Baseball Historians

Minor League infielder Ron Bourquin got a 50 game suspension for testing positive for amphetimines.  What’s interesting is Bourquin could have been lost in the Rule 5 draft, but he’s now effectively protected because I doubt a team would want to scoop him up knowing he’ll take up a roster spot and miss 50 games. 
Bouquin [...]

Paul White at the USA Today is projecting that the Tigers will sign Astros closer Jose Valverde.  He’s a little too injury prone for my tastes and my bet is his price tag will be too high.  The Tigers have some good young arms to use in the pen.  If they’re going to go for [...]

Just a few quick links.  First off, Chris Jaffe has written an excellent book (I’ve seen parts of it) on baseball managers. Evaluating Baseball Managers: A Comprehensive History and Performance Analysis, 1876-2008 goes way back into the 1800s and brings things up to present, analyzing managers along the way.  He wrote a couple of excerpts [...]

I shouldn’t complain too much because being busy isn’t a bad thing but I’ve been neglecting the site.  No promises, but I’m hoping to reverse that and while I want to touch on a few things that have happened since I posted last, way back when, it’ll probably be incomplete because of ALL the things [...]

The Tigers made some roster moves a couple of days ago and the big one was the non-tendering of Marcus Thames.  That makes him a free agent and it ends his somewhat bizarre career as a Tiger.  At times, he looked like he could belt 40 in a year but at other times, he looked [...]

It’s hard to believe it’s been over two weeks since the Tigers collapse.  The playoffs are winding down and baseball is less then two weeks away from being finished.  It looks like, barring something crazy out of the Angels, that we’ll see the Phillies against the Yankees, which will make for an interesting dynamic.  The [...]

“Now his failure is complete”
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Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi
So ends the Tigers season.  It was a heck of a game tonight and one that probably would have been more fun if not for the emotional investment.  When the dust settled, the Tigers sat as the losers and now their season [...]

The Tigers did their job last night, unfortunately, because they didn’t do it the past few days, all they did was force a one game playoff tomorrow against the Twins.  There were some great individual performances but the Tigers almost let this one get away as well.
Let’s start with Justin Verlander.  He won his 19th [...]

Like the Spartans this afternoon, the Tigers are taking the hard way to their first division title since 1987.  Their loss tonight puts them in a tie with the Twins with one to go.  They need a win and then a Twins loss to win the division outright, and it also forces the Tigers to [...]

Not only are the Tigers losing 8-0 to the White Sox, but the Twins are beating the Royals 8-0.  Not a good night so we’ll have to wait for tomorrow.  Maybe we can get a trifecta, with the Tigers winning, the Twins losing and the Spartan trouncing the Wolverines.  I’ll be in E. Lansing tomorrow. [...]

The Tigers started the week with a two game lead and now after four games with their division rival, they still sit two games ahead of the pack.  The good news is, we have a two game lead with three to play instead of a two game lead with seven to play so at the [...]

The Tigers not only beat Carl Pavano for the first time this season but the Tigers cut their magic number down to two in the process.  A win tomorrow means the Tigers have their first division championship in 22 years.  The 7-2 win was sweet and it was three big hits surrounded by a ton [...]

Well, the Tigers won tonight.  My blood pressure is still recovering but a win is a win and that puts the Tigers magic number down to four.  The Tigers jumped out to a 5-0 lead, saw the Twins cut it down to 5-4 by the eighth and the an insurance run by the Tigers in [...]

Well, the Tigers big series with the Twins will kick off tomorrow instead of today.  With the rain and 40 mph gusts, it would have been an interesting game.  The noon projected temperature is supposed to be 55, not much higher then the temp right now and there’s a 30% chance of rain all day.  [...]

Yeah, old Optimus Prime knew what he was talking about.  Pretty much eveything that’s happened the last 155 games has come down to this four game series between the Twins and the Tigers in the AL Central.  The Tigers come in with a two game lead and their magic number is six.  Simple math tells us [...]

The Tigers held off the Indians long enough to walk away with their fourth straight win as they finished a three game sweep over the Indians.  Justin Verlander looked sharp after a couple of mediocre starts and he improved to 17-9  He gave up two runs on seven hits and two walks with eleven strikeouts [...]

It’s funny how things work out.  While I didn’t blast the trade, I was skeptical of the move that sent Matt Joyce to the Rays for Edwin Jackson but it was interesting to see that on the same day Jackson was pitching at the front of the rotation in a heated pennant race, Matt Joyce [...]

The Tigers scraped together a solid win and gave Tiger fans some relief as they added to their AL Central Division lead with a 6-2 win over the Twins.  Nate Robertson was good enough through five and the bullpen was very solid as the Tigers took the finale in Minnesota.  Robertson improved to 2-2 and [...]

The Tigers late season skid continued as they lost to the second place Twins for the second straight time.  It looks like Jim Leyland rode Justin Verlander just a bit too long in this one and while I’m all for riding the horse that got you there, this went a little overboard.  In all, Verlander [...]

Yesterday, the Tigers celebrated Ernie Harwell’s career as it was announced a couple of weeks ago that he has inoperable cancer.  Ernie kept it short and sweet which is one of the things that made him a great radio announcer.  I think someone had a similar sign at the game, but for me, Ernie Harwell [...]

Aubrey Huff belted a three run home run in the bottom of the ninth to send the Tigers into extra frames against the Jays and then Brandon Inge scored on a Marco Scutaro error to give the Tigers an impressive come from behind win.  Scutaro also made an error in the ninth that put Curtis [...]

The Tigers snapped their five game losing streak yesterday.  Rick Porcello bounced back from a rough start and he picked up his thirteenth win of the season while the bullpen threw three shutout frames to seal it up.  Porcello gave up two runs on four its and two walks with two strikeouts in six innings [...]

The Royals rained on the Tigers parade for the second straight game as they did just enough to get Justin Verlander out after six innings to they could touch up the bullpen.  Verlander was sharp, and he gave up just a run on six hits and three walks with eight strikeouts in six innings, but [...]

The Tigers lost a tough one last night.  They led by as many as three runs only to see the last place Royals storm back and take this game.    Rick Porcello was very solid through the first four but he was tagged for two more runs in the bottom of the fifth.  Then Bobby Seay [...]

One more time.

It doesn’t look like the Tigers are going to pick up a half game on their off day today.  The Twins jumped out to a 5-0 lead against the Jays in the first before I could even switch over from the Pirates/Cubs game.

For Brandon Inge, the fourth time was the charm.  He struck out in his first three at bats yesterday then came up with two outs in the top of the tenth with the bases loaded and drove them all home with a grand slam.  Up until that point, the Tigers had been shut down to [...]

Man, the bullpen, and then eventually the hitters, put together a really nice game as the Tigers won their fifth straight.  Armando Galarraga was roughed up in his return to the rotation but from the time the first reliever came into the game, things turned around.  Eddie Bonine got an inning ending double play in [...]

There’s a chance that we look back at the night of September 4, 2009 as the night the scales finally tipped in one direction in the AL Central.  The Twins lost to a mediocre Indians team and then the Tigers rallied for three runs in the top of the ninth (all of which they’d end [...]

The Tigers needed ten innings yesterday, but Placido Polanco drove home Ryan Raburn with a sac. fly in the bottom of the tenth to wrap up a sweep of the Cleveland Indians.  With the win, the Tigers extended their lead in the AL Central to five games over the Twins as they hit the road for a [...]