They Shoulda Won It

Ninety percent of pitching is mental. The other half is mechanics.

The mental half proved to be Brayan Villareal's undoing tonight. He came in to pitch the ninth, and to keep the score tied at one each, and walked the first two Rangers hitters on eight pitches, none of them close.

Yes, the first guy -- Nelson Cruz -- scored the winning run, singled in by rookie Mike Ott off Phil Coke, the night's second ineffective Pretenders reliever.

The P's had their chance, but -- yes, again -- filled the bases with one out in a ninth inning and failed to score.Mike Adams the Texas Ranger got a fielder's choice at home (Cabrera forced) and Peralta on a fly to center.

Wasted was an excellent effort by Justin Verlander (seven innings, seven hits, one run, eight whiffs, zero walks).

Not wasted was an equally find outing by Rangers starter Derek Holland (7.2, three hits, one run, nine whiffs), who matched JV pitch for pitch in baseball's most hitter-friendly yard.

Another winnable game thus goes into the loss column.

However -- the baseball blogger knew that, sooner or later this season, the P's and Hinge's paths would cross; and they did, 800 miles away in Chicago.

The most reviled ex-Tiger in recent memory singled in the go-ahead run in a 9-7 Athletics' win over the White Sox. 

The Sox loss keeps the P's one game out, with the same number of wins (61) as the Sox, but two (53) more losses.

It's Tribe Time Now

Your blogger knew the final score wasn't going to be 2-0 Indians, and in the seventh, Miguel Cabrera proved him right. With QB on, Miggy hit one deep into straightaway center at Progressive Yards, awaaaaaaaaay back, GAWN! Tie game! 

In the bottom seventh, Travis Hafner hit one in the same general direction, and choogled all the way to third. Aaron Cunningham squeezed him in to give the Tribe a 3-2 lead. 

Vinnie Pestano and Chris Perez, among the best in baseball at shutting teams down in the eighth, and ninth, innings, did so again. Hold number 28 for Pestano, save number 28 for Perez. 

Doug Fister pitched well enough to win, but Ubaldo Jiminez was better. The Indians ace, lately rocked, blanked the Tigers for six innings and got his ERA under five, to 4.97. 

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This is the era of specialization, and the acquisition of Omar Infante means Rugburn has at last found his niche: playing left field against left-handed pitchers. And, when Andy Dirks comes back (get well soon, Andy!), that limited role will be gone. 

I have July 30, next Monday at Boston, in Maggie's Rugburn Off The Interstate pool and, with the limited playing time Infante's acquisition also signals, I ain't gonna win it. The contest may in fact have no winner, and my queen would then have to give everyone their money back. 

And guess what else? Speaking of reviled Tigers ... Oakland swept the Yankees and beat Toronto tonight, are at this moment tied for the AL wild card (depending on what the Angels do), Hinge could end up in post-season playing against us, and wouldn't that be a kick in the head?

Your BB Blogger Told You So

Posted here the day before opening day, re Brandon Inge, who didn't hit his weight in Florida, making the team as a reserve:

"But baseball melodrama has a way of handing the guy who doesn't belong a chance to be the hero, and our crystal ball foreshadows a night in June when the backup second baseman no one wanted (Hinge) snags a hot grounder with the bases loaded, and drives in the winning run. Like it's done on the Hallmark Channel." 

I got my wish again. Almost. Wrong month, and his bat helped the other team win.

He hit a three run homer off Rick Porcello tonight, turning a still-winnable 4-2 game into a 7-2 lost cause. They may as well have been down by twenty, the way they're not hitting. (Final: 11-4 A's.)

So Hinge, hitting .120 with one RBI when booed out of town, is now in the record books with Lou Gehrig, for being the first player since Lou in 1931 to drive in four or more runs four times in a span of five games.

Too bad he couldn't hit like this when he played for our team. But he was at a disadvantage. He couldn't bat against our pitchers.

We turned the game off, and put in a movie. Maggie's choice: "Sleepless In Seattle." (Hey, we were just there!) The film proved to be a wonderful cure for insomnia.  Neither one of us was awake at the end.

Something About Maggie

When the Tigers scored eight in tonight's third inning, Maggie and I were glad we'd chosen baseball over cinema. 

After Hinge hit a grand slam in the eighth off Colin Ballester, and after Ben-Wah gave up a double to Kila Ka'aihue and walked Anthony Recker, a nice snuggly romantic comedy didn't seem so bad after all. Maggie was, in fact, rooting through the tapes. 

"You know Valverde's pitching the ninth," she said. "I can't watch this anymore ... "

She sprang out of bed and raced downstairs, leaving me in the company of a small gathering of Athletics fans who stayed to the bitter end -- past one AM our time -- despite being down 10-2 after three.

Fernando did come in to pitch the ninth, and got them out one-two-three. If he keeps this up, he'll go back to being Jose. 

"They won, didn't they?" Maggie returned to the second floor baseball bunker holding two glasses. 

"How'd you know?"

"I was listening on the radio." She handed me one of the glasses. 

"What's this?" 

"Amaretto. Let's celebrate. The night Jose Valverde got his groove back." 

We clinked glasses. 

"You're not going to write that, are you? Abut getting his groove back?"

Can't say that I won't, my queen. What a perfect Hollywood ending. For that new snuggle movie. "Something About Maggie."

What a Curious Baseball Game

Max Scherzer allowed seven hits and walked seven in four and two-thirds innings. The Tigers hung around, down only 3-1 when Scherzer left, after the Yankees stranded eleven runners.

Keep putting people on, and trouble will eventually find you. Luke Putkonen made his Show debut by getting Curtis Granderson to ground out with the bases loaded, but later walked two and gave up three hits. By then it was 6-2 and, the way the Tigers were (not) hitting, all you could do was think about tomorrow's game.

Scherzer's ERA at day's end reminds the baseball fan who also grew up with music radio of the frequency of legendary New York top 40, and former Yankee flagship, station WABC: 7.77.

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Hinge has agreed to sign with the A's, and it will be weird to see him in a uniform without DETROIT or the Olde English "D" on it. Like it was when Babe Ruth took the field with BRAVES across his chest.

The signing will also mean that he'll have to pay for drinks from the Oakland clubhouse's soda machine. 

Drew And Fernando

Drew Smyly showed the Fox Saturday Game Of The Week audience that he belongs. Fernando Valverde showed them why he's running on reputation alone.

In six innings, Smyly allowed two hits and one run, a first inning homer by Nick Swisher, and earned his first major league win.

Andy Dirks, playing in place of Delmon Young, hit a three run homer and made two fine defensive plays in left field, on drives that would have had Delmon Young twisting in the wind. 

With the score 7-2 Tigers, in came Fernando to pitch the ninth. We know to never tune away when the game is in Fernando's hands. Despite a perfect 49 for 49 in save opportunities last season, Mariano Rivera he isn't.  

We got: home run (Swisher, his second of the game), fly out, walk (A-Rod), foul out (two outs, yeeeha!), they give A-Rod second, single (Granderson, A-Rod scores), they give Granderson second, Ibanez doubles him in. 32 pitches into the inning, now it's 7-5, Eric Chavez is the tying run, and Your Baseball Blogger wants to play Strangle The Closer.

One more biscuit for breakfast, and Chavez would have hit it out. Don Kelly went deep into the right field corner to grab his liner, and the 27th and often hardest out to record was in the books.

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We got our wish again: Danny Worth is back, Hinge is gone, and we can put away the circus music that played whenever Delmon Young went after a fly ball.

Young will be examined by doctors on Monday, when the Tigers come home from this three game road trip, and could be cleared to play then. Or he might never play another game or the Tigers.

Maggie and I aren't rednecks, but we get called rednecks now and then, by well-meaning, ignorant, slightly drunk acquaintances. We apparently look and act the part. She lets it pass. I'm offended. I think "redneck" is the equivalent of the N word. But we don't have favored nation status, and it will never become "the R word."

Either no one should be called names, or everyone should be called names. As Maggie's liberal middle-aged girlfriends like to say: that's only fair, isn't it? 

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Four teams have expressed interest in Hinge. That is, four teams more desperate than the Tigers to field a lineup of nine major-league quality players. The Twins and A's, and the Orioles despite their 13-8 record, but also the Diamondbacks, last season's NL West champs.

End Of An Era

The Brandon Inge era in Detroit is over.

After this afternoon's 5-4 loss to the Mariners, the Tigers released the 34 year old Inge, former starting third baseman, one-time All-Star, now a utility man, the current senior Tiger who broke in twelve years ago as a backup catcher.

Not designated for assignment on his way to the minors and back to the Tigers, like last year. Released. Gone, just like that. (I got my wish again!) Toni Morrison will never have the opportunity to write a novel titled "How Brandon Inge Went To Toledo And Got His Groove Back."

Despite newspaper reports to the contrary, Your Baseball Blogger wonders if Inge asked for his release.

Designated would mean he'd stay in shape by playing every day at Toledo, or for someone else's Triple-A team until a big-league roster spot opened. Any team claiming him on waivers, or signing him to a minor league deal, would only have to pay him the major league minimum. The Tigers would cover the rest (5.5 million for 2012 and a 500K option for 2013).

And, after all, he loves the game. He could have collected his paychecks at home, but went to Toledo last year when no other team wanted him. Hang around, you never know what might happen, never know what other team might have a guy get hurt or go into a slump, and make the call. 

But even guys who love the game, unless they're Steve Carlton, know when it's time to go. Inge was hitting .100 -- 2 for 20 -- was less than sparkling in the field, and was lustily booed on opening day at Comerica. 

If he is through, he went 1 for 2 with a double in his last major league game, and that's not a bad way to go out.

 

How The Game Story Should Have Read

Justin Verlander's last pitch, his 131st of the night, was a 100 mph fastball burned past Alex Gordon for a called strike three.

It made Skipper Leyland really look like the resident managerial genius, for leaving him in after the Royals turned two scratch singles, a walk, and a hit batter into a run that narrowed the score to 3-2. Fernando Valverde was ready to come in, his presence in the pen -- seven hits in 4.2 innings to date -- possibly a greater incentive to let JV finish.

Verlander's dramatics eclipsed an excellent start by rookie Danny Duffy. Seven hits, three runs, seven strikeouts in six-plus innings for that rarest of major league players: one who has two first names, that start and end with the same letter, and contain the same number of letters. 

And -- oh, yes -- two of the Tigers' runs scored on a homer by Brandon Hinge.

The Key To The Batter's Box

You can't miss a game. If you do, you might see, or hear described, something you've never seen before.

In the first inning of today's game at US Cellular Field, Miguel Cabrera pointed out to the plate umpire that the batter's box was in the wrong place, and I've never seen or heard that happen.

It wasn't -- it was right where it's been for over a hundred years, next to the plate, but off-center, about eight inches too close to the mound. Hitters like to move up in the box and stand closer to the pitcher, but not against hard throwers like Jake Peavy.

The chalk lines were erased and redrawn, and Your Baseball Blogger wondered why the ump didn't notice.

Turns out it didn't matter. Twenty-five hitters struck out, fifteen of them White Sox. Max Scherzer allowed three runs and five hits in six innings, whiffed eleven, and took an undeserved loss. The Pale Hose needed two web gems, a diving catch by Dyan Viciedo with two on in the seventh and some Ramirez-Beckham piracy around the keystone in the eighth to come away with a 3-2 win.

After the game, the rumors we'd heard here in the second floor baseball bunker became official: Hinge was coming back. When someone comes, someone's got to go, and the guy without a chair in the game of musical roster spaces was Danny Worth.

This development, even though we saw it coming, didn't go over well. The Tigers are playing Hinge only because he's owed a lot of money and, since he isn't hitting his weight (190 lbs, .180 in rehab at Toledo), he'll go unclaimed again if he's waived and they'll have to eat his contract.

On a team that's far and away the best in its division, with three future Hall Of Famers on the squad (Cabrera, Fielder, Verlander), the buzz is over the part-time second baseman 29 teams passed on when he was cut loose last season.

Opening Eve

With three franchise players -- Cabrera, Verlander, and Fielder -- in the starting lineup two days from today, the spring buzz has been over who will be half of the second base platoon.

Brandon Inge has become the mother-in-law who came to stay "for a couple weeks" a year ago and is still around.

In any other universe, he would have already played himself off the team by hitting under .200 in Florida.  But he's owed $13 million for this season plus a $500K buyout for 2013 and, when waived last July, there were no takers.

So, at this point, you may as well play him, somewhere. 

Hinge made the decision easier for Skipper Leyland and The Miracle Worker by landing on the DL late in the spring campaign. When he comes off on April 15, he'll start against lefties, and go in for defense.  (Having a defensive replacement who's never played a major league game at the position says all that needs to be said about this season's second base arrangement.)

The Hinge soap opera will draw attention away from this year's relentless conquest of AL Central opponents, as the Tigers march towards the big October dance as General Sherman did through Georgia.

But baseball melodrama has a way of handing the guy who doesn't belong a chance to be the hero, and our crystal ball foreshadows a night in June when the backup second baseman no one wanted snags a hot grounder with the bases loaded, and drives in the winning run. Exactly the way it's done on the Hallmark Channel.

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Another spring ritual has come and gone -- Tom and Maggie's annual viewing of "Bull Durham."

I pretended to be not watching when Annie Savoy talked quantum physics with Crash on her front porch swing, dripping wet from a late September North Carolina rain, lest the baseball fan curled next to me object.

But she made sure I noticed the candle splashing bathtub scene.

Hinge, AGAIN (What Took So Long?)

The game-winning D-Rays tenth inning rally, Duane Below pitching:

Leadoff infield single (Evan Longoria). 

Fielder's choice that should have been a double play, but Hinge (in at third for defense) couldn't get the ball out of his glove, Ben Zobrist on first.

Matt Joyce struck out. Then, the ever-popular hit batter in the bottom half of extra innings (Casey Kotchman). 

If anything makes more fans jump for joy that a HBP or leadoff hit in x-innings on the road, it's a walk (Sean Rodriguez). But no one's warming up, and Below will have to pitch himself out of the mess.

Elliot Johnson grounds one to third. Even in Little League, they teach you to take the easy out at first with the bases loaded and two out.Your first baseman has that big mitt, and is just waiting for you to throw the ball to him.

Can someone with more baseball wisdom than me tell me why Hinge threw it to second?

Ramon Santiago, with the switch-hitting Johnson batting left-handed, was playing closer to first that usual. Zobrist safe, game over. 3-2 D-Rays. They never hit the ball out of the infield. But they hit it to third base twice.

Even Jim Leyland said he made the wrong play.

The honeymoon is over. It lasted four days.

I know I'm not the only Tigers fan who has become weary of hearing how wonderful Brandon Inge is. He's been a distraction ever since The Miracle Worker signed him to that two year deal this spring, at age 32 and on two bad knees. Waived in July, and NO ONE wanted him. (For all this, The Miracle Worker got a four year contract extension. All of us should be rewarded with that level of job security.)

It almost makes you hope they lose the division by one game (this one) so the point can be made.

They can consider themselves fortunate that the Indians lost and no ground in the standings will be lost as a result of our hero's error in judgement. And our hero should consider himself fortunate that they're playing in Minneapolis tomorrow night, and not in front of the home fans, this soon after. 

How Brandon Inge Went To Toledo And Got His Groove Back

With the Tigers facing more left handed than right handed starters over the rest of August, left handed hitting Andy Dirks was optioned to Toledo, and the team has been re-Hinged.

First at bat, off David Huff: solo homer to left. Double next time up. Then a sac fly. Two for three, two RBI's, and a standing O in the seventh inning.

After four quality starts, Huff didn't have it. One batter into the third, he was gone, having allowed five runs. Doug Fister turned in his best effort as a Tiger; one run, six hits in seven innings. 

The second strong game by a Tiger starter means JV can pitch Monday in Tampa Bay, and not start tomorrow's Big Series 2 wrap-up a day early with the Tigers needing a win. 

Alex Avila doubled and singled twice, and walked three times. His August has been amaze-ing. With V-Mart's knees still tender, he's been catching almost every day. He's brought his average back over .300 -- .302 after play today -- and his on base percentage for the month is over .500.

What a day for the Motor City! The Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise, Kenny Chesney playing next door at Ford Field, a soaking late afternoon downpour, Brandon Inge's triumphant return to the major leagues, and a Tigers win (10-1 over Cleveland, lead back to 3 1-2 games).

Bad News And Good News

After the Pretenders scored three runs to take a 5-3 lead, David Purcey came in and walked the first three, and only only, Athletics' hitters he faced. His line: 0-3-3-3-0. (Have mercy, Mister Purcey!)

Ben Wah then came in and gave up three singles.Four runs total; a nice 5-3 lead over the Oakland Peashooters becomes a 7-5 deficit.

So they lost. That's okay -- sort of -- since the Twins beat the Indians this afternoon and no ground was lost.

Between games, The Miracle Worker announced that the P's had acquired Royals' third baseman Wilson Betemit for two minor leaguers. 

Betemit is a dependable veteran who plays first, third, a little outfield, and DH. He'll join his new team in time for tomorrow night's game in Minneapolis.

That means a roster move must be made before then. And all indicators point to the end of the Brandon Inge era in Motown. An event anticipated in the pages of this blog as eagerly as were the first day of baseball season, the first day of summer, and Maggie's roast beef with apple pie dinners.  

Hinge didn't play tonight. Maybe he's already gone. Not a peep re the sensitive situation from either of the radio stool pigeons, who may have only been obeying orders. 

Tomorrow afternoon, we will know for sure what we already suspect.