Red Sox 6
Tigers 3

Recap:

• Drastic changes, still inconsistent offense.

Analysis:

• Thank goodness for playoff basketball.

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Per Danny Knobler, the lineup tonight is

1. Curtis Granderson, CF
2. Placido Polanco, 2B
3. Carlos Guillen, 3B
4. Maglio Ordonez, DH
5. Miguel Cabrera, 1B
6. Gary Sheffield, LF
7. Matt Joyce, RF
8. Edgar Renteria, SS
9. Pudge Rodriguez, C

So the lineup hardly changed. Sheffield moved into the field, for the night anyway. I don’t really see Magglio Ordonez as becoming the fulltime DH myself. Sheff also flipped lineup spots with Carlos Guillen, which makes sense.

Hopefully we get some quotes from Jim Leyland tonight to help explain the moves and if anything further will occur. Hopefully there will be more changes, anyway.

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Yup, that’s a pretty drastic start.

Danny Knobler is reporting that the Tigers designated for assignment Jacque Jones and recalled OF Matt Joyce from AAA Toledo.

Jones, as anyone who watched the Tigers knows, wasn’t cutting it. He was a left handed batter. That’s about all you can say about him. His arm was inconsistent in left field. He did show a lot of effort, running himself into the fans in a painful looking attempt at a foul ball. That deserves praise. But he just wasn’t helping the team all that much.

This allows the Tigers to think with some flexibility about moving Gary Sheffield to the outfield, putting Carlos Guillen at DH and putting Brandon Inge at third base, for instance. That’s a popular opinion among Tigers fans though I’m not sure I agree with putting Gary Sheffield in left field. Besides, the Tigers didn’t call up a catcher, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing Brandon Inge at third base for good quite yet either.

I’m disappointed Clete Thomas didn’t get called back up. I loved his defense and he could hit fine. However, Joyce is a fellow left-handed batter.

23-year-old Joyce is batting .299 AVG, .367 on-base percentage and .536 slugging according to First Inning.com. (Updated 4:19)

In April, Matt at my favorite Tigers minor league blog, Take 75 North, opined:

Matt Joyce could be a very valuable outfielder as a left-handed power bat who plays a good outfield.

Matt also profiled Joyce further over the winter. (Update 4:25)

The big jump in strikeouts is a little worrisome, but if he can keep up with the walks and the power, his defense in the outfield (voted Eastern League’s Best Defensive Outfielder by Baseball America) should make him a very useful player for the Tigers. He’ll be one of the reasons I go to watch the Mud Hens in 2008.

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Jim Leyland promises the Tigers lineup will see “drastic” changes Monday.

“There will be no personnel changes or player movement,” he said. “Same pieces, but quite a bit different (order). For whatever reason, we just haven’t had that killer instinct.”

So I guess we begin with Gary Sheffield. Why? Because his scheduled day off today meant Leyland didn’t have a chance to unveil his new lineup. That and he’s been an albatross at the top of the lineup with his lack of slugging. (.309 slugging, .185 average). Sure he gets on base (.349 OBP) and he can steal, but he’s just not getting anything done with the bat. So he can move forward in the lineup to leadoff, as Bilfer guesses (and I have thought would be a good idea). Or he can move backward. Either way, he can’t be the third batter any more in a just world.

What happens from there who knows. Again, we mention Bilfer, as his prediction is Sheffield leads off and Curtis Granderson moves into the middle of the lineup to take advantage of his hitting. I agree it would be nice if that happened.

I’m going to disagree with Kaos, who left a comment on my previous post with his batting order. I think you have to keep Miguel Cabrera high in the lineup. He does have an OPS of .835, and after the slow start in the Tigers uniform, he’s been pretty good. Not quite consistent, but pretty good.

Given what Leyland has said, I’ll just toss this lineup out there as my guess.

1. Gary Sheffield, DH
2. Edgar Renteria, SS
3. Curtis Granderson, CF
4. Magglio Ordonez, RF
5. Miguel Cabrera, 1B
6. Carlos Guillen, 3B
7. Pudge Rodriguez, LF
8. Jacque Jones, LF
9. Placido Polanco, 2B

Here’s the thoughts that went into it:

• Sheffield leading off does make sense. He has 3 steals (tied for the lead on the team) and a good OBP. He sees a lot of pitches.
• Edgar Renteria has done too good to hit as low in the lineup as he has. So Leyland will move him up.
• Curtis Granderson gives a lefty to break up the righties. He also gets to have a chance at sending some runners across the plate with his homers.
• Maggs is cleanup, no debating
• Cabrera was fine in the five hole. No reason to move him up.
• Carlos Guillen protects Cabrera
• Someone has to hit seventh. May as well be Pudge.
• Jacque Jones hits like a pitcher and Leyland’s good friend, Tony LaRussa, puts his pitcher in the 8 spot and treats his No. 9 guy as a second leadoff.
• Placido Polanco can make contact and I almost thought he’d be the leadoff guy. I guess it’s possible he and Sheffield could switch, making Polanco first and Sheffield last. But I dunno if Leyland would do that.

In any case, I don’t know if a drastic change in lineup was really needed all that bad, but I think it makes sense to try something new with Sheffield and the rest is going to help save face.

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Twins 7
Tigers 6

me: *angry face*

Recap:

• The Tigers led 6-0 after a first inning where nothing went right for the Twins.
• The Tigers led 6-0 after the second inning, and the third inning. Hard to lose, right? But the game slowly went to hell, then picked up steam.
• The Tigers lost 7-6, giving Minnesota a 3-game sweep.
• Yes, the Tigers were swept after sweeping the Yankees. (Curiously, the Yankees swept the Mariners after being swept. So that’s a lot of brooming going on.)
• Something obviously went way wrong in the middle there.
• The whole 5 baserunners after the first inning thing probably didn’t help.
• Zach Miner coming into a tough situation in the seventh inning definitely didn’t help, as he threw gas on the fire
• So did Bobby Seay.
• But oh yeah, this should not have been in their hands, because the Tigers probably should have gotten out of the inning 1-2-4. Carlos Guillen’s throwing fielding error set it all up.
• And while I’m at it, Jacque Jones didn’t get an error, but his throw that sailed over everyone’s head but a diving Kenny Rogers earlier in the game was bad defense, too.

Analysis

• Don’t blog mad. Don’t blog mad. Don’t blog mad. I think I’ve heard that on a radio show somewhere.
• That say, THEY WERE AWFUL! HOW DO YOU LOSE THIS GAME?!!?
• Why can’t the offense concentrate for nine innings?
• SIGH!
• OK.
• Jim Leyland’s ill-defined bullpen roles contributed to the loss. But so did the Tigers ill-defined version of defense. Only the first is Leylan’ds fault. The second is the fault of the players given to him and his desire to, you know, actually play them since you’re only allowed one designated hitter.
• On the other hand, Jacque Jones, I don’t know. Check his ID. He’s playing like he’s Neifi Perez in the outfield.
• No, check that. Even Neifi made a spectacular, no-hit saving play.
• This weekend was a real kick in the pants after sweeping the Yankees. Everything I would have said in a recap of that series pretty much was erased in this series. Detroit looked more like the Tigers of 0-7 than the Tigers of the second half of April.
• But Curtis Granderson, as always, did awesome. So there’s always that.

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Twins 4
Tigers 1

Recap:

• So, we had a pichers’ duel to watch for the first five innings. The Twins were up 1-0, then 2-0, in a pretty close game. Then Craig Monroe hit a home run off Justin Verlander in the sixth inning and it was 4-0.
• Well, the Tigers managed to score a run off Twins reliever Pat Neshek when Curtis Granderson homered, but they couldn’t string together any of the hits they had on Scott Baker or Brian Bass.
• The best scoring opportunity came when Granderson was stranded at third after reaching there with one out in the sixth inning. Scoring there would have tied the game at 1-1 and maybe affected the outcome.
• Tigers reliever Clay Rapada got into some trouble when he allowed the first two batters he faced to reach base, but no one scored, so that seems like a successful appearance in the Todd Jonesian mold.
• The Tigers have now lost 2 in a row. They had a chance to reach and possibly leave Minnesota at .500, but now just hope to get out of town without being swept after scoring two runs in 18 innings.

Analysis

• Tigers hitting destroys bad pitching. It does really good against average pitching. And apparently it sucks against actual good pitching. I’m pretty sure that’s what we’ve seen from Minnesota. They may not be the big names, but they’re good pitchers.
• I don’t think there’s any sort of “hangover” going on after sweeping the Yankees in the Bronx. I don’t think they got all full of themselves or anything. I just thing Minnesota has put together some nice performances on the mound and the Tigers have given away some at bats — which Jim Leyland criticized Miguel Cabrera for doing, but he’s not the only one.
• Plus I think the bats were bound to have a game or two off at some point.
• So basically, yeah, I’m not making too much of this. Both teams defended their home field against the other so far.

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Some people may say the Tigers are better off without Jason Grilli — I don’t know, maybe they’re right, though I don’t think so. As quirks of baseball love to do, three days after the Tigers traded Jason Grilli, they placed setup reliever Denny Bautista on the disabled list. This resulted in the callup of right-handed minor league reliever Freddy Dolsi, who started the season in High-A Lakeland before moving north to Double-A Erie.

Jason Beck’s article added:

Dolsi … was the recommendation of player development director Glenn Ezell and pitching instructor Jon Matlack.

• Dolsi’s Baseball Cube entry
• Dolsi’s First Inning entry.
• Dolsi’s Baseball Minors Reference entry
  

After the 25-year-old gave up seven hits and 5 runs in 7.1 innings in Lakeland, along with 11 strikeouts and three walks, he moved up to Erie and made two appearances. There he had one strikeout, allowed one hit and one walk in three innings. So I’m thinking it’s quite a jump to the majors myself.

In Danny Knobler’s article, Jim Leyland said he will use Dolsi, fellow newcomer Francisco Cruceta, Bobby Seay, Clay Rapada, “whatever comes around.” So looks like the bullpen roles are still kinda up in the air.

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Twins 11
Tigers 1

Recap:

• The Tigers squandered a chance to get to .500 on the year for the first time since being 0-0.
• The worst part of the squandering occurred in the second inning. After Magglio Ordonez homered to tie the game, Detroit looked to be getting something big started when it loaded the bases.
• Pudge Rodriguez flied out, and Jacque Jones hit into a double play, and that was that.
• The Twins took the lead again in the third inning and went up 4-1.
• But it was the seventh and eighth innings that made the game out of reach.
• Aquino Lopez got just one out and gave up four runs. Denny Bautista got the Tigers out of the seventh, but then fell victim himself in the eighth before Francisco Cruceta ended it with a strike out of the only batter he saw.
• UPDATE: Bautista’s shoulder “felt something” and will be evaluated, Jason Beck updates.
• The Tigers had eight hits, yet only the homer resulted in a run.
• Tigers starter Armando Galarraga gave up four runs — two earned. Guillen’s error at third resulted in two being unearned.

Analysis:

• I didn’t see much of this game, and when I did get a chance to look at the game, bad things happened anyway. So not much I can add to the recap. But I wanted to get back in practice.

Site news:

• After a solid 12 hours of sleep or so, I hope to catch up on the later topics of the week and sum up my thoughts on the Yankees series.

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The correct answer to yesterday’s question — who gets squeezed out of Detroit when Francisco Cruceta comes to town — was Jason Grilli. The reliever was sent to Colorado in exchange for 23-year-old, high-a pitcher Zach Simons. I’m going to echo Bilfer’s surprise in this move.

Relief pitching at the major league level is sort of random. Jason Grilli, while having a bad week here or there, is that not that bad of a pitcher. He is a major league caliber reliever. In 2007 after June 1, he had no month worse than 3.86 ERA. This year, he stumbled badly the first week but since got his ERA down to 3.29. He is not a close-and-late reliever, but he pitched fine for his mop-up role. You do need a guy like that.

So my real problem with this move is, it took a major league reliever out of the Tigers’ system, because Zach Miner did have an option to go to Toledo. And Grilli was basically given away. No offense to Zach Simons, and I hope he proves us wrong, but based on his minor-league stats, his chance of becoming daily major leaguer is pretty low.

I get that the Tigers had to make a corresponding 40-man roster move to get Cruceta to Detroit — something that totally slipped my mind yesterday. And trading Grilli allowed that to happen. But I don’t know. I’m just not a real big fan of this move at the moment.

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As a quick site note, my schedule this week makes my recaps sketchy at best. They will return. But for now, I’m just askin’ and answerin’.

When the Tigers call up Francisco Cruceta, who is going to be sent to Toledo?

The way I see it, and most observers, it’s not a matter of if Cruceta gets the call up to the Tigers bullpen, it’s a matter of when. That when is coming soon. He has pitched in Toledo three times since receiving his visa and warming up in Lakeland. But the Tigers have to either bring him to the majors or put him on the waiver wire by May 10. He’s made three appearances in Toledo. He’s got 15 strikeouts in 7 innings to go with three walks and one run allowed.

That leaves three possibilities for taking the trip to Toledo (or the waiver wire), in order of most likely to least:

• RHP Zach Miner – He struggled mightily and was the worst pitcher — statistically — for most of the season. He may be the worst pitcher statistically still. His ERA is still 9.00, his WHIP 1.80 and he has allowed more runs than hhe’s struck out batters. On the other hand, he has allowed just one earned run in the 7 innings he has thrown since a meltdown against the Indians in mid-April. Oh, and he has an option remaining. He’s not safe.
• LHP Clay Rapada – I do have some fear for Rapada based on his inexperience and Jim Leyland’s decision earlier this year to go with just one left-hander. Now I think it makes no sense to send him down myself — his has a 0.38 WHIP in 8 innings and can pitch to right- or left-handed batters — but I think we have to entertain the possibility it could happen. He’s probably not safe.
• RHP Jason Grilli – He melted down twice in the first week. He was awful. The home crowd boo’d him, and who could blame them? But since then, he has not allowed a run since April 8, and his ERA is down to 3.29 for the year. So that’s 11.1 scoreless innings. Now I know he’s allowed a couple of other pitchers’ runs in. I don’t have the exact figure on how many. So it’s not all roses and peaches. He has nearly a strikeout per inning, more than a groundball per inning and has faced just four batters over the minimum required to complete his work in his past five appearances (29 batters for 25 outs). He’s safe.

So, you can tell, my best guess is Miner is the disposable one. He is pitching better — the whole bullpen is. And that’s a good thing. But with an option remaining and probably the worst stuff of the three, he should be sent back to Toledo. Maybe the Tigers should try to stretch him back into a starting pitcher, which you may remember is how he came to Detroit in the first place back in 2006. But they probably won’t. In any case, a little work in Toledo and a callup if there are any injuries to the pitching staff seems the best move to me. Rapada both deserves his spot and he contributes quite a bit. And Grilli really isn’t that bad. (No, I swear, he’s not!) He may not be popular — inexplicably, because he really hasn’t struggled nearly as much as the public perception goes — but he’s a deserving member of the team.

Now the corollary question: Whose role does Cruceta replace in the bullpen?

This is a more tricky question, because we can’t really assume Cruceta replaces Miner’s mop-up position. For a guy as hyped — and apparently as effective — as Cruceta, that would a waste of talent, wouldn’t it? Aquino Lopez should has been effective as a late-inning reliever. Denny Bautista has walked a lot of guys, which makes me think Cruceta has a chance to surpass him in tight situations, though I think Leyland’s going to want to see him prove himself first. So he should be a 7th inning guy to start. If he proves himself, I could see him filling the classic Joel Zumays c. 2006 role of bridging the gap from starter to 8th inning in a tight game, no matter if that takes 1 out or 6.

But I admit that’s totally a guess.

Update: On further review, I believe the short answer is, he fills in Bobby Seay’s one-inning role….

But that’s still just a guess.

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