Yay runs and offense and puppies and ice cream

Tigers lineup: Berry CF, Dirks LF, Cabrera 3B, Fielder 1B, Young DH, Boesch RF, Peralta SS, Avila C, Raburn 2B; Smyly P

Twins lineup: Span CF, Revere RF, Mauer C, Willingham DH, Morneau 1B, Dozier SS, Plouffe LF, Casilla 2B, Carroll 3B, Swarzak P

Bullets...which the Detroit Tigers won't use to shoot themselves in the foot.

• No major changes in the Tigers' lineup, save for Ryan Raburn back at 2nd base after returning from bereavement leave.
• Quintin Berry gets his 3rd consecutive start in center field. The sample size is beyond small, but the 27 year old rookie has been just fine with the bat in his short time with the Tigers, as .333/.500/.833 attests.
• A dose of reality and luck: The Tigers are 20-24 with a -10 run differential. The New York Mets are 24-21 with a -35 run differential. Just sayin'.
  
• Tonight is the13th game of a 24 game stretch in which 19 of the Tigers' games are on on the road. Just something to keep in mind when looking at their record. I'm grasping at straws here...
  
• There was time time you had to go though the Minnesota Twins to win the Central. Now? Not so much. The last place Twins are 11 games out of 1st with a 15-29 overall record, are 6-14 at home, been swept 5 times in 2012 and coming off a series loss to the Chicago White Sox. Time for the Tigers to finally put 2 wins together. And at this point, I will consider 2 straight wins a big time winning streak.
• Going back to September 2010, the Tigers have won 18 of 24 from the Twins, and 8 of their last 10 at Target Field. Let's hope the trend continues and may the Horrordome remain dead and buried.

Baseball Reference preview

Detroit Tigers:

Quintin Berry, CF
Andy Dirks, LF
Miguel Cabrera, 3B
Prince Fielder, 1B
Delmon Young, DH
Brennan Boesch, RF
Jhonny Peralta, SS
Alex Avila, C
Ryan Raburn, 2B

Drew Smyly, P

Minnesota Twins:

Denard Span, CF
Ben Revere, RF
Joe Mauer, C
Josh Willingham, DH
Justin Morneau, 1B
Brian Dozier, SS
Trevor Plouffe, LF
Alexi Casilla, 2B
Jamey Carroll, 3B

Anthony Swarzak, P

Detroit Tigers (20-24) at Minnesota Twins (15-29)

Time/Place: 8:00 p.m., Target Field

SB Nation Blog: Twinkie Town

Media: Fox Sports Detroit, MLB.TV, Tigers Radio Network

Pitching Matchup: Drew Smyly (1-1, 2.89 ERA) vs. Anthony Swarzak (0-3, 4.73 ERA)

Swarzak is a 26-year old righthander making his 13th appearance of 2012, but only his fourth start. He started the season in the rotation, picking up all three of his losses in his first three starts. After a brutal outing -- 2 2/3 IP, 8 H, 6 ER -- against the New York Yankees, he was moved to the bullpen, where he had a 3.06 ERA in 17 2/3 innings.

Swarzak has a career 7.62 ERA in 13 innings against the Tigers, but this is largely due to a horrible outing in 2009 where he only lasted one inning after giving up 7 runs. Last season, he gave up 4 runs in 12 innings against Detroit. He also isn't above making dirty references to the Fox Sports North girls on Twitter.

@FSNorth_Girls I'm a buttermilk guy myself.... But it's all about the syrup

— Anthony Swarzak (@ASwarzak51) May 23, 2012

OK, so it was actually a discussion about pancakes, but that doesn't make for good headlines.

Smyly's last two starts have seem him fall back to earth a bit. After earning quality starts in five consecutive outings, he has allowed four earned runs in each of his past two starts. While the Twins' offense has been hot lately (more on that below), they haven't seen Smyly yet, which seems to do the trick for most teams. Since Andrew McCutchen is unlikely to be in the Twins' lineup tonight, I have faith that we'll see a better effort out of Smyly tonight.

Stat to hopefully back people off the ledge

The Tigers are just 5-16 in Cleveland since the start of 2010. I'm beginning to think that Progressive Field is the new Metrodome.

Random nice statement about Minneapolis in general

I was there last October and had a blast. If you ever get the chance to be there and it's not winter, you should go.

Pitch around Joe Mauer. Pitch around Joe Mauer. For the love of all things happy, pitch around Joe Mauer.

Since the 2-game series these teams played last week, the Twins offense has exploded. In the 6 games they have played since leaving Detroit, the Twins have scored 37 runs. Joe Mauer is hitting .372 over the past two weeks and .533 over the past seven days, bringing his season average up to a Mauer-esque .301. He has one home run and only 5 RBIs during this two week period, but is still looking like the old Joe Mauer. I would be perfectly fine with putting him on first base each and every time he comes to the plate.

Outlook

I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those weird games that we see all too often when the Tigers and Twins face off. The Twins are coming off of a wild, back-and-forth 11-8 loss to the Chicago White Sox and got into Minneapolis much later than the Tigers did, so we might see some tired legs from them this evening. Opponents have a .193 batting average against Smyly this season when the Tigers are on the road, and I would like to see that trend continue this evening.

Prediction

Smyly picks up career win #2 with a strong effort this evening.

Lynn Henning thinks the idea of Miguel Cabrera being traded is not "illogical," David Schoenfield calls the Tigers "overrated," and Drew Sharp thinks the Tigers need to stop blaming everyone else for their problems. These stories and all the Detroit media trolling you can handle in today's Morning Prowl.

Tigers links:

Future trade of Tigers' Miguel Cabrera not an illogical proposition -- The Detroit News, Lynn Henning
Dear, jaw ... meet, floor.

Indians as good as overrated Tigers -- SweetSpot Blog, David Schoenfield
This was written before the final two games of the Cleveland-Detroit series, so I imagine his opinion only go stronger.

Drew Sharp: Tigers blowing opportunities, blaming everyone but themselves -- Detroit Free Press, Drew Sharp
Boy do I love media sensationalizing. Getting pissed off about an umpire's call, doesn't mean the Tigers are blaming them for all their ineptitude right now.

The Meaning Of Justin Verlander -- Baseball Nation, Jeff Sullivan
"Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sit back and watch those .gifs for a few hours." Seriously, I think I watched them for five straight minutes.

Time To Call People Out -- DesigNate Robertson
"Rick Porcello: We’re done babying you. It’s time to grow up." Yes, this.

Tigers Swept By Indians, Media and Fanbase Hit Rock Bottom -- Walkoff Woodward, Rob Rogacki
Don't let the headline fool you, this is mostly about Lynn Henning trolling the entire Tigers fanbase.

Tigers have sad. -- Brain Matters
I'm going to steal a comment from this post to explain the link: "That, good sir brain thingy, is cruel and unusual exploitation of a cruel and unusual commercial featuring a Canadian songstress and puppies. Good work." Now go watch it.

Was The Tigers Beef With Jerry Meals Legitimate? -- Motor City Bengals, Chris Hannum
Sure, it was legitimate. But it's no excuse for playing lousy baseball.

Hello to Quintin Berry, and other things. -- Roar of the Tigers, Samara Pearlstein
Will Rhymes as batman. You don't want to miss it.

Max Scherzer, Ricky Nolasco, Edwin Jackson among frustrating starting pitchers to own -- ESPN, Tristan H. Cockcroft
You think the Detroit Tigers are hard to watch in real life? It might be nothing compared to how some of them perform in fantasy baseball.

Continue reading this post »

The Detroit Tigers dropped a 3 game series to the 1st place Cleveland Indians in embarrassing fashion, falling in the finale 2-1. With the sweep, the Tigers are mired in 3rd place, 6 games out of 1st, closer to the 4th place Royals than the top of the division Tribe. Not exactly what was envisioned before the season.

Kurt wrote this after yesterday's loss:

In all, I think it's safe to say we're seeing among the worst play of the year.

Well...maybe not. Today may have topped it. It was damn near an epidemic of suck.

There's not much more to say, as I've about reached the limit with my righteous indignation over the Tigers' lousy play over the past few weeks. So the recap with be much shorter than its normal War and Peace length.

Jim Leyland and Tom Brookens deservedly lost their minds, and got tossed.

Justin Verlander was great. He deserved so much better, it's ridiculous as to just how much.

The rest of the team did next to nothing. We saw sloppy play, bad defense, runners stranded by the bus load, a constant stream of bad at bats, not hustling, with some dumb sacrifice bunting the cherry on top.

Verlander had this to say after the game:

You can only say it's still early for so long. We've got to get this thing turned around.

As for a team meeting?

So what's the point in getting everybody pissed off? We're already pissed off.

Well, getting pissed off is a start. But until this lineup starts hitting, not much is going to change.

Continue reading this post »

The Detroit Tigers announced several roster moves immediately after being swept by the Cleveland Indians. Most of them were injury related and not unexpected.

• Being his abdominal strain is not improving, Austin Jackson will be placed on the 15 day DL, retroactive to May 17th.
• Luis Marte will come off the DL Friday, joining the team for their weekend series with the Minnesota Twins.
• To make room for Marte, Luke Putkonen was optioned to Toledo.
  
• Ryan Raburn will return from bereavement leave on Friday.

It's best to nip an abdominal injury in the bud now, rather than have it linger for weeks. So placing Jackson on the DL was overdue. Obviously, his subtraction from a badly misfiring offense has been a huge loss. For 2 games, Quintin Berry has been fine as the replacement to Jackson's original replacement, Don Kelly. But Jackson was playing at an MVP level over the first 2 months. Any team would have issues losing such a key player.

After throwing 3 scoreless innings during his Monday rehab appearance with the Mud Hens, the Tigers have deemed Marte ready for the big leagues. Marte had made the team out spring training, but had been shelved with a strained hamstring suffered during the Tigers' final exhibition game. He will hopefully help solidify what's been an iffy middle relief corps.

As for Putkonen, he was living on borrowed time, and time finally ran out. He dodged one bullet when the Tigers released Collin Balester when Berry was called up. But an 8.59 ERA and 2.59 WHIP had already sealed his fate. Putkonen was the obvious player to be sent down when Marte was ready.

Let's hope the time away cleared Raburn's head. For all we know, maybe his family issues had something to do with his lengthy slump. Despite the cries to replace Raburn with either Ramon Santiago or Danny Worth, their recent unimpressive play confirms why the Tigers still believe he's is their best in-house option at 2nd base.

The Detroit Tigers fell to the Cleveland Indians for the third consecutive game, 2-1, as the Tigers wasted a complete game from Justin Verlander.

Indians starter Justin Masterson went 7 innings to get the victory, raising his record to 2-3. Chris Perez converted saves in a all 3 games, nailing down his 16th today. Verlander went 8 full innings, only allowing 2 runs and 6 hits, but was stuck with an undeserved loss, dropping to 5-2 on the season. Shin-Soo Choo homered for the Tribe, Jose Lopez added an RBI single. The Tigers only run scored on a Miguel Cabrera ground out.

Verlander's streak of lasting 6 innings or more is now at 52 straight games, but his record after a Tigers loss since the start of last season fell to 20-4. When you have to throw near no-hitters to win games...well, there's not much you can add.

The Tribe started in stunning fashion, before anyone could even settle into their seats (what few in Cleveland who bothered to show up). Lead off man Shin-Soo Choo hit a Verlander change up as hard as you'll ever see, sending it far into the 2nd deck in right field. The long home run put the Tribe up 1-0.

In the 1st, the Tigers had 2 on with 2 out. Miguel Cabrera singled off the wall in right, Fielder followed with a single to center. But Delmon Young lined out to center, ending the threat. The squandering had begun in earnest, and never, ever stopped.

In the 2nd, Brennan Boesch led off with a double. After advancing on a ground out, he was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Jhonny Pertalta's grounder. Why Boesch didn't try to run over catcher Lou Marson, I can't tell you.

In the 3rd, the Tigers...SCORED? Quintin Berry legged out a double to left center, advanced on an ground out, then scrambled home on Cabrera's ground out. Tie game...but not for long.

The Indians didn't hit a ball hard off of Verlander, but still manged a "That freaking figures" sort of 2 out rally in the bottom of the 4th. Michael Brantley singled to shallow right, stole 2nd (teams running on Tigers' pitching is becoming a major issue), and scored on Lopez's single to right. The Indians had the lead back at 2-1, and it felt all but insurmountable.

Tom Brookens and Jim Leyland were tossed in the 5th, thanks to animatedly pointing out Masterson balked on a pitch to Andy Dirks (replays confirmed Masterson never came to a stop). They weren't going to change minds, so Brookens and Leyland completely vented their spleens. You can see the frustration mounting with this underachieving team...

The squandering continued in the 6th, Boesch walked, and Alex Avila singled. Peralta, having a horrid series at the plate, grounded into an easy 6-4-3 double play. At that point, the Tigers were 0-9 with RISP and had stranded 29 runners in the series. Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.

In the 8th, Verlander showed why he's the best pitcher in the game. He pitched angry, throwing low 100 MPH heat, and struck out the side. His last 4 fastballs measured at 100, 101, 100, 102. Verlander ended his show by striking out Asdrubal Cabrera on a knee buckling breaking ball. Verlander had made a statement, hoping the the Tigers' awful offense could reply in kind.

They didn't.

Ramon Santiago singled with 1 out, and was left standing there as Berry struck out and Dirks weakly flew out to end another miserably played game by the Tigers. I've seen t-ball teams play with better fundamentals than the Tigers did while getting swept.

Was this series rock bottom for the Tigers? Only time will tell.