Tiger Geist

I’ve been waiting to use that one all week.

Sooooooo…. another day at the park yesterday.  It was 70 degrees out, but felt like 100 in the sun.  The only person it seemed to affect was Barry Zito, who just wasn’t very good.  It actually caused Giants fans to scream out “We Want Willis!” (they can have him).  Detroit gutted out seven runs, but should have scored 15.  Galarraga kept them in the game; Dolsi was effective but not dominating;  Miner pitched well.

Detroit got a series victory against a team that isn’t playing very well. They improved the health of the squad, with Zumaya officially joining them on the roster tomorrow.  My guess is Dolsi will head down for some more seasoning (his last few outings were a little shaky; he’ll be good but needs some work).

Thoughts:

• Brent Clevlen gets the boot, with Clete Thomas re-joining the team from the DL.  Don’t like the move, but it probably doesn’t matter.  Thames has earned the starting job for a while.
• Pudge proved why the platoon at catcher is a good thing:  two strikeouts, both on very very bad pitches, one with the bases loaded.
• Freddy Dolsi got an at-bat;  Leyland’s reason was because he wanted to save the bench players.  If that is the case, why don’t they give an at-bat to a starting pitcher in the upcoming San Diego series?
• The defense is improving;  this article talks about Thames’ better play.  However, Guillen made some AMAZING plays at third (we were right above him in the third deck with great angles).  It didn’t hurt that Capt Slow (Molina) was hitting, but his double play was probably the longest double play of all time (from ball leaving the bat to the final out).  I wish they kept track of those stats.
• Aaron Rowland comes up to bat with the bases loaded, 2 outs.  He strikes out, only to have a giant advertisement come on the big screen / Public address with a “vote Aaron Rowland, all star game!!”.  It was very very humerous… to me.
• Tons of tiger fans at the games this week.  To the point where the Giant’s fans seemed surprised.

Best quote of the day:  My dad & I were walking around the ballpark before the game.  Two scalpers were asking people if they wanted tickets.  Upon seeing us, one guy says to the other (in a hushed tone so we didn’t hear), “don’t offer it to them.  They’re from detroit… there’s no money in detroit”.  Thought it was rather comical since they weren’t trying to be mean, just… nationally aware i guess.

I’ll update more later.. I saw a lot of baseball this week, which meant a lot of $8.25 and $8.75 beers.  I’m a little slow today.