8 games back and fading fast: Tigers fall meekly to the White Sox, 4-1
by BigAl on Aug 4, 2010 11:09 PM EDT
in Detroit Tigers News
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PrintEven the very successful return of Brandon Inge (3 hits and an RBI) couldn't stop the Tigers' slow motion death spiral into irrelevancy.
The Tigers are in need of victories, preferably in bunches. To have even a remote hope of staying in the Central division race, they desperately wanted a series win (more realistically, a sweep) over the White Sox.
It's not happening.
Tonight, the White Sox rode home runs by Carlos Quentin and Paul Konerko, and seven solid innings from former Tiger Edwin Jackson, to a fairly ho-hum 4-1 win over Armando Galarraga.
The Tigers had only one serious threat, a one run rally (can you call one run a "rally?") in the 8th. It could have, should have, would have been much more, as the Tigers had runners on 2nd and 3rd and only one out after an Inge RBI single and a throwing error. But a couple of Tigers who wouldn't normally be in the lineup, but thanks to the numerous injuries, are seeing far too much playing time, Ryan Raburn and Jeff Frazier, were easy outs. Far too easy, as Raburn popped up the first pitch, and Frazier struck out swinging.
Rally and game over. The season is as well, unless the baseball Gods bless the Tigers with some sort of miracle, Major League, Angels in the Outfield, Rookie of the Year style turnaround.
With the loss, the Tigers have fallen to eight games out and are on the verge of finding themselves closer in the standings to the 4th place Royals than the 1st place White Sox. With the glorified Triple A lineups Jim Leyland is forced to play every night, even treading water during this daunting stretch of schedule against above .500 teams is too much to ask.
It's amazing to think the Tigers were in 1st place on July 10th, 11 games over .500 at 48-37 after winning five in a row, and seven of eight.
Now, the Tigers are shorthanded and injury riddled, a game under .500 thanks to an awful 5-16 record since the All-Star break, wasting a career season from Miguel Cabrera, the pennant race quickly becoming a rumor, and on the verge of making roster moves aimed at preparing for 2011.
Baseball sure is a funny game.
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I was surprised Armando went that deep into the game
Granted, 3 of the 4 runs were off of home runs but you don’t see a near-8 inning performance out of a guy that gives up 4 runs on 8 hits and 5 walks.
It's very hard to capture the sheer ugliness and evil of the White Sox
with MS Paint. You’d definitely need Photoshop, and I’m not sure if that is even enough.
I think it's just that Kurt had an off-day
Assist. Editor, Minor League Division, Bless You Boys
Daniel Fields is better than you.
The photo of Rhymes face down in the dirt after Robbie threw the ball away in Boston was classic!
If you survived 2003, you can get through this!
Give Edwin some credit, here.
The Tiger players and Leyland are raving about Edwin’s performance in post game interviews, and JL of course points out that the Tigers once again didn’t capitalize on opportunities. 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position won’t get it done most nights.
The difference in the game was that Quentin and Kojerko knocked a pair of homers when Perfecto floated a couple of balls up in the zone, and when EJ made a couple of mistakes with Miggy, he popped them up in his first two AB’s. Galarraga let up for a bit with the BB to Kojerko, and the home runs were both on sliders that didn’t slide. Just left them up there like meatballs. AG is on his game when he attacks hitters. The BB and two mistake pitches killed him.
Unfortunately, this is a lineup that is built to fail. If Miggy doesn’t smash every opportunity he gets, there’s nobody else that can do it. Take Magglio and Boesch out of the lineup, and even the bit we sometimes get from Guillen, and this is a toothless Tiger lineup. We’ll see more of the same before this campaign is through. Still, I draw some encouragement from Perfecto’s overall performance. He gave us a chance to win.
See? Once you get over the playoff expectation, there are bright spots even in the losses!
Wait til next year, again.
RISP= Runners in Squandering Position
The only “scoring position” with our current cast of characters is Miggy standing in the batters box.
Wait til next year, again.
by Tigerdog1 on Aug 5, 2010 8:51 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
oh well
I said before the game yesterday i didnt think Boesch returning to bat 5th was a good idea.
1 for 9 in the previous 2 games does NOT indicate he is out of his slump. So yesterday he goes 0 for 3 (1BB) and leaves another 5 LOB. Thats 10 LOB in this series so far.
1 for 12. Brennan we all luv ya, but Leyland — your batting order is just wishful thinking.
and what does Jim have to work with besides Miguel?
That’s the real question. With everyone hurt, Boesch is the only real protection for Miggy.
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Leyland is screwed no matter what he does. This is all on Dombrowski, IMO.
If you survived 2003, you can get through this!
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