Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Tigers shutout for twelve innings

The Tigers pitchers pitched 11 scoreless innings and still lost tonight. The Angels beat them 1-0 when Bobby Seay walked Garret Anderson on four pitches with the bases load in the 12th inning. Kenny Rogers pitched his best game of the year - seven shutout innings on five hits and one walk. Zach Miner kept it tied at zero with scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth. He got out of a bases loaded jam in the 8th and was then aided by a nice leaping catch by Magglio Ordonez to end the ninth.

Freddy Dolsi came in to pitch the 10th and survived some bizarre plays. First there was the Little League play. Torii Hunter singled and then moved up to second base after the ball was returned to the infield and Dolsi was walking back to the mound. He got a free base simply because nobody was paying attention. I don't think I've seen that before anywhere. Dolsi followed that with a wild pitch during an intentional walk to the next batter Garrett Anderson. Somehow, he got out of it when Miguel Cabrera made a nice play on a grounder to first. It's a good thing they didn't lose the game there because we never would have heard the end of it from the national media and this time the riducule probably would have been deserved.

Dolsi then pitched a scoreless 11th. He was left in for the 12th and proceeded to load the bases before yielding to Seay. You could blame this one on Seay or on Jim Leyland for letting rookie Dolsi go through the Angels line-up a second time around. I would blame the offense for their league leading 8th shutout though. The vaunted Tigers offense went 12 innings without scoring. That about says it all.

Note:

Gary Sheffield left the game in the third inning after hurting his oblique muscle running to first base. They are calling it oblique spasms but there is no indication of how much additional time he'll miss if any. He was replaced by Ryan Raburn tonight.

6 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 27, 2008

    Pretty tough to believe Leyland kept Dolsi out there in my opinion, that just doesn't make much sense.

    However, at the end of the day it's about scoring runs. The Tigers had only five hits all game. That's just terrible.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 2 things:
    1. The Tigers did not execute with less than 2 outs and a runner on 3rd. There were 3 separate innings, two with 1 out and one with 0 outs! I don't know what the odds are supposed to be in those situations but I'm guessing that 0/3 is bad... (Lee, if you have the numbers, please share)
    2. Guillen looks terrible at 3rd. I was listening to the Angel radio broadcast and heard the announcer matter of factly say that "Gullien has very little range." Does his bat make up for his lack of range and errors?

    Perhaps a bit early to be talking off season trades but is fun so here it goes.
    ----Guillen is clearly a good player but doesn't have a spot on the infield. Either, we should trade him for a young catcher or 3rd baseman, or move him to 2nd and trade Polonco.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 27, 2008

    Or we could have Guillen and Cabrera DH/1B and move Inge to 3B and somehow get Gary Sheffield to leave town.

    ReplyDelete
  4. agreed, however we are paying sheffield like 13mil for the next two years so he will be a hard bat to get rid of.
    Its hard to tell if he is finally over the hill or if he still has some bat left. Perhaps he will start hitting for a small stint and we can trade him to some sucker team in the off season (just like the Yankees did to us).

    ReplyDelete
  5. Adam, with a runner on third and zero outs, teams score 86% of the time. With a runner on third and one out, they score 66% of the time.

    I'm on board with Sheffield to DL, Inge to third, Guillen to DH. I doubt it will happen though. I don't see Leyland moving Guillen again this year.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Here comes a rant, watch out:::

    I have been quite disappointed with many of the trades over the last few years. We keep trading all our young talent for veterans with high salaries.

    While I can see the justification for such trades, I miss the anticipation of young talent and the competition for spots. Ie. granderson vs. Logan a few years ago.

    Our current strategy has yielded little results while the Marlins continue to do well doing the exact opposite.

    Why don't more teams trade like the Marlins? That is, teams seem to buy high and sell low. Why not get rid of player near their prime and get good young(cheap) players in return?

    Ordonez could fetch a bunch of players while unloading a 16mil contract. He is passing his prime but still has market value. Same for Guillen, Polonco and Renteria. Why keep them around and watch them slowly get worse each year? Trade them and get something while dumping salary.

    In the end, I would rather watch a young offense centered around a strong pitching staff then a team of veterans.

    Veterans are generally boring. If they get their hits then they are simply "earning" their high salaries, but if they slump then we hate them for being overpaid.

    Young hitters are more fun because the expectations go out the door and they are almost never "overpaid".

    Anyway, just thought I'd ramble.

    ReplyDelete

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