Tiger Geist

On the “not quite baseball yet in the heart of Tiger fans” front, the Pistons seem to be doing well so far into the playoffs.  Detroit News / Pistons beat writer Chris McCosky had a few run-ins with the Orlando media last week, and blogs about it here and here.  Also, his saturday ‘antics’ drew more coverage from the Orlando Sentinel.

Maybe this is what the Tigers need.. maybe Lynn Henning needs to get up in in someone’s face in KC sports radio to get them motivated.

Its official, our starting rotation has the worst ERA in baseball.  I guess that isn’t much of a surprise.  Its upsetting that we’ve traded away so much pitching in the last few years (for Sheffield, Renteria, Cabrera), but we have so much money invested in our pitchers that its not likely we’d be able to eat all of those contracts.

At what point does pitching coach Chuck Hernandez get some heat?  Isn’t he the guy who is supposed to make these guys better?  If not, what does he do?  Do we think the pitchers are actually the worst starting five in baseball, or should we bestow some blame on coaching?

Jeremy Bonderman is a big question mark to me.  This is a guy who was supposed to make big strides this year, yet he doesn’t seem like a power pitcher anymore.  Thats a disappointment from a guy who is 25 years old.  He can’t seem to develop any other pitch besides his fastball and slider;  thats a concern.  Todd Jones learned to throw a cut fastball at age 37, but Bonderman can’t learn to throw anything new at a young age?  Jeremy doesn’t seem like a very good athlete - he can’t field well and can’t hit (1 for 25 — though having never gone to college might help explain).  With two solid pitches, maybe they have to start looking to turn him into a relief pitcher.  Maybe that will help ‘push’ him into another pitch.

Ending the week 2-4, Detroit gets a much needed rain-out on Mothers Day.  Much needed so they can pull themselves back together;  fans (including my sister and brother in law) had to go downtown, park, get soaked, only to have the game called.

Off-day today, going up against Greinke the destroyer and the rest of the KC Royals starting tuesday.  Maybe a little more rest will help our starters get focused