Tigers Weekly 2005 Season

Week 3: 4/19/05 - 4/25/05

The Chicago White Sox are out of the gate fast and
have a sizeable lead in the Central division.  This
week they came into Detroit and won the first two
rounds of the nineteen game season series with the
Tigers.  The Tigers got a good look at why the Sox
have been successful.  The D was soundly whipped in
the first game and were out-small-balled in the
second.  The team must have learned from the latter
game, as they rebounded to take two close contests
from the Twins (over the span of four days, thanks to
SNOW in late April).  The win on Friday snapped a nine
game losing streak to Minnesota.  Closer Troy Percival
got his first two save opportunities against the
Twins.  He blew the first but converted the second.
 
This week the AL Central tour continues as the squad
visits the Jake and U.S. Cellular field for the first
time in 2005.  Enjoy seeing the Central teams while
you can...the next series against one won't come along
until June 21 when the Tigers return to the Metrodome.
 
 
New Subscribers...
 
Matt "Mel" Kuiper
 
WELCOME!!!

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Week of 4/19 - 4/25
 
Record:  2-3  LLLW--W
 
Undy-Five-Hundy:  This week was a lot like last week
in that it started with a losing streak and ended with
a winning streak of one less game.  That puts the
Tigers on the wrong side of five-hundy for the week
and raises the index to two.  There's a lot of season
to play, and if the Tigers can win these two series on
the road, they will be at least even as they go up
against the rest of the league.
 
Up Next for the Tigers...

4/26 - 4/28  @ Cleveland
4/29 - 5/1   @ Chicago White Sox
5/2  - 5/5     Boston 
 
AL Central Standings...

CWS  16 4  -
MIN  10 8  5
DET  8 10  7
CLE  8 11  7.5
KCR  5 14  10.5
 
Tigers News and Notes:  No moves on the major league
roster this week.  The Tigers claimed pitcher Adam
Peterson from the Diamondbacks (waivers) and sent him
to Erie.

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Tiger of the Week...
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Before last season began the Tigers traded Ramon Santiago to the Seattle Mariners for Carlos Guillen. Guillen had a career year in 2004, but many wondered if that season was merely a fluke. So far that doesn't appear to be the case. Carlos is currently hitting .400 and is one of six Tigers hitting over .300. After years of mediocre shortstops the Tigers have a guy in Guillen that should provide solid offense and defense for a good amount of time. If he keeps this up over the next month and a half he will certainly make his second consecutive All-Star game. You can bet that this time he will see the field.

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Toolie on the Air...
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This Saturday night I backed up my cry to "Support
Ferny" and listened to "Tony the One and Only" on the
Sports Lounge radio program.  The program, which is
based in Las Vegas, is accessible through
http://www.klav1230.com and airs late Saturday night
(2AM Eastern Time Sunday morning to be exact).  This
particular Saturday night Tony was bashing Detroit for
their selection of Mike Williams in the first round of
the NFL draft and declared his "dislike" for Detroit
(I'm not sure how much of that was show).  I lost the
feed around 2:30AM so I thought I'd call the show.  I
ended up talking with Tony for about five minutes
about crappy old Lions (we could have talked a lot
longer on this topic).  He certainly knew a good deal
about Lions history (maybe Ferny was coaching him or
something!).  The funniest part was when we discussed
the contract the Lions gave Mitchell and I was able to
work in a bit about the Higginson contract.  
 
The show was fun to listen to and different than any
other sports show that I've heard before.  It
basically covers the whole sports world, as Las Vegas
doesn't really have any teams of their own.  I loved
the constant references to casinos and pit bosses and
the like.  I wish that it was on earlier...I won't be
able to go deep every night to catch it. 
 
Also, I won a free T-Shirt on Monday from 94.9 WMMQ by
correctly guessing that the first song that they were
going to play that started with "O" was "Ob-la-di
Ob-la-da" by The Beatles.  I also introduced the song
and welcomed the audience to the "O"s.  WMMQ is
playing their entire library (classic rock) in
alphabetical order and they randomly have a "guess
what's next" contest and I was lucky enough to come up
with the right song first this time.  If you live in
range check it out.  It's pretty cool.

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Poll Question...
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Besides your primary team that you support, is there
another team in MLB that you pull for?  If so, how did
you come to root for that team?  
 
As for me, I really don't have a secondary team,
though I am considering adopting a national league
team...perhaps the Reds or the Nationals.  I will be
seeing the Nationals later this summer as part of the
Claus Baseball Parks Tour v2005.  I like the Reds as a
historic organization that isn't a big spender and
thus I could start rooting for them without being
accused of bandwagonning (bandwagon is now a verb).  I
used to pull for the Cubs when I was little (the
success of both the Tigers and Cubs at that time did a
lot to make little Toolie a baseball fan) but haven't
really been too keen on them over the last ten years. 
 
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Game Linescores...
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April 19:  Detroit 4 - Baltimore 8
Starters:  DET: Robertson 3.1IP - BAL: Ponson 6IP
DET  000 013 000  4  9 2
BAL  041 120 00X  8 12 0
W: Ponson    (2-1)
L: Robertson (0-2)
 
April 20:  Chicago White Sox 9 - Detroit 1
Starters:  CWS: Garland 8IP - DET: Ledezma 5IP
CWS  300 033 000  9 12 1
DET  001 000 000  1  5 1
W: Garland (3-0)
L: Ledezma (1-1)
 
April 21:  Chicago White Sox 4 - Detroit 3
Starters:  CWS: Buehrle 7IP - DET: Bonderman 6.1IP
CWS  100 001 200  4 9 0
DET  011 010 000  3 7 0
W: Buehrle   (3-1)
L: Bonderman (2-2)
S: Takatsu   (5)
 
Unbelievable.  Chalk this one up to poor
decision making on the part of Trammell.  In the
seventh inning the Sox scored two runs on a single
after a sac bunt that put runners on second and third
with one out.  Skip ahead to the  bottom of the eighth
where the Tigers have first and second with nobody
down and Pudge batting.  He squares around on the
first pitch and it's a ball.  The count goes 2-0 and
they have Pudge swing away!!!  In this situation, you
need to get those runners over.  Guillen had tried to
sacrifice Inge to second, but couldn't get it down (he
ended up working a single).  So Tram was willing to
sacrifice with Guillen (2 for 2 with a walk at that
time) to get a man on second but he wasn't willing to
sacrifice Pudge to get two runners in scoring position
for Dmitri!  Pudge flied out to shallow center and
Dmitri hit into a double play.  There would have been
no double play possibility if they had executed the
sacrifice.  The worst part was that Chicago gave them
the fricking blueprint in the seventh inning, but
Trammell couldn't resist that 2-0 count that Pudge
had.  A questionable decision.  Not the right time to
have him swinging away.  These kinds of moves lose
games.
 
April 22:  Minnesota 4 - Detroit 5  F/10
Starters: MIN: Silva 7IP - DET: Maroth 6IP
MIN  000 200 101 0  4  8 1
DET  102 000 010 1  5 11 0
W: Percival   (1-1)
L: Mulholland (0-1)
 
April 23:  game postponed due to snow
 
April 24:  game postponed due to snow
 
April 25:  Minnesota 4 - Detroit 6
Starters:  MIN: Radke 6.1IP - DET: Johnson 6.2IP
MIN  002 000 200  4  6 2
DET  300 000 21X  6 14 0
W: Farnsworth (1-0)
L: Rincon     (2-1)
S: Percival   (1)
 
Note:  This game was a makeup for Saturday.

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Readers Write In...
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Matt "Williams" Bednar
 
I come your way via Jason Boddu... and despite being a
Dodgers fan this is always a good read.  I see your
send out times (usually in the early AM) and 
sympathize with you... I do something very similar
during the college football season for a select group
of friends and I know how tiring it can be to get a
"deadline" out in time.
 
Keep it up from one Matt to another-
 
Matt

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Dan "Berol" Kemp
 
The worst venue I played on was our home field
high-school soccer field.  It wasn't level so one side
of 
the field was noticeablely higher than the other side
of the field.  Worse yet was that the field wasn't a 
real rectangle.  A developing housing area moved in
and the road to the houses cut off one corner of 
the field.  An overhead of the field looked sort of
like this:
 
    ____
  /     |
/       |
|      |
|_____|
 
My keyboard skills just went next-level!
 
Other random comments in outline form:

I.  My passionate hatred for Barry Bonds has grown
even deeper.  His public and private comments 
since the off-season have confimred that not only is
he arrogant, but that he is an idiot as well. 

  A.  He took a "cream" but he didn't know it was
steroids.  Right.  Did he think that he was putting
Icy Hot on his arms?  Maybe the stuff he rubbed on his
chest was Vicks Vapo-Rub?  Except he didn't have a
cold and all of a suddent he got huge.  Whatever.

  B.  It's okay that Barry took steroids and cheated
the fans.  Really, it is.  At least, it is according
to Barry because the media lies about him all the
time.  So, in order to make up for it, Barry cheats. 
Sweet dude.

  C. Barry thinks that he will get TONS of
'persecution' as he chases Babe Ruth's all-time HR
record because Barry is black.  Nice.  I always like
when people play the race card because it backs their 
argument with so much substance.  Nevertheless, he
shows that he is a complete moron because:

      1.  Babe Ruth doesn't have the HR record        
          anymore, Sherlock.
      2.  THE MAN WHO HAS THE HR RECORD IS BLACK!
 
May you have transmission trouble at 5pm on the
freeway while you're on the way home from BALCO,
Barry.
 
II.  If you use Macs, or if you're forced to use them
at work like I am, they do have this slick little 
program called iCal.  It's basically just a scheduler
that you can set reminders with, etc.  The best part
is that you can download pre-made events calenders
into it such as Sports events.  I use it to download 
the schedules for the NL Central and to remind myself
to listen to the games with MLB radio while I'm at 
work.  Not bad for a Mac product.  Here's a link:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ical/library/
 
III.  XM radio is broadcasting all the baseball games
as part of it's service this year.  Has anybody given 
this a try?  If so, write in and let us know what you
think.  I thought about it, but since I'm tied to a 
computer for most of the day, I decided to pay $10 for
MLB radio instead of $10 a month for XM.  In any case,
I'm curious to know how it is.  Do they:

  A.  Broadcast the game twice, one for each team's
      announcers
  B.  Only have home field announcers or 
  C.  Does XM have their own "unbiased" people at each
      game?
 
Later,
 
Dan

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Toolie's Trashtalk...
 
The Tigers aren't making too many friends around the
division lately.  Magglio Ordonez has been waging a
war of words with White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen.  
 
Said Magglio:  "We never clicked, even when we played
together.  I don't consider him my friend. I have
nothing to say. I don't want to see him. I don't want
to talk to him. He's my enemy. Even if he talks to me
and tries to apologize, I won't accept it."
 
Said Ozzie:  "He's a piece of [dirt].  He thinks he's
got an enemy? No, he's got a big one. He knows I can
[mess] him over in a lot of different ways.   He
better shut ... up and just play for the Detroit
Tigers. Why do I have to go over and even apologize to
him? Who ... is Magglio Ordonez? What did he ever do
for me? He didn't do [anything] for me. But he said
I'm his enemy -- he knows me. Tell him he knows me,
and he can take it how he wants to take it."
 
I'm assuming that Ozzie was a little more vulgar than
what these quotes present.  Holy smokes!  What ever
happened between these two?  If anyone has a scoop on
this please It will be interesting to see how this all
plays out.  Ordonez will not be in the lineup this
week at Chicago, but he should be back by the time the
White Sox come up again on the schedule.  If Ordonez
gets plunked at all, this could break out like
Tigers/White Sox back in the days of Dean Palmer and
Robert Fick.  
 
I hate the White Sox.

Monday the Tigers staged a late inning rally to sweep what turned into a two game series with the Twins. In the eighth inning, Ivan Rodriguez was intentionally walked by Twins reliever J.C. Romero. The two enchanged words as Rodriguez walked to first. Later, Nook Logan stole third and scored on a bad throw by the catcher. Rodriguez ended up on second base and that's when things escalated. Romero and Pudge jawed some more and the benches (and bullpens) cleared. No real fighting broke out however. Here is a link. Check out Percival's picture... he looks goofy at best.

http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/
news/article.jsp?ymd=20050425&content_id
=1028142&vkey=news_det&fext=.jsp&c_id=det

I don't mind if the Tigers get a little bad blood going between the top teams in the Central. Maybe some extra heat will keep the club on their toes throughout the season.

I think the Tigers will have a nice season. Their lineup is about as loaded as a lineup can get. Success is going to be about pitching. Both the rotation and bullpen have their question marks. Bonderman, Maroth, and Johnson have been solid of late, but Robertson and Ledezma have struggled. The bullpen pitchers are surrendering leads like they are all from France. Even in the two wins this week the bullpen blew a lead in the last three innings. The three at the back end (Farnsworth, Urbina, and Percival) can never seem to put it together in the same game. It's still early, so we'll see what the story is at the end of May.

Tigers are 8-10, Yankees are 8-11.  At least one
person named George is not happy.  
 
Berol, I share your misery on poor soccer fields.  One
season our home field had its own beach.  It was
hilarious to hear visiting teams complain about it. 
Nothing wrong with a little soccer in the sand!
 
While in the checkout line at Meijer I glanced at a TV
magazine that had a fellow named Patrick Dempsey on
the cover.  The caption said something about "read the
past of TV's newest hunk."  Hunk?  I didn't need to
read the article to recognize Dempsey as "The Ronster"
from "Can't Buy Me Love" or the main character from
"Loverboy."  While I love both of those 80's movies I
find it hard to see Dempsey described as a hunk.  This
gives me hope.  
 
I'm still looking to attend my first game of the
season.  I'm shooting for the May 5th game against the
Red Sox.  I was hoping to catch a game this Saturday,
but Mother Nature put a stop to that.  What was up
with that snowstorm?  Great timing...and it was on the
weekend.  One day it's 80 degrees and a week later I'm
worrying about sliding off the road into a ditch. 
Hopefully that was the last of it.  
 
Big week for the Tigers.  Four wins on the road trip
would be mighty nice.  Until next week...
 
I'm out.
 





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