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Tune in to Fox Sports Detroit this week to see the
champions play ball! That's right, folks... I
guarantee that you will be seeing champions...ok, of
the International League. This week the Toledo Mud
Hens defeated the Indinapolis Indians to win the AAA
title. With the playoffs completed the Tigers
welcomed the pride of Toledo up to the big
leagues...where those poor guys now have to play for
the Tigers. After a hot start to this week the Tigers
are in the midst of a six-game slide. As baseball
fans we should be thankful that the other races are
hot as can be, for the Tigers are the second-least
interesting piece of programming on TV(they barely
trail the WNBA finals for that distinction).
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Week of 9/14 - 9/20
Record: 2-6 WWLLLL(LL)
Undy-Five-Hundy: It's getting tough to look at the
standings. The Tigers locked up another losing season
this week as they stand seventeen games undy with only
eleven games left to play. This time around the
Tigers didn't find the cure in playing Kansas City.
Don't expect any love from the soon-to-be-visiting
White Sox, who are looking to avoid one of the worst
collapses in baseball history. I am hoping that the
Tigers can at least do the Indians the courtesy of not
getting swept.
Up Next for the Tigers...
September 21 @ Kansas City
September 22 no game scheduled...
September 23-25 Seattle
September 26-28 Chicago White Sox
AL Central Standings...
CWS 91 59 -
CLE 88 63 3.5
MIN 76 74 15
DET 67 84 24
KCR 51 99 39.5
Numbers in parentheses denote games back in division.
AL Wild Card (BOS, CWS, ANA leading divisions...)
CLE - (3.5)
NYY 0.5 (0.5)
OAK 4 (1.5)
NL Wild Card (ATL, STL, SDP leading divisions...)
HOU -
PHI 2 (6)
FLA 3 (7)
WAS 5 (9)
Tigers News and Notes: As noted earlier, a bunch of
Tigers have come up from Toledo since winning the
International League. Marcus Thames and pitchers Mark
Woodyard, Jason Grilli, and Jason Karnuth were brought
up at the conclusion of the series.
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Tiger of the Week...
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Sean Douglass started this year as a long shot in
Toledo. After tearing it up there, Douglass earned a
shot in the bigs. He's made the most of his shots
this season and he had turned in a nice week of
pitching. Douglass started on Wednesday but got a
no-decision after tossing six innings of four-hit (and
one walk) ball. On Sunday, he came on in relief of,
ironically, the long-relief man Matt Ginter to finish
the last 3.2 innings against the Angels. Douglass
faced twelve batters...one more than the minimum.
It's not clear whether Douglass will be with the club
next season (I'm expecting a big shake-up in the
rotation in the off-season). He'll definitely get a
good look in spring training.
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Love for Polanco...
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Thanks to Gilbert for bringing this article to my
attention. Jayson Stark of ESPN notes that Polanco
would be leading the AL batting race...if the American
League would only count his at-bats while with the
Phillies.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist
=stark_jayson&id=2161116
(EN: The above link no longer works)
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Poll Question...
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Just two weeks remain in the season and there are five
races left to be decided. They are...
AL East - BOS leads NYY by 0.5 games
AL Central - CWS leads CLE by 3.5 games
AL West - ANA leads OAK by 1.5 games
AL Wild Card - discussed above
NL Wild Card - discussed above
The Red Sox and Yankees will clash on the final
weekend of the season, as will the A's and the Angels.
The White Sox and Indians have four more meetings.
Who do you think will win each of these races?
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Game Linescores...
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September 14: Minnesota 2 - Detroit 4
Starters: MIN: Liriano 5IP - DET: Douglass 6IP
MIN 000 010 010 2 8 1
DET 002 000 02X 4 9 0
W: Dingman (2-2)
L: Rincon (6-5)
September 15: Detroit 8 - Anaheim 6
Starters: DET: Maroth 6IP - ANA: Colon 5IP
DET 001 340 000 8 12 0
ANA 200 112 000 6 8 1
W: Maroth (13-13)
L: Colon (19-7)
S: Dingman (4)
September 16: Detroit 6 - Anaheim 7 F/12
Starters: DET: Johnson 6IP - ANA: Lackey 7IP
DET 200 004 000 000 6 9 2
ANA 001 030 200 001 7 17 0
W: Escobar (3-2)
L: Darensbourg (1-1)
September 17: Detroit 1 - Anaheim 3
Starters: DET: Colon 0.2IP - ANA: E. Santana 8IP
DET 001 000 000 1 4 0
ANA 000 000 03X 3 4 0
W: E. Santana (9-8)
L: Spurling (3-3)
S: Rodriguez (37)
September 18: Detroit 3 - Anaheim 5
Starters: DET: Ginter 4.1IP - ANA: Byrd 6.2IP
DET 000 010 002 3 11 0
ANA 301 010 00X 5 11 0
W: Byrd (12-10)
L: Ginter (0-1)
S: Rodriguez (38)
September 19: Detroit 4 - Kansas City 10
Starters: DET: Bonderman 4.2IP - KCR: Wood 5.2IP
DET 100 102 000 4 5 0
KCR 300 231 01X 10 18 0
W: Wood (5-7)
L: Bonderman (14-13)
September 20
Game One: Detroit 4 - Kansas City 5
Starters: DET: Maroth 7IP - KCR: Howell 4IP
DET 020 020 000 4 9 3
KCR 300 100 001 5 11 0
W: MacDougal (4-5)
L: Dingman (2-3)
Game Two: Detroit 2 - Kansas City 4
Starters: DET: Robertson 7IP - KCR: Greinke 7IP
DET 000 010 100 2 7 1
KCR 111 010 00X 4 7 1
W: Greinke (5-16)
L: Robertson (6-15)
S: MacDougal (20)
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Readers Write In...
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Peter "Big 6 Big 8" Ciofani
I doubt Bonds will be as dominant. He's 41 and a year
layoff is a looooooooooooong time. I'm not sure he
will be as next year either. Age does funny things
after 40. Unfortunately I know first hand.
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Dallas "Boom Boom" Senters
most pitchers and managers will continue to wet
themselves when bonds is at the plate. the famous
plate discipline of bonds will get him a couple of
hits and a few walks. he continues to be a
poorer-than-adam-dunn left fielder, and will be a
liablity to the giants there. i would love to see him
flop in mammoth fashion, and retire before he gets to
babe ruth, much less hank aaron.
the indians lead the wild card! if the white sox were
to falter much at all in any other series the indians
could catch them...the indians play tampa and kansas
city (series which the SHOULD win) and they do still
have 6 games head-up with the southsidesox.
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Nick "Compassionate Conservative" Ciofani
I hate Barry, I'd throw at his head everytime he's up.
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"Dig" Dug Senters
Much to my content, and to that of my brother, I can
say with relative confidence that Barry Bonds will
never again be as dominant as he has been in recent
years. His injury, along with the continuing success
of players like Albert Pujols and Andruw Jones, will
reduce Bonds' status just enough.
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Toolie's Trashtalk...
I did a pretty good job watching the Tigers this week.
I think I actually squeezed in about three full
games. On the year, however, I have been a sub-par
Tiger fan. I have been to just three Tiger games in
person this season, and one of those was thanks to the
first game of the road-trip being a White Sox-Tigers
game. Also, sadly, I am 1-2 on the year. It doesn't
look promising that I'll see another game. I may be
able to sneak over to D-Town for one of those contests
against the White Sox. I'd love for our boys to
actually be a factor in this race with Cleveland.
I don't know what Pudge Rodriguez is complaining
about. Apparently he's been making some comments
putting Trammell in a negative light. Now I'll admit
that these times are frustrating, but Trammell isn't
out on the field swinging the bat. Players at this
level should be able to motivate themselves. I
haven't noticed any bad coaching decisions costing the
Tigers games lately. Pudge is hitting .280 this
season and he has knocked in just 50 runs. If Pudge
were having a season like last year (he hit .334 with
84 RBIs) then his criticism might carry a little more
weight. Consider that Trammell has had to deal with
no Magglio for half the season, a sub-par Pudge, only
81 games with Carlos Guillen, and having his stud
bullpen dealt or taken away by injury. While it's
true that every team has their story of why things
didn't work out, the Tigers weren't even picked to
contend this season. This collapse is not a good
sign, but for the Tigers to play .500 for 5/6 of the
season was pretty good, all things considered.
The four-game series with the White Sox will be how I
remember the end of the season. If the Tigers can at
least split the series I will be happy. It would be
truly delightful to see them sweep the Sox, but
judging by what we've seen lately, there isn't much
hope of that happening.
Quick hitting on foosball...
Lions looked like the Lions on Sunday
Steelers vs. Patriots this week should be phenomenal
MSU/ND game was amazing
Barry seems to be hitting home runs at a pretty decent
pace so far (he has three since coming back). I don't
see him having any trouble catching Ruth, but it will
be interesting to see how next year goes. I'll be
surprised if he breaks Aaron's record next season, and
don't expect me to praise the man if he does.
Houston looks to have the inside track on the NL Wild
Card. They play the Cubs six times, the Pirates
twice, and the lame-duck Cardinals twice. The
Phillies and Marlins, however, have several games
remaining against the Braves (who have yet to clinch
the East) and the Nationals (who would still like to
believe that they're in this race). The schedule
favors the 'stros, but that reasoning didn't exactly
hold last season (right, Cubs fans?).
Cleveland may catch the White Sox. The Tribe has
seven games left against the Royals and Devil Rays.
Their other four games are against Chicago. It will
really come down to whether Cleveland can win three of
their remaining games with Chicago. If they do that
then I think they will at least tie the Sox for the
Central. I just hope that both of these teams make
the playoffs, as that would keep either the Yankees or
Red Sox out.
If the White Sox miss out on the playoffs it will be
amazing. Here's an article from ESPN's Page 2 listing
some of the worst meltdowns in history.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=list/
collapses/050919
(EN: This link no longer works)
Two more issues of the Weekly to go! The Tigers are
sputtering at the finish line. Here's to hoping they
rebound like I rebounded from last week's cruddy
issue.
I'm out...
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Play Ball!
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