Well now we are 3-0 and actually ended up beating up a team we should beat up. 3 game sweep and scored 30 runs.

I will say it again and again and again until someone from the Tigers organization reads this thread.


GET GUILLEN OFF OF 3RD BASE AND PUT BRANDON THERE. Jesus this guy is a joke. He couldn't play SS last year so what makes you think he can now play 3rd? Hell he couldn't even figure out 1st base and Cabby is looking pretty good there. Sheff is done, send him on a cruise for 6 weeks to get rested and put Guillen at he DH.


GAH!!!!!

I am no longer tolerant of this BS.



Saturday: Nate Robertson 7IP 3ER We win
Sunday: Verlander 7IP 1ER We lose
Monday: Rogers 7IP 0ER We lose
Tuesday: Bonderman 7.1IP 2 ER We lose



GIVE ME A BREAK. So now our pitching is doing what every team wants their pitchers to do and that is go 7IP and 3 or less earned and yet we still lose. This team is bipolar.

Not a bad swing through the pitching rotation. Galaraga pitched 8.1IP 2ER (sadly on his last pitch, DOH!) So all 5 starters in the last 5 games pitched well.

5 G 36IP 27H 8ER 20K 11BB

Not bad except we lost 3 games.

I just hope it stays like this then next 5 starts. At least we have Seattle coming up.

Maybe the Wings winning the cup and the Tigers seeing over 1 million people come out today for the parade will get these guys butts back in gear. The cup should be at the game tonight.

Bonderman's out for the season. Though the offense looked good in the 8th today. sigh @ the Tribe bullpen.

wow, 2 in a row, crazy...

I really wonder what happened to Dontrelle. He tries hard, I kinda feel bad for him but he is just plain horrendous. Well at least we can keep the losing streak alive with the next series against the ChiSox.

Wow, 2 games in a row against a team that isn't the Mariners. Weird.
Let's hope we can get a sweep and pretend like we have a chance.


So word around SI is that the Tigers are going to be sellers, not buyers, come trade day.

I think the only person that will get us good stuff is Maggs. I don't see any reason why he couldn't get us a couple young stud prospects, especially a catcher since we have no answer for Pudge who clearly won't be here next year since now he is playing every other day. I don't think anyone wants Renteria or Guillen, Inge and Robertson have huge contracts and Shef is clearly finished. Sadly the only real option that will get us anything to work with would be by far our most consistent player. Oh well.

4 in a row. 5-0 win over the Dodgers tonight. Here are some crappy camera phone shots. Almost had a brawl tonight!

Marcus Thames = SICK!

5 for 10 5 HR's

Okay this will now just be a topic about Marcus Thames.

In case no one is aware, Sheffield got put on the DL because he is old and broken and we got rid of Jones Marcus got to FINALLY become an everyday LF'er. Not only has he been playing some great defense since getting the call (one of the complaints on him was that he couldn't play well defensively) but he has been on a HR streakorama. Last night he hit a HR in his 5th consecutive game and his last 8 hits have all been dingers. He goes against Zito this afternoon and hopefully will be continuing this streak. I have always been a quiet Thames fan, he has a good story and I am glad he is finally getting his chance and definitely running with it.

Ahh good to win another series!

Split Cleveland 2-2
Swept the White Sox
Swept the Dodgers
Took 2 of 3 against the Giants
Took 2 of 3 against the Padres
Took 2 of 3 against the Cards

2 games to being at .500 which was what I hoped to be before July 4th. Hopefully the Dodgers can come through again and we can get within 4 of the ChiSox. Colorado is next on our plate and taking 2 of 3 is feasible. Slowly but surely they are getting back on track, the starting pitching is doing better and getting wins and solid starts compared to earlier in the year and Shef has come back way better than I expected and hit the game winner in the bottom of the 9th to win last night and hit a HR in the bottom of the 9th this afternoon to force extra innings. Just keep winning series and we can get back in this thing thanks to the completely bipolar AL Central. Really anyone has a chance in this division the way it has been going.

And swept the Rockies.

41-40. Good to be back in the race. The next series against the Twins will be a good test to see where we really are. Thanks again to the NL for allowing us to beat up on you and get back into the hunt.

rollin' rollin' rollin'


It's so much fun when your team is hot.

The best thing is that no one on the team is really dominating. Just timely hits and usually from one of the young kids from Toledo. Clete had a great weekend, Joyce came in last night and hit a triple to tie it up, Rayburn hit the GS this weekend after coming in to replace the injured Magglio, Galaraga continues to pitch well, Fossom doing better, Bonine who came up to replace Bonderman/Willis is 2-0, Thames still hitting HR's, etc etc.

If only the Sox would lose...

Well I guess it was just the NL that made us look good.

Robertson goes out and pitches 9 innings of great ball only to get 1 run from his offense (that is usual for him which makes his numbers look worse) and it takes the mariners catcher to pitch the 15th inning for us to get the win. Pathetic.

Boy, you guys sure got lucky to squeak that one out.

lol

Pena looks to be the best pitcher for the Royals tonight!

It was funny.......but I gotta tell ya.......a position player coming in and throwing 91 mph fastballs with movement and then 75 mph curveballs with good movement AND for strikes!?!??!?! It was stunning how good he looked for an inning.

He looked really good, it took me a minute realize who it was. If he keeps batting what .153, he might be a good RP.

I guess all the tiger fans shot themselves in the head

Are you guys seriously going with Brandon Inge at catcher the rest of the way? Seems pretty iffy. Any news about Dontrelle Willis? Still hurt?

Koop you are terrible...chill sir...please...

I guess I don't get it. Don't agree with my posts or something?

I just got back from a 12 day vacation so I was not around to post when the deal went down.

I don't mind losing Pudge. He didn't want to be here anyway when he started having to share time with Inge the last couple months. Maybe if he didn't suck so bad at the plate then he would not be given all the time off. Farnsworth for Pudge though is retarded. I hate this deal. I would rather take two mediocre prospects than Kyle. Oh well, this team is done and just wanted to get rid of pudge. Good riddance.

I have no problem with Inge at catcher. I still would rather have him at 3rd but he is servicable at catcher.

We obv have much more issues than who is playing catcher on this team.

This team still pisses me off but I have tickets for tonight, Friday and Sunday this week. Pretty much going to watch Cabby play.

This team has me on monkey tilt.

I just read that despite the Tigers having $100 million already committed for next season in payroll...they are planning on cutting $40 million of that by next season.

WOW. That is stunning....any word on who is in danger...I mean....that's an AWFUL lot of big contracts to try and unload....wow. That could be interesting to follow in the offseason.

Sheffield/Renteria? Tigers owe them money next year, right? It'll be tough to get rid of those albatross contracts, though. Maybe try to find takers for Nate Rob., etc.? They won't reup Jones or Rogers, but I doubt that counts as "shedding payroll."

You are essentially looking at the 09 tigers as it stands now. No way we get into the FA game when Illitch wants to see money dropped from the payroll. You can't get rid of Inge or Robertson because their contracts are too large and long for the type of players they are. Biggest complaint about Leyland is his love for the veterans. He loves Nate and admits that he will be in the rotation year after year. Great. Cause he is awesome.

oh shit, 5pm, time to go home, finish my thoughts later.

Congrats to Gary Sheffield for hitting HR #250,000 in MLB history.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/

Good for Gary. Also I think he is 3 or 4 away from 500.

This team has me on LFT.

I got home around 8:30 last night and the wife and I watched watched House and Fringe and then once we finished I turned on the game and it was the end of the bottom of the 9th and we were up 4-2. Wife went into her office to do some work and she said, well no point in watching this, Rodney or Farnsworth will pitch and we will lose 5-4. I agreed and played Madden 09. I checked the score at halftime and sure enough, we lost 5-4.

It is sick how many games we have lost in the 8th and 9th innings.

But do you think they will address the bullpen this off-season or bring in some more bats!

I have no idea where they are going to go. Problem is that Illitch has asked for the team to cut players to bring the payroll down. Seems he is a little miffed. Right now as it stands, the team next season without doing anything they sit at 110mil.

They will probably buy out Renteria and Shef(i can't off hand remember his contract for next year). Rogers is going to retire. Farnsworth should not be back.

Trouble is we are stuck with the likes of Robertson and Willis thanks to Leyland and Dave getting them signed for big money for multiple years.

I don't see us making any large Cabrera like moves this off season but i would not be surprised to see Magglio dealt for pitching. Which is sad but I guess you gotta do what you have to do. I would like to see them keep the nucleus of the batting lineup and work from there.

Keep Grandy, Polly, Cabby, and Maggie and then work around that. I think Thames and Joyce are good enough to be starters. I think Guillen would be the perfect DH. He just can't play the field anymore but he is still a .300 hitter with power that can bat from both sides. I would love to see that as our DH.

I want to see Sheff and Renteria gone for sure and I would like to see the likes of Zumaya gone. The kid is done anyway. Injured again.

Sounds like Leyland is asking to be signed for a couple more years and I don't know if I am on board with that. I don't mind him but he has two flaws in my opinion.

1. He is too loyal. If he likes you he will use you regardless of how bad you are. That goes with batters, pitchers, and his staff. Hernandez the pitching coach needs to go. He is useless. They were talking about this the other day and all the pitchers he has handled for us through the years have gotten progressively worse. The players that have come up from Toledo have actually been our best. I say we swap coaches to get rid of Hernandez all together but he is Leylands boy so if Leyland stays, he stays.

2. He micromanages the pitching game. He admittedly goes by a combination of gut and numbers. It hasn't worked well for 2 seasons now.

I will still go to my 12 games a year or so and watch them as they are my team but I am beginning to think now that 06 was just a fluke.

Yeah I remember seeing Magglio in Single A when he played in Winston-Salem in the White Sox organization, he's a pretty good player he would be a big loss, but pitching wins down the stretch.

Maybe it was Carlos Lee I was thinking about, oh well.

Oops.

No shit.lol

Edit: This is SBriand on my new account/work account

I am bored so I am going to post my thoughts on the Tigers.

*sigh*

Not at all pleased with the off-season so far.

We have decided to move the venerable Carlos Guillen to LF for 09. That is great. Granderson now has one of the largest centerfields in the the majors since his two corner men are slow and have bad knees. I would have been alright with this if they didn't trade away a very good LF prospect in Matt Joyce. Matt was great last year and made himself a quick fan favorite with his good bat and good defense. But alas, we gave away yet another good prospect for crap. This time we got Edwin Jackson. A guy with an impressive 1.5x WHIP and a scouting report that says he has some power but lacks any control whatsoever. I seem to remember this team already have a few pitchers like that.

So now we have Verlander, Bondo, Gallaraggagagaga, and Jackson, and then a toss up between Willis and Robertson.

Great. I mean Seattle wanted Joyce and were willing to work a deal for Putz. Putz >>>>>>>> Jackson. I don't like losing Joyce but getting Putz makes it hurt less.

Oh well. So right now this is how the lineup looks with a couple other pickups

Granderson CF
Polanco 2b
Ordonez RF
Cabrera 1b
Sheffield DH
Everett SS
Guillen LF
Laird C
Inge 3rd

I guess, from what I hear on Everett that our Defense should be improved but our bats take a hit. I like Inge back on 3rd as he is an impressive 3rd baseman but his .240 avg is blah. Everett is supposed to be strong at SS, I know really nothing other than what I read the last couple days, but he hits about .220. Laird, meh. Cabby looked really good at 1st as the season went along last year and Polly is a good 2b.

I don't know, the pitching is still crap and unless the new pitching coach can reverse the damage done by Hernandez, I think we are in for another long season. Especially with Rodney as the closer. UGH

80-82 (I still have some homer in me)

Laird has a great arm but he's a little bitch in the locker room...
Guillermo Moscoso and Carlos Melo had better pan out to be something... the Rangers didn't need Laird anymore but we need pitchers.

Yeah, I just recently read about how he can be a real ass. That's what this team needs, dressing room problems.

I like Melo. Or at least what I have read. He could be a bust but might be a gem. More so than Guillermo who can't seem to stay healthy and can't seem to get good enough to get to AAA.

So the biggest issue was pitching...so what did we get?

Rodney is currently the closer.

Oh well.