Tigers 9
Indians 2

Recap:

• Justin Verlander got the first batters out, let the next two batters score, then shut down the Indians for pretty much innings 2 through 7.
• The Tigers brought their power shoes, especially Miguel Cabrera. He had two homers Marcus Thames one and Pudge one. Thames also chipped in an RBI double, and Curtis Granderson singled in a run.
• Did I mention Cabera went 4-for-4?  Well, he did!
• This scoring outburst from the team came with Maggs on the DL and Carlos Guillen gone for the birth of his daughter.
• Not to be lost, Aquilino Lopez pitched two fantastic innings of relief for Detroit.

Analysis:

• The Twins thankfully lost. There might be 2 and a half months left in the season, but it is starting to get closer to make-or-break territory. Of course we’ve been on the other side of things, where the Tigers have been great at the all-star break only to have things go wrong in August. So, you know, if the baseball gods would like to bring the White Sox and Twins back to earth soon, that would be good, ya know?
• But if the Tigers keep getting good starts from pitchers and Cabrera is able to hit a little more consistently — a little more Thames-ian if you will– I have hopes September will still feature meaningful games. The next week is really a big one for Detroit, as they face the Twins four times. While normally you might like to face the pushover teams to collect some W’s, I think the only way the Tigers get back into a true division race is playing and beating the Twins and White Sox themselves. If they can’t do that, they don’t deserve the division title anyway.

Other stuff:

• It appears it’s tendinitis in Dontrelle Willis’ knee. I guess that’s better than a torn ACL or something, though it’s not exaclty confidence-giving for me. It’s just something he’ll have to rehab and work his way through.
• Michael Hollimon has gone back to Toledo. Ramon Santiago is headed back to Detroit.
  
• And Brandon Inge is rehabbing in Toledo.

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Indians 8
Tigers 2

Recap:

• I did not have visual confirmation of Dontrelle Willis’ awful day on the mound. All I have is the 8 runs he allowed in less than two innings and the five walks and two home runs that helped contribute to it.
• But the words coming from Dan Dickerson and Jim Price made it sound more or less like a disaster. That Willis was not just missing the plate on close calls, but also nearly missing Brandon Inge’s catchers glove half the time. Price more or less was begging Leyland to come out and save Willis from the embarrassment and anxiety of the baseball going wherever it darn well pleased.
• He wasn’t helped by Denny Bautista, who hit the first batter he faced in relief and allowed the next two to score.
• Bautista did do fine after that, as did Clay Rapada (3 scoreless innings, saw just 10 batters) and Bobby Seay.
• It rained a bit somewhere in the middle there.
• Brandon Inge played catcher, as he will every other game, so Leyland says.
• Let’s see, what else? The Tigers scored some runs in the fourth inning, and Michael Hollimon made his debut in the majors, and Jeff Larish made his debut at first base
• And that’s about it.
• Tigers split with the Indians and lost two games on the Central Division-leading White Sox in the process.
• If you’re looking for something positive, they are now as far out of the wild card as they are out of the division. Wait… that may not be a positive.

Analysis:

• I don’t really know that we can fault the team for losing this game, although it would be hard to win with only two runs scored. But Cliff Lee is pretty good.
• This was Willis’ loss, in more ways than one.
• Others have already posted about this. Willis is toast. Something needs to be done to get him back on the right track.
• He can’t do it in Detroit — Lord knows it has nothing to do with saving the season. I think we’re past that. It has more to do with the fact the fans apparently hate him in Detroit. Price pointed out, if he gets another start, it better be on the road. But the fact is, he probably needs to go work on things. Like you don’t want your young prospect to try to learn on the fly while playing in the majors, Willis shouldn’t be expected to fix it on the fly either.
• Of course, he’ll have to agree to go to the minors to fix it, but for the sake of his young career, I hope he realizes he has to get this fixed.
• Pudge and Inge alternating? I don’t know what to make of it.
• I think it might signal the Tigers are preparing to punt the rest of the season, as they should at this point. The reason I say that is, they need a long look at Inge catching and decide what happens next year.
• I do buy the fact Pudge can’t catch six days a week. But, oh, so many questions. Is he going to agree to only catch 50% of the time? How long can this continue? Will Leyland try to get him in the field some to keep him happy? Then the Tigers really can’t score. Will it hurt any possible trade value Pudge has? Will the experiment last as long as Guillen in left field?
• Wouldn’t it be better to look at Inge after the trading deadline anyway, since we know either way Pudge won’t be re-signed.
• Ultimately, they’re going to have to trade Pudge. I don’t know if they’ll get too much, some contender might blindly want him, you never know. But they’ll just have to take what they can get.
• The Tigers soon have to look like they have a blue print for 2009 and beyond. Right now, nothing seems to make sense. Nothing seems to continue for more than a few days, when Leyland/the organization move on to other ideas. It looks like no one has a clue what they’re doing.
• Every rock bottom just seems to be one-upped and things get crazier and crazier out of management.
• Story of the season I guess.

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Tigers 5
Indians 2

Recap:

• The Tigers are now 62 games into the season, and they “improved” to 10 games under .500. They now have 100 games left to show us what they’re made of.
• Armando Galarraga, however, has shown us what he’s made of. In almost every start he’s made — Sunday included — he whas ben awesome. After coming out of the bullpen in the previous game in a split-start with Dontrelle Willis, he allowed four hits and two runs with two walks. He came without an out of grabbing another quality start. But with a little help from Casey Fossum, the team had a solid pitching start to the day.
• Fossum, Zach Miner, Freddy Dolsi and Todd Jones all threw in relief. Some with more luck than others.
• Miner didn’t have it. He left the bases loaded for Dolsi. And the kid knew exactly what to do in THAT situation.
• He struck the next two batters out. Crisis averted.
• Placido Polanco had two hits and two RBIs.
• Miguel Cabrera had two hits.
• Curtis Granderson homered off a left-handed pitcher.
• Magglio Ordonez DH’d again. I’m digging defense in the outfield. The kids haven’t recorded any outfield assists this weekend, but it’s only a matter of time.
• Clay Rapada was called up from Toledo.

Analysis:

• An interesting bullpen question will soon arise, as I think most expected the available pitching spot on the Tigers’ roster would go to Aquilino Lopez when he came back from bereavement leave. Bringing up Rapada means someone’s going to end up in Toledo soon. But who?
• Miner hasn’t had too many problems lately, nor has he been all that great. He walks too many people, as he did again Sunday.
• But in all likelyhood, it’s Casey Fossum, despite his nice showing today, I think Miner’s going to stick around for the season. Leyland likes him. He shouldn’t pitch in the 8th and maybe he won’t need to any more.
• Miguel Cabrera is starting to look like a hitter. Honestly, I wish everyone who has decided he’s a bust would take a few deep breaths and remember he’s two months into his career with a new club in a new league while playing a new position. There might be a few growing pains. But I still think it’s a pretty safe bet he’s going to turn in a great career with the Tigers when it’s all said and done.
• My advice to doubters: Lay off him a bit so you won’t look so silly in the future.
• Bilfer reallllly liked Dolsi today. Maybe a bit too much.
• Dating back to the Angels series, which the Tigers lost, and the A’s series, in which the Tigers were swept, honestly, I think Detroit has been playing some good baseball for about a week now. It’s good to see them start to be rewarded for it. They have to win the series today, though, to start to cement their gains. It’ll be tough against baseball’s best pitcher of 2008, so it should be a real test to see what they’re made of.

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Tigers 8
Indians 4

Recap:

• A Bonderman jersey hung in the Tigers dugout. I suggest “Win One(-hundred) For Jeremy” as a team slogan.
• Edgar Rentria broke open a tight game with a grand slam in the eighth inning, providing Tigers fans with the rare glimpse of someone else’s bullpen melting down. This came after Marcus Thames tied the game at 3-3 with a solo homerun to lead off the inning, and Miguel Cabrera driving in the go-ahead run with a shot to left field.
• Kenny Rogers didn’t get the win, but he did get another quality start.
• Zach Miner did get the win, but he provided Todd Jones with a chance to get the save by having a rocky ninth inning.
• And Jonesy did get the save.
• So good times all around.
• In the outfield, the Tigers used Brent Clevlen and Ryan Raburn in place of Curtis Granderson and Magglio Ordonez. Maggs DH’d. Grandy avoided left-handed pitching.
• And it was nice to see Raburn showing off his cannon.
• Inge caught, as Pudge got the day off.
• Rogers made an error, diving for a bunted ball and throwing it. It looked real pretty but it didn’t exactly arrive remotely near Cabrera and resulted in the runner moving to third and eventually scoring.

Analysis

• Will losing Bonderman be the catalyst the Tigers need to come together as a team, battle the odds and get out of the doldrums? Nothing else has worked, but I’m open for looking for positives.
• I like the added defense in the outfield. Actually added defense ANYWHERE is fine by me.

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Indians 4, Tigers 2

Tigers swept. Tigers led for third game in the series and blew the lead for the fourth time in the series. *shrug* Day game after night game be damned, that was a lineup that lost before it took the field. Cleveland, on the other hand, seemed to keep its killer spirit.

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Cleveland 7, Detroit 4

The Tigers dropped another game, giving up four home runs along the way. I hesitate to really call this the final nail in the Tigers’ coffin. There’s probably other nails. Maybe even a nail in the final game of the Cleveland series. In any case, what we know if the hometown nine is toasted. These game threads take on less and less importance as the games mean less and there’s not enough season left to really analyze anything but what went on. I’ll do that and more in October. But until then, I’ll keep up with game threads as much as possible.

Detroit led 1-0. Then 4-1. Then never again. Every inning Detroit got on the board, Cleveland duplicated the number in the lower half of it. All seven runs were charged to Verlander.

Bright spots? I guess. Ramon Santiago (starting SS next year? Who knows. I’ll discuss that too!) had three hits and a stolen base. He also had a two-out RBI. Placi and Sheffield had two hits.

Carlos Guillen was caught stealing for the 8th time. Just interesting to note. Pudge left six runners on base. Grandy left five. The Tigers stranded 11. Adding up individually though, the player left 20. Contrast this with Cleveland stranding 5 if you wish.

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Cleveland 6, Tigers 5 (11)

Detroit blew a four run lead. Three of those runs were blown in the 8th inning by Joel Zumaya. By the 11th, if the Tigers couldn’t score, I really had no hope they were going to so Zach Miner just happened to take the L.

Bilfer summed it up:

Crushed. Me, the team, the season, the postseason hopes. Crushed.

That’s about the size of it.

Therefore I fully expect the Tigers to bounce back to keep stringing folks along.

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Monroe traded

Craig Monroe was traded to the Cubs. I believe the Cubs and Brewers (along with Mets?) were all thought to be possible trade partners for Monroe, who was DFAd Friday after hitting a seasonlong wall. The Tigers will receive a player to be named by Oct. 15.

Just a reminder, Tigers management still gets to select a Cardinal by Sept. 15.

Indians 11, Tigers 8

In action Wednesday, the Tigers led 3-1 when Carlos Guillen hit a towering home run to right field. Then Justin Verlander self destructed in the fourth and fifth frames. It was hard to watch. Cleveland just kept putting hit after hit after hit after hit on the board until the score was 8-1. I thought it was over. (Well, it was over). But the Tigers battled back to 8-6 thanks to homers by Magglio Ordonez and Marcus Thames.

And then the bullpen (cough Tim Byrdak) allowed the game to get out of hand. … Wait a minute. This game is following the same plan every loss does, wasn’t it? Until the ninth inning when Detroit battled back to 11-8 in the ninth inning with two runners on for Pudge Rodriguez. Well, by now you’ve heard, he so hates to be walked, he prefers to lose and important pennant race game to a division rival. So he struck out by swinging at balls 4 and 5. And that was that.

Up, down, down, up, these Tigers just keeping finding the same ways to lose. They obviously miss a healthy Gary Sheffield, and not only is he taking the home series off, it sounds like he may need to rest longer than that. Just my guess, but he is not the same player the rest of the season that he was before. The injury stems from a collision with Placido Polanco.

Also, Cameron Maybin made his first start at Comerica Park. Defense, eh. Offense, two doubles. He’ll come around. He runs so funny though. He looks like a race horse with a long stride and he’s at first base in what seems like 3 leaps. And we thought Curtis Granderson was a triple threat, wait for this kid to find the gaps at Comerica Park in a year or two!

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Tigers 2, Cleveland 1

I couldn’t watch. I mean, I really couldn’t watch. Work. But even if I could watch, I’d have been afraid to watch. Fortunately, Jair Jurrjens and the bullpen (!) had full control over the situation, and the Tigres pulled within 1/2 game of the Central lead by one-hitting Cleveland.

Notably, Joel Zumaya pitched in the seven, while the eighth and ninth were pitched by Fernando Rodney and Todd Jones. It’s amazing to type that as if it’s something special. But, that’s baseball. Hopefully, Zoomer, Rodney and Jones pitching in late innings with the lead successfully becomes more commonplace again. But as important as they were, the star of the night was again JJ.

The only hit was the only run, as Jhonny Peralta homered off Jurrjens in the sixth. Before that, JJ allowed just a walk to the leadoff batter of the game and another in the fifth inning. After that, he gave up a pair of walks. So he spread his baserunners out pretty good and got a pair of double plays. Defense obviously contributed pretty well.

Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen both homered. Curtis Granderson had a double. Those three hits were all Fausto Carmona allowed, but the Tigers only needed two runs. Maggs apparently was fan-aided, from the replays.

It was a good old-fashioned Tigers win, basically. Wish I could have seen it!

I don’t know if Jurrjens will keep his starting role if Kenny Rogers comes back healthy. Probably not. But I still doubt Rogers comes back healthy. In any case, it’s good to see he can make it at the major league level, and that fact alone could save the Tigers millions in the offseason so they could put the money toward places it is better spent. Of course, it is only two starts… But so far, so good.

Box

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Indians 5, Tigers 2

You can be a bit upset that the Tigers lost, I guess. But honestly, they won Tuesday. The team is suffering from flu-like symptoms. The lineup was missing a few key figures, and present were some guys not feeling the best. Jair Jurrjens made his MLB debut. Fausto Carmona is both fun to say and spell, and a good pitcher. So I don’t know. I expected a loss. Can’t really feel too bad.

I thought Jurrjens pitched pretty well, given the circumstances and, well, that he’s 21. Given Andrew Miller’s poor outing in Toledo tonight (more later) I think he will get another start next week. Jurrjens (pronounced uhm, any way you like, from my observations of FSN, Jim Price and Dan Dickerson) threw 62 strikes in 104 pitches, walked 2, allowed 5 hits (a home run) and struck out three. He even lasted seven innings, something more starters should try. Given the Indians have several good lefties, I think the results were fine.

The bullpen? Meh. Bobby Seay walked too many. Including left-handed Travis Haffner with the bases loaded. What kinda LOOGY does that? Jason Grilli, of all people, bailed Seay out.

The offense just didn’t make much happen. The meat of the lineup, and Curtis Granderson, were present. But not much else.

Grandy, it should be noted, got his 19th triple.

Box

Bunt Singles:

• And in Toledo, Miller gave up five runs with two outs in the first inning. He had five walks and four strikeouts in three innings. So it doesn’t look like Miller is ready to come back to the MLB. To be honest, I think he shouldn’t continue as a starter this year because of putting so many innings on his arm. Maybe he can work as a reliever for the rest of the season.

• And then there’s Joel Zumaya. He was targeted to pitch 20. He only lasted seven. That’s because six pitches were for strikes and three were for outs in a perfect inning. No clue about velocity or anything else. I’ll be looking for stories, too. He’ll pitch Saturday, and then appears to be ready to return to Detroit and make us very, very happy fans.
• And finally, the deadline for signing 2007 draftees was reached. A complete list isn’t out yet, but the Tigers added Casey Crosby and Cole Iorg to the list that already included first rounder Rick Porcello.
• For more on the draft picks, see Take 75 North.
• Possibly the most interesting story on signing a draft pick didn’t come from a sports section or blog, but from a mother who happens to be the managing editor of a suburban Chicago newspaper: Denise Crosby. (hat-tip: many!)
• Finally, Kyle Sleeth and Kody Kirkland were removed from the 40-man roster to make room for Porcello, who is required to be there, and Jair Jurrjens, who needed a spot as well.
• Optimistically, the Tigers would like your postseason dollars, season ticket holders.

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