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Of course a Yankees fan would have post number 666.
2016 MLB thread. THE CUBS HAVE BROKEN THE CURSE! Chicago Cubs are your 2016 World Series champions
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by proshares,
- Start date
- Status
- 10,371
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Of course a Yankees fan would have post number 666.
- 7,805
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No really, I had no idea I was going to be 666
- 7,805
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No really, I had no idea I was going to be 666
- 11,980
- 18
How is Bautista not on steroids? No one will ever convince that guy is clean.
- 11,980
- 18
How is Bautista not on steroids? No one will ever convince that guy is clean.
- 11,980
- 18
Maybe your right, but I just don't get how it is that easy to reinvent your swing and suddenly become the second coming of Pujols
- 11,980
- 18
Maybe your right, but I just don't get how it is that easy to reinvent your swing and suddenly become the second coming of Pujols
- 28,100
- 9,233
Since September 1, 2009, Jose Bautista has 78 homeruns.
- 28,100
- 9,233
Since September 1, 2009, Jose Bautista has 78 homeruns.
Piece on Price and his fastball, Posada and the Sox.
Tigers offense.
Spoiler [+]
David Price says he has had conversations with Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey about how he can ride his fastball inning after inning, depending on the quality of Price's command and fastball on a given day. You could pitch six innings without using anything other than your fastball, Hickey has told Price.
Getty ImagesIn a recent start, Price threw more than 100 fastballs.
And Price has taken all this to heart. "Why not keep throwing it," he said the other day over the phone, "until they prove they can hit it?"
In his last start, Price relied on his fastball the way a great poker player sticks with his rules of engagement: It was working against the Indians, so he did not change. Price threw 112 pitches against the Indians, and incredibly, 103 (92 percent) were fastballs. That ranks among the highest percentage of fastball use in recent seasons for any starter throwing at least 100 pitches, according to the information compiled by Daniel Braunstein of ESPN Stats & Information:
"Here are the top 10 starts since 2009 (minimum 100 pitches) ranked by fastball (four-seam and two-seam) percentage. Price's start Wednesday ranks second; his start before that ranks 26th. I included fastball velocity just to show how much harder Price throws than the other guys on the list. It's also worth noting that Bartolo Colon had a start this season with 92.6 percent fastballs, but he fell just shy of the 100-pitch minimum (97 pitches overall, 90 fastballs).
[h4]Overheated[/h4]
Since 2009, the starts where pitchers relied on the fastball for the highest percentage of total pitches.
[th=""]Name[/th][th=""]Team[/th][th=""]Opponent[/th][th=""]Date[/th][th=""]Pitches[/th][th=""]Fastballs[/th][th=""]FB%[/th][th=""]FB Velo[/th]
Price shows up on this list a lot, as you can see, and presumably, he'll be throwing a whole lot more fastballs tonight, when he starts against the Yankees, at a time when the Rays are playing well and the Yankees are slumping.
Price told Rick Stroud that he feels extra motivation against the Yankees.
[h3]Notables[/h3]
⢠Dating back to September 2009, Jose Bautista has 78 homers -- 78 -- in 209 games. He had three more on Sunday, and has 16 in 32 games this season.
More on Bautista from Stats & Information: He had the first three-homer game of his career Sunday, and his 11th multihomer game since the start of the 2010 season. Bautista hit all three of his home runs off of fastballs Sunday, something he did 38 out of 54 times last season. The most multihomer games since the start of 2010:
Jose Bautista: 11
Albert Pujols: 7
Adam Dunn: 6
Five tied at 5
Bautista now has seven home runs in seven career games at Target Field. By contrast, Joe Mauer has just one at Target Field, and Justin Morneau has four. Bautista now has the fourth most home runs in the short history of Target Field. Jim Thome has the most -- 16 in 62 games -- followed by Michael Cuddyer with nine in 95 games, then Jason Kubel with nine in 83 games. Then there's Bautista with seven.
From May 15, 2010, through May 15, 2011, Bautista hit 63 home runs -- a whopping 22 more than the next best total. To give it more context, only 58 players have hit at least 22 home runs in that span:
Jose Bautista: 63
Albert Pujols: 41
Miguel Cabrera: 37
Five tied at 36
This also moves Bautista into some lofty territory, the most home runs hit in a calendar year in the past 10 years:
Barry Bonds: 4/13/2001-4/13/2002 -- 78
Sammy Sosa: 6/16/2001-6/16/2002 -- 72
Jose Bautista: 5/15/2010-5/15/2011 -- 63
Ryan Howard: 9/09/2005-9/09/2006 -- 63
David Ortiz: 8/27/2005-8/27/2006 -- 63
Alex Rodriguez: 9/19/2001-9/19/2002 -- 63
⢠Jorge Posada's eyes welled with tears as he spoke to the media Sunday, after he met with Joe Girardi, partly because he felt he had let down his teammates, and fans. But I also wonder if part of what happened Sunday is that Posada -- nearing the end of a great career -- gave in and accepted his vulnerability to age. Part of Girardi's conversation with Posada -- which both men felt was a good talk -- was to tell Posada how difficult it was to stand aside in the late '90s, as the younger Posada took more playing time away from him. Girardi would get two hits in a game and come in the next day and see Posada's name on the lineup card, and it would hurt. Intellectually, Girardi understands the reason why this was happening: Posada was the younger and more talented player. Viscerally, it still hurt, Girardi recalled. It still hurt to realize that his skills were eroding and that his time as a player was running out.
That's what is happening with Posada now.
He had a couple of great moments on Sunday night. First, when the Bleacher Creatures chanted his name at the end of their roll call. I was sitting next to the Yankees' dugout and as that happened, Girardi and others looked back at Posada and smiled and acknowledged what was happening, and again, Posada seemed touched. Later, when he was announced as a pinch-hitter, Posada got a standing ovation and drew a walk.
Posada did the right thing in apologizing for what happened Saturday, and the Yankees did the right thing in accepting the apology. But in the days ahead, Posada will have to hit and improve his .165 batting average to keep his spot on this team.
Brian Cashman and Girardi are faced with the challenge of managing the then and now, writes Tyler Kepner. The Yankees' underlying problems remain in place.
⢠Boston's sweep of the Yankees has the Red Sox back at .500, Scott Lauber writes. It's now a 122-game season, writes John Tomase. The Red Sox are perfectly normal right now, writes Dan Shaughnessy. David Ortiz jumped on the list of most home runs by a Red Sox player against the Yankees:
Ted Williams: 62
Carl Yastrzemski: 52
Manny Ramirez: 36
Jim Rice: 36
Dwight Evans: 32
David Ortiz: 31
⢠BTW: The other day, Carl Crawford mentioned that he's thinking about living in Boston next winter to get used to the cold, so he's prepared for the coldest weeks of the year.
⢠I hope folks saw the K Zone presentation of Mariano Rivera pitching against Adrian Gonzalez on "Sunday Night Baseball," which demonstrated, as well as anything I have seen, the staggering ability of the Yankees' closer. I am going to try to get a link to this for the column on Tuesday.
[h3]Moves, deals and decisions[/h3]
1. The Astros will announce today the sale of the team to Jim Crane, writes Zachary Levine. Richard Justice writes about what's next for the Astros. Within this piece, he speculates that Rays GM Andrew Friedman will be given the opportunity to take over the Astros some day in the future. Drayton McLane was more good than bad as an owner, writes Justice.
2. Tony La Russa is expected back today.
3. The Pirates have no plans to send the struggling Pedro Alvarez to the minors.
4. John Mayberry is earning playing time for the Phillies, writes Paul Hagen.
5. Frank McCourt says his money problems have had no impact on the Dodgers' roster. I'm not sure why he keeps saying things like this, because he can't win: If the Dodgers' roster would have been the same despite the money problems -- which I don't believe -- then his management of one of the sport's signature franchises is completely incompetent.
6. Ned Yost juggled some jobs.
[h3]Dings and dents[/h3]
1. Josh Hamilton could begin his injury rehabilitation assignment Wednesday, and could be back in the Rangers' lineup within 10 days.
2. Chipper Jones might need surgery.
3. Chase Utley could be back in the Phillies' lineup sometime this week.
4. Shane Victorino has a sore hamstring; within the same Matt Gelb notebook, there is word that Domonic Brown has suffered another injury.
5. Todd Coffey was smoked by a line drive.
6. Andrew Bailey is making progress, writes Scott Ostler.
7. Joe Mauer is frustrated by Joe Mauer, too, writes Jim Souhan.
[h3]Sunday's games[/h3]
1. The greatest rivalries in baseball history are fairly apparent -- Dodgers and Giants, Yankees and Red Sox, Cubs and Cardinals. But there should be a separate category for rivalries that flare like comets, with animosity and intensity burning in every game, and there's no question that right now, the Cardinals and Reds have the nastiest relationship of any teams (I'd put Rockies/Giants a distant second). This all flared up again Sunday, as the Reds completed their sweep of St. Louis, after Albert Pujols got hit by a pitch. These teams don't like each other, said Lance Berkman. Pujols acknowledged that it would make no sense for Francisco Cordero to throw at him on purpose.
There was one downside to the Reds' weekend sweep of the Cardinals: Aroldis Chapman is really struggling with his fastball command, and the St. Louis hitters recognized this. From Jacob Nitzberg of ESPN Stats & Information: "Chapman threw 23 pitches Sunday, with just five going for strikes. The Cardinals swung at just one of Chapman's 23 pitches (4.3 percent), the lowest swing percentage against a pitcher in an appearance with at least 20 pitches in the last three seasons. Chapman's strike percentage of 21.7 is the lowest for any pitcher in an appearance of at least 20 pitches since Baltimore's Jorge Julio threw three of 21 pitches (14.3 percent) for strikes on Sept. 5, 2004, against the Yankees."
2. The Braves again took two of three from the Phillies, getting a big hit from Dan Uggla, writes David O'Brien.
3. The Rangers worked from a great script and won a series for the first time in three weeks, writes Jeff Wilson.
4. Kevin Correia and the Pirates had a bad day.
5. Jason Marquis helped the Nationals avoid a sweep, writes Gene Wang.
6. The Brewers closed out a sweep.
7. The Orioles slowed the Rays this weekend, with Nick Markakis mashing a homer, Dan Connolly writes.
8. Javier Vazquez struggled again. The Marlins don't have a lot of options for change.
9. The Diamondbacks are hanging in there, and took another series with a win over the Dodgers, as Nick Piecoro writes.
10. In the aftermath of the latest win for the White Sox, Ozzie Guillen says his team will make it up to the fans.
11. Mat Latos ended his winless streak.
12. The Rockies, who have always been a good home team, are under .500 in Denver after losing Sunday.
13. Ted Lilly gave up a bunch of runs early, writes Jim Peltz.
14. The Mets' Justin Turner had a breakout kind of day.
15. The Angels' bullpen was a problem again.
16. Trevor Cahill took his first loss.
17. The Twins got blasted, writes Joe Christensen.
Getty ImagesIn a recent start, Price threw more than 100 fastballs.
And Price has taken all this to heart. "Why not keep throwing it," he said the other day over the phone, "until they prove they can hit it?"
In his last start, Price relied on his fastball the way a great poker player sticks with his rules of engagement: It was working against the Indians, so he did not change. Price threw 112 pitches against the Indians, and incredibly, 103 (92 percent) were fastballs. That ranks among the highest percentage of fastball use in recent seasons for any starter throwing at least 100 pitches, according to the information compiled by Daniel Braunstein of ESPN Stats & Information:
"Here are the top 10 starts since 2009 (minimum 100 pitches) ranked by fastball (four-seam and two-seam) percentage. Price's start Wednesday ranks second; his start before that ranks 26th. I included fastball velocity just to show how much harder Price throws than the other guys on the list. It's also worth noting that Bartolo Colon had a start this season with 92.6 percent fastballs, but he fell just shy of the 100-pitch minimum (97 pitches overall, 90 fastballs).
[h4]Overheated[/h4]
Since 2009, the starts where pitchers relied on the fastball for the highest percentage of total pitches.
| John Maine | NYM | vs LAD | 4/28/2010 | 101 | 97 | 96.0% | 87.5 |
| David Price | TB | @ CLE | 5/11/2011 | 112 | 103 | 92.0% | 95.5 |
| John Maine | NYM | @ CIN | 5/4/2010 | 102 | 92 | 90.2% | 89.2 |
| Mike Pelfrey | NYM | @ CIN | 4/8/2009 | 104 | 94 | 90.0% | 91.7 |
| David Price | TB | vs BOS | 7/7/2010 | 111 | 99 | 89.2% | 94.3 |
| Aaron Harang | CIN | vs ARI | 7/2/2009 | 114 | 102 | 89.1% | 91.2 |
| John Maine | NYM | vs WSH | 5/10/2010 | 114 | 101 | 88.2% | 87.9 |
| Cliff Lee | TEX | @ BOS | 7/17/2010 | 105 | 93 | 88.1% | 92.1 |
| David Price | TB | vs BOS | 8/27/2010 | 106 | 93 | 87.7% | 95.4 |
| David Price | TB | vs NYY | 9/13/2010 | 114 | 100 | 87.7% | 95.3 |
Price shows up on this list a lot, as you can see, and presumably, he'll be throwing a whole lot more fastballs tonight, when he starts against the Yankees, at a time when the Rays are playing well and the Yankees are slumping.
Price told Rick Stroud that he feels extra motivation against the Yankees.
[h3]Notables[/h3]
⢠Dating back to September 2009, Jose Bautista has 78 homers -- 78 -- in 209 games. He had three more on Sunday, and has 16 in 32 games this season.
More on Bautista from Stats & Information: He had the first three-homer game of his career Sunday, and his 11th multihomer game since the start of the 2010 season. Bautista hit all three of his home runs off of fastballs Sunday, something he did 38 out of 54 times last season. The most multihomer games since the start of 2010:
Jose Bautista: 11
Albert Pujols: 7
Adam Dunn: 6
Five tied at 5
Bautista now has seven home runs in seven career games at Target Field. By contrast, Joe Mauer has just one at Target Field, and Justin Morneau has four. Bautista now has the fourth most home runs in the short history of Target Field. Jim Thome has the most -- 16 in 62 games -- followed by Michael Cuddyer with nine in 95 games, then Jason Kubel with nine in 83 games. Then there's Bautista with seven.
From May 15, 2010, through May 15, 2011, Bautista hit 63 home runs -- a whopping 22 more than the next best total. To give it more context, only 58 players have hit at least 22 home runs in that span:
Jose Bautista: 63
Albert Pujols: 41
Miguel Cabrera: 37
Five tied at 36
This also moves Bautista into some lofty territory, the most home runs hit in a calendar year in the past 10 years:
Barry Bonds: 4/13/2001-4/13/2002 -- 78
Sammy Sosa: 6/16/2001-6/16/2002 -- 72
Jose Bautista: 5/15/2010-5/15/2011 -- 63
Ryan Howard: 9/09/2005-9/09/2006 -- 63
David Ortiz: 8/27/2005-8/27/2006 -- 63
Alex Rodriguez: 9/19/2001-9/19/2002 -- 63
⢠Jorge Posada's eyes welled with tears as he spoke to the media Sunday, after he met with Joe Girardi, partly because he felt he had let down his teammates, and fans. But I also wonder if part of what happened Sunday is that Posada -- nearing the end of a great career -- gave in and accepted his vulnerability to age. Part of Girardi's conversation with Posada -- which both men felt was a good talk -- was to tell Posada how difficult it was to stand aside in the late '90s, as the younger Posada took more playing time away from him. Girardi would get two hits in a game and come in the next day and see Posada's name on the lineup card, and it would hurt. Intellectually, Girardi understands the reason why this was happening: Posada was the younger and more talented player. Viscerally, it still hurt, Girardi recalled. It still hurt to realize that his skills were eroding and that his time as a player was running out.
That's what is happening with Posada now.
He had a couple of great moments on Sunday night. First, when the Bleacher Creatures chanted his name at the end of their roll call. I was sitting next to the Yankees' dugout and as that happened, Girardi and others looked back at Posada and smiled and acknowledged what was happening, and again, Posada seemed touched. Later, when he was announced as a pinch-hitter, Posada got a standing ovation and drew a walk.
Posada did the right thing in apologizing for what happened Saturday, and the Yankees did the right thing in accepting the apology. But in the days ahead, Posada will have to hit and improve his .165 batting average to keep his spot on this team.
Brian Cashman and Girardi are faced with the challenge of managing the then and now, writes Tyler Kepner. The Yankees' underlying problems remain in place.
⢠Boston's sweep of the Yankees has the Red Sox back at .500, Scott Lauber writes. It's now a 122-game season, writes John Tomase. The Red Sox are perfectly normal right now, writes Dan Shaughnessy. David Ortiz jumped on the list of most home runs by a Red Sox player against the Yankees:
Ted Williams: 62
Carl Yastrzemski: 52
Manny Ramirez: 36
Jim Rice: 36
Dwight Evans: 32
David Ortiz: 31
⢠BTW: The other day, Carl Crawford mentioned that he's thinking about living in Boston next winter to get used to the cold, so he's prepared for the coldest weeks of the year.
⢠I hope folks saw the K Zone presentation of Mariano Rivera pitching against Adrian Gonzalez on "Sunday Night Baseball," which demonstrated, as well as anything I have seen, the staggering ability of the Yankees' closer. I am going to try to get a link to this for the column on Tuesday.
[h3]Moves, deals and decisions[/h3]
1. The Astros will announce today the sale of the team to Jim Crane, writes Zachary Levine. Richard Justice writes about what's next for the Astros. Within this piece, he speculates that Rays GM Andrew Friedman will be given the opportunity to take over the Astros some day in the future. Drayton McLane was more good than bad as an owner, writes Justice.
2. Tony La Russa is expected back today.
3. The Pirates have no plans to send the struggling Pedro Alvarez to the minors.
4. John Mayberry is earning playing time for the Phillies, writes Paul Hagen.
5. Frank McCourt says his money problems have had no impact on the Dodgers' roster. I'm not sure why he keeps saying things like this, because he can't win: If the Dodgers' roster would have been the same despite the money problems -- which I don't believe -- then his management of one of the sport's signature franchises is completely incompetent.
6. Ned Yost juggled some jobs.
[h3]Dings and dents[/h3]
1. Josh Hamilton could begin his injury rehabilitation assignment Wednesday, and could be back in the Rangers' lineup within 10 days.
2. Chipper Jones might need surgery.
3. Chase Utley could be back in the Phillies' lineup sometime this week.
4. Shane Victorino has a sore hamstring; within the same Matt Gelb notebook, there is word that Domonic Brown has suffered another injury.
5. Todd Coffey was smoked by a line drive.
6. Andrew Bailey is making progress, writes Scott Ostler.
7. Joe Mauer is frustrated by Joe Mauer, too, writes Jim Souhan.
[h3]Sunday's games[/h3]
1. The greatest rivalries in baseball history are fairly apparent -- Dodgers and Giants, Yankees and Red Sox, Cubs and Cardinals. But there should be a separate category for rivalries that flare like comets, with animosity and intensity burning in every game, and there's no question that right now, the Cardinals and Reds have the nastiest relationship of any teams (I'd put Rockies/Giants a distant second). This all flared up again Sunday, as the Reds completed their sweep of St. Louis, after Albert Pujols got hit by a pitch. These teams don't like each other, said Lance Berkman. Pujols acknowledged that it would make no sense for Francisco Cordero to throw at him on purpose.
There was one downside to the Reds' weekend sweep of the Cardinals: Aroldis Chapman is really struggling with his fastball command, and the St. Louis hitters recognized this. From Jacob Nitzberg of ESPN Stats & Information: "Chapman threw 23 pitches Sunday, with just five going for strikes. The Cardinals swung at just one of Chapman's 23 pitches (4.3 percent), the lowest swing percentage against a pitcher in an appearance with at least 20 pitches in the last three seasons. Chapman's strike percentage of 21.7 is the lowest for any pitcher in an appearance of at least 20 pitches since Baltimore's Jorge Julio threw three of 21 pitches (14.3 percent) for strikes on Sept. 5, 2004, against the Yankees."
2. The Braves again took two of three from the Phillies, getting a big hit from Dan Uggla, writes David O'Brien.
3. The Rangers worked from a great script and won a series for the first time in three weeks, writes Jeff Wilson.
4. Kevin Correia and the Pirates had a bad day.
5. Jason Marquis helped the Nationals avoid a sweep, writes Gene Wang.
6. The Brewers closed out a sweep.
7. The Orioles slowed the Rays this weekend, with Nick Markakis mashing a homer, Dan Connolly writes.
8. Javier Vazquez struggled again. The Marlins don't have a lot of options for change.
9. The Diamondbacks are hanging in there, and took another series with a win over the Dodgers, as Nick Piecoro writes.
10. In the aftermath of the latest win for the White Sox, Ozzie Guillen says his team will make it up to the fans.
11. Mat Latos ended his winless streak.
12. The Rockies, who have always been a good home team, are under .500 in Denver after losing Sunday.
13. Ted Lilly gave up a bunch of runs early, writes Jim Peltz.
14. The Mets' Justin Turner had a breakout kind of day.
15. The Angels' bullpen was a problem again.
16. Trevor Cahill took his first loss.
17. The Twins got blasted, writes Joe Christensen.
Tigers offense.
Spoiler [+]
We human beings can't help but look for reasons to explain complicated or unlikely events. That's especially true in baseball, where we prop up a players-only meeting, a bench-clearing brawl or a sacrifice to Jobu as the reason a team turned its fortunes around.
Still, even the most hardened cynic can't help but notice what's happened to the Detroit Tigers. On the morning of May 7, the American League Central already had the feel of fait accompli. The preseason favorites, the Twins and White Sox, sat 8½ and 11 games out, respectively. Detroit had been flaky to that point, following a seven-game losing streak with three straight wins over the Yankees. Still, sitting at 15-18 and 7 games out of first, Tigers fans at least had to wonder how long it might take to dig out of that early hole, assuming they could get out of it at all.
Then, Justin Verlander happened. One seven-game winning streak later, the Tigers are right back in the race, just 3½ games behind the upstart Indians and in the lead for the AL wild card at the season's quarter pole.
Though Verlander's no-hit masterpiece may have lit the fuse for Detroit's current streak, a surprisingly balanced offense (tied for third in the AL in runs scored) has played the biggest role in the Tigers' success. Miguel Cabrera was expected to be the undisputed leader of Detroit's attack, and he hasn't disappointed, hitting a robust .309/.440/.540 this season and staking his claim as the best AL hitter not living on Planet Bautista. But Cabrera's had tons of help, both from expected and unexpected sources.
Victor Martinez's hot start was both expected and paid for. The Tigers thought so much of Martinez's bat that they gave him a four-year, $50 million contract, despite his age (32) and his no longer being a starting catcher. An early DL stint hasn't slowed him down, with Martinez's .330 batting average ranking sixth in the league (he's a few at-bats short of qualifying, for now), and several other key stats (isolated slugging, OPS, weighted on-base average) ranking at career-high levels, so far anyway.
[h4]Miguel Cabrera's Worthy Wingmen[/h4]
[th=""]PLAYER[/th][th=""]Career OPS[/th][th=""]2011 OPS[/th]
The bigger surprises have been Jhonny Peralta and Alex Avila. The 28-year-old Peralta was another offseason signing, re-upping with Detroit after coming over in an in-season trade with the Cleveland Indians. After blasting 24 homers as a 23-year-old shortstop in Cleveland, Peralta's had an up-and-down career, in the process losing enough mobility to make people doubt he could handle playing shortstop or hit enough to fill a corner position. But after a brutal 2009 campaign, Peralta's walk, strikeout and power indicators have all trended in the right direction, fueling a .307/.366/.504 start. The biggest difference for him is that he's making a lot less contact on pitches outside of the zone -- 69.1 percent last year, 59.2 percent this year -- and a lot more on those in the zone (86.5 to 91.1). By putting the bat on more hittable pitches, he's making higher-quality contact.
Meanwhile, the 24-year-old Avila leads all major league catchers in isolated slugging. Avila has always had pop, but he's putting the ball in the air far more than he ever has before in his career, as his personal ground ball-fly ball ratio of 0.86 is well below his career average of 1.11. That should help his home run totals, but will likely hurt his batting average as the season progresses because fly balls are converted into outs more frequently than grounders.
As good as the lineup has been, the bullpen has been that bad. However, that hasn't prevented the club from winning seven straight. The Tigers rank dead-last in baseball for relievers' ERA, at 5.35. And that's with Jose Valverde fanning more than a batter an inning and looking very good as the team's closer.
The biggest disappointment has been Joaquin Benoit. Signed to a three-year, $16.5 million deal this offseason, Benoit's sky-high 6.59 ERA makes him look like an unmitigated disaster. Much of it might be explained by bad luck, small sample size and situational struggles: He's yielded a .356 batting average on balls in play (.192 last season, .276 career) with a .941 OPS against with runners on base (versus just .526 with the bases empty). The good news is that the Tigers' biggest flaw, the bullpen, is typically the cheapest thing to fix in the middle of the year. Once luck evens out for Benoit, hard-throwing Brayan Villarreal and others, Detroit can assess what's missing from the 'pen and address it on the trade market, without giving up premium talents.
Few teams can match the Tigers' pitcher-hitter star combo of Verlander and Cabrera. Combine depth in the lineup and rotation, and suddenly the Tigers are looking like the Indians' biggest threat atop the AL Central.
Still, even the most hardened cynic can't help but notice what's happened to the Detroit Tigers. On the morning of May 7, the American League Central already had the feel of fait accompli. The preseason favorites, the Twins and White Sox, sat 8½ and 11 games out, respectively. Detroit had been flaky to that point, following a seven-game losing streak with three straight wins over the Yankees. Still, sitting at 15-18 and 7 games out of first, Tigers fans at least had to wonder how long it might take to dig out of that early hole, assuming they could get out of it at all.
Then, Justin Verlander happened. One seven-game winning streak later, the Tigers are right back in the race, just 3½ games behind the upstart Indians and in the lead for the AL wild card at the season's quarter pole.
Though Verlander's no-hit masterpiece may have lit the fuse for Detroit's current streak, a surprisingly balanced offense (tied for third in the AL in runs scored) has played the biggest role in the Tigers' success. Miguel Cabrera was expected to be the undisputed leader of Detroit's attack, and he hasn't disappointed, hitting a robust .309/.440/.540 this season and staking his claim as the best AL hitter not living on Planet Bautista. But Cabrera's had tons of help, both from expected and unexpected sources.
Victor Martinez's hot start was both expected and paid for. The Tigers thought so much of Martinez's bat that they gave him a four-year, $50 million contract, despite his age (32) and his no longer being a starting catcher. An early DL stint hasn't slowed him down, with Martinez's .330 batting average ranking sixth in the league (he's a few at-bats short of qualifying, for now), and several other key stats (isolated slugging, OPS, weighted on-base average) ranking at career-high levels, so far anyway.
[h4]Miguel Cabrera's Worthy Wingmen[/h4]
| Victor Martinez | .841 | .935 |
| Jhonny Peralta | .752 | .870 |
| Alex Avila | .745 | .858 |
The bigger surprises have been Jhonny Peralta and Alex Avila. The 28-year-old Peralta was another offseason signing, re-upping with Detroit after coming over in an in-season trade with the Cleveland Indians. After blasting 24 homers as a 23-year-old shortstop in Cleveland, Peralta's had an up-and-down career, in the process losing enough mobility to make people doubt he could handle playing shortstop or hit enough to fill a corner position. But after a brutal 2009 campaign, Peralta's walk, strikeout and power indicators have all trended in the right direction, fueling a .307/.366/.504 start. The biggest difference for him is that he's making a lot less contact on pitches outside of the zone -- 69.1 percent last year, 59.2 percent this year -- and a lot more on those in the zone (86.5 to 91.1). By putting the bat on more hittable pitches, he's making higher-quality contact.
Meanwhile, the 24-year-old Avila leads all major league catchers in isolated slugging. Avila has always had pop, but he's putting the ball in the air far more than he ever has before in his career, as his personal ground ball-fly ball ratio of 0.86 is well below his career average of 1.11. That should help his home run totals, but will likely hurt his batting average as the season progresses because fly balls are converted into outs more frequently than grounders.
As good as the lineup has been, the bullpen has been that bad. However, that hasn't prevented the club from winning seven straight. The Tigers rank dead-last in baseball for relievers' ERA, at 5.35. And that's with Jose Valverde fanning more than a batter an inning and looking very good as the team's closer.
The biggest disappointment has been Joaquin Benoit. Signed to a three-year, $16.5 million deal this offseason, Benoit's sky-high 6.59 ERA makes him look like an unmitigated disaster. Much of it might be explained by bad luck, small sample size and situational struggles: He's yielded a .356 batting average on balls in play (.192 last season, .276 career) with a .941 OPS against with runners on base (versus just .526 with the bases empty). The good news is that the Tigers' biggest flaw, the bullpen, is typically the cheapest thing to fix in the middle of the year. Once luck evens out for Benoit, hard-throwing Brayan Villarreal and others, Detroit can assess what's missing from the 'pen and address it on the trade market, without giving up premium talents.
Few teams can match the Tigers' pitcher-hitter star combo of Verlander and Cabrera. Combine depth in the lineup and rotation, and suddenly the Tigers are looking like the Indians' biggest threat atop the AL Central.
Piece on Price and his fastball, Posada and the Sox.
Tigers offense.
Spoiler [+]
David Price says he has had conversations with Rays pitching coach Jim Hickey about how he can ride his fastball inning after inning, depending on the quality of Price's command and fastball on a given day. You could pitch six innings without using anything other than your fastball, Hickey has told Price.
Getty ImagesIn a recent start, Price threw more than 100 fastballs.
And Price has taken all this to heart. "Why not keep throwing it," he said the other day over the phone, "until they prove they can hit it?"
In his last start, Price relied on his fastball the way a great poker player sticks with his rules of engagement: It was working against the Indians, so he did not change. Price threw 112 pitches against the Indians, and incredibly, 103 (92 percent) were fastballs. That ranks among the highest percentage of fastball use in recent seasons for any starter throwing at least 100 pitches, according to the information compiled by Daniel Braunstein of ESPN Stats & Information:
"Here are the top 10 starts since 2009 (minimum 100 pitches) ranked by fastball (four-seam and two-seam) percentage. Price's start Wednesday ranks second; his start before that ranks 26th. I included fastball velocity just to show how much harder Price throws than the other guys on the list. It's also worth noting that Bartolo Colon had a start this season with 92.6 percent fastballs, but he fell just shy of the 100-pitch minimum (97 pitches overall, 90 fastballs).
[h4]Overheated[/h4]
Since 2009, the starts where pitchers relied on the fastball for the highest percentage of total pitches.
[th=""]Name[/th][th=""]Team[/th][th=""]Opponent[/th][th=""]Date[/th][th=""]Pitches[/th][th=""]Fastballs[/th][th=""]FB%[/th][th=""]FB Velo[/th]
Price shows up on this list a lot, as you can see, and presumably, he'll be throwing a whole lot more fastballs tonight, when he starts against the Yankees, at a time when the Rays are playing well and the Yankees are slumping.
Price told Rick Stroud that he feels extra motivation against the Yankees.
[h3]Notables[/h3]
⢠Dating back to September 2009, Jose Bautista has 78 homers -- 78 -- in 209 games. He had three more on Sunday, and has 16 in 32 games this season.
More on Bautista from Stats & Information: He had the first three-homer game of his career Sunday, and his 11th multihomer game since the start of the 2010 season. Bautista hit all three of his home runs off of fastballs Sunday, something he did 38 out of 54 times last season. The most multihomer games since the start of 2010:
Jose Bautista: 11
Albert Pujols: 7
Adam Dunn: 6
Five tied at 5
Bautista now has seven home runs in seven career games at Target Field. By contrast, Joe Mauer has just one at Target Field, and Justin Morneau has four. Bautista now has the fourth most home runs in the short history of Target Field. Jim Thome has the most -- 16 in 62 games -- followed by Michael Cuddyer with nine in 95 games, then Jason Kubel with nine in 83 games. Then there's Bautista with seven.
From May 15, 2010, through May 15, 2011, Bautista hit 63 home runs -- a whopping 22 more than the next best total. To give it more context, only 58 players have hit at least 22 home runs in that span:
Jose Bautista: 63
Albert Pujols: 41
Miguel Cabrera: 37
Five tied at 36
This also moves Bautista into some lofty territory, the most home runs hit in a calendar year in the past 10 years:
Barry Bonds: 4/13/2001-4/13/2002 -- 78
Sammy Sosa: 6/16/2001-6/16/2002 -- 72
Jose Bautista: 5/15/2010-5/15/2011 -- 63
Ryan Howard: 9/09/2005-9/09/2006 -- 63
David Ortiz: 8/27/2005-8/27/2006 -- 63
Alex Rodriguez: 9/19/2001-9/19/2002 -- 63
⢠Jorge Posada's eyes welled with tears as he spoke to the media Sunday, after he met with Joe Girardi, partly because he felt he had let down his teammates, and fans. But I also wonder if part of what happened Sunday is that Posada -- nearing the end of a great career -- gave in and accepted his vulnerability to age. Part of Girardi's conversation with Posada -- which both men felt was a good talk -- was to tell Posada how difficult it was to stand aside in the late '90s, as the younger Posada took more playing time away from him. Girardi would get two hits in a game and come in the next day and see Posada's name on the lineup card, and it would hurt. Intellectually, Girardi understands the reason why this was happening: Posada was the younger and more talented player. Viscerally, it still hurt, Girardi recalled. It still hurt to realize that his skills were eroding and that his time as a player was running out.
That's what is happening with Posada now.
He had a couple of great moments on Sunday night. First, when the Bleacher Creatures chanted his name at the end of their roll call. I was sitting next to the Yankees' dugout and as that happened, Girardi and others looked back at Posada and smiled and acknowledged what was happening, and again, Posada seemed touched. Later, when he was announced as a pinch-hitter, Posada got a standing ovation and drew a walk.
Posada did the right thing in apologizing for what happened Saturday, and the Yankees did the right thing in accepting the apology. But in the days ahead, Posada will have to hit and improve his .165 batting average to keep his spot on this team.
Brian Cashman and Girardi are faced with the challenge of managing the then and now, writes Tyler Kepner. The Yankees' underlying problems remain in place.
⢠Boston's sweep of the Yankees has the Red Sox back at .500, Scott Lauber writes. It's now a 122-game season, writes John Tomase. The Red Sox are perfectly normal right now, writes Dan Shaughnessy. David Ortiz jumped on the list of most home runs by a Red Sox player against the Yankees:
Ted Williams: 62
Carl Yastrzemski: 52
Manny Ramirez: 36
Jim Rice: 36
Dwight Evans: 32
David Ortiz: 31
⢠BTW: The other day, Carl Crawford mentioned that he's thinking about living in Boston next winter to get used to the cold, so he's prepared for the coldest weeks of the year.
⢠I hope folks saw the K Zone presentation of Mariano Rivera pitching against Adrian Gonzalez on "Sunday Night Baseball," which demonstrated, as well as anything I have seen, the staggering ability of the Yankees' closer. I am going to try to get a link to this for the column on Tuesday.
[h3]Moves, deals and decisions[/h3]
1. The Astros will announce today the sale of the team to Jim Crane, writes Zachary Levine. Richard Justice writes about what's next for the Astros. Within this piece, he speculates that Rays GM Andrew Friedman will be given the opportunity to take over the Astros some day in the future. Drayton McLane was more good than bad as an owner, writes Justice.
2. Tony La Russa is expected back today.
3. The Pirates have no plans to send the struggling Pedro Alvarez to the minors.
4. John Mayberry is earning playing time for the Phillies, writes Paul Hagen.
5. Frank McCourt says his money problems have had no impact on the Dodgers' roster. I'm not sure why he keeps saying things like this, because he can't win: If the Dodgers' roster would have been the same despite the money problems -- which I don't believe -- then his management of one of the sport's signature franchises is completely incompetent.
6. Ned Yost juggled some jobs.
[h3]Dings and dents[/h3]
1. Josh Hamilton could begin his injury rehabilitation assignment Wednesday, and could be back in the Rangers' lineup within 10 days.
2. Chipper Jones might need surgery.
3. Chase Utley could be back in the Phillies' lineup sometime this week.
4. Shane Victorino has a sore hamstring; within the same Matt Gelb notebook, there is word that Domonic Brown has suffered another injury.
5. Todd Coffey was smoked by a line drive.
6. Andrew Bailey is making progress, writes Scott Ostler.
7. Joe Mauer is frustrated by Joe Mauer, too, writes Jim Souhan.
[h3]Sunday's games[/h3]
1. The greatest rivalries in baseball history are fairly apparent -- Dodgers and Giants, Yankees and Red Sox, Cubs and Cardinals. But there should be a separate category for rivalries that flare like comets, with animosity and intensity burning in every game, and there's no question that right now, the Cardinals and Reds have the nastiest relationship of any teams (I'd put Rockies/Giants a distant second). This all flared up again Sunday, as the Reds completed their sweep of St. Louis, after Albert Pujols got hit by a pitch. These teams don't like each other, said Lance Berkman. Pujols acknowledged that it would make no sense for Francisco Cordero to throw at him on purpose.
There was one downside to the Reds' weekend sweep of the Cardinals: Aroldis Chapman is really struggling with his fastball command, and the St. Louis hitters recognized this. From Jacob Nitzberg of ESPN Stats & Information: "Chapman threw 23 pitches Sunday, with just five going for strikes. The Cardinals swung at just one of Chapman's 23 pitches (4.3 percent), the lowest swing percentage against a pitcher in an appearance with at least 20 pitches in the last three seasons. Chapman's strike percentage of 21.7 is the lowest for any pitcher in an appearance of at least 20 pitches since Baltimore's Jorge Julio threw three of 21 pitches (14.3 percent) for strikes on Sept. 5, 2004, against the Yankees."
2. The Braves again took two of three from the Phillies, getting a big hit from Dan Uggla, writes David O'Brien.
3. The Rangers worked from a great script and won a series for the first time in three weeks, writes Jeff Wilson.
4. Kevin Correia and the Pirates had a bad day.
5. Jason Marquis helped the Nationals avoid a sweep, writes Gene Wang.
6. The Brewers closed out a sweep.
7. The Orioles slowed the Rays this weekend, with Nick Markakis mashing a homer, Dan Connolly writes.
8. Javier Vazquez struggled again. The Marlins don't have a lot of options for change.
9. The Diamondbacks are hanging in there, and took another series with a win over the Dodgers, as Nick Piecoro writes.
10. In the aftermath of the latest win for the White Sox, Ozzie Guillen says his team will make it up to the fans.
11. Mat Latos ended his winless streak.
12. The Rockies, who have always been a good home team, are under .500 in Denver after losing Sunday.
13. Ted Lilly gave up a bunch of runs early, writes Jim Peltz.
14. The Mets' Justin Turner had a breakout kind of day.
15. The Angels' bullpen was a problem again.
16. Trevor Cahill took his first loss.
17. The Twins got blasted, writes Joe Christensen.
Getty ImagesIn a recent start, Price threw more than 100 fastballs.
And Price has taken all this to heart. "Why not keep throwing it," he said the other day over the phone, "until they prove they can hit it?"
In his last start, Price relied on his fastball the way a great poker player sticks with his rules of engagement: It was working against the Indians, so he did not change. Price threw 112 pitches against the Indians, and incredibly, 103 (92 percent) were fastballs. That ranks among the highest percentage of fastball use in recent seasons for any starter throwing at least 100 pitches, according to the information compiled by Daniel Braunstein of ESPN Stats & Information:
"Here are the top 10 starts since 2009 (minimum 100 pitches) ranked by fastball (four-seam and two-seam) percentage. Price's start Wednesday ranks second; his start before that ranks 26th. I included fastball velocity just to show how much harder Price throws than the other guys on the list. It's also worth noting that Bartolo Colon had a start this season with 92.6 percent fastballs, but he fell just shy of the 100-pitch minimum (97 pitches overall, 90 fastballs).
[h4]Overheated[/h4]
Since 2009, the starts where pitchers relied on the fastball for the highest percentage of total pitches.
| John Maine | NYM | vs LAD | 4/28/2010 | 101 | 97 | 96.0% | 87.5 |
| David Price | TB | @ CLE | 5/11/2011 | 112 | 103 | 92.0% | 95.5 |
| John Maine | NYM | @ CIN | 5/4/2010 | 102 | 92 | 90.2% | 89.2 |
| Mike Pelfrey | NYM | @ CIN | 4/8/2009 | 104 | 94 | 90.0% | 91.7 |
| David Price | TB | vs BOS | 7/7/2010 | 111 | 99 | 89.2% | 94.3 |
| Aaron Harang | CIN | vs ARI | 7/2/2009 | 114 | 102 | 89.1% | 91.2 |
| John Maine | NYM | vs WSH | 5/10/2010 | 114 | 101 | 88.2% | 87.9 |
| Cliff Lee | TEX | @ BOS | 7/17/2010 | 105 | 93 | 88.1% | 92.1 |
| David Price | TB | vs BOS | 8/27/2010 | 106 | 93 | 87.7% | 95.4 |
| David Price | TB | vs NYY | 9/13/2010 | 114 | 100 | 87.7% | 95.3 |
Price shows up on this list a lot, as you can see, and presumably, he'll be throwing a whole lot more fastballs tonight, when he starts against the Yankees, at a time when the Rays are playing well and the Yankees are slumping.
Price told Rick Stroud that he feels extra motivation against the Yankees.
[h3]Notables[/h3]
⢠Dating back to September 2009, Jose Bautista has 78 homers -- 78 -- in 209 games. He had three more on Sunday, and has 16 in 32 games this season.
More on Bautista from Stats & Information: He had the first three-homer game of his career Sunday, and his 11th multihomer game since the start of the 2010 season. Bautista hit all three of his home runs off of fastballs Sunday, something he did 38 out of 54 times last season. The most multihomer games since the start of 2010:
Jose Bautista: 11
Albert Pujols: 7
Adam Dunn: 6
Five tied at 5
Bautista now has seven home runs in seven career games at Target Field. By contrast, Joe Mauer has just one at Target Field, and Justin Morneau has four. Bautista now has the fourth most home runs in the short history of Target Field. Jim Thome has the most -- 16 in 62 games -- followed by Michael Cuddyer with nine in 95 games, then Jason Kubel with nine in 83 games. Then there's Bautista with seven.
From May 15, 2010, through May 15, 2011, Bautista hit 63 home runs -- a whopping 22 more than the next best total. To give it more context, only 58 players have hit at least 22 home runs in that span:
Jose Bautista: 63
Albert Pujols: 41
Miguel Cabrera: 37
Five tied at 36
This also moves Bautista into some lofty territory, the most home runs hit in a calendar year in the past 10 years:
Barry Bonds: 4/13/2001-4/13/2002 -- 78
Sammy Sosa: 6/16/2001-6/16/2002 -- 72
Jose Bautista: 5/15/2010-5/15/2011 -- 63
Ryan Howard: 9/09/2005-9/09/2006 -- 63
David Ortiz: 8/27/2005-8/27/2006 -- 63
Alex Rodriguez: 9/19/2001-9/19/2002 -- 63
⢠Jorge Posada's eyes welled with tears as he spoke to the media Sunday, after he met with Joe Girardi, partly because he felt he had let down his teammates, and fans. But I also wonder if part of what happened Sunday is that Posada -- nearing the end of a great career -- gave in and accepted his vulnerability to age. Part of Girardi's conversation with Posada -- which both men felt was a good talk -- was to tell Posada how difficult it was to stand aside in the late '90s, as the younger Posada took more playing time away from him. Girardi would get two hits in a game and come in the next day and see Posada's name on the lineup card, and it would hurt. Intellectually, Girardi understands the reason why this was happening: Posada was the younger and more talented player. Viscerally, it still hurt, Girardi recalled. It still hurt to realize that his skills were eroding and that his time as a player was running out.
That's what is happening with Posada now.
He had a couple of great moments on Sunday night. First, when the Bleacher Creatures chanted his name at the end of their roll call. I was sitting next to the Yankees' dugout and as that happened, Girardi and others looked back at Posada and smiled and acknowledged what was happening, and again, Posada seemed touched. Later, when he was announced as a pinch-hitter, Posada got a standing ovation and drew a walk.
Posada did the right thing in apologizing for what happened Saturday, and the Yankees did the right thing in accepting the apology. But in the days ahead, Posada will have to hit and improve his .165 batting average to keep his spot on this team.
Brian Cashman and Girardi are faced with the challenge of managing the then and now, writes Tyler Kepner. The Yankees' underlying problems remain in place.
⢠Boston's sweep of the Yankees has the Red Sox back at .500, Scott Lauber writes. It's now a 122-game season, writes John Tomase. The Red Sox are perfectly normal right now, writes Dan Shaughnessy. David Ortiz jumped on the list of most home runs by a Red Sox player against the Yankees:
Ted Williams: 62
Carl Yastrzemski: 52
Manny Ramirez: 36
Jim Rice: 36
Dwight Evans: 32
David Ortiz: 31
⢠BTW: The other day, Carl Crawford mentioned that he's thinking about living in Boston next winter to get used to the cold, so he's prepared for the coldest weeks of the year.
⢠I hope folks saw the K Zone presentation of Mariano Rivera pitching against Adrian Gonzalez on "Sunday Night Baseball," which demonstrated, as well as anything I have seen, the staggering ability of the Yankees' closer. I am going to try to get a link to this for the column on Tuesday.
[h3]Moves, deals and decisions[/h3]
1. The Astros will announce today the sale of the team to Jim Crane, writes Zachary Levine. Richard Justice writes about what's next for the Astros. Within this piece, he speculates that Rays GM Andrew Friedman will be given the opportunity to take over the Astros some day in the future. Drayton McLane was more good than bad as an owner, writes Justice.
2. Tony La Russa is expected back today.
3. The Pirates have no plans to send the struggling Pedro Alvarez to the minors.
4. John Mayberry is earning playing time for the Phillies, writes Paul Hagen.
5. Frank McCourt says his money problems have had no impact on the Dodgers' roster. I'm not sure why he keeps saying things like this, because he can't win: If the Dodgers' roster would have been the same despite the money problems -- which I don't believe -- then his management of one of the sport's signature franchises is completely incompetent.
6. Ned Yost juggled some jobs.
[h3]Dings and dents[/h3]
1. Josh Hamilton could begin his injury rehabilitation assignment Wednesday, and could be back in the Rangers' lineup within 10 days.
2. Chipper Jones might need surgery.
3. Chase Utley could be back in the Phillies' lineup sometime this week.
4. Shane Victorino has a sore hamstring; within the same Matt Gelb notebook, there is word that Domonic Brown has suffered another injury.
5. Todd Coffey was smoked by a line drive.
6. Andrew Bailey is making progress, writes Scott Ostler.
7. Joe Mauer is frustrated by Joe Mauer, too, writes Jim Souhan.
[h3]Sunday's games[/h3]
1. The greatest rivalries in baseball history are fairly apparent -- Dodgers and Giants, Yankees and Red Sox, Cubs and Cardinals. But there should be a separate category for rivalries that flare like comets, with animosity and intensity burning in every game, and there's no question that right now, the Cardinals and Reds have the nastiest relationship of any teams (I'd put Rockies/Giants a distant second). This all flared up again Sunday, as the Reds completed their sweep of St. Louis, after Albert Pujols got hit by a pitch. These teams don't like each other, said Lance Berkman. Pujols acknowledged that it would make no sense for Francisco Cordero to throw at him on purpose.
There was one downside to the Reds' weekend sweep of the Cardinals: Aroldis Chapman is really struggling with his fastball command, and the St. Louis hitters recognized this. From Jacob Nitzberg of ESPN Stats & Information: "Chapman threw 23 pitches Sunday, with just five going for strikes. The Cardinals swung at just one of Chapman's 23 pitches (4.3 percent), the lowest swing percentage against a pitcher in an appearance with at least 20 pitches in the last three seasons. Chapman's strike percentage of 21.7 is the lowest for any pitcher in an appearance of at least 20 pitches since Baltimore's Jorge Julio threw three of 21 pitches (14.3 percent) for strikes on Sept. 5, 2004, against the Yankees."
2. The Braves again took two of three from the Phillies, getting a big hit from Dan Uggla, writes David O'Brien.
3. The Rangers worked from a great script and won a series for the first time in three weeks, writes Jeff Wilson.
4. Kevin Correia and the Pirates had a bad day.
5. Jason Marquis helped the Nationals avoid a sweep, writes Gene Wang.
6. The Brewers closed out a sweep.
7. The Orioles slowed the Rays this weekend, with Nick Markakis mashing a homer, Dan Connolly writes.
8. Javier Vazquez struggled again. The Marlins don't have a lot of options for change.
9. The Diamondbacks are hanging in there, and took another series with a win over the Dodgers, as Nick Piecoro writes.
10. In the aftermath of the latest win for the White Sox, Ozzie Guillen says his team will make it up to the fans.
11. Mat Latos ended his winless streak.
12. The Rockies, who have always been a good home team, are under .500 in Denver after losing Sunday.
13. Ted Lilly gave up a bunch of runs early, writes Jim Peltz.
14. The Mets' Justin Turner had a breakout kind of day.
15. The Angels' bullpen was a problem again.
16. Trevor Cahill took his first loss.
17. The Twins got blasted, writes Joe Christensen.
Tigers offense.
Spoiler [+]
We human beings can't help but look for reasons to explain complicated or unlikely events. That's especially true in baseball, where we prop up a players-only meeting, a bench-clearing brawl or a sacrifice to Jobu as the reason a team turned its fortunes around.
Still, even the most hardened cynic can't help but notice what's happened to the Detroit Tigers. On the morning of May 7, the American League Central already had the feel of fait accompli. The preseason favorites, the Twins and White Sox, sat 8½ and 11 games out, respectively. Detroit had been flaky to that point, following a seven-game losing streak with three straight wins over the Yankees. Still, sitting at 15-18 and 7 games out of first, Tigers fans at least had to wonder how long it might take to dig out of that early hole, assuming they could get out of it at all.
Then, Justin Verlander happened. One seven-game winning streak later, the Tigers are right back in the race, just 3½ games behind the upstart Indians and in the lead for the AL wild card at the season's quarter pole.
Though Verlander's no-hit masterpiece may have lit the fuse for Detroit's current streak, a surprisingly balanced offense (tied for third in the AL in runs scored) has played the biggest role in the Tigers' success. Miguel Cabrera was expected to be the undisputed leader of Detroit's attack, and he hasn't disappointed, hitting a robust .309/.440/.540 this season and staking his claim as the best AL hitter not living on Planet Bautista. But Cabrera's had tons of help, both from expected and unexpected sources.
Victor Martinez's hot start was both expected and paid for. The Tigers thought so much of Martinez's bat that they gave him a four-year, $50 million contract, despite his age (32) and his no longer being a starting catcher. An early DL stint hasn't slowed him down, with Martinez's .330 batting average ranking sixth in the league (he's a few at-bats short of qualifying, for now), and several other key stats (isolated slugging, OPS, weighted on-base average) ranking at career-high levels, so far anyway.
[h4]Miguel Cabrera's Worthy Wingmen[/h4]
[th=""]PLAYER[/th][th=""]Career OPS[/th][th=""]2011 OPS[/th]
The bigger surprises have been Jhonny Peralta and Alex Avila. The 28-year-old Peralta was another offseason signing, re-upping with Detroit after coming over in an in-season trade with the Cleveland Indians. After blasting 24 homers as a 23-year-old shortstop in Cleveland, Peralta's had an up-and-down career, in the process losing enough mobility to make people doubt he could handle playing shortstop or hit enough to fill a corner position. But after a brutal 2009 campaign, Peralta's walk, strikeout and power indicators have all trended in the right direction, fueling a .307/.366/.504 start. The biggest difference for him is that he's making a lot less contact on pitches outside of the zone -- 69.1 percent last year, 59.2 percent this year -- and a lot more on those in the zone (86.5 to 91.1). By putting the bat on more hittable pitches, he's making higher-quality contact.
Meanwhile, the 24-year-old Avila leads all major league catchers in isolated slugging. Avila has always had pop, but he's putting the ball in the air far more than he ever has before in his career, as his personal ground ball-fly ball ratio of 0.86 is well below his career average of 1.11. That should help his home run totals, but will likely hurt his batting average as the season progresses because fly balls are converted into outs more frequently than grounders.
As good as the lineup has been, the bullpen has been that bad. However, that hasn't prevented the club from winning seven straight. The Tigers rank dead-last in baseball for relievers' ERA, at 5.35. And that's with Jose Valverde fanning more than a batter an inning and looking very good as the team's closer.
The biggest disappointment has been Joaquin Benoit. Signed to a three-year, $16.5 million deal this offseason, Benoit's sky-high 6.59 ERA makes him look like an unmitigated disaster. Much of it might be explained by bad luck, small sample size and situational struggles: He's yielded a .356 batting average on balls in play (.192 last season, .276 career) with a .941 OPS against with runners on base (versus just .526 with the bases empty). The good news is that the Tigers' biggest flaw, the bullpen, is typically the cheapest thing to fix in the middle of the year. Once luck evens out for Benoit, hard-throwing Brayan Villarreal and others, Detroit can assess what's missing from the 'pen and address it on the trade market, without giving up premium talents.
Few teams can match the Tigers' pitcher-hitter star combo of Verlander and Cabrera. Combine depth in the lineup and rotation, and suddenly the Tigers are looking like the Indians' biggest threat atop the AL Central.
Still, even the most hardened cynic can't help but notice what's happened to the Detroit Tigers. On the morning of May 7, the American League Central already had the feel of fait accompli. The preseason favorites, the Twins and White Sox, sat 8½ and 11 games out, respectively. Detroit had been flaky to that point, following a seven-game losing streak with three straight wins over the Yankees. Still, sitting at 15-18 and 7 games out of first, Tigers fans at least had to wonder how long it might take to dig out of that early hole, assuming they could get out of it at all.
Then, Justin Verlander happened. One seven-game winning streak later, the Tigers are right back in the race, just 3½ games behind the upstart Indians and in the lead for the AL wild card at the season's quarter pole.
Though Verlander's no-hit masterpiece may have lit the fuse for Detroit's current streak, a surprisingly balanced offense (tied for third in the AL in runs scored) has played the biggest role in the Tigers' success. Miguel Cabrera was expected to be the undisputed leader of Detroit's attack, and he hasn't disappointed, hitting a robust .309/.440/.540 this season and staking his claim as the best AL hitter not living on Planet Bautista. But Cabrera's had tons of help, both from expected and unexpected sources.
Victor Martinez's hot start was both expected and paid for. The Tigers thought so much of Martinez's bat that they gave him a four-year, $50 million contract, despite his age (32) and his no longer being a starting catcher. An early DL stint hasn't slowed him down, with Martinez's .330 batting average ranking sixth in the league (he's a few at-bats short of qualifying, for now), and several other key stats (isolated slugging, OPS, weighted on-base average) ranking at career-high levels, so far anyway.
[h4]Miguel Cabrera's Worthy Wingmen[/h4]
| Victor Martinez | .841 | .935 |
| Jhonny Peralta | .752 | .870 |
| Alex Avila | .745 | .858 |
The bigger surprises have been Jhonny Peralta and Alex Avila. The 28-year-old Peralta was another offseason signing, re-upping with Detroit after coming over in an in-season trade with the Cleveland Indians. After blasting 24 homers as a 23-year-old shortstop in Cleveland, Peralta's had an up-and-down career, in the process losing enough mobility to make people doubt he could handle playing shortstop or hit enough to fill a corner position. But after a brutal 2009 campaign, Peralta's walk, strikeout and power indicators have all trended in the right direction, fueling a .307/.366/.504 start. The biggest difference for him is that he's making a lot less contact on pitches outside of the zone -- 69.1 percent last year, 59.2 percent this year -- and a lot more on those in the zone (86.5 to 91.1). By putting the bat on more hittable pitches, he's making higher-quality contact.
Meanwhile, the 24-year-old Avila leads all major league catchers in isolated slugging. Avila has always had pop, but he's putting the ball in the air far more than he ever has before in his career, as his personal ground ball-fly ball ratio of 0.86 is well below his career average of 1.11. That should help his home run totals, but will likely hurt his batting average as the season progresses because fly balls are converted into outs more frequently than grounders.
As good as the lineup has been, the bullpen has been that bad. However, that hasn't prevented the club from winning seven straight. The Tigers rank dead-last in baseball for relievers' ERA, at 5.35. And that's with Jose Valverde fanning more than a batter an inning and looking very good as the team's closer.
The biggest disappointment has been Joaquin Benoit. Signed to a three-year, $16.5 million deal this offseason, Benoit's sky-high 6.59 ERA makes him look like an unmitigated disaster. Much of it might be explained by bad luck, small sample size and situational struggles: He's yielded a .356 batting average on balls in play (.192 last season, .276 career) with a .941 OPS against with runners on base (versus just .526 with the bases empty). The good news is that the Tigers' biggest flaw, the bullpen, is typically the cheapest thing to fix in the middle of the year. Once luck evens out for Benoit, hard-throwing Brayan Villarreal and others, Detroit can assess what's missing from the 'pen and address it on the trade market, without giving up premium talents.
Few teams can match the Tigers' pitcher-hitter star combo of Verlander and Cabrera. Combine depth in the lineup and rotation, and suddenly the Tigers are looking like the Indians' biggest threat atop the AL Central.
- 12,443
- 1,194
Bobby Bonilla is living the life
- 12,443
- 1,194
Bobby Bonilla is living the life
- 4,325
- 10
Vin Mazzaro with a gem today.
- 4,325
- 10
Vin Mazzaro with a gem today.
- 7,805
- 247
Mazzarowned.
- 7,805
- 247
Mazzarowned.
- 28,100
- 9,233
How many players have been this hyped?
- 28,100
- 9,233
How many players have been this hyped?
- 707
- 10
is pujols that hyped?
- Status
