannister (0-1, 4.91)

Don’t look now, but the Tigers traveled to Kansas City to take on a starting pitching powerhouse. Don’t believe me? I hardly believe me either. But the Royals have 16 quality starts, the same as the Tigers. Of course, they’ve played two more games, but that is still a pretty good ratio, just one behind the stat’s league leading Angels in as many games. (Credit for finding this stat goes to the Tigers’ gamenotes). Saturday starter Odalis Perez and Sunday starter Zach Greinkie have two and three QS, respectively.

But for the Royals, these starts and a team ERA of 4.22 haven’t translated to a whole lot of victories. They’ve allowed 142 runs, third-most in the AL, many unearned due to 23 errors. Their bullpen has coughed up eight of 19 team losses, and their ability to battle back at the plate is no where near the Tigers’ ability.

KC starter Brian Bannister will be making just his ninth career start and third of the season. He’s picked up a QS in his most recent start against the Mariners when he went six scoreless innings before giving up four in the seventh. But got hammered in his first one by the White Sox.

Justin Verlander opposes him on the mound. Verlander, you may remember, was left bewildered by the Minnesota Twins and made it through just nine outs. He pitched from the stretch with no one on base. I would look for Verlander to bounce back strongly after something as strange as that.

The anemic KC offense may be slightly better than the last time Detroit saw them, as they called up outfield prospect Billy Butler from AAA.

Get a better feel for the Royals at Royals Authority.

Bunt Singles:

• MLive’s Danny Knobler thinks everyone should root for the Royals for a batter or two, maybe an inning or two, this weekend, just in memory of how far the Tigers have come since being the Royals’ position. I wouldn’t go that far, but I’m happy to root for them against the rest of the A.L. Central.
• KC is on a two-game winning streak, beating the AL West leading Angels twice.
• The Fungoes blog at SI.com sees the Indians set to slide.
• Carlos Pena hit the ball very hard in Minnesota for a victory. He’s finally helping the Tigers

Share/Email This

Tigers win, 4-3

Gum Time worked.

I don’t know what was more important:

• Brandon Inge went 3-for-3 with a walk. Oh, and a walk-off home run.
• Mike Maroth dueled Johan Santana inning for inning for the quality start. Maroth’s innings were boring, but in baseball that tends to be a very good thing. Most of the time Minnesota just seemed to fly out to Magglio Ordonez.
• Marcus Thames got to start today and played nearly the entire game. He again made the best of it, hitting a homer off Santana to give the Tigers a 3-2 lead.
• Joel Zumaya got a chance to regroup and gain his confidence, saving Maroth when a runner was left on third with two outs after Maggs and Curtis Granderson didn’t quite communicate who should catch a fly and neither of them did. Zoomer then pitched a clean eighth.
• Todd Jones pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to earn the victory.
• More than 36,000 Tigers fans (again) went home happy

Pretty much, that’s all important. The pitched synced up. The pitching and the hitting both came together in a game the Tigers very much wanted to win. I seriously hope we see a lot more Thames at first base. He got the start because Sean Casey was sick.

Box

Around the Central:

Cleveland 6, Baltimore 1. — Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona pitched into the ninth. Casey Blake homered.

Angels are leading White Sox.

Share/Email This

Game 6: Detroit at Baltimore Orioles, 3 p.m., FSN Detroit
RHP Chad Durbin (-,-) vs. RHP Daniel Cabrera (0-1, 3.86)

Chad Durbin pitches in Baltimore. (Photo courtesy The Oriole Post. Thanks!)

Pregame thoughts: Looks like we have a 5 vs. 2 matchup today in the Baltimore home opener, thanks to Jim Leyland shuffling the Tigers rotation to keep Durbin from seeing the Royals twice in a week. Cabrera struck out nine in seven innings in his loss to the Twins. At least it appears to be above 40 degrees for a game.

We can’t learn everything from one start, but it should be really interesting to see what Dubin looks like today. I know I’m not the only Tigers fan who has no clue what to expect of him. He stunk in his first few seasons in the majors, then fell back to AAA. Detroit signed him to a minor league contract to pitch 2006 in Toledo, where found his pitching stroke. Last year, he led the Mudhens to an International League title with an 3.11 ERA, 149 strikeouts and 46 walks in 185 innings. So it looks like he found some control. The Tigers liked him enough to bring him up in September. This Spring, he pitched well enough to make the team out of camp ahead of several pitchers Tigers fans may have more confidence in. So management is sure it sees something.

We want to see the same thing in an MLB game. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Tigers saw something they like when scouting him, gave him some coaching and turned his career around. On the other hand, you can’t trust AAA and spring stats either. So, to say the least, today should be interesting.

Camden Chat has a preview from the O’s perspective.

Oriole Post is going to liveblog it.

Postgame thoughts: Early on, it was a pitcher’s duel. Cabrera kept up his end of the deal. Dubin did not. Detroit scored first, but the Orioles cruised to a 6-2 victory after a four-run third inning.

Kevin Millar started it off with a homer, Corey Patterson had a perfect bunt single and stole second, and then the runs started piling on. The O’s added two more in the fifth. Dubin’s day ended with six earned runs allowed, five strikeouts and one walk (on four balls, but unintentional) after 4-2/3 innings. In relief, Wil Ledezma allowed one of those runs in. I think Durbin had the game just speed up on him and got rattled a bit. Baltimore did drop some hits in that weren’t particularly hard, but they were very well located. We’ll have to see how he looks his next outing.

Detroit’s runs when Sean Casey doubled to drive in Magglio Ordonez in the second inning for two-out RBI. Curtis Granderson hit a triple off the wall off Cabrera for the other run.

Oh, and the unofficial Inge watch? He added two Ks so he’s 0-20 now with eight strikeouts.

Kind of a blech game.

Box

Around the Central: Cleveland’s misery continues: Today’s double header is postponed. The Tribe got snowed (colded?) out for a fourth straight day. They will now have to try to squeeze in two doubleheaders with the Mariners over the course of the season — or even after the season — if the games affect the Central or wildcard standings. That’s a nightmare.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports the Indians may be forced to travel to Anaheim to face the L.A. Angels rather than risk losing more games.

The teams are scheduled to begin a three-game series Tuesday at Jacobs Field, but Major League Baseball was considering switching it to Angels Stadium. Commissioner Bud Selig discussed the possibility Sunday with MLB chief operating officer Bob DuPuy and vice president of scheduling and club relations Katy Feeney.

”There’s been discussion but no decision,” DuPuy said. ”We’re monitoring the weather in Cleveland.”

Update: The series will be played in Milwaukee. (per Let’s Go Tribe).

The Twins picked up their second loss, getting beat 8-2 by the Yankees. Bobby Abreu was 3-for-4 with a homer and 4RBI off Twins pitcher Sidney Ponson. Ponson allowed all 8 runs. (Twinkie Town game post)
Chicago beat Oakland in the A’s home opener, 4-1, behind Jim Thome’s homer and 2 RBI. Jose Contreras allowed one run on four hits for the victory.

So, scoring at home, Detroit’s one game out of first despite looking like utter crap at the plate.

Share/Email This

IN THEORY: Detroit at Kansas City, 8 p.m., FSN
Justin Verlander vs. Jorge de la Rosa (STATS preview)

Detroit backup catcher Mike Rabelo ties a towel around his face as he tries to keep warm Friday at Kansas City. The announced temperature was 35 degrees. (AP Photo/Ed Zurga)

Pregame thoughts: After facing one of the best offensive teams in the American League, Detroit heads to Kansas City for a three-game series against one of the worst. This fact should be even more apparent when Justin Verlander takes the mound fresh off a nice Spring Training performance and a good show against the Detroit minor leaguers before that. Kansas City, with the worst pitching staff on this side of Washington, will counter with Jorge de la Rosa, who STATS tells me is a converted reliever with a decent K rate, but lacking control and with an awful WHIP.

I’m not going to dwell on this game’s preview too much, because I honestly doubt they play it. Already the weather in KC resembles the weather the Tigers just escaped in Detroit: cold, crappy and windy. (and yet a whole lot better than here!) And it’s a night game. Likely the Tigers have a third day off of baseball this week. Let’s hope they can play Saturday. This is ridiculous. The MLB really has to make sure the first week is spent in Domes and southern locales.

Postgame thoughts — 3-1 Royals: Well, that’s why they play the games, I guess. Not that they probably should have in those cold, windy conditions. I worked, didn’t see it, didn’t hear it, but I saw some highlights on TV and the Tigers looked like crap in the field for what I saw. Reading the other Tigers blogs, that sounds like it was the case. That’s really not that big a deal. Verlander allowed one run on two hits in six innings. Jose Mesa allowed two more, helped by poor defense. Three runs allowed? Who’s going to complain about that?

Well, fans of a team that scores one run off a Kansas City starter with a career 5.66 ERA, that’s who. Six strikeouts (an improvement!) and three walks just won’t cut it. Admittedly — and despite those nine runs Wednesday — a lot of these Tigers are getting off to a slow start all around. There’s a lot of early Mendoza line averages. And because this is only three games, that means pretty much zilch except the team is starting rather awkwardly this year with some bad appearances at the plate coupled with the bullpen picking up two losses and trying to earn a third.

The 1-2 record doesn’t mean squat. Small sample sizes don’t mean squat. But I am getting perturbed at the crappy, lackluster performances we keep seeing on the field. Some highlight Tigers’ problems like early swings and a designated hitter in right field. Some just make you shrug your shoulders in disbelief. And then some you wonder, “What it will be like if the team ever plays in temperature over 40 degrees again?” But other teams play in the same conditions and being AL champions give you no excuse to play poorly. Detroit is a better team than this. I wish they’d show us that.

Box and wrap

Around the Central: I swear I will keep up with this better. Minnesota@White Sox was canceled.

Seattle@Cleveland was also officially canceled, despite the fact they played nearly enough innings to make it count. Seattle manager Mike Hargrove argued his batter couldn’t see the ball and it was unfair to his team if the final half-inning was played out. Cleveland manager Eric Wedge claimed it was unfair to his team (which would undoubtedly have won 4-0 … oh, and Paul Byrd had a no-hitter going). Oh, and did I mention it was one strike from being in the books? That was another game that shouldn’t have been played. But Cleveland chose to play it and lost catcher Victor Martinez to a hurt quad. It’s unclear if he’ll be out short term or if he’ll end up on the DL, but it’s a steep price to pay for stupidly playing in the snow. They will make the game up Saturday (today) in the afternoon.

Share/Email This