2026 DETROIT TIGERS REGULAR SEASON THREAD

[Tiger337]

32 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

Is the Tiger pitching moving up in their rankings now after only giving up 3 runs this weekend? I still say Detroit has a top 5 pitching staff (potential).

I've said that all along.  I wasn't saying they were bad.  I was saying that they were not doing well to start the season and that was the biggest reason they were losing. 

Or maybe the swept because they added Perez.  Not sure.  

 

[Tigermojo]

Human sacrifice of Meadows obviously. 

[Tiger337]

5 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

RIP Scrap Iron

 

I though Garner was a decent manager who didn't have much talent to work with, probably the best manager of that entire sorry Tigers era between Anderson and Leyland.  It was a real sharp move by Smith replacing him with Pujols.  

The other thing I remember about him was that he name was misspelled almost as much as Raburn.  

RIP Phil Gardner

[Sports_Freak]

43 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I've said that all along.  I wasn't saying they were bad.  I was saying that they were not doing well to start the season and that was the biggest reason they were losing. 

Or maybe the swept because they added Perez.  Not sure.  

 

I was just wondering how much they moved up in a weekend. Small sample sizes change very quickly. Their pitching was only 20th best? An early season good weekend prolly makes them better.

Did Perez even get a hit? 😆😆

[CMRivdogs]

41 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I though Garner was a decent manager who didn't have much talent to work with, probably the best manager of that entire sorry Tigers era between Anderson and Leyland.  It was a real sharp move by Smith replacing him with Pujols.  

The other thing I remember about him was that he name was misspelled almost as much as Raburn.  

RIP Phil Gardner

Was the Pujols move Smith's or was that Dombrowski? I seem to remember the Tigers wanted Felipe Alou to be manager, but he didn't want the job. He became Louis Pujols bench coach.  

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

I've said that all along.  I wasn't saying they were bad.  I was saying that they were not doing well to start the season and that was the biggest reason they were losing. 

Or maybe the swept because they added Perez.  Not sure.  

 

they've achieved the best run differential in the division as of today. 

I wonder if this year's Pitching Chaos innovation is going to be Anderson as a virtual split starter for either of Mize or Flaherty to get them out of games early before they self-immolate without burning 4/5 relievers to finish the game. I might like to see this become a thing - If Anderson holds up.

Edited 16 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Tiger337]

4 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Was the Pujols move Smith's or was that Dombrowski? I seem to remember the Tigers wanted Felipe Alou to be manager, but he didn't want the job. He became Louis Pujols bench coach.  

Yes, I was wrong. It was not Smith.  Smith was fired at around the same time.  I think Pujols may have been an interim move until Dombrowski had more time to make a decision.  

[Tiger337]

37 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I was just wondering how much they moved up in a weekend. Small sample sizes change very quickly. Their pitching was only 20th best? An early season good weekend prolly makes them better.

 

12th in hitter WAR.  9th in pitcher WAR.  

[oblong]

Smith and Garner were fired the same day.  They started 0-6 and the Monday after the first home series  they made the move. DD assumed GM duties. Pujols was the manager but Alou was also there. He probably was the real manager. 

[Screwball]

You can never have enough pitching. Ever. That is all.

[Tiger337]

1 minute ago, Screwball said:

You can never have enough pitching. Ever. That is all.

That's the truest statement you can make about baseball.  

[Screwball]

23 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

That's the truest statement you can make about baseball.  

Baseball was my life for many years. I was a pitcher so my bias is there. I love to watch guys like Skubal. The battle between the pitcher, catcher, and batter (and how we are approaching this matchup), and of course the neutral party - the ump. Now maybe an electronic one.

I'm old. I played in the day when they beaned people and didn't think a thing of it. But the game is still the same, they just don't do that anymore. 🙂  I watch the games with the sound off. Skub, with his unhittable stuff is so fun to watch. And he does some incredible stuff working the batters over the course of the game. Sends a guy to the bench a couple of times on low outside change-ups (and a dandy at that), then last at bat, this dude is looking for that pitch again - and he gets a 98 mph 4-seamer inside on the hands. Go sit down big boy.

Someone said somewhere in the baseball stuff that pitchers were sadists. Yes, and we want them that way. Their job is to get you out. Period, end of discussion.

Skub is a treat to watch. I used to love watching Kenny Rogers. He was the absolute master of his craft IMHO. IIRR, he pitched a beauty in one of Detroit's playoff runs. 

ON EDIT: forgot this. Skub and Kenny are two entirely kind of pitchers. Skub is a power pitcher, Kenny was a junk baller. Couldn't bust a window.

Edited 14 hours ago by Screwball

[CMRivdogs]

1 hour ago, oblong said:

Smith and Garner were fired the same day.  They started 0-6 and the Monday after the first home series  they made the move. DD assumed GM duties. Pujols was the manager but Alou was also there. He probably was the real manager. 

There were rumors at the time Pujols spent most of his day in his office watching the Weather Channel, not sure if they were correct or not

[NorthWoods]

55 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Baseball was my life for many years. I was a pitcher so my bias is there.   

Skub is a treat to watch. I used to love watching Kenny Rogers. He was the absolute master of his craft IMHO. IIRR, he pitched a beauty in one of Detroit's playoff runs. 

ON EDIT: forgot this. Skub and Kenny are two entirely kind of pitchers. Skub is a power pitcher, Kenny was a junk baller. 

Name checks out.

Late career Tanana was similar to Kenny.  Age and guile killing them.

 

[monkeytargets39]

20 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

There were rumors at the time Pujols spent most of his day in his office watching the Weather Channel, not sure if they were correct or not

Who wasn’t doing that back then?  The music was fantastic.

[Tiger337]

18 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

Name checks out.

Late career Tanana was similar to Kenny.  Age and guile killing them.

 

Tanana's career was fascinating.  He was a young fireballer early in his career, lost it and then re-made himself into a crafty lefty.  He wasn't the only one to do that, but I don't think too many pitchers had quite the contrast in his career that he did.  It would be like Skubal losing it and then becoming Kenny Rogers.  

Edited 13 hours ago by Tiger337

[Screwball]

1 minute ago, NorthWoods said:

Name checks out.

Late career Tanana was similar to Kenny.  Age and guile killing them.

 

Yes, forgot about Frank. Same thing.

That stuff matters. If you play everyday and see all these hard throwing farm boys and all of a sudden this dude's serving up grapefruit sized balls - we get great big eyeballs because we are going to hit it over the roof - but we just screwed ourself into the batters box while missing it by about 10 feet. The speed just dicks you up. 

That's why on doubleheader days they would put a junk-baller game one, and a flame thrower game two, as the belief was they were more tired the second game.

As sadists pitchers (established above :-)), I would think the junk ballers get a bigger kick out of making us look stupid because they are throwing junk at us.

OK. That's fine. Think what you want. A good hitter fails 7 of 10 times. It's a humbling game.

And the greatest game ever. But they keep trying to **** it up.

 

[oblong]

I had this goofball thought that I wonder if we'll see a situation where a catcher calls for the wrong kind of ABS... meaning they are so intuned to their task and the immediate reaction becomes instinctive... so Dingler is catching, a ball is called a strike but since he has to think about this **** as both a hitter and a catcher, he taps his helmet.  

I could see Miggy doing that as a hitter.  "No no, that was a strike man, give the P his due.... he earned it.  I'll hit the next pitch for a HR anyway..."

[romad1]

ABS is now a feature in MLB the Show.  I got it to work for me 1/2 times I tried it with 2 games played. 

[chasfh]

20 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

That wouldn't be fascinating.  It would be depressing.  

Yeah, I’m done with salivating over potential returns for our best players at the deadline, at least for a while.

[chasfh]

9 hours ago, monkeytargets39 said:

Who wasn’t doing that back then?  The music was fantastic.

 

[NorthWoods]

9 hours ago, Tiger337 said:

Tanana's career was fascinating.  He was a young fireballer early in his career, lost it and then re-made himself into a crafty lefty.  He wasn't the only one to do that, but I don't think too many pitchers had quite the contrast in his career that he did.  It would be like Skubal losing it and then becoming Kenny Rogers.  

This is one of the top 10 games in my Tiger history.  Watched it at deer camp with 10-12 friends.  What a nail biter and what performance by Frank.    

Trivia - my Dad played against Frank Tanana Sr in MHSAA basketball tournament.

 

[romad1]

11 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

This is one of the top 10 games in my Tiger history.  Watched it at deer camp with 10-12 friends.  What a nail biter and what performance by Frank.    

Trivia - my Dad played against Frank Tanana Sr in MHSAA basketball tournament.

 

Good idea for a thread.  What were those top 10?  And I'd have to include all eras.  

[oblong]

There is a Weather Channel soundtrack/playlist available on spotify...