Three Games of Pain: Royals 7, Tigers 4

by Ian Casselberry on Sep 10, 2009 9:55 PM EDT in News Comment 31 comments

by Charlie Riedel - AP

Much like Ryan Raburn here, the Detroit Tigers were a team sliding to nowhere over the past three games in Kansas City.

Once again, this 2009 Detroit Tigers season has become a roller coaster.

Just as this team starts to look like it's coming together, with all sorts of different ways to beat the opposition, it reminds us that it's far from a perfect team. Just as we start to believe that this team might actually be capable of doing something in the playoffs, beating last year's AL champs with authority, it gets swept by the last place team in its division.

Who are these guys?

Was the three-game sweep last weekend in Tampa - the one with great pitching, timely hitting, and rousing comebacks - a fleeting moment of greatness? Are these 2009 Tigers really just the same team they've been all season? The one that hits into double plays and squanders scoring opportunities? Whose middle relief leaks gasoline all over the pitching mound?

Maybe the Tigers used up all its good road trip juju in Tampa and was due for a correction in Kansas City. And maybe all will seem well again with seven upcoming games at Comerica Park (including a chance to exact some revenge against the Royals next week).

But a series like this - a result like this - shakes the faith. And for many, it wasn't that exactly that deep to begin with.

Whimper:

Zach Miner has kind of been a man without a role all season. Is he better as a starter? A reliever? Is he better in late innings or in middle relief? Maybe we can scratch middle relief from the list. Miner was handed a 4-3 lead in the sixth inning, and pretty much blew it right away.

Alex Gordon hit a leadoff homer, and the next two batters reached base on a walk (How can this team walk Yuniesky Betancourt so often?) and a bunt single. That led to another RBI for Billy Butler, who's rediscovered his inner Tigers Killer after taking a season off.

Purr:

I've been kind of hard on Marcus Thames for his lack of contributions over the past couple of months. But if there's a bright side to this series, maybe it's that Thames found his bat again. Could a 3-for-5 series with two RBIs be a revival?

Comment of the Day:

The Tigers are making me cry...

although, it could just be the allergies

by ahtrap

And just for a laugh (or a wince), check out the recap headline at Royals Review.

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Comments

Agree with you on Thamesy, Ian...

though a Country Strong blast would be nice soon. Another good sign-Magglio is starting to hit pretty well. Not hitting for power, that ship appears to have sailed. But he’s getting on base with good regularity.

Once again, this team looks like it’s heading off the rails, or at least that it’s a possibility to do so. Every other time this year, they’ve answered the bell.

Let’s hope they can answer the bell again-tomorrow. Tomorrow’s a big one to start off the homestand.

by rook34 on Sep 10, 2009 10:12 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

The Tigers seem to like playing with their backs to the wall...

So far, it hasn’t cost them. Let’s hope they can continue to be resilient.

http://tigersamateuranalysis.blogspot.com

by SabreRoseTiger on Sep 10, 2009 10:21 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Slightly off-topic, but...

Has next year’s schedule been “unofficially” released? I’m watching the Marlins-Mets game, and the Marlins broadcasters somehow know that the Marlins open next season at Citi Field.

They’re also trying to figure out how to turn on the heater in the broadcast booth at Citi Field. It’s actually pretty funny. They just discovered that the Mets broadcasters are using a space heater that one of them brought from home.

http://tigersamateuranalysis.blogspot.com

by SabreRoseTiger on Sep 10, 2009 10:23 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Haven't seen anything.

Trying to figure out where we’ll be going for interleague. My wife and I take one trip a year to see the Tigers on the road. Kind of hoping it’s out west next year but I’m pretty sure it’s the NL East.

by rook34 on Sep 10, 2009 10:30 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If the cycle continues the way it has in previous years...

It will be the NL East with some random team like, say, the Padres mixed in for good measure (and of course the obligatory but inexplicable series with the Cardinals). I’d actually like to see the Tigers play the Marlins. They almost never play each other because of the Florida-Tampa Bay Interleague rivalry, but Florida never gets any media attention and yet they’ve got some real good players (Hanley Ramirez, Josh Johnson).

http://tigersamateuranalysis.blogspot.com

by SabreRoseTiger on Sep 10, 2009 10:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Plus we'd get to see Miller and Maybin.

I could certainly stomach a trip to Miami.

by rook34 on Sep 10, 2009 10:36 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's amusing how bitter royalsreview is ;)

by rcpratt on Sep 10, 2009 10:31 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I can't stomach going to rival sites.

I did that once with the White Sox site and got so angry it ruined my day. I do have a farily irrational hatred of that organization. Overall, though, I stay off the other sites because I’m really tired of the slams on Detroit as a city. We’ve heard all the jokes. They aren’t funny.

by rook34 on Sep 10, 2009 10:33 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

me, too

I know that as individuals most fans of rival teams are probably fine people and easy to have a rational conversation with, but once a pack mentality takes over there is just a nasty bitterness and flat-out joy in other’s misery that is just plain evil. How inhuman does someone have to be to wish that other people suffer, who they have never met, and for such a trivial reason as what sports team they root for? It makes me hate my own species and wish for a near-extinction. :(

(I mean there are people that I wish dead, but these are individuals I know and want to be wiped out for solid, non-trivial reasons – what team they root for in a sport, if they even care, has nothing to do with it. They are just plain horrible people.)

"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else." -- Winston S. Churchill

by Baroque on Sep 10, 2009 11:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Royals Review is a good site with many good articles.

They have every right to be bitter though, with how their team’s front office does mind bogglingly stupid things and watching their team get worse rather than better.

by 13194013 on Sep 11, 2009 8:35 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Didn't they just extend Dayton Moore's contract, too?

http://tigersamateuranalysis.blogspot.com

by SabreRoseTiger on Sep 11, 2009 9:46 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yes

It made me happy.

President, Vice President and Secretary of the Casey Crosby Fanclub.

by demondeaconsbaseball on Sep 11, 2009 11:20 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Schadenfreude

With a side of KC ribs.

by 13194013 on Sep 11, 2009 3:07 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I know it's probably not people on RR that are the problem, but it's just like the lions. The ownership is awful and the fans continue to pay for the awful product that they put on the field.

by rcpratt on Sep 11, 2009 11:48 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I do hope they enjoy watching the playoffs from the outside for the rest of eternity

But whatever knocks their socks.

Mack Avenue Tigers

by MackAveKurt on Sep 10, 2009 10:34 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

clearly it's our fault that this division is awful. not um, theirs.

by rcpratt on Sep 10, 2009 10:37 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

and what does it mean that we'd

be 3rd or 4th in the East. You could say that about all 27 MLB teams not residing in the Bronx, Boston or Tampa(well maybe not Philly or the Dodgers). And it be nice to have a little justification for placing the Tigers third and fourth in the west. Their 22-14 this year(.611 winning percentage) vs. the west.

by drew3434 on Sep 11, 2009 12:25 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The west is suspect though Seattle has improved I don't see the Rangers pitching doing them any favors in the long run.

The Angels are some weird anomaly and A’s are re-rebuilding. The east, I would say the Tigers would be fighting and shifting between 3-4 but that doesn’t matter because the AL Central exists.

KC is run by idiots so they won’t be a threat until Moore’s contract runs out or he’s fired so all you can do as a Royals fan is be bitter and bask in the glory that in 2008 they were that much less sucky than the Tigers.

Hell, I hope being mocked by people makes the Tigers own up to the fact they should have left bleeding and beaten corpses of the Royals instead of losing all three games.

by 13194013 on Sep 11, 2009 8:46 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yep

The Royals were a whole one game less sucky than the Tigers last year (helped by the fact that the Royals got hot in September and the Tigers couldn’t even play the role of spoiler properly).

http://tigersamateuranalysis.blogspot.com

by SabreRoseTiger on Sep 11, 2009 9:47 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I really dislike afternoon games.

I’m forced to watch the NFL tonight. Well, not forced. I could read a freaking book or something.

by rook34 on Sep 10, 2009 10:31 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Speaking of which...

Is Monday a day game? Cuz that would suck if it was.

http://tigersamateuranalysis.blogspot.com

by SabreRoseTiger on Sep 10, 2009 10:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

7:05.

Hopefully JV is back to his electric self.

by rook34 on Sep 10, 2009 10:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh, good

I would be in class at 1:00, and I don’t work on Mondays, so that is perfect.

http://tigersamateuranalysis.blogspot.com

by SabreRoseTiger on Sep 10, 2009 10:46 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

My favorite part of the Royals page

The suggestion that the Twins could get to two games above .500 with a win tonight, when at the time of posting, the Twinkies had already lost to the Blue Jays and are once again at their happy haven of .500.

by Elfuego51 on Sep 10, 2009 11:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

As for Miner

The guy needs to be locked in a cage before every game that only unlocks itself once a team has built a 10-run lead.

by Elfuego51 on Sep 11, 2009 12:01 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I would just like to win tonight

that is all. kthx

No Run Support

by allikazoo on Sep 11, 2009 9:52 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I guess it just goes to show that any team can jump up and bite you if you let them.

The Tigers just plain pitched badly in this series, especially the bullpen. I do find it a bit ironic that on this road trip, the offense was able to tattoo the “good” bullpen but couldn’t do a whole lot against the “bad” bullpen.

At least I got a 98 on my Pharmacology exam.

http://tigersamateuranalysis.blogspot.com

by SabreRoseTiger on Sep 11, 2009 9:53 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

nice going on the exam!

i thankfully was spared the last game, as i was at class all day yesterday.

I Like Pie

by mrsunshine on Sep 11, 2009 10:02 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Congrats!

President, Vice President and Secretary of the Casey Crosby Fanclub.

by demondeaconsbaseball on Sep 11, 2009 11:21 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

zach minor

Somebody has to tell Leyland not to use Zach in no other role other than mop up duties. He can no longer run him out there in a key point in a game! I cannot not bear to watch him hang his head any longer after getting tattooed over and over again. Leyland might as well try his luck with Bonine.

by viking25 on Sep 11, 2009 11:39 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs