Tigers Weekly 2007 Season

Week 18: 8/24/07 - 8/30/07

On Friday night I was tired.  On Monday night I felt
great.  Wendesday night I was in despair.  Tonight I
don't know what to think.  

The Tigers won their first series in over a month this
week, taking three out of four from the Yankees at
home after dropping three of four in the Bronx.  The
series included a game that started around 11PM and
ended around 3:30AM, and a 16-0 tatooing in the finale
that had to remind the Yanks of their final playoff
game of a year ago.  

Then the Tigers went to Kansas City and ran into the
juggernaut Royals.  First The D hammered sixteen hits
for, drum roll please, three runs.  The next night
they produced zero runs, but they were able to avoid
the sweep Thursday behind a strong start by Jeremy
Bonderman.  

Unfortunately, the winning week wasn't enough to get
the Tigers going in the playoff hunt.  Cleveland looks
pretty charmed lately, as they've won a couple of
games in the late innings as part of a six-game
winning streak.  If the Tigers are going to make a
push for the playoffs, the time is now.  It's been a
long time since they had a good winning streak. 
Something tells me they're due.

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Week of 8/24 - 8/30

Record:  4-3  WLWWLLW

Up Next for the Tigers...

Aug. 31 - Sept. 2  @ Oakland
Sept. 3            no game scheduled...
Sept. 4-6          Chicago White Sox

AL Central Standings...

CLE  76 57  -
DET  72 62  4.5
MIN  67 66  9
KCR  59 73  16.5
CWS  57 77  19.5

AL Wild Card (BOS, CLE, ANA leading divisions)

NYY  75 59 -
SEA  73 59 1
DET  72 62 3

NL Wild Card (NYM, CHC, ARI/SDP leading divisions)

ARI/SDP -     (both still playing, loser leads WC)
PHI  2
LAD  3
ATL  4.5
COL  5

Tigers News and Notes:  With the September roster
expansion right around the corner, the Tigers were
still making plenty of moves.  Andrew Miller, who was
brought off the DL a week ago, was sent down to
Lakeland (A-ball), and Virgil Vasquez was recalled to
start Friday night in Oakland.  The shoulder of Gary
Sheffield finally landed him on the DL.  Taking his
place in the three-slot has been Timo Perez.  Jair
Jurrjens' dream-run has come to a pause, as he injured
his shoulder pitching against the Yankees.  Zach Miner
was called up to fill the bullpen slot that Chad
Durbin vacated when he took over for Jurrjens.  Durbin
will return to the bullpen, though, as the day off on
Monday will allow the Tigers to get by with one spot
starter (Vasquez on Friday).  Kenny Rogers may be back
by the time they need a fifth starter again.  ESPN.com
reports that Mike Hessman, Omar Infante, Jose
Capellan, and Yorman Bazardo will be brought up when
the rosters expand.  

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Tiger of the Week (not named Magglio)...
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I swear that Magglio Ordonez has made a case for
himself every week this season.  He still leads the
majors in batting average at .359 and consistently
comes up with clutch hits.  But this week I think some
of the Tigers bullpen deserves credit.  Much like
Voltron, none of these pitchers could really do enough
to win the honor themselves.  But Tim Byrdak, Jason
Grilli, Bobby Seay, Fernando Rodney, and Zach Miner
combined their powers and put together a pen
performance.  The bullpen had to be especially good on
Sunday, as Jair Jurrjens' start against New York was
cut short in the second inning.  The bullpen hasn't
been a bright spot this season, but with Zumaya and
Rodney back and pitching pretty well, the rest of the
bullpen can reassume their normal roles.  That should
take some of the pressure off the guys who aren't
quite cut out to pitch in the late innings in tight
games.  

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Schedule Analysis...
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Talking to Nick "The Greek" Ciofani on the phone the
other day, an interesting point was made.  Nick told
me that local Cleveland radio personalities had been
discussing that the Tribe has a much better schedule
this season than the Tigers.  Yes, the Indians are
still dealing with the snow-out and had to play some
of their home games in Milwaukee, but here is a look
at how Cleveland benefitted from a better schedule
than the Tigers.

In the following, a "+" means the Tigers played the
team more, and a "-" means the Indians played that
team more.  Games against all other clubs were equal
on the two teams' schedules.  

American League Teams...

SEA +3
TBD -3
NYY +2
ANA -2
TOR +1
BAL -1

National League Teams...

CIN -6
FLA -3
STL +3
NYM +3
MIL +3

As you can see, with the exception of the two extra
games which Cleveland plays against the Angels, every
imbalance favors the Indians.  Both New Yorks,
Seattle, Toronto, St. Louis, and Milwaukee are .500
ball clubs (St. Louis is close).  Cincinnati, Florida,
Tampa Bay, and  Baltimore are all pitiful.  To be a
little objective, though, Seattle wasn't expected to
be this good, so the AL comparison isn't outrageous. 
The NL was clearly in Cleveland's favor from the start
of the season.  

Further, the Tigers had to make five trips to play at
AL West parks, where the Indians made only four. 
Again, the Tribe had to deal with the weather early in
the season, so perhaps that all balances out.  

There's no way to make the schedules uniform for each
team within a division, so these variations are a fact
of life.  I just thought I'd point out the
differences.  If the Tigers pull this one out, they
can give themselves an extra pat on the back.  

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Poll Question...
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With a month to go in the season and the Tigers on the
outside looking in, which do you think will be the
fate of the Tigers?

Win AL Central
Win AL Wild Card
Miss Playoffs

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Game Linescores...
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August 24:  New York Yankees 6 - Detroit 9  F/11
Starters:  NYY: Clemens 5IP - DET: Miller 4.1IP
NYY  012 030 000 00  6 10 0
DET  202 200 000 03  9 11 1
W: Durbin (8-6)
L: Henn   (2-2)

August 25:  New York Yankees 7 - Detroit 2
Starters:  NYY: Wang 8IP - DET: Bonderman 5.2IP
NYY  201 004 000  7 10 0
DET  100 010 000  2  5 0
W: Wang      (15-6)
L: Bonderman (10-7)

August 26:  New York Yankees 4 - Detroit 5
Starters:  NYY: Hughes 6IP - DET: Jurrjens 1.1IP
NYY  010 300 000  4 8 1
DET  302 000 00X  5 4 0
W: Seay   (1-0)
L: Hughes (2-2)
S: Jones  (33)

August 27:  New York Yankees 0 - Detroit 16
Starters:  NYY: Mussina 3IP - DET: Verlander 7IP
NYY  000 000 000   0  0 1
DET  123 130 60X  16 20 0
W: Verlander (14-5)
L: Mussina   (8-10)

August 28:  Detroit 3 - Kansas City 6
Starters:  DET: Robertson 4.1IP - KCR: Bannister 6IP
DET  000 011 001  3 16 0
KCR  000 330 00X  6  6 0
W: Bannister (11-7)
L: Robertson (7-11)

August 29:  Detroit 0 - Kansas City 5
Starters:  DET: Miller 0.2IP - KCR: Greinke 4IP
DET  000 000 000  0 7 0
KCR  500 000 00X  5 8 0
W: Braun  (2-0)
L: Miller (5-5)
S: Riske  (4)

August 30:  Detroit 6 - Kansas City 1
Starters:  DET: Bonderman 7IP - KCR: Nunez 6.1IP
DET  010 040 100  6 13 0
KCR  000 100 000  1  6 0
W: Bonderman (11-7)
L: Nunez     (2-2)

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Readers Write In...
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Cortney "Mike" Schmitt

Hope Monroe helps the cubs!!!

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Dave "Achilles" Dixon

I attended Friday's marathon game.  After waiting 4
hours the game FINALLY started.  But by 11pm the beer
buzz was over for most fans.  I think at least half of
the crowd stayed til 4am.  15 family members and I
were stuck there all night because it was company
Tiger day and the we took buses that were required to
stay the duration!  Finally I convinced my 80-year-old
diehard fan Grandpa to head for the buses anyway at
the bottom of the 11th.....we saw Guillen's walk-off
just seconds before we were going to leave the
park...what a night!  Great finish to a game from
hell!

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Nic "Gilby" Gilbert

Courtesy of the glog from the CBS Sports Gamecast of
the 16-0 Tigers win over the Yankees:

"The Lions added a touchdown and an extra point to
make it 14-0 against the Jets. A bases-clearing double
by Inge added some more insult to the damage by the
Tigers."

... and then an anonomous glogger's comment

"The Tigers are now outscoring the Lions, 15-14."

I found both these comments rather amusing.

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From detroittigers.com

Historic indecision: Bobby Seay's win for the Tigers
on Sunday afternoon ended what been a historic stretch
that nobody noticed, if for no other reason than it
didn't stand out in the box score. 

The victory was Seay's first since Sept. 1, 2001, when
he was still a member of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He
had made 116 Major League appearances over the six
years since with neither a win nor a loss. According
to research on baseball-reference.com, that's the
longest such streak in at least the last 50 years. 

The longest active streak now belongs to Houston's
Trever Miller, who has made 68 appearances -- all this
season -- with no decision since earning a victory on
the final day of the 2006 regular season. He also had
an 87-game streak from May 26, 2004, to Aug. 13, 2005,
which ranks third-highest since 1957. Most of the
names on the list, not coincidentally, are
left-handers. But none besides Seay topped 100
appearances without a win or a loss.

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Toolie's Trashtalk...

As the season continues to shorten, I can't help but
feel that the Tigers are a tad snakebitten in 2007. 
Just when they have a nice win they go out the next
day and lay an egg.  Take, for instance, the 10th
inning win in Cleveland, the series opener in New
York, the late-show win over the Yankees on Friday,
and the 16-0 win on Monday.  Each of those games left
me feeling like the Tigers had turned the corner and
were on their way to winning ten of twelve.  Yet each
of those wins were followed by losses.  After getting
the monkey off their backs by taking a series they
went back to their losing ways by losing two of three
to Kansas City. 

The loss on Tuesday was amazing.  The Tigers scored
three runs on sixteen hits.  Tim "Stat Man" Kurkjian
of ESPN said that was the first time since 1959 that a
team had that many hits in a game and scored three or
less runs, and that the Tigers had outhit the Devil
Rays that evening... who had scored fifteen runs.  In
fact, they outhit every other team in baseball (29
teams) that night while outscoring only four of them.

On CBSSportsline I updated my profile to include my
favorite teams and also my despised teams.  It's cool,
now, that a little olde english D pops up next to
Detroit's name on all CBS pages.  It's even better
that next to the White Sox's name a little "thumbs
down" appears.  Tigers need to take revenge this week
for the sweep in early August.  Unreal that the White
Sox are in last place.  I hear that Ozzie Guillen went
on another one of his tirades.  I hope it doensn't get
him fired... Ozzie is about the only redeeming thing
about that organization.

Rod Allen quote of the week:  viewing a toddler
drinking from a cup "...and you know he's got some
juice up in there."

What to do with Brandon Inge?  The man is amazing at
third base, and he's atrocious at home plate.  He
leads the American League with 135 strikeouts and lags
in other categories like walks (42) and batting
average (.239).  Sometimes I wonder if it would be
better for Ryan Raburn to get starts at third base for
his bat.  But on the other hand, Inge always seem to
make some ridiculous play in a tight game and does
seem to have a penchant for walk-off homers.  Plus
he's a Tiger through and through.  Down the stretch,
though, I hope Inge's clutch situation plate
appearances are kept to a minimum.  Someone on a
message board replied to my Raburn point by saying we
could afford to have one hitter like that, which is
reasonable.  However, sometimes you have the feared
6-9 combo of Rabelo-Maybin-Inge-Santiago, like today,
and that .239 average becomes more of an issue.  

So this year the Tigers are on the opposite side of
the fence.  What has been the difference?  Last year
the Tigers finished with a team ERA of 3.84.  This
year?  4.69.  Detroit is hitting .285 as a team in
2007 and they finished 2006 at a .274 mark.  The extra
pop in the lineup has been nice, but there's no
substitute for great pitching.  Look at the Braves; 
they won a thousand straight division titles and often
had a weak-hitting lineup.  If the Tigers hope to
close the gap and get back to the post-season this
year and beyond, the pitchers will need to kick it up
a notch.  I think the club is in great shape for
future seasons.  Verlander and Bonderman are locks as
far as productive futures are concerened, and we've
seen good things from young hurlers like Miller and
Jurrjens.  2007 may be a hiccup year, but we can take
some comfort in that this isn't the last effort of an
aging organization.

The schedule is pretty favorable in September.  Three
more games with Seattle and three with the Indians...
other than that the Tigers need to take care of
business and get some help.  I would think they'll
need to play .666 ball this month to make the
playoffs.  Can they do it?

I'm out.
 





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