After the bats took the day off in a loss to the Phillies yesterday, the Tigers' offense came out of a 1 day slumber in a 6-3 win over the Pirates. Maybe it was those God awful green caps? (There seems to be no photos of the game available. I'm going to say that's a GOOD thing). More likely, it was the 12 base on balls allowed by Pirates pitching.

Remember Carlos Guillen? You know, the former SS/3B/1B/LF, who is supposed to be the primary DH? Guillen had all but disappeared at the plate this spring, but broke out in a big way this afternoon.  Starting the game as the LF, Guillen had a pair of hits, reached base in all 4 plate appearances, and knocked in 2 runs. That's the sort of game the Tigers need from Guillen this summer, and haven't seen often enough due to his injuries/position hopping/ineffectiveness the last couple of seasons.

In the game thread, after finding out Jim "I never saw a screwy batting order I wouldn't try" Leyland had Clete Thomas leading off, I posted a pic of a facepalm (That was really me with the facepalm, by the way).  I seem to have a reverse jinx mojo happening, as Clete's Cult had plenty to cheer. Thomas was 2-4, with 2 walks, 1 run scored and a RBI.

Also chipping in at the plate were Scott Sizemore and Miguel Cabrera, each with RBI hits, and the much maligned Brandon Inge got his first hit of the spring. I'm sure it's the first of...well, he's bound to get one more. 

On the mound, Nate Robertson kept himself in the battle for the open 4th and 5th spots in the rotation, scattering 4 hits and allowing 2 runs in 4 innings of work. This was a typical Robertson performance when he was at his most effective, pitching well enough to keep the Tigers in the game, while giving the offense a chance to pull out a win in the later innings.

Josh Rainwater pitched a scoreless, hitless 9th to nail down his 2nd save of the spring. Fu-Te Ni and Phil Dumatrait also threw scoreless innings, while Zach Miner was, well, Zach Miner (1 IP, 1 R, 2 H, 1 BB, 12.15 Grapefruit League ERA).

Talking to the media after the game, Robertson admitted he's had to change his style of pitching since having surgery on his elbow.

Via the Free Press:

The injuries are behind him, but so are Robertson’s days as a power pitcher. This spring, he said, his fastball has been in the upper 80s.

"I’m a different pitcher," Robertson said. "I feel strong. I can still get in there, as long as I change speeds. You’ve got to get a hitter to look at different speeds and planes and things like that."

Could  the Tigers have found the next Frank Tanana? Wishful thinking, I know...

Comment of the night:

After the Pirates gave up their 12th walk of the game, while talking about the Tigers' long-time propensity to swing at anything, Dale S gave us this gem...

Which would probably be 18 walks

Against any other team.

A note to headline writers at MLB.com: Do not begin a headline "Justin Verlander hurt ..." unless you want to cause Tigers fans to hyperventilate by the third word. What's next? "Verlander injured by the longball"?

OK, on to the game.

Nevermind, I just looked at the box score. Can we skip that part of the recap and get straight to the comment of the night?

No?

Darn.

Well, Austin Jackson had a hit and stole a base. Manager Jim Leyland decided to greenlight his leadoff batter to see how his instincts are before the season begins. Jeff Larish had the Tigers' other two hits. Thus concludes the highlights.

The lowlights? Verlander and Phil Coke will be in a lot of Phillies' highlight reels as Phillies prospect Domonic Brown homered off both.

OK, now can we get to the comment of the night? Good.

Comment of the Night

Brandon Inge will make a good politician some day, because you either love him or you hate him. The haters win the day with 4 recs on this one by Scarlet P:

based on the way his knees buckled

he’s fully healthy

I left the game early to catch a flight home, so I don't have a ton of photos of this one.

Jason and I headed over to the park way early, I mostly did so since I knew it was my last day. We hung around the back field and watched a bit of batting practice, then up to the berm to see some more on the big field, then snuck back around the back field near its dugout area. Wendy and I got ourselves a few autographs, and I got a photo with Miguel Cabrera. I asked him for an auto on his way in and he said he had work to do, and as he exited the field he walked directly towards myself and other fans and nodded to us to come over. I really appreciated him doing that, as it was after noon and he obviously needed to go get dressed for the game. He said he's excited for 2010.. in addition to that Scott Sizemore says his ankle is pretty good, and Austin Jackson has not been thrilled with the high winds in Lakeland lately. Breaking news for us all, I'm sure. But it was fun.

- Like I said, Scott Sizemore was one of the other guys taking extra BP today. They all got some instruction from Mr. McClendon and then Scott hit a leadoff home run. Miggy hit one later in the first inning. Nice!

- Armando is so frustrating. I caught myself saying and/or thinking "whew, nice pitch" on a few of the strikes he threw.. the problem is, he's so inconsistent. Don't know what else to say about that. Thankfully, he didn't fall into that awful snail's pace he gets into when he's having a bad day, otherwise I would have yelled other obscenities at him in addition to "THROW STRIKES!" or something.

- Jacob Turner looked good again. His fastball was around 92-93mph and reached 95 at one point (I paid more attention to the radar reading today since it's out in RF and we sat near 1B). The best part: when he has trouble finding the strike zone, he does not get upset and simply does his best to make the correct adjustments. He doesn't throw harder to try to get out of jams.

- I hope Brad Thomas was just having an off day because he was, uh, not so good. I thought I remembered him doing okay in his last appearance though, but I'm too lazy to look it up.. hoping to see better things from him later.

- Brennan Boesch hit that home run while I was on my way out, in the parking lot. I know I'll have plenty of chances to see him display his power, but damn it, I was hoping to this week!

Today's photos are here. Sneak preev after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Over the weekend we took the next step at the Official Bless You Boys Fantasy League by deciding some rules.

Briefly, we all decided to go with roto scoring, as most leagues people are in tend toward the head-to-head format. This lets all of us have something a little different. And I think it takes a bit of the luck factor out of the equation too, as you have an entire season's data deciding the results, no just 16-17 week-by-week results.

Second, we decided the stats. While wanting to keep close to the traditional 5-by-5 format, we thought we'd change it up a bit by going with On-Base Percentage rather than average, and Slugging Average rather than home runs. While those traditional stats are nice and all, I think this lets you get a bit more creative with how you assemble a roster.

The draft isn't until a week from this coming Saturday, so we have plenty of time to research how to best make use of those changes.

You've got a few weeks left to set up your own league at the CBSSports.com Fantasy Baseball Commissioner League, too, to save 50 percent off the regular price. So it's just $90 bucks, or less than $10 per player for most leagues. And if you decide to set one up through Bless You Boys, you'll even get a special reward: First place in your league gets a free Bless You Boys T-shirt courtesy of SB Nation.

So far I've been pretty impressed with the number of options the CBSSports.com League offers and I think it will be pretty cool to use all the tools when it comes time for our auction and when the game actually begin. It's free for you to sign up and take a look around to form your own opinion, however.

Just remember to use this link!

Legal disclaimer: CBSSports.com is an SB Nation partner and paying sponsor of the SB Nation baseball communities.This post is one of a series of sponsor endorsed posts related to the CBSSports.com Fantasy Baseball Commissioner League.

The Blue Jays?

Them again?

The Tigers and Jays really have to start seeing other teams, because this relationship is getting pretty stale.

Well since I managed to miss this game live and most of the replay, these are nothing more than box score observations:

Scott Sizemore, who came into the game just 3-for-18 with no extra-base hits, displaced a ball from the park on the first pitch he saw in the game. He also singled. It was part of a three-run first inning for Detroit that also saw Miguel Cabrera homer.

On the other side of the equation, Tigers starter Armando Galarraga gave up three runs -- all in the third inning -- to give away the tie. I don't know if he's doing anything to impress manager Jim Leyland and GM Dave Dombrowski outside of game situations, but right now you have to wonder if he's doing the most to make the starting rotation decision difficult for the braintrust. Actually, I'm not sure you do have to wonder that. He's clearly not getting results in the games.

The highlight of the game was again young right-hander Jacob Turner, who'll have some pretty nice stories to tell his teammates when he joins his minor-league team this year. He threw two more scoreless, hitless innings in his second "A" game appearance after striking out the side against the Yankees last week.

And the other interesting event -- outfielder Brennan Boesch hit the ball a country mile. Possibly further.

So that was pretty cool at least.

Comment of the Night

Detroichik sums it up for all of us:

and of all the boys of summer these two are my favorite.

Bring on the regular season

Mario and Rod… I have missed you!

Ho-hum.

Another day, another hit for Austin Jackson. Actually, several. Two triples are the headliner, of course. But he added to that an infield single. Starting to believe he's living up to that "exciting" billing Baseball America gave him this offseason. If only I could see some of it! Oh, and MLB.com's Jason Beck tweets Jackson is leading the Grapefruit League in hits.

Rick Porcello threw another four innings of scoreless ball, allowing two hits and two walks while striking out one.

Most of the pitchers had good days actually. Phil Coke, Eddie Bonine, Joel Zumaya, Fu-Te Ni, Robbie Weinhardt ... there really wasn't anything all that eventful there to report. Daniel Schlereth got lit up, but he was almost certainly going to be bound for Triple-A anyway.

Comment of the Night

Murrajo sums up what we're all thinking right now:

These boys can score some runs

I hope it translates into the season

Site news

Many folks have complained about site problems the past day or so. SB Nation -- the parent of Bless You Boys -- does know about the issue on all of its web sites.

More photos » Richard Drew - AP

Detroit Tigers starting pitcher Max Scherzer shows he REALLY can pitch at the MLB level!

Browse more photos »

(Sorry, no line score available for Tigers - Yankees)

The Tigers split their squad this afternoon, with most of the starters staying in Lakeland to take on the New York Yankees, while the rest were sent to Port St. Lucie to take on the New York Mets. 

The result? The split squad split.

The Tigers hammered the Yankees 6-2, and got hammered by the Mets, 9-0.

In the victory, former Yankee (and former unfrozen caveman centerfielder) Johnny Damon led the onslaught on the evil empire with 2 hits, 1 a home run, and 2 RBI. Ryan Raburn also continued to mash the ball this spring, with a 4-4, 2 double day, raising his Grapefruit League average to .500. Gerald Laird also had a nice game, going 2-3 and threw out God's gift to NYC, Derek Jeter, trying to steal.

Brandon Inge made his first appearance of the spring, and nothing of note happened (which is good), save for being hit by a pitch. (No, it wasn't in the knee)

On the mound, Dontrelle Willis got the start, making his case for going north with the team. The D-Train did nothing to take himself out of  the running for the rotation, as he scattered 4 hits over 3 innnings, giving up 1 run. As is his wont, Willis occasionally battled his control, allowing 1 base on balls and a hit batsman.

Jeremy Bonderman followed, and pitched well, putting up nearly the same stat line as Willis (3 IP, 4 H, 1 R 2 K, 0 BB). Nate Robertson  continued with his strong spring, throwing 3 innings of scoreless baseball. I know, it was just one game, but Jose Valverde showed signs of being a Rodney/Jones type of closer, allowing 2 singles and a walk while striking out the side in the 9th. I'm not sure my heart can take another "Rollercoaster."

Overall, it was a fun day of baseball in Lakeland. Not so much in Port St. Lucie.

The Mets went yard 4 times, and held the Tigers hitless for the first 6 innings, causing me to have flashbacks to last season's hitless wonders.

It's not worth our time to talk about the offense against the Mets, so let's move on to the pitching.

Starting pitcher Max Scherzer, who had struggled badly this spring, broke out of his funk with a very strong performance. Penciled in as the Tigers' number 3 starter, Scherzer pitched 4 innings, giving up only 1 hit, with 5 K's, lowering his spring ERA nearly 20 points in the process.

The Tigers' 2009 2nd round draft pick, tall, hard-throwing (in other words, your typical Dombrowski drafted pitcher) Andy Oliver, also held the Mets scoreless in his 2 innings of work.

Then things fell apart on the mound.

Ryan Perry, who had been having an excellent spring, was shelled in 0.2  innings of work. The Mets knocked Perry around for 5 hits, 3 home runs, 7 runs, 5 earned. 

Zach Miner took over for Perry, giving up a 3 run shot to Jason Bay in his 1.1 innings of work.

After the game, the D-Train said he was not feeling or throwing his best, making his latest appearance that much more impressive.

"I've got to be honest, man, and not knocking anybody, but I felt terrible," Willis said. "I didn't have very good rhythm, and I'm a weird guy in the sense that I fall behind and then I zero in. And then, all of a sudden the big guys come up and I'm strike one, strike two. I don't know what that is, but when I had to make pitches, I was able to make pitches against some good hitters.

"You're not going to feel great every time out, but I battled and I grinded it out. I'm actually more happy about this than my other outings before, because [today] I was grinding and I got some good ground balls for some guys."

I have to admit, I'm rooting for Willis.

Comment of the night:

After Jim Leyland's favorite utility man Don Kelly committed an error, C Bass gave us this gem:

I guess just because you say a guy can stand at every posistion

doesn’t mean he can play it

More photos » Joseph Kaczmarek - AP

Placido Polanco would probably have accepted arbitration, he said today.

Browse more photos »

A lot of debate about the Tigers in the early offseason centered on two related questions:

1. Should they offer second baseman Placido Polanco arbitration, either for what he brings to the field or for the chance to take advantage of his Type A status, which would net some extra draft picks.
2. Would Polanco accept arbitration?

The answers many put forth was this: The Tigers should offer arbitration because Polanco would be worthwhile as a player for another year if he chose to stay in Detroit, but he probably would not accept arbitration.

So some consider failing to make the offer to Polanco a mistake. He signed a three-year deal worth $18 million soon after the decision became final.

MLB.com's Jason Beck today found the possible answer to the second question.

"You know, if they would've offered me arbitration, I probably would've accepted it," Polanco said. "Probably. I didn't know what was out there. Most teams were waiting on that. Most teams wait on that, because the type of free agent I was, they have to give up a Draft pick. So that kind of worked out well for me."

That suggests contract talks with the Phillies really didn't reach a definitive stage until the Tigers decided against arbitration.

Asked if he knew beforehand that the Phils were stepping up, Polanco said, "I had an idea, but nobody really takes a really aggressive step until the decision of arbitration is done."

Continue reading this post »