Monday, May 14, 2007

Matsuzaka shuts Down Tigers

I've been reading how internet Tigers fans are tired of hearing about Dice-K. Even Jim Leyland indicated he didn't want to hear anymore talk about Dice-K:
"I don't give a (expletive) about him," Leyland said. "I'm not getting into all that. I could give a (expletive) less. It's another pitcher. We're playing Boston. Obviously, he's an outstanding pitcher. He's a major league pitcher. And that's who we're facing".
After tonight, the Tigers and their fans are even more sick of Daisuke Matsuzaka as he pitched a complete game 6 hitter and the Red Sox beat the Tigers 7-1 in the opener of 4 game series at Fenway Park. Matsuzaka was very tough striking out 5, walking nobody and getting 16 ground ball outs.

The Tigers scored their only run when Curtis Granderson homered to right in the third inning. Magglio Ordonez is receiving a lot of attention for his great start, and deservedly so, but Granderson is quietly putting up some impressive power numbers himself. He has 12 doubles, leads the league with 5 triples, has 7 home runs and is second in the league to Ordonez with 24 extra base hits. He is also second in the league to Alex Rodriguez in isolated power (slugging percentage - batting average) at .312.

Nate Robertson was not at his best tonight allowing 3 runs on 11 hits and throwing 115 pitches in just 5 innings of work. The one bright spot was Tim Byrdak who threw two scoreless and hitless innings while allowing just one walk in his Tiger debut. Bobby Seay has been very sharp this year but got roughed up tonight allowing 4 runs on 4 hits and a walk in one inning of work.

Game two will feature Justin Verlander versus Tim Wakefield tomorrow night. Those are two pitchers with contrasting styles to be sure.

1 comment:

  1. I was at the game, I didn't think Robertson pitched badly at all. A few seeing eye hits, and scattering 11 hits with only 3 runs and no walks? I'll take that performance most nights. The problem was that everything the Tigers hit was right to someone, no matter how hard they rapped them.

    Peter

    ReplyDelete

Twitter

Blog Archive

Subscribe

My Sabermetrics Book

My Sabermetrics Book
One of Baseball America's top ten books of 2010

Other Sabermetrics Books

Stat Counter