Tonight, the Tigers paid their respects to Ernie Harwell, who passed away last Tuesday, by honoring him before the game. A short video tribute and the rising of an “EH” flag in center next to the United States flag marked the emotional occasion. Only a team like the Janks would try to ruin this night for the Tigers and Ernie.*
Incidentally, it was Jim Leyland who tried to wrap a pinstripe ribbon on this one. In the top of the 8th inning with the Tigers up 5-2, Leyland decided to let Joel Zumaya go out for his third frame of the night (for the first time all season) and pitch to Alex Rodriguez.
That was fine with me. Zumaya was at just 18 pitches at that point and utterly dominant. Why not have arguably your best righty reliever face arguably the best hitter in all of baseball? It’s a showdown I want to see ten times out of ten, if at all possible. Phil Coke was in the pen, presumably ready, for the hitters after A-Rod – Robinson Cano (lefty) and Jorge Posada (switch) – so no worries should A-Rod win the battle.
After A-Rod got a, somewhat lucky, broken bat single, I fully expected Leyland to bring the hook and go with his very effective-thus-far Loogy. Instead, he stuck with Zumaya and that’s exactly when things turned sour.
Zumaya got too cute with Cano and wound up allowing a single on a curveball, when Cano wasn’t even close to his fastball. Zumaya followed that up by issuing a four pitch walk to Posada. At that point, as time was called, I feared the worst – I feared Leyland would finally pull Zumaya only to have the former-Jank, Phil Coke, give up a go-ahead grand slam to the former-Tag, Marcus Thames. It was like a nightmare I never wanted to live through, terrified of what all the stupid Tiger fans would say: “I told you we should have never traded for Phil Coke and let Thames go…”
Luckily the life of that doom and gloom thought was short, and Leyland stuck with Zumaya, but the result wasn’t good, either. Zumaya gave up another, weak, infield single (fielder’s choice?) to Thames, plating A-Rod and cutting the score to 5-3 with the bases still juiced and nobody out.
Zumaya’s day was finally done, for real this time, and Coke was summoned to face the lefty Brett Gardner. Coke induced an RBI ground out from Gardner and a huge pop out from Randy Winn before giving way to Ryan Perry. Perry, facing Derek Jeter, then got some help from his jheri curled friend, Magglio Ordonez, who made an inning ending sliding grab to rob Jeter of one, maybe two, RBIs. Exhale. Put the pants back on. Crisis averted, for now.
An inning later, after Joba mowed through the Mendoza part of the lineup, Jose Valverde danced his way through the toughest part of the Yankees lineup. He struck out the side — Swisher, Teixeira, and A-Rod — to finish off a 5-4 Tigers win, which included everything Ernie would have loved to see in a baseball game (good pitching, double plays, run saving defense, a pick off, clutch hitting, home runs, etc). Ironically, he may not have liked Valverde’s somewhat bushleague dancing ways, but I’ll bet he loved the Tigers win, all the same.
UNABASHED BASHING BRENNAN BOESCH
Rookie, Brennan Boesch, is gaining a reputation for being quite aggressive at the plate. Last night, I think he swung at the first pitch in every single one of his at bats. (He didn’t). Tonight, he was a little more patient with each at bat, but I’m not really concerned when he’s hitting .340. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Boesch had two hits tonight and drove in three runs for the Tigers, raising his RBI total to 14 on the young season.
DAMON’S GOT NEW STRIPES
Johnny Damon, playing his old squad he won a World Series with last season, showed off his new stripes. He was 1-3 with a solo homer to right in the bottom of the 5th inning. It was Damon’s 2nd homer of the season – both coming at the spacious Comerica Park.
ZOOM, ZOOM, ZOOM?
Joel Zumaya came on in the 6th inning and was his normal lights out self — throwing 14 of his first 17 fastballs at 100+ MPH and retiring the first five hitters he faced. In his first 2/3 of an inning he threw 10 pitches and nine of them were 100+ MPH and the other one was a 98 MPH. See:
Anyway, as I’ve already touched on, he struggled when he was put in for a third inning (which actually would have only been 2.2 had he completed it) because he was only at 18 pitches after 1.2 IP. Thus far this season, Zumaya has thrown 34 pitches in an outing twice, and 28 or 29 on a couple other occasions. Tonight, he threw 33. Does he have a pitch count of roughly 35 pitches? Or is Jimmy trying to stretch him out for a potential starter’s role down the road? Remember, Zumaya was a starter in the minor leagues before 2006 and right now the Tigers starters are struggling big time. Given Zumaya’s health issues the past couple seasons, I wouldn’t mess with what we have right now. If 35 pitches is his strict pitch count, let’s keep it at that and not stretch it out. And let’s not keep him in when we can go with our Loogy, thus, keeping that pitch count even lower, ok?
I’LL SAVE THIS FOR A RAINY DAY
If the Tigers lost tonight, I think this would have been the only thing I posted. No words, just this:
I’m glad I didn’t have to use it for that purpose, but it was too good not to post. This face was just the start to some motor boating.
LOOKS AT THE ROOKS
Austin Jackson was making his first appearance against his former team since they dealt him away this past winter and it’ll be one he’ll hope to forget quickly. He went 0-4 with two strikeouts, but one of his groundouts did bring home a run, so it wasn’t the worst. Jackson’s BA dropped to .360.
Scott Sizemore was 0-3 with a BB and a run (he scored on Jackson’s RBI groundout). His batting average dropped to .233. I think he’ll start to imrpove as the weather warms up — apparently his ankle is still sore on most game days and it doesn’t help when it’s still cold in the D.
Brennan Boesch, that lucky sonofagun, got his own section above.
VALVERDANCIN’
Valverde’s dance routine had a little extra conga tonight. And why not? He was facing the defending world champs, the best part of their lineup, in a game that the Tigers definitely wanted to win a little more than usual maybe because of the pre-game festivities. As a result, Valverde did a little extra swaggin’ after each strike out in the ninth inning, which just happened to be after all three hitters he faced because he struck out the side in a pretty much always exciting fashion.
Yes, it was a little extravagant, but he’s been doing it his entire career. That doesn’t necessarily make it right, but if you don’t like it, do something about it. Dallas Braden doesn’t like bushleague players, so he got pissed, said something, and then he threw a perfect game. Feel me? If the Janks don’t like it, get mad and start hitting him. Don’t strike out and then bitch about it. That just means Valverde’s jig is working.
*CLASSY GIRARDI
I’ve never had a problem with Joe Girardi, and he went up a few notches in my books tonight, too. Apparently, he required every Spankme player to be in the clubhouse on time and ready to watch the Ernie Harwell tribute before the game. That’s classy, Joe, just like when you helped that damsel in distress the night you won the World Series last year.
AROUND THE CENTRAL
If only the Twins didn’t play ever again, the Tigers would have a pretty good shot at gaining some games back. The Tigers gained half a game tonight because they won and the Twins didn’t play. No team in the Central, other than the Tigers, played tonight. Standings here.
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