Pitching woes finally caught up with us. To bad Coke couldn't hold and give us the chance for the remarkable comeback...
If our MVP doesn't see the P/Os or win a division, its a piece of garbage ! * I say CWS can't play .567 baseball and we can.
A chance to get even with the Sox but went by the wayside on two pitches as the Yankees went yard twice on back to back dingers in the 8th off the usually reliable Benoit. The Tigers banged out 13 hits, but stranded too many runners. Avila hit a dinger, but we could not get anyone of those other 12 hits to sail over the fence. Our nemesis Rangers are up next as we are now 1 game out of first and a half game out of the wild card...Lets Go Tigers!!!
Not just Anibel....the relief pitching has also sputtered here lately. Shame that Verlander pitches a gem on Saturday we could not give him any run support. The proverbial 3 runs would have been a victory for him.
The team seemed to have lost a spark at about the same time that Quentin Berry got benched. Coincidence?
Good catch Bill. You need to call Leyland and remind him of this. A veteran coach should be able to recognize after a few games that something or someone is amiss, and you are right...it appears to be Berry. He has been on the bench for the past three games and had only one at bat each in five of the six previous games., in which the Tigers have won only one of them. The Tigers started the month of August off 6-0 and are now 7-5.. Dirks has been good, but we miss the speed on the bases. Maybe JL should platoon Boesch and Berry for a couple of games??? Of course neither of them are going to help with the pitching issues.....
The Tigers seem to have a surplus of outfielders right now with Berry, Young, Jackson, Boesch, Dirks, and now Baker. You can put one of these guys at DH, but that leaves two riding the pine. It gives you some nice flexibility when guys are struggling or you are trying to get a certain lefty-righty matchup in the late innings. Leyland put Peralta in the 5-hole tonight and he already came through with a 2-out clutch hit to drive in 2 runs.
Good win tonight to stop the bleeding. Fister pitched a great game giving up only 5 hits and he struck 7. As result of those errors, all 4 runs were unearned with an unlucky pitch to Willingham. Dirks wound up knocking in the winning run with a solo HR in the 6th inning.
Dirks is only hitting a few small points behind Trout on the season so far. .339 vs .342 I believe. He's only 25 and we're only paying him $600K. That's a good value.
The easiest way to quantify the issue here is to calculate a range at a certain confidence level. We'll use 95% confidence. z-alpha/2 = 1.96 to get to a 95% confidence level. DIRKS Therefore, the spread above and below his current average = 1.96*sqrt(.339*(1-.339)/171) = .071 So, we can be 95% confident that his true expected value is between .268 and .410 TROUT 1.96*sqrt(.341*(1-.341)/381) = .048 So, we are 95% confident that his true expected value is between .293 and .389. In conclusion, it's 95% likely that Dirks is somewhere between being a .025 worse hitter to being a .021 better hitter than Trout. Woo hoo!
Simplistic summary and rankings: Hitting- using OPS (OBP + SLG) as best indicator for hitting prowess: Cabrera- .969 Dirks- .920 Jackson- .914 Fielder- .900 Infante- .821 Avila- .772 Laird- .761 Peralta- .739 Berry- .727 (he gets a bonus though for also having 18 stolen bases with no failed attempts. I should adjust his SLG accordingly... but too hard). Young- .693 Boesch- .672 Santiago- .580 Starting Pitching- using ERA Verlander- 2.46 Fister- 3.24 Smyly- 4.42 Scherchzer- 4.65 Porcello- 4.68 Sanchez- 7.98 Relief Pitching- using ERA (All on list have 37-51 innings pitched. Cut out relievers with less innings due to statistical significance issues.) Villareal- 2.41 Dotel- 2.95 Benoit- 3.53 Valverde- 3.70 Coke- 3.86 Below- 3.88
One last feel good stat: there are now only 2 teams in the American League with more wins than the Tigers' 63 wins-- the New York Yankees (+6) and the Texas Rangers (+4)
Another feel good stat...Scherzer, Fister and Verlander have only given up 1 earned run between them the past three games that they have pitched. (Verlander 1). If we can get Porcello and Sanchez on board with the program, the pitching should eventually get us the division lead and able to hold it. Also, with todays 10K's, Scherzer is now the league leader in strikeouts.
