Justin Verlander wins 24th as Tigers salvage split with A's
by Kurt Mensching on Sep 18, 2011 7:45 PM EDT
in Detroit Tigers News
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KEY BIG NUMBERS
24 wins for Justin Verlande, including 12 consecutive starts. He is the first AL pitcher since Bob Welch to win 24 games. Welch won 27.
46 saves (out of 46) for Jose Valverde
89 wins. Sure, not a real big deal. But this gives the Tigers their most in a season since 2006 and keeps alive the hope of matching or surpassing 2006 as well.
10-10-10-10. OK maybe 10 isn't a big number. But Ausin Jackson became the first Tigers player since Curtis Granderson to have 10 HR, 10 triples, 10 doubles and 10 steals reports Chris Vannini. Plus he plays good defense. Maybe he can tell us about his love for fast food and his favorite charity?
KEY STATS
No Oakland player made it past first base.
Justin Verlander pitched 8 scoreless innings
KEY PLAYS
Austin Jackson solo home run in the sixth inning. By the way, it broke up a no hitter.
Ramon Santiago lays down the bunt in a suicide squeeze in the 8th inning.
KEY THOUGHTS
Nice to see Justin Verlander back on track. Probably helped that he was pitching against Oakland, but don't tell Max Scherzer that.
A couple of weeks ago, the odds were against Verlander making it to 25 wins. Of course, as I said, I'm not sure you ever want to bet against Verlander. The odds just weren't in his favor. And you know what? That's fine. If winning so many games in a row was easy, everyone would do it. Verlander's up to 12 consecutive games with a winning decision, and 24 wins for the year. His last start will likely be against the Orioles.
Jose Valverde on Friday during the division-clinching celebration said that he'd like to get to 50 saves. With less than a dozen games remaining, that seemed like a pretty tall task. But he's at 46 now. Obviously the Tigers bullpen has been key in getting them to the position they're in today. Not everyone, of course. But the team is 74-0 when leading after seven innings and 79-0 when leading after eight innings. That's pretty good.
Nice to see the Tigers earn the split today. I mean, they clinched the division. So there's really no worrying or gnashing of teeth. The Tigers are 3 games behind the Yankees for the top seed, 1 game ahead of the Rangers for an ALDS home series. But I think a lot of fans would appreciate knowing their tickets will actually be put to use, so earning home field in the ALDS is pretty important to fans if not to players as well.
Squeeze plays: Lots of fun. Also gives opposing managers something to think about.
Carlos Guillen left the game with a calf injury. Jim Leyland didn't seem too optimistic Guillen would heal any time soon.
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Jackson, Kelly, and Santiago with the three RBI's.
This team is special, and gelling at the right time.
Verlander's next start
Why would it be the Indians.. Is he getting 7 days rest to skip the Orioles series or something? I hadn’t heard…
I kind of hope they push him back one day though, to the last game of the O's series.
Then he’s on normal rest for ALDS game 1.
this year, it hasn't made much of a difference
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=verlaju01&year=&t=p#dr
There’s an argument there that JV’s pitched better on 5 days rest.
He is going to be so amped for that game..
I think any amount of days rest that falls between 3-10 wouldn’t phase him much
Tough loss for Moscoso
1H, 1ER, 2BB, 8K against the Tigers offense is a tremendous performance.
Totally his fault for drawing Verlander, though.
Moscoso pitched a gem
He looks like the real deal. Some of us followed him in the lo minors in the Tiger organization as a prospect. He got as far as Erie with some impressive numbers, but the Tigers needed a catcher, so you can’t question dealing a couple prospects for G$ at the time. Good to see the kid making good on his promising talent. Maybe DD could deal a couple of prospects to get him back??? :)
I don't care what the Chinese say, 2011 is the Year of the Tiger!
Go check his xFIP
Regression’s going to hit him hard.
"Aside from the stuff I haven’t been diagnosed for yet, I don’t have a problem."- Phil Coke
Contributor, Bless You Boys
by David Tokarz on Sep 18, 2011 10:10 PM EDT up reply actions
Someone posted that in the game thread.
I don't care what the Chinese say, 2011 is the Year of the Tiger!
Seriously...barbaro was euthanized for having fewer injuries than guillen
I think it might be time to take him out to pasture…the poor guy is a hazard to himself; seriously? Who hurts themselves on a routine groundball that wasn’t even hit at him. A fabrege egg is less fragile than he is.
Good to see Verly get back on the right track. Glad to see him back in his dominant form.
God ain't got no use for a 180 lb bag of sugar.
by Siggzilla on Sep 18, 2011 8:20 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Guillen has been a great player for the Tigers
He deserves to be carried off the field one way or another.
preferably not on a stretcher :/
I don't care what the Chinese say, 2011 is the Year of the Tiger!
by Tigerdog1 on Sep 18, 2011 9:30 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Hahahaha. Rec'd for truth.
Drink, and Drink, and Drink, and Drink, and Drink, and Drink, and Fight!
by Brand New Hero on Sep 19, 2011 10:55 AM EDT up reply actions
Perhaps we've seen the last of him
If this injury is anything more than a day or two, I don’t see him making the playoff roster.
The other sports are just sports. Baseball is a love. ~Bryant Gumbel, 1981
honestly...
I don’t like to see players get hurt, but I really didn’t want Guillen anywhere near the playoff roster. So I’m mildly satisfied by a long term injury.
I think we may miss his bat off of the bench in the post season
but I’m not sure he could make it all the way through anyway. Perhaps a minor injury now is for the best. But don’t let his fragility take away from his contributions over the years in Detroit. He has been a great guy to have around!
Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
You should edit
the line that says “No Oakland player made it past first base” so that it starts with the clause “Like your average nerd, no Oakland player etc….”
by TheDaveYouKnowYouKnow on Sep 18, 2011 8:30 PM EDT reply actions
Daves all have their own hands
but they come from different moms.
By the way, I’ve met a Dave that Bruce McCulloch knows. (Twice.)
by frisbeepilot on Sep 18, 2011 11:41 PM EDT up reply actions
Dave Foley?
"I'm a simple man. I like pretty, dark-haired women and breakfast food" - Ron Swanson
twitter
by rock n rye on Sep 19, 2011 9:29 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
The same.
I swear, for a while there I couldn’t swing a pillowcase full of doorknobs in this town without hitting him. But, owing to his weird child-support-in-arrears problems, I don’t think he’ll be setting foot in Canada anytime soon.
by frisbeepilot on Sep 19, 2011 6:11 PM EDT up reply actions
Verlander's Last Start Has Me Very Concerned
Why?
If Leyland sticks to the current rotation too much time between Verlander’s last regular season start and the opening of the post-season.
As Verlander himself has said he does better when he pitches with four or fewer days of rest.
I hope Leyland finds a way to avoid Verlander having more than four days rest between his last regular season start and his first post-season start.
Don't worry about Verlander.
The other teams are crapping bricks due to the prospect of facing him in a playoff series.
Actually, are we definitely not worrying about Verlander?
So far this season he’s got a pitcher BABIP of .237, which is second-lowest in the league for pitchers with 120+ innings. (Jeremy Hellickson is the answer to the question you were thinking.) It’s not as if our defense is lights-out, so why shouldn’t I be worried about regression?
This is when I wish I understood BABIP more thoroughly
I think the idea is that balls hit off of him aren’t hit as solidly as other pitchers, and when combined with his high FB rates (FB are less likely to drop in for hits) his expected BABIP is lower. But even his FIP is sub 3.00, and his xFIP is barely above 3.00.
"Aside from the stuff I haven’t been diagnosed for yet, I don’t have a problem."- Phil Coke
Contributor, Bless You Boys
by David Tokarz on Sep 19, 2011 12:24 AM EDT up reply actions
Better to compare his BABIP with his career BABIP
especially his recent seasons, than to a generic BABIP for all pitchers. If a pitcher induces more ground balls, or more fly balls, he’ll naturally give up a lower average on balls in play, so I think it’s very flawed to compare such a pitcher to a league average. Even when compared with his own numbers in seasons past, if he has improved something in his game, there’s no reason that improvement can not be sustained. The fact that his numbers are so much better than every other pitcher in the league this season, and that pitchers rarely sustain that kind of success from one year to the next is a greater cause for concern, but I see no reason to be concerned about regression based on any stats that I’ve seen.
I don't care what the Chinese say, 2011 is the Year of the Tiger!
That makes sense in the abstract, but doesn't apply to JV's season.
Verlander’s ground ball percentage has been pretty stable throughout his career, and this year’s 40.3% rate is in line with those numbers. But his BABIP is 50 points below his career norms. He’s never had another season with a comparable number.
I probably should've compared line drive percentage, not GB%.
and Verlander’s line drive rate is down this year to 17.8%, down from last year’s 18.7% (and his career 19.6% rate). That might help explain a lower BABIP, though perhaps not as low as it’s been.
That looks more like a continuing trend, than extreme good fortune
If the line drive pct is attributable to some factor other than luck, such as better movement on the ball, or just better changing of location so that hitters have a more difficult time squaring it up, then there’s not going to be a lot of random luck involved in that BABIP. An increase in K rate also will positively impact the ERA, since there’s a zero pct chance of a hit in those AB’s.
On the flip side, we were looking at AJax’s BABIP at the plate about this time last year- actually all season long- and noted that it was historically high and certainly unsustainable. But still, he had a consistently high line drive pct in his career, and if he maintained that LD%, he should maintain a higher than normal BABIP. If they start to mess with his swing to get him to hit more homers by adding some “loft”, I think he will actually make less contact (that’s actually possible), his power numbers will increase, and his average will drop unless he compensates with better pitch selection. I also believe that Granderson very much deliberately added some loft to get more power in his swing, and it made him a poor lead off hitter.
I don't care what the Chinese say, 2011 is the Year of the Tiger!
Sure, he's had a bit of fortune this year.
But what he has to regress to is still “ridiculously good” down from “best pitcher in baseball.” And really, he deserves it since he was so unlucky in ’09.
No worries
JV will pitch many times in October on 4 or fewer days rest.
"But the point is, finger-pointing is just what sports fans do when something doesn't go right." -- Kurt Mensching
by RealityIsOptionable on Sep 18, 2011 8:55 PM EDT up reply actions
exactly
Verlander should be the one piece of this team that does not have you concerned at all. No, I take that back… don’t be concerned about Miggy either
No longer the Founder, President and CEO of the Ryan Raburn Fan Club
right and right!
or Avila. or Valverde. hell, we’re gunna win the World Series!
No longer the Founder, President and CEO of the Ryan Raburn Fan Club
Vulcans don't come from this world
thus, they don’t play in the World Series. We’re cool until November, anyway.
by frisbeepilot on Sep 18, 2011 11:42 PM EDT up reply actions
I Hope You Both Are Correct
We will just have to wait and see how it plays out.
Slightly off topic
I’m trying to get 4 tickets together for next Sunday’s game against the O’s at Detroit for a family outing, and for some bizarre reason the prices are through the roof on all the resale sites. (The official Tigers site doesn’t have 4 or 3 together anywhere in the place.)
Is there something I don’t know about that game? Is Verlander scheduled to throw another no-no? Are there free carousel rides for everyone (and not just the 14-and-under crowd)? Do they randomly let someone in the crowd play second base for an inning?
I mean, it’s the last Sunday afternoon of the regular season and all, but still, it’s the Orioles we’re talking about here.
I have
It’s actually a nice little tool, and I was poking-around with it and might’ve found a couple of pairs in the same row for a decent price. I have to nail down exactly how many people are going (3 or 4), but yeah, the TiqIQ thing does appear to be potentially helpful.
by frisbeepilot on Sep 19, 2011 7:07 AM EDT up reply actions
Sales are closer to 20% above face instead of the 80% above most are listed at
Just wait. I think ticket holders haven’t moved their prices from a couple weeks ago when that seemed like a reasonable clinch projection.
You know I'm right about this.
It's Fan Appreciation Weekend, and typically Sunday
is “shirt off our back” day, when the players’ and coaches’ game worn jerseys are ceremoniously given out at the end of the game. I remember being there in ‘05, and a 5 or 6 year old boy got Pudge’s, and Pudge really did it up right for the kid, wrapping this little tyke up in his jersey and posing for pics. Very cool.
"You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it was the other way around..." Jim Bouton
After todays game
JV lead’s all of baseball in the triple crown, bringing his ERA .01 below Clayton Kershaw and 8 more SO then Kershaw (but with 2more games played)
Was at this game
I’m not normally a Tigers’ gal, though I spent three plus years in Michigan. However, Verlander’s always been one of my favorites, so I’d been planning on seeing this game for awhile. What surprised me was that it was actually Moscoso who had the no-hitter going through five, broken up by Jackson’s homerun. Quite the impressive pitchers’ duel to be at. Verlander, obviously, was a stud. He’d have my vote for MVP if I had one.
Was also at the clincher on Friday — thanks for letting me borrow your team to remember what it feels like to cheer for a winner. Good luck in the playoffs and do the AL Central proud. (The little division that could, I call it.)
by ColossusOfRhode on Sep 19, 2011 2:23 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs
welcome to the bandwagon!
No shame in borrowing us for the playoffs. Since moving to Minneapolis, I’ve been borrowing the Twins in October for years.
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