Hard Fought Series With A's; Verlander Dominates

We all know we are clueless as to what to expect from our Tigers this year. I personally feel like I don't see a drive in this team most nights. Just not sure what the attitude is although I hear all the time that they are all very close and have a good time playing together. Just seems like they aren't producing so often and that they get a bit preoccupied when they seem to put together some tough wins.

The A's gave them all they could handle. It really was an amazing success story for these Oakland A's too. Starting 3 rookie pitchers, an MLB playoff first, they all put up fantastic outings and held their own the whole series. Giving up very few ERs while trying to figure out the fantastic pitching of the Tigers.

The A's played hard and had what I thought a winning formula against us. With us not hitting like we have struggled with for a month at least it was tough to see us taking this series. They have far superior defense, while we have very bad defense. The writing on the wall was there for defense to play an important role in these close games. Instead of it costing the Tigers the series it probably cost the A's who had some very costly mistakes on defense. Coco Crisp especially made some huge errors, but the errors they made seemed to get taken advantage of more than ours.

Then we have them as a team of guys that can hit the ball out of the park all through the order. They never really threatened in that regard except to take out Valverde, or Benoit with some ugly innings. Valverdew blew a 3-1 lead in Game 4 to lose the clinching game. Valverde is a FA at the end of the year and I'd rather see him doing drywall anchors than re-sign with Detroit.

It all came down to starting pitching though and the Tigers rolled through the series with quality starts in 4/5 games and might have gotten 5 if the questionable call of Leyland removing Scherzer early in Game 5. Verlander after giving up a lead off HR to Coco Crisp to start the series went didn't give up a run the next 7 IP in Game 1 and pitched a CG SHO in Game 5. Racking up 22 strikeouts in 16 IP. They never had a chance in Game 5.

Now we wait for Game 5 of NY vs. BAL. Baltimore wins and we get home field. NYY win we go on the road. All 4 Division Series went 5 games this year. Another MLB 1st. So we aren't the only one that won't have our #1 in Game 1. The Tigers rotation, however is probably much deeper than anyone else we will play this year, and this is our true strength.

Tigers Back in 1st, again...

Shockingly, the Tigers tied Chicago once again for the division lead last night, and even more shocking, they won the game tonight. Something they tend to always do after getting into the top spot is to lose the next day and go on a mini-slumps. Tonight they actually won, and as of the 6th inning Chicago was still tied so they could take over 1st place for good tonight. Might just make the playoffs and keep Raburn from his new job installing best patio flooring for a couple more weeks.

So...Do the Tigers even deserve to make the playoffs?

If playing Chicago was the only test absolutely. If winning games you should win was the test they absolutely don't deserve to be there.

Only reason they are in the running still is because we have the worst division leader in baseball. Chicago hasn't taken advantage of us losing to every scrub team we face. Losing to Chicago yesterday was basically a snapshot of our season though.

Our defense was never going to be called good this year, but it has ended up costing us far more games than I expected. When the bats that are supposed to make up for it don't produce like they haven't been it is greatly magnified.

Al Alburquerque was called upon to shut the White Sox down with men on 2nd and 3rd with a one run lead and no outs after only pitching 3 IP this year. He went on to wlak his first batter to load them up. Then got a fly out that was deep enough for most guys to tag up, but Dunn didn't test it. Then he gets the double play ball and we might just get out of this inning...no. Alex Rios made a great slide to make Infante have a tougher throw, but he had a chance, and Fielder whiffed on it completely as the ball ended up bouncing between his legs even. The ball went into the dugout and the Sox scored the two runs needed to take the lead. That put the Tigers 3 games back instead of one with just 15 games to go.

OF course they face the league leading pitching staff next in Oakland so you expect the no hitting team to continue right? Not at all! The Tigers do the opposite of what you'd expect once again on the back of 2 Miggy "MVP" Cabrera HRs (one a grand slam) and 6 RBIs to put up 12 runs on the best pitching staff in baseball. Chicago beat KC 3-2 so we gained nothing.

Been saying this forever, but it actually happened last night. Put Quentin Berry in the lineup to give this team another jolt. He has played very little since Dirks got back. Boesch is out there blowing games for us every night while we are playing with no heart. Berry was in last night and I'm telling you that he gives this team energy regardless of him not being the best hitter around. I'd certainly rather see him in there than Boesch who ended 4 innings against Chicago Monday and had 3 KOs. Twice I believe the bases were loaded. That experiment should be over.

Speaking of other experiments we should end and send these guys to more deserving jobs like carpet cleaning raleigh nc, I do not want to see any of these guys ever again:

1. Raburn. Is this just the Tigers trolling us?
2. Don Kelly. Who cares if he can play mediocre defense at more than one spot.
3. Santiago. I know some people like this guy, but he has served his time here. Time to get new blood for this "role" he plays of mediocre defense and terrible hitting.
4. Delmon. This one I am 50/50 on. He's clearly an idiot. He hasn't had that great a year, but going into the season I was very high on him hitting 5th. He hasn't done well, BUT like last year has been pretty clutch when we needed RBIs. HE can't play LF and when VMart gets back he can't play DH so no reason to keep him here.
5. Peralta. What a disaster season for him. Very low end SS. Supposed to make it up with hitting, but he's having one of his years where he looked like a has been before we picked him up. This was actually what I expected when we traded for him so I'm not really surprised, but he has been awful.

I'm not going to get into the pitching. I have a feeling we'll try to get Sanchez back, but I'm undecided there. Our rotation has been good to great a lot of the time and they have pulled their weight the last couple months. The offense has blown this division. An offense that should be top 5 in the league.

If the Tigers Could Only Play the White Sox...

After the second straight time of sweeping the White Sox and taking 1st place, the Tigers go right back to their old tricks. Stop hitting, and losing to basement dwelling teams. A sweep of the White Sox was sandwiched by getting swept by Kansas City and losing 2.3 vs. the Indians. Yet, coming into today's game the Tigers are miraculously only 2 games behind Chicago for 1st place again. Tonight they lead in the 6th 3-1 so they could conceivable be 1 game back after today, which is astonishing considering that they are scoring about 2 runs a game the last 2 weeks unless they are playing Chicago. This is one of the more frustrating Tigers teams that's for sure. The starting pitching and the bullpen have been fantastic lately. All except the guy you expect to be. Justin Verlander. Scherzer, Porcello, and Sanchez have all pitched quality starts the last 4-5 times out. Sanchez gave up 3, 1, 1, and 1 ER in his last 4 starts and has ONE WIN! Porcello lost a game to a guy wit and ERA close to 6 when he gave up 1 ER 1-0 after hthis scrub went 8 scoreless. We ahve no chance at the Wildcard this year so it's division, or bust to be buying famous cigars online this year. They have a cakewalk schedule most of the way too playing KC, Cleveland, and Minnesota. All sub .500 teams. Couldn't ask for a better situation. Of course they SHOULD be up about 5 games right now playing these poor teams and Chicago losing too.