Tigers Weekly 2005 Season

Week 20: 8/17/05 - 8/23/05

Tigers in the CoPa - Hot Hot Hot
Tigers in the CoPa - Hot Hot Hot
They come to the ball field, know what they got
They come to the ball field, know what they got
Pena's hot - Tram's hot - Craig's hot - Inge's hot
Polanco's hot - Maggs's hot - Nate's hot - Mike's hot
 
Ole! Ole!  It's been good times for the Tigers as they
live it up in the friendly confines of Comerica Park. 
Detroit is in the midst of a streak where they've won
eight of their last nine games, including the last
five in a row.  Six of those wins have come against
teams with winning records.  The key to the success
has been timing.  When the offense has been lacking
(like the 1-0 win in KC or even the win tonight) the
pitching has been stellar.  And when the pitchers have
struggled the offense has produced enough runs to get
the job done.  The reward for the good play is... the
Tigers get to play more teams with winning records! 
The schedule ahead isn't getting much easier, but
currently it seems the Tigers are up to any challenge.
Rodney looked dynamite tonight but I'd like to see the
bullpen step it up a notch.
 
New Subscribers...

Chris "10-Apple" Rusho
Paul "Shakes" Klozik

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Week of 8/17 - 8/23
 
Record:  5-0  W-WWW-W
 
Undy-Five-Hundy:  Thanks to the mega slide that the
Tigers endured in the early part of the month, this
current hot streak only has the index back down to
one.  Don't get me wrong; I'm definitely thankful for
the wins.  Now the Tigs are back to the mysterious
situation where they find it extremely difficult to
win games.  The Wild Card is still a pipe dream, but
the Tigers do get to play Oakland and Cleveland a lot
here in the next couple of weeks.  The best way to
catch a team in the standings is to beat them...
straight up (see Toronto).  
 
Up Next for the Tigers...

August 24-25  Oakland
August 26-28  @ Boston
August 29-31  @ Cleveland
Note:  no off-days until the 8th of September
 
AL Central Standings...

CWS  75 47 -
CLE  70 56 7
MIN  67 58 9.5
DET  61 62 14.5
KCR  40 83 35.5
 
Tigers Division...

STL  79 47 -
|
TOR  63 62 15.5
SDP  62 63 16.5    (leads NL West)
DET  61 62 16.5
MIL  62 64 17
CHC  61 65 18
BAL  60 64 18
 
AL Wild Card  (BOS, CWS, ANA leading divisions)

CLE -  
NYY -  
OAK 1 
MIN 2.5
 
NL Wild Card  (ATL, STL, SDP leading divisions)

HOU -
PHI 0.5
FLA 1
WAS 2
NYM 2
(NL games still being played tonight...)
 
Tigers News and Notes:  The Tigers placed Carlos
Guillen on the 15-day DL with a sore right knee.  To
take his place they recalled Carlos Pena.  The move to
recall Pena has worked very nicely (see below).

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Tiger of the Week...
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Steroid testers are currently on the way to the Motor City to get a urine sample (or whatever sample they use) from Carlos Pena. Pena returned to the Tigers' lineup on Friday and promptly hit two home-runs. A left-hander started for Toronto on Saturday, so Pena was out of the starting lineup. Back in the mix on Sunday, Pena blasted another homer and he completed his triumphant return with two more home-runs and a double on Tuesday. Carlos knocked in all four runs in Tuesday's win over Oakland. He has provided the spark that has kept the Tigers on a hot streak. This is not all too surprising when you consider Pena's history in August, but for now Pena has earned himself a lineup spot (but not at the expense of Chris Shelton; Pena DHed Tuesday night). With Carlos Guillen and Rondell White on the DL, Pena's offense has been a huge help.

Honorable Mentions:  Nate Robertson (16IP 3ER 4H 11K
in his last two starts) and Craig Monroe.

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Who Stole Cobb's Number???
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As I watched the Tigers/Red Sox game on ESPN Wednesday
afternoon, the announcers (Gary Thorne and somebody
else, along with Steve Phillips) were commenting on
different aspects of Comerica Park.  After showing the
ferris wheel they switched to the statues in
left-center field.  When they reached Cobb, Thorne
exclaimed that somebody must have stolen Cobb's
number.  We Tiger fans know that Cobb didn't wear a
number (can't remember if it was Kapler or Karim
Garcia that went number-less in the finale at The
Stadium) and it sounded like Thorne was genuine with
his question.  Steve Phillips was able to enlighten
the audience why there was no number beneath the
statue.  If Thorne really didn't know then they did a
pretty good job of covering that up, but I'm not
convinced that the whole routine was a joke.  I'm sure
Gary is happy that the NHL is back.  On the whole,
though, I think that Thorne is a great play-by-play
announcer.

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Poll Question...
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Which would you rather watch, and why?  
 
1.  A Lions pre-season game or a Tigers game in August
 
2.  A neutral pre-season game or a neutral baseball
    game in August that contains at least one
    contender.
 
3.  A WNBA game or Fishing (note: if you choose
    Fishing then you would have to get up early on
    Saturday to watch it).
 
4.  NASCAR or Golf.

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Game Linescores...
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August 17:  Boston 5 - Detroit 6
Starters:  BOS: Wells 4IP - DET: Bonderman 6.1IP
BOS  011 000 201  5 13 1
DET  500 010 00X  6 14 0
W: Bonderman (14-9)
L: Wells     (9-6)
S: Rodney    (5)
 
August 18:  no game scheduled...
 
August 19:  Toronto 5 - Detroit 9
Starters:  TOR: Bush 2.2IP - DET: Maroth 6.2IP 
TOR  000 130 010  5 12 1
DET  022 320 00X  9 12 0
W: Maroth  (11-11)
L: Bush    (2-7)
S: Dingman (3)
 
August 20:  Toronto 2 - Detroit 3   F/13
Starters:  TOR: Chacin 7IP - DET: Johnson 8IP
TOR  100 010 000 000 0  2  5 0
DET  100 010 000 000 1  3 11 1
W: German  (4-0)
L: Batista (5-4)
 
August 21:  Toronto 6 - Detroit 17
Starters: TOR: McGowan 4.1IP - DET: Douglass 6.1IP
TOR  000 000 501   6 11 1
DET  720 033 20X  17 15 1
W: Douglass (5-2)
L: McGowan  (1-1)
 
August 22:  no game scheduled...
 
August 23:  Oakland 1 - Detroit 4
Starters:  OAK: Haren 7.1IP - DET: Robertson 8IP
OAK  000 000 100  1  2 0
DET  000 103 00X  4 10 1
W: Robertson (6-10)
L: Haren     (10-10)
S: Rodney    (6)

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Readers Write In...
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John "Winthrop" O'Toole
 
Hi Matt:
 
Your Uncle Denny and I went to see two Tiger-Red Sox
games this past week.  We were there Tuesday night for
the 10-7 loss and Wednesday's 6-5 win. Had a great
time.  Uncle Paul and Aunt Stubby joined us for the 
Tuesday night game and we stayed with them that night.
 
Hope all is well.  Sure do enjoy receiving the Weekly.
They are always good, but especially when the team
has won 6 out of 7.  It's nice to read about wins
instead of losses for a change.
 
Uncle John

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Steve "Stone" Sprague
 
Who would I boo louder?  For me that's an easy
question.  Kenny Rogers.  Rafael Palmeiro has an
excuse, not the I didn't know excuse, but rather 
the "I was trying to help my team."  Think about it,
steroids make you stronger, make you bounce back from
injury quicker, and seem to give you a late career
power surge.  If Raffy isn't taking the steroids for
years, if it turns out he has indeed used them that
long, then his calculated risk turned out okay.
He hit lot's of homers, never went on the disabled
list and in the end only cost his team ten games of
service.
 
Rogers on the other hand is a hot head and a bully. 
He attacked to cameramen for just doing their job. 
Then he came close to attacking another cameraman as
he was turning himself in for attacking the prior two.
Throw in the fact that he trashed a dugout water
cooler, breaking a bone in his hand in the process,
and then undoubtedly made one of the batboys clean up
after his temper tantrum and you have a mane who
really deserves to be booed.
 
Please note, I am not defending Raffy's decision to
use steroids.  Steroids are illegal.  Baseball
apparently thought it didn't need a testing policy
for steroids just like they don't need one to make
sure that players aren't killing people either.  I
would boo Raffy very loudly if given the chance, I
just would boo Rogers louder.

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Andy "Kin Korn" Karnitz
 
What's up with Carlos- freakin'- Pena?!
That is all.

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Toolie's Trashtalk...
 
Oh man it's been a good while since we've had a week
like this to enjoy.  After dipping to a season-worst
eight games under five-hundy the Tigers are back to
within a game.  They'll have to come up with a sweep
of Oakland if they want to go into Fenway with a
winning record.  The road trip ahead is a long one. 
The Tigers make stops on Boston, Cleveland, and
Chicago for ten games from hell.  
 
It's too bad the trip doesn't start in Chicago.  After
dominating the league for most of the season, the
White Sox are slumping and have fallen behind the
Cardinals for best record in the bigs.  Cleveland is
just seven games back in the Central, making things
slightly interesting again.  Chicago will, in all
likelyhood, win the Central.  They're not looking
sharp of late, but it's a long season and they are a
solid team.  The loss of Scott Podsednik hasn't helped
them, but with the pitching they have they should
rebound soon (after they play D-Town, of course).
 
Thank goodness we are getting a shot at Oakland while
they're slumping!  The Tigers rolled into the bay when
the A's were red-hot and our boys got swept right out
of town.  This time around it's the other way around. 
The Tigers are coming off a sweep of Toronto and the
A's just lost two of three to the Royals, snapping
KC's nineteen game losing streak in the process. 
Hopefully the Bengals can return the hospitality that
they were shown in the Oaktown (any issue where you
can drop a Hammer reference is a good one).

One player that I have taken a liking to is Toronto rookie pitcher Gustavo Chacin (pronounced shah-seen). Apparently Corey Hart is cool again as Chacin wears his sunglasses even at night. I think he bears a slight resemblance to Pudge, though the photo I've attached doesn't show it that well. Of course, I don't know what he looks like with his glasses off, so...

Rogers definitely deserves to be booed louder than
Palmeiro.  His actions were those of a bully, and
those types of reactions should be controlled by now. 
Palmeiro deserves to be booed as well, but I'd rather
play with Palmeiro than Rogers.  Kenny didn't come off
as contrite during his apology either.  
 
The final two games of the Oakland series will see
Kirk Saarloos vs. Jeremy Bonderman on Wednesday and
then Rich Harden vs. Mike Maroth in the day game on
Thursday.  The matchups seem to favor Detroit on
Wednesday and Oakland on Thursday.  In Oakland,
however, Saarloos had a great game and Harden didn't
pitch his best.  You just never know in baseball.
 
Uncle John, great to hear about your night-day
experience.  Too bad that the Sox had to spoil things
on Tuesday, though I'm sure that Ortiz made Denny
happy.  Darned Red Sox.
 
See y'all next week.
 
I'm out...






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