Tag Archives: detroit

Bay of Cigs: April in the D

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As briefly mentioned at the end of the last post, ALDLAND will have a presence in Detroit this weekend, where the Tigers will host the Atlanta Braves for three games, beginning tonight.

After twenty games, the Tigers can’t seem to get themselves above .500, and the early ride has been bumpy.

Yesterday afternoon’s game was particularly rough. After allowing just one earned run, starter Justin Verlander left the game with a lead on the scoreboard and a sore throwing-hand thumb. Rookie reliever Bruce Rondon, making his first major-league appearance, promptly gave up that lead, and then the ball. Phil Coke entered and, through a series of walks of varying intentionalities, put Detroit behind. Darin Downs relieved Coke and immediately gave up a grand slam. The supposedly hard-hitting Tigers, who have a way of not scoring late, plated no runs from the fifth inning on through the tenth, when they lost.

As anyone reading Upton Abbey knows, the Braves are red-hot. The consensus best team in baseball, Atlanta is off to a 15-6 start, and they’re hitting home runs like crazy. I haven’t taken a close look at their runs/inning distribution, but it sure seems like they can hit for power both early and late.  Keep reading…

Big changes afoot in Hockeytown?

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The Detroit Red Wings have the longest active playoff-appearance streak– twenty-one years– in all of professional sports. With two games to go in the regular season, they barely are hanging on to the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. The way this season has gone, failing to make the playoffs couldn’t be called a surprise, but the end of their postseason streak would be monumental for a historically great franchise.

As big as that seems, even bigger changes may be on the horizon for Detroit. Buried at the bottom of the ESPN.com story on last night’s win over the Los Angeles Kings was this note:

Chris Ilitch, president and CEO of Ilitch Holdings, which owns the Red Wings, said progress is being made on a new arena for the team.

(By way of background, Chris Ilitch is the son of Mike Ilitch, owner of the Detroit Tigers and the Little Caesar’s Pizza empire.)

I have been fortunate enough to see the Red Wings play in person three times– at Colorado, at Nashville, and at Chicago, plus the Red & White game in Grand Rapids— but never in the epicenter of Hockeytown: the legendary Joe Louis Arena.

I can’t imagine most fans will be happy to hear this news. For me, knowing that little is likely to stand in the way of the winged wheel of Progress, all I can do is redouble my efforts to make it to the Joe before time runs out.

[Cross-posted at Winging It In Motown. -Ed.]

Bay of Cigs: Jet Set (Sigh?)

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papa jetAirships are away in the Detroit Tigers empire as I write. After a crash landing at the final destination of the team’s only West Coast trip, the Tigers limped back to the Motor City, and promptly (indeed, retroactively) placed Octavio Dotel, who has been pitching without a functioning elbow since Oakland, on the disabled list. In immediate need of bullpen reinforcements, GM Dave Dombrowski & Co., air traffic controller furloughs be damned, revved up the sky fleet. The first move was to bring the franchise’s top relief prospect, Bruce Rondon, in from Toledo, something that admittedly is unlikely to require the services of a jet airliner. But then! Wheels up! Jose Valverde is on a flight to Detroit RIGHT NOW! The town and team turned on the once-perfect (49-0!) reliever after a down year last season, but now, in their need, redemption? The front office is mum for now, but the implication from Valverde’s comments this evening is that, at the end of his short-term minor league contract, he will sign a one-year contract with the club in Detroit.

What does all of this mean for a should-be frontrunner floundering in third place in the weak AL Central with a .500 record? Even though it’s early, and fans of baseball teams that struggle early love to rail against “small sample sizes,” we can set aside results and other numbers and acknowledge that the bullpen was working way too hard this month, and two fresh, if unsteady, arms are sure to provide at least temporary relief for a staff that seems like it could use a collective deep breath. For Rondon, my hope is that he’s ready for the big leagues. For Valverde, I just hope he has enough left to allow the coaches to use him in a way that helps the team. That may be ending this jet-set flourish with something of a sigh, but let it be, in part, a sigh of relief as you remind yourself that at least it wasn’t Brennan Boesch’s birthday flight that landed at DTW this evening.

Keep reading to find out who else will be on a flight to Detroit this week…

King in the North(west)

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6a00d8341c562353ef017d42439c3e970c-500wiIn my quest to bring you more columns on teams you could not care less about, I am starting a semi-regular column on the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners have been my favorite team since I got into baseball, largely due to a fondness for Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball on SNES. I still maintain that it is one of the best games of all time, although it is obviously not on the level of Game of Thrones or my personal favorite game of all time, Mass Effect 2. This column was really also just an excuse to make another Game of Thrones pun, which I’m super good at. Like yesterday I posted this recipe for direwolf shaped scones on Facebook and called it Game of Scones. How great is that?

Anyway, the Mariners just wrapped up a series against AD’s second favorite team, the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers won 2 out of 3, although all three games were fairly competitive with Wednesday’s game going to 14 innings.  The one win the Mariners got was against Justin Verlander. Go figure.  Although there is a fairly large talent gap between the two teams (a 150+ million dollar payroll can do that), the Mariners have had a lot of success against the Tigers in recent years so this was kind of a disappointing result for Seattle. Still, you can never be too disappointed beating Verlander and I was doubly happy because he is on one of my fantasy teams and he turned in a solid start despite losing the game. Woof, this is reading like a Live Journal post, huh? Or at least what I imagine a Live Journal post would read like.

Coming into the season I thought that the Mariners could be a surprise team a la the 2012 Orioles or Athletics given the acquisition of some offensive firepower in Mike Morse and Kendrys Morales. This of course assumed that their young core of Dustin Ackley, Justin Smoak and Jesus Montero would make a leap, which has not happened yet. The Mariners have also been bit by the injury bug, having several regular players go on the disabled list. Things could still turn around, and the fact that Seattle gets a good number of games against the Houston Astros could be the difference if they want to snag a wild card over an AL Central or East team. Still, their league worst offense over the past several seasons must make strides, and that is no given.

A Mariners post wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the King in the North(west), Felix Hernandez. Felix is off to a stellar start to the 2013 season, and continues to prove that he is one of the top pitchers in the major league. Is another Cy Young in his future? If I could see into the future I would tell you, but I can’t, so I won’t.

That’s it for my first Mariners column. I don’t blame you for skipping over it, because I doubt it interests you very much. But if you read through the whole thing, here is a stellar gif of Khal Drogo as a reward. Who do you guys think would win in a fight between Khal Drogo and the Mountain? Let me know in the comments.

Bay of Cigs: Run distribution, science(!), and the liklihood of a Detroit comeback

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We’re a dozen games into the season and the Tigers, with a few hiccups, are off to a respectable 7-5 start. Despite the day/Pacific time starts and my living outside the Tigers Radio Network, I’ve been able to keep decent track of these first few series and, while mindful of small sample size they represent, I was beginning to notice something concerning.

Continue reading →

The Detroit Red Wings’ season in one play

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Things aren’t quite what they used to be around Hockeytown this year, and with realignment looming, it isn’t even clear that the Red Wings will get to seek needed playoff revenge against the Predators this year, much less turn the tide against the Blackhawks. Right now, the Wings season in one play looks something like this:

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Related
The Detroit Pistons’ Season in One Play

Bay of Cigs: WSJ throws a wet newspaper on the Tigers’ 2013 chances

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Sometimes the Tigers can’t win for winning. Detroit opened the 2013 season on the road in chilly Minneapolis with a 4-2 victory, a win for ace Justin Verlander, and a save for closing committee chairman Phil Coke.

So you know it isn’t just me, independent sources call Verlander “the best pitcher in baseball.” Independent sources also have a way of being wet blankets, which is what the Wall Street Journal was when Continue reading →

Upton Abbey: Episode 1 – Beginning, as we must, with Chipper

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upton abbey bannerIn addition to an ongoing feature on the Detroit Tigers– this year entitled Bay of Cigs— this season, with opening day at hand, it’s time to reveal a second series, Upton Abbey, to cover the Atlanta Braves.

Just as the 2013 edition of the Tigers feature started with a look at those who had left the team, this series begins with one of the most notable departures in franchise history, Chipper Jones, who retired after his nineteenth MLB season, all with the Braves.

While players with long, successful careers sometimes find themselves wanting to return to the game as the first season following their retirement, in Jones’ case, it was another team’s general manager who was trying to prod the star back into action. Continue reading →

Bay of Cigs: A Tiger is a Tiger is a Tiger

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Buster Olney reports:

Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers have reached agreement on a new contract that could exceed $202 million, sources told ESPN’s Buster Olney.

Verlander’s deal, which would make him the highest-paid pitcher in the game, is for seven years and worth $180 million, sources said. A vesting option for an eighth year could push the deal to $202 million.
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Verlander, who would have been eligible to become a free agent after the 2014 season, had recently said he wouldn’t discuss a new contract if a deal didn’t get done by the end of spring training.

Verlander celebrated with a baby tiger (above). Additional details are not known.

In other pitching news, the team sent relief prospect Bruce Rondon back to the minors and announced they’ll begin the season with a “closer-by-committee” approach. The seven-member committee reportedly does not include Rick Porcello, who was listed as part of Detroit’s starting rotation. As mentioned last time, I was a bit concerned that management might give him the relief job, but since then, Jonah Keri assuaged my fears about that prospect,

http://twitter.com/jonahkeri/status/316643566006972417

and yesterday’s announcement makes it look like that possibility will not come to pass. Still, it would be nice to have one go-to guy who is reliable, even if he isn’t quite the unicorn on a waterslide that was 2011 Jose Valverde. Look to people far more qualified than I to say whether GM Dave Dombrowski, a personnel master of the first order, can bring in someone capable of holding down the job. For now, though, I think Dombrowski has earned a weekend off after locking up Verlander for the meaningful future.

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Previously
Bay of Cigs: The Departed – 3/14