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Sounds like the perfect guy to give a QO to. If he accepts, a one year insurance deal. Decline and draft pick.

Morton took a nap and is now rested.

umpiring has gone completely to **** here.

The runner's lead hand hit Dingller's glove before hitting the plate.

Can we fire Harris for his horrible trade deadline yet?

Great job by Morton to save the inning and protect a still-big lead. 7-2 Tigers, mid 5.

Full throttle. Pedal to the metal. No prisoners. We love the smell of napalm on a nice afternoon. Houston, you have a problem. Hasta la vista baby.

https://www.nhl.com/news/detroit-tigers-players-wear-sergei-fedorov-jerseys-to-ballpark Pretty cool! AWood threw this up yesterday, he was so fun

I’d prefer to imagine that with the last 4 days of scorelessness

I know some people thought that complaints earlier in the season about empty seats behind home plate were silly, but c'mon, the crowd cheering the ball four added to the occasion. As did the mist.

Everybody is talking about the play at the plate but don't forget the Perez catch in CF. The 2nd inning, I think.

Cue the Rolling Stones

Al2ve for the price of one!

Because I am retired and I have not only a lot of time on my hands but a ton of Excel skills I want to continue wielding, I put together a graphic representation of how the Tigers have scored runs and allowed runs in game streaks between two and 20 throughout the season. Using Baseball Reference, I downloaded a list of all games played by all 30 teams through yesterday (August 19). Then I created two tables, one for runs scored (offense) and another for runs allowed (pitching and defense). I added columns in the middle of each table to reflect season win-loss record along the way, as well as records for streaks of 10, 20, and 30 games, pretty much as you see within standings tables on Reference itself. Then I created additional streak columns at the end of each table for last two games through last 20 games, to reflect runs scored and runs allowed during those streaks. You can easily figure out what's what by looking at the column headers at the top. Then, to make it easy to see whether the Tigers have scored/allowed a lot of runs versus a few runs in the last X games, I color-coded each box to show whether the Tigers did well in the past X games (the redder, the better) or did poorly in the last X games (the bluer, the worse). White boxes reflect average runs scored/allowed. The numbers in white means those streaks were at the extreme 1% percentile at either end of the spectrum, meaning the most (or fewest) runs of any team for that streak length throughout the season. I'm basing these colors on the average of runs scored/allowed in each set of X games throughout the season by all 30 teams. The analytical cognoscenti among you might notice that I am using standard Statcast colors on this table. Hopefully, that's enough explanation for you to figure out what's what. So here they are, side by side, with the runs scored table on the left, and the runs allowed table on the right. Just remember that for each table, redder is better (more runs scored, fewer runs allowed), and bluer is worse (fewer runs scored, more runs allowed): Yeah, it's really hard to read the numbers within the post, so if you want to see the actual numbers, my advice is to click on each table to see those tables expanded in your browser. But even if you don't expand the tables, you can tell by the colors how well the Tigers did in streaks of anywhere from 2 to 20 games throughout the season. You can see how the month of May was "peak Tiger" on both sides of the ball, but you might be surprised to see by the gaggle of white numbers showing that during early May, the Tigers had among the very best offenses of any team during the entire season for long stretches of games. Did you remember that during the 12 games between May 1 and May 13, we scored in double digits six times, and at least eight runs eight times? I didn't remember exactly that until I saw this! Then you can see how the offense went colder than average from late May into mid-June, but our 30-game records were still in the .600 to .700 range because our pitching was redder than average during the same time. But then it flipped around from Mid-June into early July, when our offense got redder while out pitching/defense got bluer, and yet, we still maintained close to a .600 winning percentage over a series of 30-prior-game chunks of season. Then you can see where it really falls down in late July, which is a sea of blue on both tables. That's where all the losing really came from, and you won't be surprised to be reminded that it was the offense that really went splat, but the pitching/defense was also well below average, taken against all other teams for the entire season and their performance for streaks of similar length. And the happy ending to this post is the red at the bottom that has crept back into both the run scoring and run prevention. Well, this was fun way to kill a morning. 😃

Great—now I have to break out a dictionary. Your posts are becoming increasingly difficult for me. I yearn for the simplicity of your 6 runs requests.

I still feel pretty good about this post.

Several of us are going to be that guy three years from today. I can think of a few of us who won’t.

Great story, great memory.

So a few minutes ago, the TV crew named Luke Putkonen their random Tiger of the Day, and provided a few factoids, but not what I think is the most interesting one: he was the guy who threw the walkoff wild pitch in Miami during the Henderson Alvarez last-game-of-the-season no-hitter against the Tigers in 2013. Even better, Alvarez was on-deck to hit when it happened, surely making him the only pitcher in history to win a no-hitter while standing in the on-deck circle. He would never have even stepped to the plate, though: bases were loaded with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, so there was either going to be an out to end the inning, or a run to win the game.

Bob Gibson would have done it with a first-pitch fastball.

Good points all, and it’s even worse than that: if a starting pitcher fails to go at least five full innings—if he pitches 4-2/3 innings of shutout ball, then leaves with the lead that’s never relinquished—then he is, by rule, ineligible for the pitcher win. So the official scorer is forced to assign the win to some other pitcher who didn’t pitch as long or as effectively, which is exactly what happened here. It’s beyond asinine. What really got me to start questioning the value of pitcher wins altogether was the season Nolan Ryan had in 1987. He led the league in ERA (2.76) and strikeouts (270), placed fifth in Cy Young voting—and finished with a “record” of 8-16. By pitcher record, he was terrible. By actual performance, he was arguably the best starting pitcher in the league. What else did I need to know?

2. Kevin McGonigle, SS, Detroit Tigers I was the guy in the media high on McGonigle when he was part of a very deep prep position-player crop in the 2023 draft -- and my belief in him has paid off better than I could've expected so far. The concerns at draft time were that his power/speed combo and odds to stick at shortstop weren't strong enough to warrant going higher than 37th overall (where Detroit took him). He has been at least a passable shortstop as a pro and has a real shot to stick long-term. His power (by literally any measure) is now above average, if not plus. McGonigle's feel and on-base skills were never in question, so now he looks like he could be above average at everything in the batter's box and closer to average on the bases and in the field.

The screams just suck. But, i'm guessing someone gets a stiffy from this.

Trammel is a crash test dummy

This is almost indecent. The Houston area is pretty big. And their fan base is pretty wide. Somewhere a small child wanted to watch this game forced themselves to throw up so they could stay home from school and this is what they’re getting instead.

Might as well get six this inning.

I don't think I've ever been more nervous before a hockey game than Game 6 of the Wings-Avs series in 1997. Wanted revenge on Clod Lemieux and the Arrogants so badly. This goal by Fedorov is when I realized it was happening.

Win or lose today, the Tigers finally have carved out some breathing room in the race for the bye into the ALDS. They're now 5 games up on Houston and 6.5 games up on Seattle with the Tigers having 34 games to play (the Astros have 36 games left, the Mariners have 35 games left). If the Tigers win today, they will win the season series 4-2 over Houston and hence win the tiebreaker. If the Tigers lose Wednesday, the season series will end up tied 3-3 so the next tiebreaker is the teams' record within their own division. The Tigers' AL Central record is 24-13 with 15 divisional games left to play. The Astros' AL West record is 16-17 with 19 divisional games left to play. That's a 6-game "lead" for the Tigers at the moment. Seattle has the tiebreaker over the Tigers because they won the season series 4-2.

Initial reporting about McGonigle was 'he'll be a 2B at MLB at best". More recently people say he might be able to stick at SS. But the Tigers have a long history of telling us we have great defenders in the minors who turn out to be not-so-much when they get here (Kriedler, Jung etc). They're playing him exclusively at SS so far this season, so they are trying, but we probably won't find out for real if he can cut it as an MLB SS until he gets here.

We drove by there on our trip west. There is also a park nearby where they camped for a while. If I remember correctly it honors him. It’s also where Expedition members elected a new Sargent. The first democratic election west of the Mississippi or something like that

Probably had a lot to do with the novelty of night games, as the next day the two teams drew under 10,000 for a Saturday day game. The first night game at Tiger stadium had been just 7 weeks earlier on June 15, 1948.

I just think the whole concept of winning and losing pitchers should be dropped all together. I mean even if we look at complete game situations there's still stupid stuff that can happen: Monday Pitcher A throws 9 innings, gives up 8 runs, but the offense exploded late in the game and scored 10 runs. Pitcher A gets a "Win." Tuesday, Pitcher B throws 9 innings giving up just two run, one of them because of a fielding error. But the offense was totally shut down that day and only managed one run. Pitcher B gets a "Loss." Over a full season, and more so of a full career, then a good pitcher will probably end up with a good W/L record and a bad pitcher will probably end up with a bad W/L record, but only in probably and only generally speaking. There are way too many other variables... A perfect example of this is our old friend Jeff Weaver. In 2002 with Detroit Weaver had an ERA of 3.18 and a WHIP of 1.192 but had a 6-8 W/L record in 17 starts. Then he was traded to the Yankees mid season. With the Yanks in 8 starts he had a 5-3 record. Does that mean he got better when he went to the Yankees? Well, the stats say no. His ERA with the Yankees was 4.04 and his WHIP was 1.231. Defense, Run Support, Who you end up pitching against... these are all variables that are way outside of the pitcher's control yet drastically effect the W/L record. It's a dumb stat that at best tells you a good career W/L probably tells you the pitcher was better than average.

The ideal solution for this despondency is for Morton to give up one in the 1st and the Tigers to win 6-1. Problems solved both ways.

And here’s that game: https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/DET/DET194808060.shtml Ted Gray was the winner, Walt Masterson the loser. Both pitched a complete game. The Tigers drew over 29,000 to Briggs Stadium on a random Friday night in August to see two sub-.500 teams battle it out. That’s post-war and post-Depression exuberance for you. As with last night’s game, this game featured an outfield assist at the plate, albeit in the sixth inning for this game, and with a bit of a rundown between home and third. Here’s a “replay” of the game if you’re interested in seeing that kind of thing: http://backtobaseball.com/playballregularseason.php?page=0&IDindex=DET194808060

Trump coming out in favor of the institution of slavery should end his presidency. Perhaps this was a test of the center...AGAIN!

https://archive.ph/cTFiF Some statcast data for Clark and McGonigle. They're both really good.

Tigers still with the best record in the league, 8-2 in their last ten, 15-7 since the horrific swoon. i think we’re back on the horse.

The tariffs on trash cans are really taking a toll on the citizens of Houston

Score a fake run dummies

Astros' ghost runner goes poof in the top of the 10th. Advantage Tigers. Go win it NOW!!

Feel bad laughing but that was funny

heavy enforcement.

hopefully that's the end of Brown for the night and we can get into the Astros' exhausted bullpen.

Exactly what I said when I read the title.

This isn’t Brad Holmes being stubborn. No team can afford $80 million in pass rushers. Not too mention we haven’t gotten to the expensive part of the players they signed, plus needing to sign Laporta, Gibbs, Branch and Williams. You will also be trading away high draft picks that you won’t have to replace those players for a pass rusher over 30.

Shep—may I call him “Shep”?—was a weird detour in the history of Tigers broadcasting. Remember, Shep was not a baseball guy coming in. He’d done some replacement work on the Tigers’ broadcasts before 2019, but the sum total of his baseball experience was less than 25 games when he’d been handed the job. Shep was kind of the Xavier Nady of big league broadcasters. I would probably like Bennett better if I didn’t have Dan available via audio overlay, because I’d be comparing Benetti to Shep and not to Dan. I would be more open to the non-baseball wisecracking—or more exactly, the whole truckload of it—during the broadcast were he my one and only choice to listen to. A few scales have fallen from my eyes about Dan and I do recognize the egregious errors he makes in the moment—that sunshine “homer” last night being merely the latest—but man, does that guy know the analytical side of the game, and he is really good at translating it to layman terms for the broadcast. Plus, he is all business, and maybe you don’t care for that, but that’s perfect for me, and I’m gonna enjoy that as long as he can manage to stay on the air.

One of my favorites. Harrelson's demeanor and cadence was top notch. As was his knowledge of the game and intensity. In fact, a self admitted hot-head who speant many years trying to control his temper. Showed his emotions on his sleave and was a reason to tune him in on WGN back when that was a thing along with Harry Carry with the cubbies. Also, one of the great sports stories with his short but interesting baseball playing career and foray in pro golf his legendary style statements and career ending injuries and then GM of the White Sox to broadcasting. Should be a movie made of Hawk.