Goodness gracious he’s the worst. Once the pride of the Wolverines, he no longer can block opposing defenders from destroying Matthew Stafford and, apparently, cannot even block the general public from seeing his hindquarters. (Semi-NSFW.) He should be fired for wardrobe malfunction or football-playing malfunction. Either way is fine with me.
(HT: Laura)
It seems I spoke too soon. I didn’t say it explicitly, but I thought losing a Justin Verlander start to the Royals while treading water in second place in all the relevant standings in late August was pretty much rock bottom for a team with the preseason expectations and on-paper (both white and greenbacked) potential of the 2012 Detroit Tigers. No, I see now that getting swept by the Royals to end the month of August three games out of both the division lead and the second wild card spot is rock bottom. Although I’ve begun the process of emotionally untangling myself from this team, they aren’t dead in the water and their closing schedule allows them to control their own destiny. If that destiny is to include a playoff berth, though, they’re going to have to string together some winning streaks against critical opponents, something they largely have avoided this entire season. If there are to be no playoffs for this team, though, then I think we can all look back on the above-captured moment when Mike Moustakas grapple-tackled Prince Fielder as the Tigers’ point of know return.
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Previously
Now it’s just offensive – 8/29
Explode! – 7/23
Halfway at the Half-way – 7/9
Interleague Play – 6/26
Call the Experts! – 5/26
Recipe for a Slumpbuster – 5/2
Delmon Young Swings and Misses – 4/30
Brennan Boesch’s Birthday – 4/12
Tigers open 2012 season with Sawks sweep – 4/9
Last night’s Tiger loss on the road in Kansas City felt pretty crippling.
The Free Press story starts like this:
In a span of 11 batters over the first and second innings Tuesday night, the Royals got more hits off Justin Verlander than they’d ever gotten off him in a game.
In that same span, they scored seven runs — more than they’d ever gotten off Verlander in a game.
Detroit rallied, tying the game on a Jhonny Peralta home run in the eighth, but Phil Coke, who has been ineffective on the road, gave the lead right back in the bottom half of that inning. The game effectively ended in the ninth, when officials ruled that a Delmon Young drive to the right-field seats wasn’t a homer. It would’ve scored three for the visitors. (Watch the video here, second clip on the right.) That’s Young, pictured above, as he stood on first awaiting the review. He has a mustache now, which I did not know/remember until this morning.
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After the way last night’s game and the month of August has gone for them, there’s little more I can add about this team right now, except to present some numerological reality and then get out. Keep reading…
We may finally be getting an idea of how good the 2012 Detroit Tigers can be. After carrying a five-game winning streak into the All Star Break, the Tigers now have won thirteen of their last fifteen. The current run includes taking two of three in Baltimore and three of four at home against the Angels. Most recently, it includes a series sweep of division rival Chicago, putting Detroit a game and a half into first place in the division. And there was much rejoicing. While everyone would acknowledge there’s still plenty of room for improvement, the team finally is clicking on both sides of the plate at the same time, scoring an average of five and two-thirds runs per game while surrendering just three and a half. If not for a heart-breaking loss to the Orioles in the thirteenth inning and a 13-0 destruction of now-traded youngster Jacob Turner at the hands of the Angels, Detroit would’ve been riding a fifteen game winning streak. More than anything (and “anything” includes Miguel Cabrera’s 300th career homer), it feels good to see this team climb the mountaintop and get into first place. They’ll have to fight to stay there, but so long as Austin Jackson keeps sparking two-out rallies and the bottom of the order keeps hitting multi-run home runs, I think they’ll be able to handle it. Keep reading…
Full, exclusive coverage of the “I ♥ the D” Golf Invitational:
Thank you for that. I’m feeling better already.
I’ve written before about Detroit’s “inferiority/superiority complex, and one of the ways that manifests itself is in Detroiters’ (and Michiganders’) belief that national media sources ignore or marginalize them.
The reality is that it’s a big country and there’s plenty happening all over the place to fill national media broadcasts. People also probably get tired of hearing about how life is tough in the Motor City. But ESPN’s emphasis on the coastal cities, especially New York and Boston, whether things are good, bad, or uninteresting there, feels like it belies the notion that the Worldwide Leader is looking to spread its coverage evenly and objectively. There’s probably somebody who’s spent too much time next to the Belle Isle salt lick with a scientific analysis of the network’s Motown slights. Thankfully I don’t have anything like that (heck, I don’t even have a television– am I qualified to write this post? any post for this website?), but I do have a lifetime of accumulated, small experiences, little things that build up over the years like plaque, arterial blockage, uric acid, or whatever early middle age male medical condition the target sports audience has, as determined by the concordant commercial advertisers.
I’m not talking about being accustomed to only seeing the Lions on other teams’ highlight reels— that’s just a bad team making the film editors’ jobs easy. It’s things like the ESPN Radio “SportsCenter” segments on their morning show, Mike & Mike, always starting with the Yankees or Red Sox game and frequently omitting the Tigers’ score from the night before. And stuff like this, from two nights ago:
These are small things. Petty things. Sometimes undefinable things. But they’re real things, at least insofar as they’re experienced, or perceived to have been experienced. When things are bad, Detroiters want the attention to validate their sorrow. (That’s why I wanted the Tigers to lose 120 in 2003. At least the record books would have to bear witness to that misery.) When the supercharged Tigers got off to a disappointing start this season, was Jim Leyland “on the hot seat,” from a national perspective? No way. Bobby Valentine? Almost immediately.
Anyway, trotting out all these examples would be an unenjoyable exercise for me and unenjoyable reading for you. It’s about getting your fair attention for bad times and good. And times are pretty good right now. Justin Verlander won the Cy Young and the MVP in the same season last year! He got shelled as the All-Star game starter last night, but he’s dating Kate Upton! Miguel Cabrera is the best hitter in baseball! Calvin Johnson is the best receiver in football! (And ESPN’s Chris Carter can’t acknowledge that?)
Alright, enough.
Just in time for the All-Star break, which marks the half-way point of the MLB season, the Detroit Tigers have clawed their way back to an above-.500 record, which feels like much more of an accomplishment than it should, but things really do seem to be getting back to the way they should be. The team followed up its strong showing in interleague play by finishing the first half of the season having won five straight and seven of their last nine, earning a 44-42 record. The pitchers seem to be getting settled in (Scherzer leads the AL in some strikeout statistic I forgot, Phil Coke is a workhorse, and Justin Verlander’s done well enough to earn the starting spot for the AL All Stars), and odd-walking liability Delmon Young homered in each of the last four games. Brennan Boesch still is hitting below .250, but Jhonny Peralta seems to be coming on, and Quintin Berry is a joy to watch on the basepaths. Team-wide, defense remains a very frustrating problem, however.
The Tigers’ TV play-by-play man, Mario Impemba, offered his suggestions for the team’s continued success in the second half, and they included the following observation:
The second key is the two spot in the lineup. Quintin Berry has done a terrific job in the two-hole, but the return of Andy Dirks could help fuel the Tigers offense. Dirks was having a tremendous impact on the numbers that Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera were putting up. Below is a look at the numbers for the two sluggers with Dirks in and out of the lineup:
With Dirks batting second: With other hitters batting second
Cabrera: .344 AVG .392 OB% Cabrera: .318 AVG .384 OB%
Fielder: .365 AVG .411 OB% Fielder: .273 AVG .364 OB%
While Dirks is out of the walking boot and his achilles is feeling better, getting him back before August is not a good bet at this point.
Mario also tempered the optimism headed into the second half with this note:
The last week has given the Tigers hope that a second half run is on the horizon. The first three weeks following the break will be telling. Detroit will play 29 straight games against teams over .500.
Finally, Prince Fielder will be participating in tonight’s home run derby, as narrated by Chris Berman, and Detroit has to hope that this doesn’t mess up a good thing for the remainder of the season.
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Previously
Interleague Play – 6/26
Call the Experts! – 5/26
Recipe for a Slumpbuster – 5/2
Delmon Young Swings and Misses – 4/30
Brennan Boesch’s Birthday – 4/12
Tigers open 2012 season with Sawks sweep – 4/9
After another short-ish break, Aldland is back with another podcast, this time featuring blog creator AD. We have doubled the number of listeners to our podcast, and are producing an appropriately epic podcast to honor the occasion. Listen as we talk baseball, Saints bounty program and obviously, about the biggest news story of the year. Click that play button!
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
It has been a tough first half of the season for the Detroit Tigers, who are struggling just to get to .500. I wrote before that the best way to get out of a slump is to invite the Royals to your yard. That sort of worked, but it didn’t really cure any ills in the longer term. After this month, though, I have a new recipe: play the National League.
The Tigers began interleague play on June 8 in Cincinnati, and they won each of their interleague series except for the last one, taking two of three from the Reds, Cubs, Rockies, and Cardinals and avoiding a sweep in Pittsburgh with a game three win against the Pirates, the team with the second-best home record in all of baseball. The Reds, Cardinals, and Pirates are good, and the Cubs and Rockies are quite bad, but Detroit’s performance on a given night seemed to have little correlation to the strength of their opponent. MLB, unlike the NFL or NBA, is a situation in which any team can beat any other team on a given day, but I think this is more a reflection of the Tigers’ internal struggles.
Injuries continue to be an issue, the most troublesome example of which is all-star catcher Alex Avila’s knee and leg problems. Fortunately, Gerald Laird has proven to be a more than serviceable backup, but Jim Leyland consistently and accurately insists he has yet to have his best lineup on the field for any meaningful stretch of games. Utility man Don Kelly also is out as a result of flinging his leg into a barrier at dead-sprint speed.
On the positive side, Doug Fister looks to be healthy and back on the path towards pitching effectiveness. Ditto on the latter for Max Scherzer and Rick Porcello. The shining star continues to be Austin Jackson, who is hitting very well in the lead-off spot while recording zero errors in center field. Keep reading…
After some time off, ALDLAND’s podcast is back with a vengeance. Euro 2012, Liverpool’s new coach, baseball, and some big news from one of the co-hosts. It’s all here in the latest ALDLAND podcast.
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
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