Game 133: Tigers 4, Indians 3 (10 innings)
by afh4 on Sep 3, 2009 4:35 PM EDT
in Game Recaps
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The Detroit Tigers completed the sweep today by prevailing in the tenth inning of a pitchers' duel. Nate Robertson and Fausto Carmona, neither candidates for the all-star rotation, both turned in relatively impressive performances: Robertson went 6 scoreless while Fausto completed 6.1 with 3 ER. Carmona had an odd day: he was dominant at points, retiring the Tigers with ease after giving up a leadoff homerun to Curtis Granderson. However, his control failed him in the seventh as he walked Adam Everett and Granderson after getting the first out. Wedge decided to leave Carmona to clean up his own mess and he didn't, surrendering a triple to Clete Thomas.
Fausto's final line looks pretty lousy, mostly because of the 5 BB's. Still, you've got to at least acknowledge that three of those walks were to the aforementioned Adam Everett, a player OPSing .626. It's unclear why Carmona is so afraid of Everett. Beyond that, we saw more of a hybrid Old/New Fausto, with a 3:2 GO:FO ratio but also an effective four seam fastball. Despite his struggles today, he's looking more like a pitcher that could stick in a rotation than one that could not.
Chris Perez and Tony Sipp were outstanding again, offering up 2.2 innings of scoreless baseball, fanning five and generally scaring the crap out of everybody. Perez, especially, can't be spoken of highly enough: he is consistently throwing his fastball at the knees on either side of the plate and his breaking stuff has been swing and miss for weeks now. In short, Chris Perez looks like what many expected of Kerry Wood.
The game was probably over from the time Wedge chose Rafael Perez to start the 10th but they went ahead and played it for fun anyways. Raffy went 2B, IBB, BB, SF and the game was over. After returning from the minors, Perez turned in a pretty decent August results-wise, with a 3.65 ERA. Watching him, however, he still doesn't look like Fist of Steel and his peripherals bear this out, especially his now 14 hits surrendered in 13.2 IP with only 6 K's in the same timeframe. He's also got about 4 absolute trainwrecks in 13 appearances.
The Indians' only runs came in the eighth with Shoppach, Caroll, Cabrera and Choo contributing the hits. Choo's double into deep right plated two runs and tied the game until Placido Polanca's sacrifice fly in the 10th untied it.
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he’s looking more like a pitcher that could stick in a rotation than one that could not.
i’ll take it.
It’s unclear why Carmona is so afraid of Everett.
That’s the whole issue. He’s not afraid of him. Everett can’t hit. And Carmona equally, right now, can’t pitch, so much so that he has no ability even to grove them to a useless hitter.
That’s certainly true to some extent but there’s also some pretty bizarre stuff going on with Fausto’s “focus” or whatever. I mean, he walked Everett to turn around and strike out Granderson on 3 pitches.
Inconsistency is an issue, to be sure, but it’s a different issue than “can’t pitch” or what I call “The Huffs.”
“bizarre stuff” and lack of “focus” and “inconsistency” are nice ways of saying that he can’t pitch.
I don’t think he looks like players that “can’t pitch.” Can’t pitch to me is Huff, Sowers, etc. Guys who are just hucking it up there and hoping it doesn’t leave the park.
Fausto gets outs, in bunches, semi-regularly.
I think I see your distinction.
Huff and Sowers are guys that need a level of control so impeccable (and perhaps, unattainable, in your opinion) that they chance they’ll succeed is next to nothing. Fausto, on the other hand, has a much greater chance of success even if even if he has control (or lack thereof) on par with Sowers/Huff. A Sowers/Huff mistake is headed beyond the horizon, while a similar pitch by Fausto is less likely to go anywhere.
I understand that. And I think team’s understand that too. But what is the benefit? I guess it takes some minimal level of skill to compete at MLB. Are we measuring skill by how hard a guy throws, though? Plenty of teams do it. But Daniel Cabrera happens. There are some scouts who say that if they’ve seen it one in a guy, and he’s healthy, it’s still in there somewhere. And that’s the incentive to find Fausto v. 2007.
I just wonder whether the chance that Fausto v.2007 is either real or rediscovered is greater than the chance that Sowers/Huff turns on the light bulb? Because right now, I don’t feel too good about any of them.
i think fausto runs into trouble when he aims. really, that’s all. i think he aims when he’s had a bad run. or he aims when an ump is squeezing him or when a sucky batter is up that he definitely doesn’t want to walk. i think they should tell fausto “don’t focus on throwing strikes, just throw what the catcher calls and see what happens.”
“just throw” was the mantra in the fausto-sinerkballer era. the hitters’ response to “just throw” was “don’t swing.” and therein lies the problem.
Rare for you to bust out the coaching cliches. I’m with xrick on this one: Fausto has “no control” if he walks Adam Everett “three times.”
All I’m trying to do is delineate between Fausto and Huff or Sowers or whatever.
Fausto makes me nuts.
i just don’t know how to say: “it is a waste of time to try and turn fausto into paul byrd only with fausto’s stuff” if byrd had fausto’s stuff, he wouldn’t be able to control it either. and it seems to me like when fausto tries too hard to do that, it gets even worse.
As opposed to when he’s trying to do something else?
What is your alternative strategy here?
by Jay on Sep 3, 2009 9:24 PM EDT up reply actions
I don’t know. Focus on pitch mixing. Close your eyes and hope for the best with control.
by Brick. on Sep 3, 2009 10:57 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I don’t know what my deal is, but I didn’t have a problem with the things that cost us this game. Might as well leave Fausto out there to see if he can clean it up, it would have been a nice boost for him. Might as well run Perez Left out there to see if there’s any chance he’s a viable pitcher going forward.
What sets Perez Right apart is that, along with electric stuff, he can nail the knees on the outside corner with his fastball on a consistent basis. That was what made Raffy Right so effective, and it’s nice to see Perez being able to do that too.
That said, my entire impression of this game was based on Be Rad’s text messages to me while I rotted in Cincinnati, the anus of the universe.
Everybody should get ice cream every day.
Offense has been kind of flaky lately, eh? Even though the box scores look okay, it’s like spread their hits around and never really get big innings or beat on pitchers when they are down.
Yes. This phenomenon is known as “baseball.”
by Jay on Sep 3, 2009 11:22 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
fraught with emotion, just like Meursault…
My uncle says you've got a screw loose.
Your uncle molests collies.
by gorilla_baller on Sep 4, 2009 12:18 PM EDT up reply actions
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