Saturday, April 08, 2006

Verlander Shuts Down Rangers

So many things have gone right for the Tigers so far this year, that it is hard to figure out what to get most excited about each night. In tonight’s 7-0 victory over the Texas Rangers, the amazing Chris Shelton went 3 for 4 including two triples to raise his season numbers to: .700/.727/1,750. Curtis Granderson got two hits including his second home run of the season and Ordonez added two singles as the red hot Tiger offense continued to pile up runs.

But the big story tonight was Justin Verlander who pitched 7 innings allowing just 2 hits and 2 walks while striking out 7. Verlander had all his pitches working tonight – 98 MPH fastball, brilliant curve and solid change-up – and all were thrown with excellent control. Tonight, he looked like everything he has been built up to be. It was quite an exciting performance, the kind of game that makes you believe that the 5-0 Tigers could possibly be for real.

Minor League Notes

Highly touted 19 year old Cameron Maybin had two doubles and is now 4 for 9 in his first two professional games. His performance helped Western Michigan beat Fort Wayne 4-1.

Wilken Ramirez had a home run and double in Lakeland’s 8-7 loss to Tampa.

Virgil Vazquez pitched 6 innings of 1 run 3 hit ball as Erie lost to Harrisburg 3-1.

Chad Durbin pitched 6 scoreless innings in Toledo’s 10 inning 1-0 loss to Charlotte. Durbin is not really a prospect but he could see the Tigers bullpen later in the season.

3 comments:

  1. You mentioned in a previous post that you'd rather see Thames getting at bats than DY. I gotta say, Monroe is looking worse than Dmitri right now. Plus, Dmitri is a switch hitter, while Monroe and Thames are both righties in the righty lineup. In my opinion, Thames should play in place of Monroe. At the very least Slaught could make Monroe take at least one pitch per game.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry, I meant to add comments relevant to this post, but they got lost in my disappointment in Craig so far.

    Anyway, why are we such a terrible base-stealing team? In five games, we have 1 SB and 4 CS. Tonight, Polanco got picked off for the second game in a row. Giving away those outs will really bite us when we eventually have a close game.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Monroe usually gets off to a slow start but I understand your point. A lot of people like Monroe but I don't think there is a big difference between Monroe and Thames.

    They are off to a bad start stealing bases but it's only 5 games so I don't know if it means anything. Last year,
    they stole 66 bases and got caught 28 times which is not bad.

    ReplyDelete

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