Underwhelming performance leads to underwhelming blog posts
Blah. Detroit loses series to Boston, 3 games to 1. Verlander isn’t great, team scatters 7 singles.
Of note: Ryan Raburn to get a few more starts. Something to read into? Probably not. I would guess they’re trying to groom Inge to a few more starts behind the plate and at third, and to have Inge focus his skills in those areas.
An area of concern is this piece by Rob Neyer. Namely, the rest of the league seems to think Miguel Cabrera is mailing it in at this point (Or, as Bill Simmons wrote in this weeks espn mag, “texting it in”).
Of note:
the surprise is that Cabrera has been: (a) an offensive disappointment, (b) such a defensive disaster at third base that he had to be shifted to first within three weeks, and (c) so lackadaisical that players on other teams are privately questioning whether he flicked on his cruise-control switch after signing an eight-year, $153.3-million contract this spring. “I expected him to come in there and be superman,” said one scout. “He’s been anything but that.”
Another scout’s note on Cabrera:
“For $150 million, you’d like to at least see him run a ball out. I watched him for a week, and I think there was one ball all week where he tried to extend himself. That was a double-play ball, and he was still like 4.8 [seconds] getting down the line. On a routine ground ball, he’s 5.2, maybe 5.1. It’s ridiculous to even pull the clock out.”
Rob also mentions how Atlanta has had the better end of the Renteria deal. I would agree, but I don’t think Detroit knew how bad their starting pitchers would be this year (namely, Verlander and Willis). I think they made the right move knowing that Guillen can’t handle short stop this year, and going into the year without a real starting option at short.