Game Five: Tigers 4, Indians 2

This is a fair question. The Indians may be dead set on trading Peralta this year before the deadline simply to get something (anything really, salary relief, a Pino type pitching prospect, whatever) for him. The other issue may be that they cut Marte when Branyan returns. I’m not sure what happens upon Branyan’s return to tell you the truth, the economic driven choice would be to demote Brantley, but who replaces Brantley? LaPorta? who is looking fairly hobbled while he is still recovering from offseason sugary? Kearns can move into the starting spot, but it doesn’t seem likely that they gave Brantley the job if they were planning on demoting him as soon as Branyan returned. So it might just be Marte who gets the ax when Branyan comes back.

check me on the lone XBP. he has two doubles. I don’t remember the other one.

No, I’m not including that. He just slapped at it and plugged the gap. Caught it on the good part of the bat, but I don’t count that as a “drive.” His other double was a soft liner over the third baseman.

When I said he’s not a good matchup with Verlander, I was talking about now. Later in the year, that might change.

“Not a pansy” is a great nickname!

Didn’t see his outing yesterday, but from what I’ve seen, he’s throwing his fastball by guys…haven’t really looked at the velocity yet, as the White Sox gun seemed to be on the low end. I think his changeup looks a bit better. Hey, his K rate was still pretty good last year IIRC. If he locates well, maybe he can have some semblance of success. I’ve always liked him better than others, but I think at this point you’re hoping against hope that his velocity will return to where it was in ‘07. But as you say, he’ll generally throw strikes, and considering the issues that some of his bullpen mates are having, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him pitch his way into a more important role.

Career .680 OPS in April, his worst month indeed, which he follows up with an .848 May, his best month.

Clearly they don’t, but I think after him finally having a lot of success in AAA, eyes were opened.

Hafner is our lone power threat at the moment. Where do you have him here? Sixth?

And the problem’s not going to go away when all our lefty-hitting prospects start graduating (… We’re either going to need to find a workable platoon solution, or we’re going to need lefties who can hit lefties.

If LaPorta goes on the DL replaced by Branyan, this becomes a bigger problem, not less of one.

I have never looked at this seriously, but I’m possessed of the notion that a lot of left-handed relievers sort of blow. They’re not all Thornton. I’d love to give our lineup another crack at Ni, for example.

I also think there’s a series-long conversation to be had, here. How many left-handed relievers do we face? How many left-handed starters? How often? How good are they? I’m not trying to argue for or against any one position, but it does strike me as the kind of issue on which we see mainly the tree — LHRP facing meat of the lineup in the 7th — and could very easily miss the forest.

we’re not hitting right now. things don’t change much if laporta is our cleanup hitter.

His point though, which is correct, is that even with Hafner 5th, they still bring a lefty reliever and let him face whoever we stick 4th, because that hypothetical righty 4th batter isn’t good enough to deter the opposing manager from letting the lefty stay in until he faces Hafner at 5.

Nice.

No, I probably will. The free preview ends today so I’ll probably pony up.

I also need to get motivated to see if I can rig an antenna that will allow me to receive WTAM. I’m only four hours away.