Tiger Geist

Big series with Pittsburgh?  Not because of the hockey rivalry, but because Pittsburgh isn’t a great team — and just traded one of its best players to Atlanta.  Its a good time to win some games against what should be an inferior opponent.  The White Sox series was really interesting — Detroit won the series 3-2, all close games.  This is what Detroit needs to — win against division opponents.  Honestly, I was very worried going into that series, so I feel winning three out of five was a giant step forward.

Don Kelly was promoted, Clete Thomas demoted.  Obviously a huge surprise, but not one without justification — Clete needs some more work on his swing (which got ‘long’, according to Tom Gage), and Kelly provides a hot bat (albeit at AAA), speed (14 stolen bases on 17 attempts), and versatility (OF/1B).

I’m fine with the move — if Detroit is missing a bat, Clete wasn’t helping.  It might be a good time to see if Kelly is a major leaguer or a AAAA player.  If Kelly plays well and provides some speed, it could spell the end of Josh Anderson if Clete heats up in Toledo.  Or, I could be reading too much into this — ideally, we have no idea how Miguel Cabrera is feeling.  Minus the Zumaya error on the bunt play Thursday (which I thought Ryan Raburn was out of position and ultimately caused Zumaya to misjudge where to toss the ball), Raburn seems to have played a pretty good first base.  But how good can we honestly think Raburn could get at first base (with a week of training) when an athletic Carlos Guillen couldn’t seem to grasp the position?  With Raburn and Kelly, they have more versatility for double-switches and matchups for pinch-hitting.  Don Kelly also has two first names, which is always fun.

Matt Joyce was demoted yesterday (via Buster Olney);  interesting how they mention his need to work on his defensive skills.  He was touted as a plus-defender with power when he was traded.  Or, it could just be a sign how difficult playing defense inside a dome can be — if thats the case, I’m not sure how playing outdoors in Durham will help.