Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Tigers Still on Fire

The Tigers topped the Mariners 9-7 tonight for their 8th consecutive win. Jeremy Bonderman had his start pushed back a couple of days due to a blister which had been limiting his ability to throw his two seam fastball. He did not seem to have any problems with the blister tonight and actually seemed to have pretty good stuff.

Bonderman came into the game with a 13.50 ERA in the first inning of games and 1.91 in all other innings. Tonight was no different as he gave up a 3 run homer to Richie Sexson on an 0-2 count in thr first inning. After that he settled down, although he gave up a couple more runs due to an array of infield hits and outfield snares. Overall, he gave up 5 runs on 7 hits in 6 innings while striking out 7 and walking 2.

The Tigers continued their hot hitting with 13 hits including 9 extra base hits. They have scored 22 runs on 30 hits and 20 extra base hits in their last 2 games. Omar Infante, starting in center field in place of Curtis Granderson, led the way with a single, double and a triple. Gary Sheffield had a home and a double. Magglio Ordonez had 2 more doubles giving him a league leading 18 for the year. Craig Monroe and Brandon Inge each had a single and a double.

The post-Zoom bullpen got a bit of a test tonight. Bobby Seay pitched a perfect 7th but Fernanado Rodney gave up 2 runs on 2 singles and a walk in the 8th. Todd Jones came in with a two run lead and gave up a lead off single to Ichiro Suzuki. However, he got out of the inning with the help of to fantastic catches - a diving catch by Monroe in left and a game ending sliding catch by Ordonez.

2 comments:

  1. According to VORP, Zumaya's lose will likely cost the team 2.4 games over the course of a season. I Figure two games since we are a little ways into the season. This seems about right to me.

    I was holding my breath yesterday when Rodney was struggling to close out the 8th. Personally I can see the tigers calling up Miller within the month to pitch some long relief with the rest of the staff moving up to take Zumaya's spot. This would put Miller in prime position to take a starter's spot next spring??

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's hard to know how much a reliever is worth. VORP does not take into account the fact that Zumaya pitches in a lot of high leverage situations. Thus, I suspect that he was a little more valuable than the VORP estimate.

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