Todd Jones Fan Club

Since the majority of bandwagon Tigers fans tend to want Todd Jones to get a passport and move out of the country, I figured I'd see if I could find out if there was actually a Todd Jones Fan Club out there of any significance. Various searches have turned up just garbage sites that are nothing more than junk.

So...even though I tend to hear on a daily basis idiot talk show hosts say that Todd Jones is one of the Tigers' biggest problems even though he is 14 out of 14 in save opportunities on the year I am going to give him his props. I find it hard to believe these guys can call themselves fans.

3 Things you should know about Todd Jones if you are a fair-weather Tigers fan:

1. He is not Papelbon. He will rarely come in and strike out the side, or anyone for that matter most of the time. He throws strikes and gets ground balls, or forces a bad fly ball swing. HE gets the job done.

2. He always throws strikes. Even if you were to get the worst possible case for guys hitting against you, as long as you are throwing strikes you aren't likely to get lit up more than 1/3 of the time. With a 2-3 run lead do you really care if a guy gets a hit on you? Todd Jones doesn't and that brings us to point 3.

3. Todd Jones does not panic. Unlike many of the young fireball closers out there, who believe that they aren't supposed to ever see someone come into contact with their 100 MPH heater, Todd Jones does not panic when someone hits his low 90s fastball into the gap. It's just one base runner. He still throws strikes and gets the outs to finish the game. Balls of steel.

Todd Jones is known as the Roller Coaster. I'm sure most of you are all familiar with this. Of course when he does get a couple guys on you tend to panic. Todd Jones is right in his element with guys on base. He does not. He makes them put it into play and get themselves out. He isn't going to walk the winning run in.

I have heard quotes from Todd Jones that are classic. This is not word for word, but this tells you exactly how it is:

"When I come in to finish a game, just go into the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich. When you get back the game will be over one way or the other."

Again, it isn't pretty, but he gets the job done.

At this point I would rather have him than everyone's savior Joel Zumaya out there to close games. A guy who couldn't throw an off speed pitch for a strike to save his life. 100 MPH, or not, big league hitters can hit those a hell of a long way if they know that is the only pitch that is going to cross the plate.

So...Join the Todd Jones Fan Club. It doesn't have a website, or anything, but it does have this one post :).

Well...Zoom and Rodney Are Back

Being used in games at least. They aren't back by any means. Neither of them has had a whole lot of success since they have gotten back from their respective injuries. Rodney has been much worse of the two, but Zoom hasn't exactly been scaring anyone either.

Leyland to his word...er...nevermind. He said he wouldn't throw them right into the fire for their first appearances, yet both were thrown to the wolves in their initial appearances and failed miserably.

Rodney is walking guys like he never saw a strike zone before. Zoom does seem to have kept a lot of his velocity though. The couple times I have seen him out there he has hit the upper 90s, which is pretty encouraging considering that he hurt is pitching shoulder and there were doubts he could ever come close to triple digits again.

At least we are done with the west coast and the California wines for a bit. Hopefully these guys get some form back because if they are anything like they were in 2006, this team just got a whole lot better.