| [september 1, 2003] | tiger's weekly |
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Today is Labor Day, and if you're a Tiger fan, then you must feel like you've been in labor for the last five months. The Tigers continue on their downward spiral and are gearing up for a run at 120. I'm no math major (oh wait, yes I am), but I think I can figure out that one win a week will result in the worst record ever. The pitching rotation has been expanded to six, but I don't know if that's the best idea right now. Staying under 120 losses, in my eyes, is far more important than getting these players (most of who have already seen some time in the majors this year) big league experience. Being bad is one thing...being the worst ever is another. New Subscribers... Ken "Boom Boom" St. John Russell "Branyan" Rendall ------------------------------------------------------- "Week" of 8/27 - 9/1 Record: 1-5 LLWLLL Undy Five Hundy: 68. That's it. Dunn vs. the Tigers... Adam Dunn 27 HR's Tigers 34 Wins Up Next for the Tigers... September 2-4 Cleveland September 5-7 @Toronto September 8 no game scheduled September 9-11 @New York Yankees News and Notes: The Steve Sparks era in Detroit has come to a close. Sparks was put on waivers, and signed a minor league deal with Oakland. We may be seeing Sparks pitching in the playoff run this year. I grew to like Sparks and I hope he does well. AL Central Standings... CWS 73 64 - KCR 70 65 2 MIN 71 66 2 CLE 62 76 11.5 DET 34 102 38.5 AL Division Leaders: New York, Chicago, Oakland AL Wild Card Standings... (games back in division) SEA - (2) BOS 1 (4.5) (HOU, LA still playing...) NL Divison Leaders: Atlanta, STL/HOU, San Francisco NL Wild Card Standings... (games back in division) FLA - (13) PHI 1 (14) STL 2 ( - ) HOU 2 ( - ) LAD 2.5 (12) CHC 3.5 (1.5) ARI 4 (13.5) MON 4 (17) ------------------------------------------------------- Tiger of the Week... ------------------------------------------------------- August call-up Nate Robertson gets TOTW honors this week. He pitched five innings against the White Sox to pick up his first win of his career. Since being called up, Robertson has started three games, posting a 3.72 ERA and striking out 14 batters. They need to pitch this guy more and guys like Shane Loux less if they want to avoid the 120 loss mark. ------------------------------------------------------- Maroth on the Verge... ------------------------------------------------------- With Saturday's loss to the White Sox, Mike Maroth is sitting at 6-19, one loss away from being the first pitcher in a heck of a long time to lose twenty games. The last guy to do it, Oakland's Brian Kingman, will be in Toronto on Friday to see if Maroth will do it there. Kingman actually enjoys the distinction (I read something that said he's made voodoo dolls to try and prevent others from reaching the mark), and has commented that he wants to pitch for the Tigers next year to reclaim the title. Hilarious. Apparently, Maroth and Trammell aren't finding the humor in Kingman's comments and didn't want things to turn into a circus. Kingman made a comment that when you're chasing the '63 Mets and the Cleveland Spiders, it is a circus. It's hard to argue with that. ------------------------------------------------------- Poll Question... ------------------------------------------------------- Phil "Lefty" Mickelson (who actually throws right handed) threw BP for the Mud Hens this week and is now interested in signing a short term minor league deal with the Tigers' AAA club. Apparently Phil isn't that bad on the mound. I think this is pretty cool and funny, but some people aren't too happy about it. How would you feel if the Mud Hens signed Phil Mickelson to a minor league contract? ------------------------------------------------------- Quote of the Week... ------------------------------------------------------- "I was coming around third base with a piano on my back. When I came around third base, the legs just gave up. I almost got in there." - Kansas City Royal, Rondell White, on almost legging out an inside the park home run. I got a kick out of that. I had never heard that one before. ------------------------------------------------------- Game Linescores... ------------------------------------------------------- August 27: Detroit 7 - Cleveland 9 Starters: DET: Loux 2IP - CLE: Mulholland 4.2IP DET 010 050 010 7 10 0 CLE 103 212 00X 9 12 0 W: Cressend (2-0) L: Spurling (1-3) S: Riske (4) August 28: Detroit 3 - Cleveland 8 Starters: DET: Bonderman 4.2IP - CLE: Lee 7IP DET 011 010 000 3 6 2 CLE 210 131 00X 8 11 0 W: Lee (3-1) L: Bonderman (6-18) August 29: Chicago White Sox 4 - Detroit 8 Starters: CHI: Buerhle 5IP - DET: Robertson 5IP CWS 102 000 010 4 13 0 DET 230 030 00X 8 12 0 W: Robertson (1-0) L: Buerhle (11-13) August 30: Chicago White Sox 5 - Detroit 2 Starters: CWS: Garland 6IP - DET: Maroth 6.2IP CWS 003 000 200 5 9 1 DET 001 000 100 2 6 0 W: Garland (10-10) L: Maroth (6-19) August 31: Chicago White Sox 6 - Detroit 1 Starters: CWS: Loaiza 8IP - DET: Cornejo 7.2IP CWS 000 000 024 6 8 0 DET 010 000 000 1 4 1 W: Loaiza (18-6) L: Cornejo (6-14) September 1: Cleveland 7 - Detroit 4 Starters: CLE: Stanford 4.1IP - DET: Mears 4IP CLE 012 001 012 7 14 0 DET 000 040 000 4 6 2 W: Santiago (1-1) L: Walker (3-3) S: Riske (5) ------------------------------------------------------- Readers Write In... ------------------------------------------------------- "Cleveland" Gary Conkle It's a sad day in Motown when we have to count how many games from being the worst in baseball history instead of how many games out of first place. Gary D. Conkle ------------------------------------------------------- Steve "Three Minutes" Sprague I must say that I'm not much of a fan of a closer winning the Cy Young. I don't deny that it is an important position, but so is the middle reliever, and the set up man. Why not give it to one of those guys who consistently comes in and pitches a solid part of an inning. Actually, why not give it to a guy who consistently comes in and gets one tough lefty out and then hits the links. The Cy Young is the best pitcher in the league, and the starters are in theory the best pitchers on the team. That means that Gagne should not finish any better than sixth in the voting, after the Dodgers rotation. Again I'm not dissing closers, but I would say that the starter has the much tougher job, going out there and giving his best stuff for hopefully six or seven innings per start, unless your Sean Estes, then you give absolutely horrible stuff for about one inning, man that guys sucks. As for punters I do think they warrant consideration for the hall of fame, but limited consideration in that sense. It is a very important aspect of the game, as a good punter can really help out in the field position battle, but it requires significantly less skill than placekicking as accuracy is less of an issue. For a punter to be in the HOF he should be a guy who unless the line of scrimmage was on his own 45 or closer to the opponents end zone he drills it 50 yards, and in the other cases pins the opponent inside the 10. A guy you can count on to not shank the ball, drop a snap or do anything else a punter does to screw it up. He should also have had success throwing some passes on punt fakes, ie Tom Tupa, should be able to scramble if his punt is gonna get blocked, and he should be able to tackle. Unfortunately not too many of these things show up in stats. All you get is average, and times inside the twenty, which don't tell you anything too important. That's why there are no punters in the hall of fame. Actually there is only one place kicker, Jan Stenerud. Sprague ------------------------------------------------------- Matthew "Bison" Messink Is there any one out there in Tigers Weekly Land that reads Danny Knobler's Tigers reporting/columns in their local paper on a semi-reglar basis? Knobler is a Tigers beat writer that many Michigan papers use as the "Tigers Insider". I read him daily in the Ann Arbor News over the summer, and now he has followed me across the state, as he also is included daily in the Grand Rapids Press. Anyway, on Knobler. What an asshole. Anyone who reads this guy knows what I'm talking about. If he is not in your local paper, I suggest you go to MLive and look up papers he is in and try to read his column reporting sometimes. He is the most negative, unprofessional sportswriter I have ever read. Not a single day passes that Knobler does not take sarcastic low blows and cheap shots at the Tigers. I have never seen anything like it from a professional journalist in all of my life. I know that it must be frustrating for him to have to follow the Tigers around every day and watch them lose night in and night out, but Knobler goes way beyond the lines of professionalism in letting his own presonal frustration show through. I wrote a letter the the Ann Arbor News complaining about him. I urge anyone else to do the same to your local paper. Anyone out there read this guy? Bison "Dele" Messink ------------------------------------------------------- Ken "Boom Boom" St. John I have been a Tigers fan since I was about 6. Mark "The Bird" Fidrych stalking the mound area and cleaning up trash blown onto the field in the middle of the game is my first recollection of the Tigers. Having grown up in the Detroit area suburbs and attending college within walking distance of Tiger Stadium (Wayne State University), I have a unique perspective on their history since the mid-1970s. I am certain that I attended 100 games at Tiger Stadium if I attended one. I am a "dyed in the wool" 100% Tiger faithful and watch every game that I possibly can. I don't think I've smiled as big in 3 years as I did Sunday afternoon when Brandon went "yard" in the bottom of the 9th for the first "walk off" of the season. It makes life worth living! I firmly believe that "real" Tigers fans need to unite and put HUGE media pressure on Mike Ilitch to sell the team back to the fans (e.g. Green Bay Packers). I would be the first in line to buy shares of that stock! ------------------------------------------------------- Dallas "Bigus D-us" Senters AGHHHHH...the reds are creeping dangerously close to the home of the tigers (last place) luckily the indians can never have that title as long as the most talented pitchers on the tigers roster are pushing 20 losses. it is true...any chance to give ole barry bonds a big BOOOO is jumped on. (it pains me to see espn kissing his butt like marv albert and michael jordan) pujols's triple crown thing, though kind of interesting is like helton's .400 bid a couple of years ago, good effort...but no. in my opinion, the cy young could respectably go to a closer. it is almost the same debate as giving mvp to a starting pitcher. if a sp gets 20 wins, then they are a very valuable part of the team, worthy of consideration. if a closer pitches just as many innings as a guy in the rotation and shines...a la smoltz/gagne, then why not give him the award. true, cox does try to gift wrap his saves for smoltz. if one of the closers doesn't get it, i boldly predict russ ortiz or jason schmidt. "working hard to be the only 'tw post' you'll ever need" dallas ------------------------------------------------------- Toolie's Trashtalk... Good stuff this week, folks, good stuff. And no, I'm not referring to the Tigers. At one point we had won three of five, but now are losing games again in normal fashion. They blew a 1-0 lead in the eighth Sunday against the White Sox, and a 4-3 lead Monday against Cleveland. The late innings have been really hurting the Tigers. As it stands, there are 26 games left on the schedule, so the Tigers need to win nine of them to avoid hitting the 120 loss plateau. Here's the breakdown. Cleveland: 3 games all home Toronto: 6 games 3 home / 3 road New York: 3 games all road Kansas City: 7 games 4 home / 3 road Minnesota: 7 games 4 home / 3 road Where can we dig up those wins? Hmmm. Let's say we take one from Cleveland and two from the Blue Jays (who the Tigers are 2-1 against this season...the only team that D-Town has a winning record against). That leaves six to take from the last three teams. I'd say we might get one from the Yanks, and two from each of the Royals and Twins is possible, but that still leaves us one win short. It will be a close finish! They need to start showing Seabiscuit in the locker room. I do agree with giving Ilitch the old heave-ho, though I will always be grateful for the fun years of Red Wings that he's given me. I think that it would be great if Phil Mickelson pitched in the minors... that is, if he's qualified to do the job. It's not like he's going to muscle in and stay there, preventing some young guy from getting his chance. What could be the downside? Maybe he'll be lights-out and we can bring him up to pitch at CoPa. I read an interesting article on MLive yesterday about how the Tigers poor season is hurting the business of the vendors at the stadium. It was a look at the season from a different perspecive. (This is where the link to the article would be if MLive wasn't being stupid right now. I apologize for failing to deliver the link. You can go to mlive.com and check things out. It is a website all about Michigan stuff. Search the Ann Arbor News, I think, for Detroit Tigers.) I checked out some Danny Knobler on that website as well, and I did sense some negativity towards the ball club. But I think that is to be expected. He has to write about these guys every day. I have trouble coming up with stuff to write every week. Being a professional journalist where you have to cover a sports team almost every day for six straight months, and they may not win forty games must be tough. But I only got to read a couple of articles, so I can't really refute or agree with the Bison's commentary. Anyone else out there have an opinion on the Knob? That's a wrap folks. Only four more issues of Tigers Weekly. That means four weeks to get nine wins. It can be done. It WILL be done. I think...I hope... maybe... maybe not. Toolie P.S. Attached is a picture that was sent to me by "Sir" James Higginbottom. Classic stuff. I'm going to do 90 down Woodward. ------------------------------------------------------ Tigers Weekly is in no way affiliated with the Detroit Tigers or Major League Baseball. Hey you! You are receiving this because I or someone else thinks that you give a darn about baseball. If you don't, or just don't want to receive the Weekly anymore, write back and put NO! in the subject box. If you know anyone that would like to recieve TW, reply and give me their names and e-mail addresses. Play Ball! If your e-mail address is changing, drop me a line and I will update it.... |
