We're going to call this one "The Shows What I Know Edition...

I took the 9^th inning of the Tigers 13-1 win in KC off yesterday.  Shows what I know.  Yesterday, according to The Elias Sports Bureau was the time in Major League history where two different teams came back from deficits of at least six runs in the eighth inning or later on the same day to win.

I looked at the Padres score yesterday and they were down to the Diamondbacks 7-1 after seven and I said to myself, "So much for their 9-game winning streak."  Shows what I know.  San Diego scored 5 in the eighth, one in the ninth and one in the tenth for an 8-7 win.

I didn't even bother to click over to the Rays-Indians game last night.  Shows what I know.  Tampa Bay led 10-0 early and 10-2 when Cleveland came to bat in the eighth.  The Indians scored two in the eighth and seven in the bottom of the ninth to win 11-10.  I did go back later to watch the tape of that bottom of the 9^th.  The key play?  Tampa walked the lead-off hitter.  Any manager will tell you:  You can't do that.  The sequence was something like this as I work from memory: walk, pop-out, broken bat single, throwing error on what could have been a game-ending double-play ball which let in a run, line drive out for the second out of the inning, three-run homer, a couple more walks and a bases-loaded two-run single, and, ballgame.  Cleveland scored those seven game-winning runs in the ninth on just three hits.    

I thought when the Tigers got swept by Minnesota the week before last--losing the last game at the Metrodome because they couldn't hold a 5-0 lead with 8 outs to get--that they had sustained a spirit-crushing, season-ruining defeat.  Shows what I know.  The Tigers are 8-2 since that loss and have a four-game lead in the AL Central, matching their largest lead of the season.

I actually wondered which would be the bigger loss: Chicago not having  #1 netminder Nikolai Khabibulin in the line-up for Game 4 or Detroit not having top defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom dressed for the game.  I thought the question was worthy of debate.  Top goalie or top d-man, who is more important to their team?  Shows what I know.  It was no contest.  As evidenced, at least, by the final score: Detroit 6, Chicago 1.

Enough of that, let's move on to some things I do know.

Nicklas Kronwall's hit on Martin Havlat in Game 4 was legal, as least insofar as current NHL rules go.  I don't know how anyone could have ruled that Havlat was not in the act of playing the puck since it was in his feet when Kronwall steamrolled him, so  I don't know how Interference could have been called the way it was.  Charging was not called, either.  I did not see Kronwall leave his feet.  Therefore, as I saw it, it was a legal check.  Does that make it right?  Of course it does not.  Players are so much bigger and so much faster now than they were when these rules were written.  Plus, as Don Cherry is fond of pointing out, the shoulder pads they wear now resemble those worn by football players and have become a weapon unto themselves.  But I know the National Hockey League.  The day they change the rules is the day somebody is paralyzed for life or his killed on a check like that.  And not a moment before.

The overtime goal scored by the Black Hawks Patrick Sharp in Game 3 marked the first time Detroit lost Stanley Cup playoff game in overtime in Chicago since Harold March beat the Wings in OT in the Windy City in 1934. That was the year Chicago won the Stanley Cup for the first time and is one of only three times that the Black Hawks have hoisted the hardware.

Detroit is up three games to one in the best-of-seven which you probably already know.  Including this season, NHL teams up 3-1 have gone on to win the series 211 times and have gone on to lose the series 21 times (90.9%).  The last team to come back from 3-1 down was Washington earlier this playoff year against the New York Rangers.  Chicago has never won a series in which it was faced with a 3-1 deficit.

And that's all I know--and don't know--for now.

We posted a few days ago about how Sparky Anderson's forty-game cut-off was fast approaching ("Give me forty games and I can tell you if I have a good team or a bad team," Sparky would always say) and now it is here and Detroit is 16-24 and last in the division and last in the league and last in starting pitching and Gary Sheffield can't play no more and I think if Sparky Anderson were the manager of this club and you asked him about this team he'd say, "We're horsebleep in every department."

Which, in the interest of accuracy, they are right now. 

This is just a short, little post.  Detroit's down 7-2 in KC in the 5th and another starter (Kenny Rogers this time) has failed to get the game beyond the fourth inning as I write and thus Detroit's in danger of falling to oh-and-six against the Royals this year.  That alone should tell you all you need to know about this Tigers team. 

I think they are going to have to release Gary Sheffield. Manager Jim Leyland today said he can't play left because of his shoulder,  He's hitting around .200--his season high we are sad to report--with, if memory serves,  two homers and 8 RBI so I don't think he can DH anymore, either.

I'd sign Bonds.  Heck, if he can homer from the left side on a consistent basis at Comerica Park at least we'd know the truth about the steroids thing because I am certain the only way anyone can homer on a regular basis from the left side at Comerica is if he's juiced.  Big-time.

On July 23, 2007, thru 97 games the Detroit Tigers led their division, the American League Central, by a season-high 2 games and had the best record in the Majors at 59-38.  Detroit had a winning percentage of .606 and was one of only 2 ML teams in with a win percentage of over .600 on that date (Boston, .604). 

From that point on however, the 2007 Tigers fell apart, playing their final 65 games at a .446 clip with a 29-36 record.  It mirrored almost exactly what the World Series team of the previous season had done when the 2006 Tigers opened 76-36 (.679) thru 112 games, good for a 10-game lead in the division on August 7, only to finish 19-31 (.380) in their final 50 games and lose the division crown on the last day of the regular season. 

But, I digress.

Take the Tigers record from their high-water mark last season until the end of the regular season (29-36) and add it to their record this season (16-21) and you've got a ballclub which has won 45 and lost 57 in their last 102 games.  Win Percentage: .441.

The point here is that Detroit's slump didn't exactly begin with the Tigers 0-7 start here in 2008.  It began last July.  

While the Tigers have won 2 of their last 3 (Detroit's only wins in their last 8) we will have to wait and see if this is a trend or an anomaly.  Detroit's 4-0 against the Yankees this season and it is, of course, New York which provides the opposition later this afternoon in the middle game of the 3-game series this weekend between the teams. 

The good news continues to be the fact that Detroit plays in the AL Central where a .500 record--the definition of mediocrity--means (as of today, anyway) you are only a game out of first.  The Tigs are in fourth place (percentage points ahead of last-place Kansas City) but because nobody in the division is going good, the Tigers are only 3.5 games off the division lead.  The Wild Card standings are an eye-opener, though.  If you were thinking that even if they don't win their division the Tigers could still get into the playoffs as the Wild Card winner, Detroit's 10th right now in the Wild Card standings, 6 back of the leaders.  Please make a note of it.

My guess is that opening with the words, "I was bored so..." is a poor way to begin an article, but I was and so I am.   

I was enjoying day 2 of my 2-day free trial of MLB.TV which I had been granted for "being a good customer" and was watching the Orioles at A's game because by the time I'd gotten home the Mets at Dodgers game was 12-love in the 6th and even the chance to catch the great Vin Scully at work wasn't worth watching that turkey.

I had, by the way, thoroughly enjoyed Day 1 of the two-day trial.  MLB.TV can't be beat.  Last night, I had the Tigers on the "real" TV and was able to simultaneously via computer keep on eye on the other teams in the division; watching Cleveland come back on a three-run shot in the 8th to win in New York, seeing Gavin Floyd almost throw a no-hitter against the Twins and wrapping up the night by enjoying Scully and seeing a rare inside-the-park homer at Dodger Stadium.  Like I said, I love the MLB.TV.  I swear that the first thing I'm going to do when I find work again is buy a subscription.

So, today, I had the Orioles on with Jon Miller (a fine broadcaster in his own right) doing play-by-play and he said something--I can't remember what--that made me think of a question I wanted an answer to, so I brought up Baltimore's Media Guide on the computer to find the answer.  I don't know if the Orioles PR Department is the best in baseball but I do know that their Media Guide used to be twice as thick as any other in the American League and that has to mean something.  It's as if the word "minutiae" had been invented just for them.  And if it had in fact not been, they certainly ran with it nonetheless.  Which is okay.  I'm a big fan of minutiae, especially when it comes to the baseball.

Whatever question it was I'd had, had got answered, but you know it's tough to put a Media Guide down and I found myself  reading the "History of Baseball in Baltimore" section.  Very interesting.  Right off the bat I realized hat I'd forgotten this bit of trivia: The Baltimore Orioles were a charter member of the American League in ought-3.  1903, of course.  After two less than stellar seasons, they moved to New York and became the Highlanders who later became the team whose name shall not be mentioned in this space.

Major League ball didn't return to Baltimore until 1954 when the St. Louis Browns moved there.  Interestingly, Baltimore's records begin, according to their Media Guide, in 1954.  They don't count the Browns records, much less the Orioles of 1903-04. 

I continued my reading of the Orioles' history and got to 1966 and Baltimore's World Series sweep of the L.A. Dodgers.  I was an actual Little League catcher when that Series was played but I still remember it.  Vaguely, but I remember. 

Remember I'd watched the Dodgers game last night?  The Dodgers came back to beat the Mets largely because when it looked like the game was going to get out of hand they brought in a relief pitcher who struck out 8, of note since 8 is only one shy of 9, and 9, as Scully pointed out, is the L.A. franchise record for most K's in a game by a relief pitcher. Talking about it, Scully recalled Baltimore's Moe Drabowski coming out of the pen to fan11 Dodgers in one appearance in that '66 Series, and that it is still a World Series record to this day.

Just recently, Sports Illustrated came out with a web feature that let's you read an on-line version of any edition they've ever published.  I did a search and found the issue containing the story of the 1966 World Series.  I remembered the cover when I saw it since I had been an SI subscriber at the time.  I was a precocious child. 

The story reminded me just what a remarkable feat Baltimore's four-game sweep of that Series really was.  Drabowski's 11-strikeout performance came in Game 1 when he relived in the bottom of the second inning.  L.A. had scored a run in the first and when Drabowski walked the first man he faced to force in a run, the Dodgers had scored in each of the first two innings of the Series.  They would not score again.  Not later in that inning, not later in that game, and not in Game 2, Game 3 or Game 4!  L.A.'s composite Series line score published below the game story in that edition said it all:

1 1 0  000  000  000  000  000  000  000  000  000  000  000

Baltimore batted .200 in the 1966 World Series, a record low by a winner, but when you hold a foe off the board for 35 consecutive innings...

After I read the story of the '66 World Series, I did another search and read some of the coverage of the 1967 A.L. pennant race--like the World Series of the previous fall one of the greatest of all time.  Four teams--Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota and Boston--had a chance to finish first heading into the final weekend of the season.  

There was a great story in the September 18, 1967 issue which referred to the "now prideless" Baltimore Orioles, the "bizarre" American League pennant race, "Boston's exciting young Red Sox" and an "improbable feat" accomplished by the White Sox pitching staff: blowing a 3-0 lead to the Tigers with one out in the top of the 9th on a Saturday before getting a no-hitter from Joe Horlen less than 20 hours later in the first game of a Sunday doubleheader which Chicago would go on to sweep.

The same issue contained SI's NFL Preview for 1967 and a story by Tex Maule about labor peace in the NFL, which had merged with the AFL the year before. It was in that story that I came across a quote which has to be among the all-time greats.  Maule was writing about efforts by the Teamsters Union to organize NFL players, primarily by "concentrating on Negroes".  Support for a union from the players was not widespread.  Here's a quote from a "veteran player" lifted from the Sports Illustrated story:

 "A Jimmy Brown gets, say, $60,000 a year, and he's worth it. With a union, I think it would tend to level out salaries. We average maybe $15,000 over the league now. Is the union going to get all of us that much more? I don't think so. And it would probably cut out the shot at the big money."

Which brings us to the title of this piece.  We all know what unions have meant for player's salaries.  What were they thinking in 1967? 

Time, as I say, makes fools of us all.

You can't beat blogging.  It used to be that you would have to wait for the morning papers to read some columnist ripping the locals.  Now, you can just sit down at the keyboard and do it yourself.  And so, in that vein...

The best measure of just how awful the Tigers were (again) tonight was not the final score (although 5-to-nothing is bad enough) but, rather, the 11-3 margin by which the winning Red Sox out hit Detroit.  Detroit managed two measly singles and a one double: the only extra-base hit by Detroit in their last 23 at-bats. And that was it for the Tigers offense tonight as Detroit lost its fifth straight.  The Tigers had 5 total bases last night; tonight they had four.

In last nights 6-3 loss to Boston, Detroit's offensive output consisted of five singles.  Unless, that is, you want to count as offense the ten (count 'em, ten!) walks handed out by Red Sox pitchers--freebies with which the Tigers did nothing.  Nothing at all.  It was the same story tonight, except in this one Red Sox pitchers handed out no walks.

Tonight, once again, the highly touted, All-Star-on-paper-only Detroit bats were dead on arrival at Comerica Park. 

This after manager Jim Leyland's big shakeup which saw the Tigers yesterday fire (designate for assignment in baseball-speak but it's same thing) their everyday left fielder Jacque Jones  and give the job to Gary Sheffield. Jones got dumped because he wasn't producing: Batting Average .165, 1 Home Run and 5 RBI.  Sheffield is a huge upgrade: Batting Average .176, 2 Home Runs and 5 RBI.

I don't know how Leyland doesn't go nuts on this club, but he said after the loss tonight that screaming and yelling "doesn't do any good anyway." 

I'd be kicking over the spread. You know about the spread, don't you?  It's the buffet-style meal set out in the clubhouse for the players and coaches after the game.  It could be anything:  Chicken, chops, pasta, or sandwiches.  Baseball is the only sport with a spread.  Players in the NFL, NBA and NHL head out into the night hungry.  Ballplayers get fed right there in the clubhouse right after the game.  It is not unusual to see them sit there in front of their lockers eating while they are in their underwear, or worse.  Yeah, naked guys pigging out.  It is not a pleasant sight.    

Media people are not allowed to eat from the spread.  It used to be that you just knew you couldn't eat from the spread but apparently not all media personnel come equipped with common sense.  It must be that some of them were helping themselves.  Why?  Because now it's written into the Official Media Regulations that reporters and camera operators et. al., are not allowed to eat from the spread.  You could lose your credential if you do.  When I saw this in the regs, I couldn't believe it.  I couldn't believe they had to put it in writing.  Like I said, it used to be that you just knew that unless you were a player or a coach or a trainer or an equipment guy, you couldn't eat from the spread.

But I digress.

At some point during the season, in some Major League clubhouse, an angry manager will kick over the spread.  He'll be mad as hell and he just won't be able to take it any more and he'll flip the buffet and all that food over.  Then he'll kick at it for a while, perhaps stomping his cap into the mashed potatoes while he's at it.  And while he's at it, he will scream at his ballclub.  Think of the line, "You're all worthless and weak!" from Animal House.

That's what I'd be doing if I were Jim Leyland.  Kicking over the spread and screaming at people.  Then I'd let the media guys help themselves.

Here's some pretty sad, pretty sick stuff. A 43- year-old mother is accused of running down and killing a 29-year-old man in the parking lot of a New Hampshire bar in the early hours of last Friday morning. She had a New York Yankees sticker on the back of her car and according to witnesses was being serenaded by on-lookers with a "Yankees suck" chant. So, she floored it and ran 'em over, killing one, injuring another:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/05/red_soxyankees.html?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed2

You know...I like my baseball as well as the next guy, maybe a little bit more even, but at the end of the day it only means some freaking guy caught a flipping ball, or he did not. Geez.

When asked in the spring what kind of team he had, Sparky Anderson always used to say, "Give me 40 games and I can tell you."

Well, the Detroit Tigers of 2008 have now played 32 games and about the only good thing we can say as we approach "The "Anderson Line" is that they play in the American League Central Division.  It's the only reason the Tigers are a mere three games out of first place.  The AL Central, to this point at least, is the home of mediocrity.  When the Tigers game at Minnesota got underway Saturday night, four of the five teams in the division had 14 wins.  At that point, Detroit was only a game out of first.  Getting swept in Minnesota has dropped 'em, as we mentioned, three off the pace.

It's been hard to get fired up about this ballclub.  They step onto baseball's grandest stage, Yankee Stadium, and in what will likely be the last time they see the place, sweep New York.  They then proceed directly to baseballs biggest dump, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, (the worst ballpark in baseball today and perhaps the worst ballpark ever although, to be fair, I never saw Jarry Park--Le Parc Jarry--in Montreal) and promptly lose all three to the Twins, shutout in 24 of their 27 at-bats over the weekend.

It's been like this all year.  The Tigers score 37 runs and hit ten homers in a three-game sweep of the Rangers, then drop two out of three to the Angels. 

They win four out of five and look like they are ready to make a move in late April after a 2-10 start, then drop two in a row to the Blue Jays.

Then this latest little embarrassment in Minneapolis after the teams first three-game sweep in New York since 1966.

It reminds me of a poem I read in Mad Magazine in the 1960's and have never forgotten.  It was called, appropriately enough, The Tigers:

They sweep New York and look so pretty,

Then drop four to Kansas City.

Their hitting's superb, their fielding adroit.

So, why no pennant for Detroit?

Yes, the Tigers are over .500 since their 0-7 start (14-11), but they haven't caught fire--at least not in any sustained fashion.  Detroit's longest winning streak this season is four games.

Eight games to go, and we will all know what kind of a team they have this season. 

Heading into the series opener at home against the Twins a week ago Monday, the Tigers were more in a death spiral than they were in a swoon. Detroit had fallen to 2-10 to open 2008 and came into the game on the heels of an 11-0 drubbing at Chicago the day before and a 7-0 smackdown by the White Sox the day before that. 

When the Tigers failed to score in the first five innings of that game a week ago Monday -- falling behind 5-0 to Minnesota in the process, it meant Detroit had gone 24 innings without scoring a run.

But in what has become a recurring theme since, the Tigers, largely on the strenghth of a 6-run bottom of the 8th, dug themselves out of the hole that night and in the process perhaps dug themselves out of the hole that the whole season was fast becoming.

Starting with that 11-9 win over the Twins on April 14, Detroit has won 8 of 11 and, while still  fourth in the American League Central Division standings, are only three games back of first-place Chicago.  Which makes it worth noting that Detroit is a miserable 1-5 so far this season against the Pale Hose.  Which makes it worth noting that if the Tigers were a little better head-to-head against Chicago, they'd be right there right now with the Sox, challenging for the division lead. 

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Detroit surge is the fact that the Tigers, in their 8 recent wins, have trailed at some point in the game in each and every one of them.  As a matter of fact, the only game in the last eleven in which Detroit has not ever been behind was their series-ending 5-1 win at Toronto last Monday.

In two of the 8 wins, the previously mentioned game against the Twins and, surprisingly, the 19-6 thunping the Tigers gave the Rangers Wednesday night, Detroit trailed by 5 runs before coming back to win.

Detroit has rallied in the 7th inning or later for a come-from-behind win in three of the 8.

Although the lack of a key hit with men on doomed them in back-to-back games they could have won but did not win last Saturday and Sunday in Toronto, hitting is no longer quite the concern it was when the Tigers got off to that awful start.  Detroit has outscored the opponent 42-11 during the four-game win streak they take into their game at home tonight against Los Angeles. 

If there is any concern with the club going good, real good, right now it is this: Tigers starters are not exactly going deep into games these days, even with the club winning.  Jeremy Bonderman fell one out short of the 5 innings he needed to get as a starter in order to get the win yesterday.  The day before, Kenny Rogers failed to survive the 4th. Six times In the last eleven games the Detroit starter has been gone before the 7th inning rolled around.

That means strain on the bullpen, but with the Tigers hitting the way they've been hitting this week -- 11 homers in the last four games and 19 in the last eleven to go with 9 hits or more in 8 of the last 11 games -- it really doesn't matter how effective the starters have been, does it? 

After the Tigers beat the Indians by 11 runs last night, we devoted a few words in this space to a discussion of Cleveland starter C.C. Sabathia's stunningly poor start this season.  The 2007 AL Cy Young Award winner is, as we mentioned, off to an 0-3, 13.50 ERA start in 2008.  Sabathia won 19 games a year ago.

Justin Verlander won 18.  After the Indians beat Verlander and the Tigers by ten runs tonight, we will spend a few moments talking about his stunningly poor start.  Like Sabathia, Verlander is off to an 0-3 start.  His ERA isn't embarrassingly high as Sabathia's, but at 7.03, it's way higher than you'd like it to be.

In fairness to Verlander, in his last outing prior to the loss in Cleveland, he was a strike away from having worked 8 complete versus the White Sox while allowing only 2 runs.  But he didn't get that last strike, that final out, and what had been a 1-0 ballgame when the inning began was a 7-0 blowout when it ended.

Scotty Bowman used to say that "the goaltenders put the numbers on themselves."  It's the same with pitchers.  Verlander allowed 4 earned runs in 6 innings while blowing a 3-0 lead in the season opener.  He gave up 4 earned in 5.2 IP in his next outing, a 13-2 loss at Comerica Park against Chicago.  Then the good outing last Saturday before a not-so-good start against the Indians tonight in which he surrendered 5 earned in 5 innings.

Verlander has started four games this season.  The Tigers have lost all four.  This from a guy who's won 35 games for Detroit over the past two years.  That puts him first on the staff in wins over that stretch, and by a wide margin.  Jeremy Bonderman's second on the Detroit Wins list since the start of 2006 with 25.

A word about Zach Miner who had a another rough outing tonight: 5 runs, all earned, on 5 hits in 1 IP.  One thing you can say about Miner so far this year -- when he comes in, somebody on the other team is going to score.  Miner has made six appearances this season, and has given up at least one run in five of them.  In fairness, in one of those games, the sole run he surrendered was unearned.  But the numbers Miner's put on himself have not been good.  To say the least.  His ERA is, gulp, 15.75.  He has allowed four of five inhereted runners to score.  

If the Tigers had Joel Zumaya or Fernando Rodney in their bullpen this wouldn't be as big a deal as it is.  But they don't, and nobody knows when (or if) they will.  Until those studs return, it's up to Miner to carry the load.  So far, it's a load which has proven to be too heavy for him to lift.   

One other note, and it's about the Game Notes.  26 teams played Thursday night and all but three of them posted their official Game Notes on-line.  The Tigers were one of the three (KC, COL) who did not.  It makes it much easier for us when the notes are posted.  That's all I'm saying...

A few notes on the Tigers 13-2 win at Cleveland Wednesday night, and a few other things as well:

• The Tigers scored 30 runs in their last three games during which they went 3-0.
• The Tigers scored 33 runs in their first twelve games, during which they went 2-10.
• The Tigers hit 7 home runs in their first twelve games.
• The Tigers hit 7 home runs in their last three games.
• Indians starter and loser C.C. Sabathia has now lost more games to Detroit (9) in his career than he's lost to any other team.
• Sabathia, the 2007 Cy Young Award winner, is now 0-3 in 2008 with an ERA of 13.50.
• Sabathia has allowed 9 earned runs in back-to-back starts.
• Sabathia is the first Cleveland pitcher in 100 years to win in double figures in each of his first seven years in the Majors. 
• The last Cleveland pitcher to win 10 or more in his first seven seasons was Addie Joss (1902-09).  Ever hear of Joss?  I can't tell you how to pronounce his name, but his career ERA of 1.89 (min 2000 IP) is second-best in AL history.
• Detroit has caught Cleveland, the defending AL Central champions, in the division standings.  Each club is 5-10.