Paulino had a lil somethin to say to the Tigahs, sorely missing sluggah Adam Everett:
“You can’t win
You can’t break even
And you can’t get out of the game
Leyland keep sayin’
Things are gonna change
But the pitches look like
They stayin’ the same
You swing at em
way over your head
And you only got yourself to blame
You can’t win Tigahs,
You can’t break even
And you can’t get out of the game
You can’t win
The fastball keeps movin’
And you’re swingin’ far behind
Teammates keep sayin’
Things’ll get better
Just to ease your state of mind
You can’t win,
You can’t win no way
If your story stays the same
You ain’t winnin,
No, no,
But it’s nice to see you
Awfully glad you came)
Bats are cool it ’cause
Paulino ain’t about losin’ “
Well, I asked the boy to Show Me Somethin Goooood (OK, so that one isn’t Michael’s..)
He had a bit of luck on his side because HP ump Tim Welke called accurate strikes and had an extremely consistant strike zone, the SAME strike zone for both pitchers. So he was able to throw the high FB consistently for strikes and he changed speeds and location well. He also had the slider working and threw it for strikes. He gave up 2 singles and a solo homer, NO walks and 9 Ks, 8 swinging.
Fulchino and Wright both pitched a scoreless inning and Wesley pitched to THREE rightys and struck out 2 of them, including Miguel Cabrera, who couldn’t touch his slider.
Will be interesting to see who gets sent down when Hampton comes off the DL. Maysonet, about as used as a splintered bat on this team, has already been sent down in favor of old and awful Matt Kata. That is the trouble with this team – even when they DO manage to create a useful minor leaguer, they throw him away in favor of some icky veteran. ESPECIALLY when the manager has made it MORE than plain that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with rookies (Towles says hello, too…)
Will also be interesting to see what happens with Backe. I know that the fans are very hostile to him after last year’s terrible September and his inability to come out of the bullpen every 8 days and perform well, but fact is that the Organization didn’t prepare him for a role in the pen and didn’t keep him fresh in any way. If he has any sense, he’ll go down to AAA, let the pitching coach straighten him out, and then get his agent to work overtime to wangle a trade.
And kudos to the hitters – everyone got a hit except Keppinger, and even though he did hit into another DP, he did walk twice, drove in one and scored one.
This afternoon, it’s Russ Ortiz vs Edwin Jackson (no relation to Michael)
Edwin was drafted in 01 at age 17 and made the majors at age 19, throwing 22 excellent innings. Trouble was that everyone kind of expected him to be the second coming of Doc Gooden, and he wasn’t. He didn’t do real too good with his callups the next few years, so the Dodgers gave up on him at age 21 and traded him to the Rays for relievers Danys Baez and Lance Carter. He threw a couple of innings in relief, then became a full time starter in 07 and uh, struggled, having a Backe ’08 like year, but the Rays stuck with him and he improved in 08, throwing 31 games over 180 innings with a 101 ERA+, his first good year.
The Rays, overloaded with starters (poor them) traded him to the Tigers for a 24 yo OF who is being used as a 5th guy, sort of like a Maysonet. Jackson has been an absolute ace – he has started 15 games over 101.1 innings, with 79 H, 7 HR, 29 BB and 79 K for a 187 ERA+ and a 2.40 ERA/ 1.06 WHIP.
It’s amazing that we have already taken the series against the Tigres. A sweep would be crazy…
Tags: Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros
Lisa, your comments on the quality umpiring behind the plate brings to mind questions that have troubled me for some time.
Can games be decided by umpires? Can a pitcher be undone mentally after figuring out how to pitch one way, and then the plate ump calls a completely different and inconsistent strike zone? (Yes I know that it’s the pitcher’s job to adapt, but couldn’t this happen to a new guy who may never be able to pitch right again, wondering what the heck the strike zone is?)
When an established pitcher gets a “reputation call,” how fair is that?
Umpires are human, and it is conceivable that the automatic call that they are trained to make may occasionally have a personal taint. The best umps seem to get that tendency corralled.
Were you insinuating that Flippy could just as easily have pitched a poor game had the strike zone been more iffy?
of COURSE games can be decided by umps. remember the livan hernandez WS game with him getting pitches 6″ outside called as strikes?
if the ump refuses to call strikes as strikes, pretty tough for a pitcher to win
another thing – look at old films from the 98 home run chase. you’ll see that when mcgwire was batting, anything above the mid-thigh level (which he couldn’t hit for spit) was called a ball
i remember watching roger clemens change his game plan when the umps wouldn’t call strikes. and reputation strikes are teh suck.
i wouldn’t be surprised if automated ball/strike calls will be here in a few years
and what about games being decided by fans? How many more morons have to touch balls in play before they do something about that? That probably cost us the game, also.
While I agree umpires can decide games, I have to disagree on a couple of points here. First of all, it was the NLCS, not the WS, where Livan Hernandez was getting those strike calls. It was against the Braves. That game inexplicably cemented his reputation as a good pitcher for years when it was never really deserved. And the last strike that was called to Fred McGriff is widely considered one of the worst calls in sports history.
When that race was going on, most umpires weren’t calling things above thigh-high strikes. This led to Jose Mesa’s antitrust lawsuit against MLB, which led to them calling what should have been strikes all along, strikes.
Which brings me to my next point. Adaptability. The difference between a good pitcher and a great pitcher is the ability to adapt to different situations. Not getting borderline strikes? Settle down and get them to put some in play. Jose Mesa wasn’t able to adapt to them not calling high strikes, like countless other pitchers were. If you’re not getting the strikes you want, you have to be able to adjust. Simple as that.
that effing moron was worse than bartman – at least bartman grabbed a FOUL ball IN THE STANDS
and yeh it DID cost us the game because it would NOT have been a GR double. yeh, they throw the moron out, but it was a little too late to do the right thing now
the reason that you have stuff like fan interference is that seating is done in such a way that it is actually possible for fans TO interfere. and a lot of those people aren’t season ticket holders like bartman neither. i don’t think they can arrest those people.
they’d have to put up those lucite shields like they do in hockey