Thursday, August 02, 2007

What's Wrong With The Tigers?

The Tigers have lost 10 of their last 14 games since July 20, their worst stretch of the season. If I asked 20 different Tigers fans what the problem has been, I'd get a lot of different answers and they could all be right because there is a lot of blame to go around. I looked at this question statistically using David Pinto's day by day database. They have been outscored 103-72 during the two week stretch. As I said yesterday, that comes out to 5.1 runs per game and 7.4 runs allowed per game. So their offense has beens producing almost a run fewer per game than they were previously and their pitching has been a disaster.

Looking at Table 1, we see a total batting line of .287/.331/.432. Not shown is their very poor 30/86 BB/K ratio during the period. Placido Polanco (1.061 OPS) and Curtis Granderson (.971) have been on fire. Mike Rabelo (1.261) and Ryan Raburn (1.111) have also done well in limited action. Nobody else is above .710. The biggest slumps belong to Sean Casey (.571), Ivan Rodriguez (.579) and Gary Sheffield (.616).

Table 1: Batting Statistics for July 20 - August 1

Player

G

AB

BA

OBA

SLG

Mike Rabelo

5

19

.526

.526

.737

Placido Polanco

12

51

.412

.434

.627

Curtis Granderson

14

53

.340

.386

.585

Ryan Raburn

8

27

.370

.370

.741

Carlos Guillen

12

43

.302

.348

.349

Magglio Ordonez

14

52

.269

.345

.365

Gary Sheffield

12

44

.205

.321

.295

Sean Casey

13

44

.250

.298

.273

Mike Hessman

6

18

.222

.286

.389

Brandon Inge

14

49

.245

.269

.367

Craig Monroe

12

45

.244

.255

.400

Omar Infante

7

19

.158

.238

.316

Ivan Rodriguez

11

38

.237

.237

.342

Timo Perez

2

3

.000

.000

.000

Totals

14

505

.287

.331

.432



Table 2 shows the pitchers. The staff has had an abysmal 7.36 ERA and has allowed 151 hits over 115 1/3 innings during the two week period. Their bullpen has been a problem most of the year but recently their starters have been very bad too. In the last 14 games, the starters have allowed 101 hits, 32 walks and 10 homers over 72 innings. This includes Jordan Tata's impressive start last time out when he allowed just 2 runs over 7 innings. No other starter has an ERA under 5.00 during the period.

The bullpen has probably received more blame than any other part of the team but I don't know if they have been any worse than the starters the last two weeks. While the starters have been hit hard, the bullpen has had control problems - 22 walks over 43 innings. It might come to a surprise that the often used and much maligned Jason Grilli has been one of the better pitchers statistically during the period with 7 hits, 6 walks and a 3.38 ERA in 10 2/3 innings. Among the worst relievers have been Jose Capellan (6.75), Chad Durbin (7.88) and Macay McBride (8.31).

So, just as we thought, a lot of players have played poorly over their 4-10 stretch and it wouldn't be fair to single out one or two players even though it's always tempting to do that during these types of stretches. Tomorrow, they go home rested after a day off. Hopefully, they can turn things around in Comerica.


Table 2: Pitching Statistics for July 20 - August 1

Player

G

IP

H

HR

BB

K

ERA

Bobby Seay

6

3 2/3

3

0

3

3

2.45

Jordan Tata

1

7

6

0

2

5

2.57

Jason Grilli

7

10 2/3

7

0

6

7

3.38

Virgil Vasquez

1

5

4

2

2

4

3.60

Todd Jones

4

4

4

0

0

1

4.50

Zach Miner

4

3 2/3

5

0

2

1

4.91

Tim Byrdak

3

3 2/3

4

1

2

4

4.91

Justin Verlander

3

18

17

1

9

17

5.00

Andrew Miller

2

9 2/3

15

1

9

11

6.52

Jose Capellan

3

4

8

1

0

2

6.75

Nate Robertson

3

17 2/3

30

2

4

13

7.64

Chad Durbin

6

8

8

1

3

6

7.88

Macay McBride

6

4 1/3

7

0

4

2

8.31

Kenny Rogers

2

10 1/3

16

4

4

6

10.45

Jeremy Bonderman

2

9 1/3

17

2

4

8

14.46

Totals

14

115 1/3

151

15

54

90

7.36



So, just as we thought, a lot of players have played poorly over their 4-10 stretch and it wouldn't be fair to single out one or two players even though it's always tempting to do that during these types of stretches. Tomorrow, they go home rested after a day off. Hopefully, they can turn things around in Comerica.

4 comments:

  1. I would like to see a breakdown of the number pitches by starting pitchers, the number of innings they've pitched in each start, and whether they won or lost. Anybody have that? The problems all go back to the starting pitchers ....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rick,

    The IP per start are listed below. I also put down whether the team won or lost. The pitch count data would have to be extracted from each box score.

    Rogers 6 1/3 L
    Verlander 5 2/3 W
    Robertson 6 L
    Miller 4 2/3 W
    Bonderman 7 L
    Vasquez 5 L
    Rogers 4 L
    Verlander 7 W
    Robertson 5 2/3 L
    Miller 5 L
    Bonderman 2 1/3 L
    Tata 7 W
    Verlander 5 1/3 L
    Robetson 6 L
    Miller 5
    Bonderman 2 1/3 L
    Tata 7 W
    Verlander 5 1/3 L
    Robertson 6 L

    The starting pitching has defintely contributed to the slide but the hitting has slowed dow a lot and bullpen has not helped. I think the losing has been a team effort.

    Lee

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lee,
    How many of those starts have been quality starts listed in your reply?
    And do you have an opinion in general about the QS stat?
    Dave (rhino)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dave,

    I believe they have had only 2 quality starts the last 2 weeks - Verlander and Tata. I like the concept of QS but I think it might be too arbitrary. 3 runs in 6 innings gets you a quality start but 0 runs in 5 2/3 does not and 4 runs in 8 innings does not.

    I'm not sure they have the best definition but I like the idea of going through game logs and looking to see how many good games a pitcher has pitched. ERA usually works ok but it can be deceptive if a pitcher pitches well most of the time but gets absolutely hammered in a couple of starts.

    Lee

    ReplyDelete

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