Game 140: Tigers 8, Indians 6
by Ryan on Sep 7, 2011 5:57 PM EDT
in Game Recaps
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PrintAs if the last two days weren't gut-wrenching enough, the Indians lost again in an unexpected but, alas, gruesome fashion.
For those who enjoy the macabre, what follows is today's recap. If you'd like to read a bit about other, less depressing, things, then I suggest reading Stephen King instead. I recommend Carrie.
The Indians would score four runs off probable AL Cy Young winner Justin Verlander in about as efficient a way as possible. In the second inning, Carlos Santana led off with a walk, and made it second after a wild pitch. Then Shelley Duncan turned on a fastball on the inner half of the plate, driving it over the right field wall for a two-run homer. And in the fourth inning, a Jim Thome double was followed by another Shelley Duncan two-run shot, this one coming off a letter-high 97-mph Verlander fastball. At this point, Duncan has a better chance of making the Cleveland Opening Day roster than Matt LaPorta, quite a change from what we thought of both of them before this season.
So before we get to the gruesome stuff, here's Duncan's day at the plate:
Justin Masterson couldn't hold the either lead, though. He allowed the Tigers to tie the game in the fourth inning. The trouble started with the usual suspects: Miguel Cabrera singled up the middle, and LGFT Victor Martinez hit a double. Alex Avila then hit a sacrifice fly, and Wilson Betemit hit a two-out double to tie things at 2.
Justin pitched around trouble in the fifth, and a leadoff single in the sixth. By the time the seventh rolled around, he was already near his usual pitch count limit, but Manny Acta sent him back out. to face the top of the Tiger order. Austin Jackson singled to start the inning, and then a Shelley Duncan error allowed Will Rhymes to reach. That set up the rest of the inning. After Andy Dirks singled via a bunt hit, Masterson was pulled, and Joe Smith had the unenviable task of facing Cabrera with the bases loaded. Cabrera singled through the left side, and Acta brought out Tony Sipp to face Victor Martinez. You know what happened next.
Lonnie Chisenhall got the Indians to within a run after hitting a two-run homer, but Don Kelly's ninth-inning triple would give the Tigers their final margin of victory.
Three words describe the past week: Worst. Case. Scenario. The Tigers swept both the White Sox and Indians, and effectively clinched the AL Central.
| Highest WPA | Lowest WPA | ||
| Duncan | .421 | Sipp | -.271 |
| Chisenhall | .155 | Masterson | -.200 |
| Donald | .057 | Crowe | -.184 |
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A punch in the stomach that ruptured an undiagnosed appendicitis and that will now stick us on the DL for 6-8 weeks barring setbacks
There’s little doubt now that the Tigers are the better ballclub. Considerably better when the Indians have so many injuries.
But what hurts is that in the 6 biggest games of the season, Detroit is 6-0. And it’s not as if they’ve been lucky. We’ve seen three abysmal outings, one each from Fausto, Huff and Ubaldo – including two of the worst starts of the season, and in Ubaldo’s case perhaps the worst of his career. Meanwhile, Detroit gets great starts from Fister (twice), Scherzer and Porcello – the latter two both having mediocre seasons.
Obviously, you could turn it around and look at the hitting if you prefer, but the point is that when it mattered most of all, this team just didn’t show up the way we’ve been used to seeing all year. And that is a disappointment.
by thestreaksofbenfrancisco on Sep 7, 2011 7:58 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Showing up the way we’ve been used to seeing all year??
The opposite is far more true, esp. beyond the bullpen and the hot start against the soft schedule. We have actually gotten used to them not showing up for most of the year. Injuries and youth are very identifiable contributing factors so hopefully there are better days ahead. The younger players should improve and hopefully there are less injuries going forward.
The fact is that we haven’t looked like a playoff-caliber team for any significant stretch since early in the season. Whether it was the comical defense or the poor hitting or even the pitching at times, as you alluded to above, we just haven’t been putting it together enough for quite some time now, certainly compared to other playoff-bound clubs.
In better news, the Clippers have a 3-0 lead in their opening playoff matchup. McAllister is strong through 6, with Buck, Goedert, Mills and Huffman providing the offense.
Yes, it’s that inevitable time of every season where we start paying attention to minor league ball …
Yeah, except this year, its September when we started paying attention, and not May!
Fear the Fedora.
by MooneysRebellion on Sep 8, 2011 8:11 AM EDT up reply actions
Words from on high:
Tuff to find positives now but have to tip ur cap to the Tigs. Playing as well as anyone we have seen this season.
Shapiro’s latest tweet
Observations from a Tigers fan
Greetings …. I come in peace.
I must say I am indeed suprised at how the last couple weeks have gone for the Tigers. There’s alot to be said about a team getting hot at the right time. Had the last week or so been against non-divisional opponents it would have just been a good week.
Believe me, we’ve been in your shoes over the past several years. Watching your team hang in there all season long just to watch it slip through your fingers in the past few weeks. It’ll only make our division stronger though. Maybe before long the AL playoffs will consist of more than the AL Central and West winners against the Yankees and their AL East co-conspirator.
Hang in there and keep your heads up. It was a hell of a season.
Don't Panic!
With all due respect, you’ve never been where we are now. The backdrop that informs our current outlook is bleak; it starts with blowing the 3-1 ALCS lead against the Red Sox back in 2007 and stretches back through Jose Mesa in 1997 to 40 years in the wilderness. The last time you won the World Series, I was in utero; the last time we did, it was six years before my father would be born. We had magic for 45 games this year; now we’ve sent fifteen different players to the DL. You have a top-10 payroll that enables you to go out and sign players like Victor Martinez. We signed Shelley Duncan, Austin Kearns, and Adam Everett or Kennedy – I don’t even remember which – and hoped at least one would be servicable. I understand – or at least assume – you thought you were being magnanimous with this post, but our situations are miles apart and having you come over here to say thanks for the division doesn’t really salve that wound.
Also, we don’t use the subject line here.
Trombone/creamy/soda.
by Joel D on Sep 8, 2011 8:48 AM EDT up reply actions 4 recs
Gee..sorry
See I didn’t mention years of contract frustrations in my post. To quote myself:
Believe me, we’ve been in your shoes over the past several years. Watching your team hang in there all season long just to watch it slip through your fingers in the past few weeks
I was referring to having your team up for most of the season just to watch them squander it through the last bit of the season.
No, I wasn’t coming here to be “magnanimous”, though to your credit, I did have to google the word, just to make sure I had the meaning correct. I pretty much had it though from your tone.
I came here to try and play nice with another fan base, but hey, thanks for making me feel welcome; and SO sorry about not seeing the memo about not using the subject line.
Don’t worry. I won’t be back.
Maybe.
Don't Panic!
I got what you were trying to do, and I thank you for it. A lot of us are just frustrated. As Indian’s fans we have come so close and blow it every time. We had one of the greatest teams of the 90s and couldn’t get a World Series out of it. Then we watched the 07 team come out of no where and get to one game of the World Series (a World Series where I would have liked our chances of winning).
That 07 team epicly collapsed, needing just one win they went on to lose 3 straight games. However 08 was going to be a great year, we had everyone back and were ready to make a run. It didn’t happen that way and we ended up trading away the reigning Cy Young winner. Then the next year we traded away the reigning Cy Young winner again. We also traded away one of the hearts of the Indians, Victor Martinez. Victor was so broke up by the trade that he sat at his locker and cried.
However that is the life of a team that can’t spend the money, we have up years and then many more down years. We get a season like this one every so often, and then come into the next one with high expectations only to see them crushed. As a fan base we have been through every single one of Bill Simon’s degrees of losing, and it starts to wear on you after a while.
So please don’t take Joel’s post too personally. I for one appreciate what you did and thank you for it. I would personally rather see the Tigers win if we can’t. I don’t like the Sox or Twins at all. KC wouldn’t be bad either, but that isn’t going to be happening anytime soon.
I will be rooting for the Tigers to make it, it would be great for Detroit and great for Baseball. Good luck.
by Ska.t73 on Sep 8, 2011 10:12 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
I need you to explain to me how the Tigers doing well is good for baseball at large. For my part, I’ll be rooting for whoever comes out of the AL West.
Trombone/creamy/soda.
by Joel D on Sep 8, 2011 10:46 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Don’t know if I can explain it really. It is just my feeling. The Tigers were horrible for a long time, in fact a few years ago they were closing in on the most losses ever in a season. I know that they have won a WS more recently then us, but I just feel that having a team from the Central win the WS would be nice (I don’t include the White Sox in there because I have an irrational hatered towards them).
I agree with you though that having one of the AL West teams win would be just as good for baseball as well. Heck as long as it isn’t the Yankees or Red Sox winning it all I’m ok with it.
I don’t think the team from the AL West winning it would be “better for baseball” (if such a thing exists), I just think it would make me feel better. I’d prefer if the Tigers went back to being horrible.
Trombone/creamy/soda.
I want the Tigers to go back to being horrible so the Indians can win the division. However given a choice of someone else winning it I would prefer it be the Tigers over the Sox or Twins. I just really hate those two teams.
As far as the “better for baseball” thing, I just don’t want to see the Yankees and Sox in it every year. I know they didn’t get there last year, but that is a fluke.
I would personally like to see the D-Backs (I live in AZ now so they are kind of my adopted 2nd team), or the Philly’s (married into a Philly sports family) win it all.
There is nothing irrational in the slightest about hating the White Sox.
@grantgw - sports and Cleveland and Columbus stuff
Sure, the Tigers were horrible until they started throwing money willy-nilly at free agents so that Ilitch might get a winner before he shuffled off this mortal coil. How does this make them any better than the Red Sox or Yankees?
@grantgw - sports and Cleveland and Columbus stuff
You can’t compare Satan to a crooked accountant, or even Bernie Madoff. Since moving into the top 10 in payroll over the last 5 years, Tigers spending is still, over those 5 seasons, only 57% that of the Yankees. There’s a big difference between the Yankees and everybody else.
Sure I can. They are a have. We are a have not. We are now in a division with three haves (Detroit, Chicago, and believe it or not, Minnesota) and two have nots (Cleveland and Kansas City). For the Indians to finish better than 4th is a triumph of luck and smarts over money. Detroit not only has money, this year they are having luck as well, having none of their overpriced veterans losing significant numbers of games to injury, as well as getting a career year from Jhonny Peralta and the emergence of Alex Avila so that they can DH Victor. Their trades have been gold, too, with Wilson Betemit solidifying third base and Doug Fister stabilizing their rotation. Everything they have touched this year has turned to gold.
But it started with having enough money to throw at free agents and an owner who didn’t care about losing money in a top 10 metro area.
They can afford to lock up Justin Verlander for $20.1 million per for 2012-2014. They were able to throw $5.5 million per through 2013 at Joaquin Benoit.
And despite all this, despite their $100 million plus payroll, when they go to the playoffs, they will be the underdogs representing economically blighted Michigan and the national media is going to portray them as the POOR team representing hard working people who are suffering through economic deprivation.
Bottom line – given their economic advantages over us, they should be putting us away like this EVERY year. So should Chicago. It took everything going right for them and an avalanche of injuries to the Indians for them to do so. Given their money, that organization should be performing a whole lot better than it has over the last few years.
@grantgw - sports and Cleveland and Columbus stuff
by woodsmeister on Sep 8, 2011 4:46 PM EDT up reply actions 5 recs
In fairness to you, I can understand how this may have come off more aggressively than I intended. I didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers, I just wanted to point out that we’re coming from vastly different places. The way the game is set up right now, we’re more dependent on luck than you are as a fan base. We had some good luck early, then a whole ton of bad luck later on. It really smarts. It may not be how you intended it, but everything you said came off as somewhere between cold comfort and condescending. I apologize for offending you, but I stand by the general message of what I said.
Trombone/creamy/soda.
It is a bit unrealistic to expect every visitor to have a complete grasp of our entire history. The guy opens with “I come in peace,” I think he maybe gets a little slack.
by Jay on Sep 8, 2011 2:26 PM EDT up reply actions
I’d guess that most Tigers posters weren’t around for 1984, and have lived through two recent and epic collapses and a risible WS performance against a vastly inferior opponent.
Plus they got to watch John Smoltz rack up 65 WAR for Atlanta.
The AL started up with 4 east coast teams and 4 Great Lakes teams, 3 of which are now in the Central Division. The Twins are also an original AL franchise (though I’d be happy enough to swap the Twins and Royals for Milwaukee and Toronto, for a purely Great Lakes loop). There’s a lot of great—and infamous—AL history wrapped up in these franchises, and whomever emerges as the champ gets my rooting interest in the playoffs.
I’d also guess that Detroit visitors don’t get that our suffering extends across several major sports. We look at Detroit and see that the Red Wings and Pistons have both won championships over the last few years and can’t get why Tigers fans should consider themselves as having suffered at all relative to us.
@grantgw - sports and Cleveland and Columbus stuff
In regards to offense: Lost in our late season collapse is Shelley Duncan’s 1.007 OPS since the beginning of August.. He’s been used a decent part of the time too, in 20 of 35 games. His hits come in bunches (9 hitless games out of the 20) so he might drive me crazy if he were to play more frequently, as his defense would drive anyone crazy, but still it’s worth noting he’s done very well while the rest of the team sits on the DL.
Can Duncan play 1B? If so, there’s definitely room for him on the roster next year. Hell, he might even be useful.
He has 35 games there in him Major League career, 22 starts. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a right handed platoon option next year with someone like Nick Johnson or a more reliable LH bat.
I posted these numbers by way of compliment to him but, in his case, I think current performance is probably not indicative of future success. Next year, I think he plays pretty much the same depth role he played this year (unless he suddenly becomes lots better in the field).
I’m about ready to, viscerally. Logically though, you’d hate to give up on a potential power hitter too early. I don’t see any signs that he’s figuring it out though.
Trombone/creamy/soda.
He can’t really play the same depth role next year, however, since he’s out of options. He’s been good enough, though — and LaPorta bad enough — for us to require LaPorta to force Duncan off the roster by going Kouzmanoff on the IL.
by Jay on Sep 8, 2011 2:24 PM EDT up reply actions
I didn’t realize that Oakland finally gave up on Kouzmanoff and sent him to Sacramento, where he OPSed 890. Then they gave him to COL for a PTBNL or cash. If Kouz with his 5 career WAR is the model for LaPorta, then––oh, need I go on?
Barring a phenomenal spring (whatever that means), I think LaPorta needs to start the year in AAA next year. He is not replacement level and hasn’t been over the last 2 years. He has two options left, right?
It hinges on his regaining a healthy hip. Watching his ABs its fairly evident his hip is not 100%. He’s way too much upper body when swinging the bat.
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