Walk-off Balk Blog: Tigers Live Game Blog 4/6

Tigers Live Game Blog 4/6
Dan Lewis · 6 April 07

TOP 1

Earlier this year Jim Leyland announced that, because of Granderson’s troubles against left handed pitchers, Pudge Rodriguez will be penciled into the leadoff spot when the Tigers face lefty starters. He’s a questionable choice, given that he doesn’t walk all that much, but no one else on the team does either, aside from Carlos Guillen and Gary Sheffield, two players who won’t budge from the middle of the order. Pudge demonstrates my point by fouling out on a 2-1 pitch that would have been called a ball had he just taken it. Off we go!

Polanco bats second, another questionable choice. He does not run very well for a player his size, he has no power, he rarely strikes out, and he hits the ball with topspin, usually toward the middle of the field. If Granderson and Rodriguez were to have a terrific season from the leadoff spot with, say, a .400 OBP, Polanco would ground into 35 double plays.

Weak fly to center.

Sheffield K’s on some nice pitches by De La Rosa, and the Tigers go down with a whimpering meow.

BOTTOM 1

Justin Verlander starts for Detroit, and he immediately serves up a double to David DeJesus, misplayed into a triple by Magglio Ordonez, who moves like a manatee in right field. I’m not sure if the Tigers brass realized this when they signed him (or signed Sheffield, for that matter), but Magglio is just plain bad in the field. He is borderline unplayable right now, and he’s signed through at least 2009. Sheffield seems to be cemented into the DH spot, so Tigers fans are in for some wacky misadventures in right field for the next few years. I’m willing to bet they end up swapping Ordonez and Sheffield at some point next year.

Just as I’m writing this, the defensive alignment graphic goes up, and the Royals broadcasters start to go through the names. Here is what the color man says:

“Magglio Ordonez, the former White Sock, is a good outfielder in right.”

This guy must have been partying like it was 1999 last night, only to wake up continuing to believe that it’s still 1999. Ordonez is positively wooden in right, and his fielding prowess is not a matter of debate for anyone who watched more than a few Tigers games last year. The numbers support this assessment.

TOP 2

It’s dawning on me that the Royals color man is a complete moron. Magglio the Manatee starts the inning off with a weak grounder directly to Alex Gordon, and Gordon throws him out. This goofball in the booth then starts to explain that Gordon had to make a tough play, explaining that he had to charge the ball and throw on the run. Here’s what actually happened: Gordon did charge the ball, and he didn’t exactly set himself when he made the throw, but Magglio, who was leisurely loping down the line, was thrown out by at least four steps. Number one, the way Ordonez is playing baseball, Gordon could have backed into the outfield before scooping and lobbing the ball across the diamond. Number two, Gordon threw as he was casually shuffling forward after coming up with the grounder, and he had time to pat the ball into his glove a few times before tossing to first. Yeah, tough play there.

Many of the plays these guys make on a daily basis are made to look much easier than they actually are. This was not one of them.

Tigers end up scoring a run on a Craig Monroe sacrifice fly. It’s good to see Monroe contribute with the bat. Before this at bat, Monroe had gone 0-8 with five strikeouts so far this year.

BOTTOM 2

Verlander cruises. A diving stop by Brandon Inge is correctly identified as a nice play, so the color man is now batting .333, which is pretty good, depending on what league you’re talking about. The American League of Professional Base-Ball Clubs? Not so much.

TOP 3

De La Rosa cruises, getting two Tigers with pop-ups. De La Rosa typically sports between a 40 and 45% ground ball rate, but such a thing isn’t possible against Tigers, who seem to pop up about five times as often as the second popping-outest team of all time, whoever that is. To this point, 6 of the 9 Tigers outs are on pop-ups or pop-ups’ fraternal twin brothers, weak fly balls.

BOTTOM 3

Tony Pena gets a single on an 0-2 count. Not sure why Verlander didn’t elevate that fastball or else just go with his formidable hammer. Pena isn’t much of a threat to steal, with a guy throwing 96 mph fastballs to the greatest defensive catcher of all time. Doesn’t matter, as Verlander cruises.

TOP 4

I’m expecting big things this inning, with Sheffield, Ordonez and Guillen coming up….but first, Aflac Trivia:

Who are the three AL “rookie of the years” (as the guys in the booth say it) to play in the World Series since 1990? What I assume they mean is – which three players, since 1990, played in the World Series in the same year in which they were named ROY? Verlander is the most obvious one, and then there’s Jeter in 1996. The other is…I don’t know.

Sheffield pops up.

Ordonez pops up.

Guillen, after hitting a single, is thrown out stealing by about 8 feet, taking the pop-up out of Sean Casey’s hands.

BOTTOM 4

Trivia answer: Verlander, Jeter, and Chuck “New Kids On” Knoblauch, who youngsters might not realize was once a very good player.

Ugh. Verlander is really struggling with his control, and he starts the inning out by walking Teahen and soon-to-be injured Mike Sweeney. The 3-2 pitch to Sweeney was perfect, a good fastball right at the knees and absolutely a strike. This bad call will likely cost the Tigers, with budding star Alex Gordon coming to the plate.

Gordon will have to wait, though, as Inge makes a nice play on a foul pop near the wall.

Ryan Shealy, who is hitting .000 so far this season, is up, and he would be out by now if Magglio Ordonez didn’t move like the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz. Before the oil. Foul ball. Luckily, Verlander gets Ryan Shealy on a curve ball even nastier than Ordonez’s defense.

TOP 5

With one out, Monroe hits a one-out double, thereby earning himself another 4 months of playing time over Marcus Thames, who is probably forced to clean spikes and wash towels in the clubhouse.

Granderson pops out.

Rodriguez strikes out looking. Not sure how you can strike out on a big curve ball right over the middle of the plate with two outs and a man on second base, but what do I know? I’m not even going to the Blogging Hall of Fame, let alone the Baseball Hall of Fame.

BOTTOM 5

Another walk by Verlander, his third of the day, and it’s smallball time for Buddy Bell, another manager who just doesn’t get it.

Win expectancy, man on first base with none out, playing at home, tied in the 5th inning: 63.5%

...and with a man on second base, one out: 60.9%

Thanks for the out, Buddy Bell.

A stolen base by LaRue, necessitated by a marvelous play by Pudge Rodriguez on the failed bunt attempt, and a walk (that’s four) to DeJesus, leaves it up to Teahen. This is where Verlander’s inexplicably low strikeout rate gets very frustrating. He should be able to punch batters out with his 99mph fastball and sharp hammer curve, but it just never seems to happen.

Verlander walks Teahen, walk number five in as many innings. The bases are loaded for Mike Sweeney, always a very good hitter in the rare instance that he isn’t sidelined by an injury.

0-2 on Sweeney on two fouled fastballs, and shouldn’t Verlander be able to get him with a low curve?

Excellent block by Pudge on a 56-foot curve about three feet outside. The play saves a run, for now. Ivan doesn’t have a life-sized statue of himself in his house for no reason.

Yes, Verlander should be able to strike Sweeney out, and he does, with a perfect pitch at the knees on the outside corner.

TOP 6

Similarly, the Tigers should be able to score off of the middling Jorge De La Rosa, who Baseball Prospectus projects to have a 5.78 ERA this year. Polanco, who seems to hit a single up the middle in every plate appearance (he’s at .538 so far this season), hits one of them, but the rally is quickly diffused when Sheffield grounds into a double play.

Ordonez pops out.

BOTTOM 6

Verlander cruises.

TOP 7

Sean “The Mayor” Casey gets a one-out single, and it’s going to take a lot to score him, as he is slower than Corky from Life Goes On.

What have you done for me lately, Craig Monroe? You are back to your old spring-loaded dummy ways in the batter’s box and sure, you hit a double last time up, as well as five homers last postseason, but you’re looking like a horror show at the plate.

Strikeout. That’s 6 in 9 at-bats this year for Monroe. He can’t expect these pitchers to continue throwing hanging breaking balls into the path of his pre-programmed swing the way they have 48 times in the last two years. One of baseball’s great unanswered questions, along with “Why does Scott Podsednik ever draw a walk?” and “Why is Darin Erstad still considered a good player?”, is “How does Craig Monroe ever get a hit using that approach?”

BOTTOM 7

Let’s add another one: “Why is Jose Mesa in the game? Any game!” He’s on to pitch the 7th, and this is just an inexplicably dumb decision. It has been a long time since Jose Mesa has even resembled a good pitcher.

This is stupid managing on many levels. Jim Leyland cost the Tigers at least, at the very least, three baseball games last year with his complete inability to understand how this game is played. I don’t care what anyone tells you. I don’t care how many feel-good stories you may have read about this sage old man last year. He is an awful field manager.

Predictably, Mesa blows the game as soon as is humanly possible. LaRue doubles, Pena triples, and DeJesus hits a weak pop fly that Craig Monroe, a nearly useless ballplayer, plays into a single.

In comes Ledezma, who promptly issues a walk to Teahen, and this game is very close to being blown wide open for good. As it is the Royals have about a 93.5% chance of winning, and this will become essentially 100% with a hit from Sweeney or Alex Gordon. Ledezma gets Sweeney on a pop foul and strikes out Gordon to get out of it, and this miserable inning is over.

It’s funny, but as they summarize the inning before going to commercial, they make it all look very heroic and clutch, those big hits by LaRue, Pena, and DeJesus, but the reality is that, by bringing it a pitcher as utterly shitty as Jose Mesa, Jim Leyland might as well have walked over to the crew chief and calmly forfeited.

TOP 8

Inge is out, and how? Guess. Infield pop up.

Polanco, pop up.

Sheffield mixes it up with a refreshing ground out.

BOTTOM 8

Ledezma cruises. Good thing we have him to mop up Mesa’s messes.

TOP 9

David Riske cruises, and the Tigers lose.
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The Tigers have now lost to the Royals 4 straight times, and probably 5 after Gil Meche takes on Mike Maroth tomorrow.

I cannot imagine what was going through Dave Dombrowski’s head when he went through the process of signing Jose Mesa. He is a player who has been getting by on name recognition alone for several years, and he doesn’t give a baseball team a single thing that they can’t get off of the pitching scrap heap. As a matter of fact, never mind the scrap heap, because the Tigers already have several players in the system fully capable of coming in and providing a league average strikeout rate and too many walks. It baffles me that teams still make decisions like the one Dombrowski made after losing Jamie Walker to free agency, especially when there is so much information out there. Millions of dollars are paid for the purpose of squeaking out a couple of extra wins here and there, and yet for some reason there is no fail safe to prevent these sorts of signings. No one is around to say, “Look, this is an awful idea, and here’s why…”

Of course, because the Tigers signed him they have to play him, and the sad result is games like this one today, where public relations are put before the real bottom line, which is trying your level best to win ballgames. Leyland, Dombrowski, and everyone who follows baseball knew that Mesa wasn’t anywhere close to being the best pitcher to bring into a tie game in the 7th (with a fully rested bullpen, I might add). They did it anyway because if they didn’t give Mesa a shot they would have to answer to someone as to why they threw $2.5 million at a guy they can’t trust instead of just spending a little extra on a guy they could. Mesa surrendered 23 base runners in 13 1/3 innings this spring, and I’m certain Leyland had this on his mind when he phoned up the bullpen and said, “Grab Mesa by the fork in his back and stand his Weekend-at-Bernie’s ass up in the bullpen. He’s coming in next.”

Imagine a thief stealing a woman’s purse in front of the police station, right in full view of the cops. Now imagine the cops overlooking their bikes and motorcycles and deciding to jump onto the department’s gilded skateboard in order to chase after the thief.

“Well, we paid for it, so we had better use it.”

That’s what the Tigers did today. They hopped on the gilded skateboard that is Jose Mesa.

Season ticket sales at Comerica Park are through the roof this year, and anticipation is at an all time high. The yield from reaching the World Series last year must be, and this is a conservative guess, at least $30 million, and there is simply no excuse for carting the rotting carcasses of players like Jose Mesa out on the field, much less doing so in the 7th inning of a tie game. It is an insult to the fans, who have proven that they will come out in droves to see a winning club. It is about one and a half steps up from throwing baseball games, and it should not be tolerated. It will be, however, because the fans’ and sportswriters’ good faith has a hell of a lot longer shelf life than the organization’s.

Thanks to Billfer over at Detroit Tigers Weblog for Mesa’s spring numbers.

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Tigers Live Game Blog 4/6Dan Lewis · 6 April 07

Tigers Live Game Blog 4/6
Dan Lewis · 6 April 07