Afternoon prowl: Grandy likes to be entertained

The sooner tonight's game starts, the better. But in the meantime, here's some stories and stats from around the Tigosphere.

• Curtis Granderson blogs about the upgrades to the Kansas City Royals' stadium today. He thinks the Royals and Angels do a great job keeping the fans active between innings and creating a fun environment for everyone. (Big League Stew)
• More historical perspective on last night's game against the Yankees: Tigers starters have not held the Yankees scoreless for consecutive days since 1984. The last time a player had a sac bunt and a grand slam in the same inning, as Yankees catcher Jose Molina did? 1975, when Oakland's Sal Bando did it. And what the Yankees did -- breaking up a shutout scoreless tie with a 10-run inning -- was even more rare. The last time was 1919. Stats like that are what makes baseball cool. (Freep, LoHud,  Tigers.com) (Fixed link)
  
• What did Jim Leyland tell Ryan Perry during his extremely brief visit to the mound? Speculation was that it involved some words not printable in a family newspaper. But Leyland's version was much more tame:
  

"I just told him, 'Don't worry about [the hit], don't let up, go right at them,'" Leyland said.

• Some unsightly stats:  Brandon Lyon, 4.91 ERA, 1.57 WHIP. While he helped account for five runs last night when he walked in a run, then gave up a grand slam to Jose Molina, he was only charged with two.It was just the third time he's been charged with runs this season in eight appearances.
• Things are less friendly for Nate Robertson, whose role is apparently not "late-innings stopper." He's given up runs in half his six appearances and has an ERA of 9.00.
  
• Rick Porcello's splits so far this year are not promosing for tonight's game. He has an ERA of 4.50, but left handers are hitting a line of .290 AVG, .333 OBP, .581 SLG off him. The meat of the Yankees' lineup can bat left-handed. Against right-handed batters, Porcello is a much better .231/.250/.385. Hopefully he doesn't see the pinstripes for the first time -- figuratively, because the Yankees' road grays are not nearly as intimidating -- and feel any intimidation. And oh yes, this is Porcello's home debut, isn't it?
  
• At Spotstarters, Blake compares some of the Tigers' worst batting seasons in history with the .000 average Tigers backup catcher Matt Treanor had before being placed on the disabled list with a previously undisclosed re-injury of his hip. (Spotstarters)
• At Beyond the Boxscore, Sky warns fantasy baseball players to jump off the Armando Galarraga bandwagon while they still can. He does not believe the second-year pitcher has the peripherals to indicate his low ERA so far in his career. A valid argument, I think. However, to me, when you add the eye test, you can see Galarraga will likely outpitch his peripherals. He's now striking out a batter an inning, limiting home runs and his batting-average-on-balls-in-play (.287) is a lot closer to the Tigers defense allows this year (.305) and what you'd expect (.300).  He forces a lot of ground balls (47% of hits), and changes speeds and location quite well to keep batters off track. He's definitely a thinking pitcher, not a just a thrower, and his development has continued.  I think his ERA will settle in closer to 4.00, myself.  (BtB)
• There's a secondary discussion and poll on this started by Packey here at Bless You Boys. (BYB)

Kurt of Mack Avenue Tigers is guest blogging for a week while Ian is in Seattle.