As the new guy at It’s Pronounced Lajaway, sometimes I get stuck with doing the unpleasant things that Stephanie and Susan would rather not do: things like waxing the floors of the IPL headquarters, scooping out the office’s kitty litter boxes (honestly, does this blog really need nine cats?), and writing about the ballgame on nights like this one, when the Detroit Tigers beat the ever-lovin’ crud out of the Cleveland Indians. The final score was 10-1, but don’t let that fool you–the game wasn’t nearly as close as the score would indicate.
What went wrong for the Indians? Well, for starters, a lot of the blame belongs to Tribe starter David Huff. Huff lasted 2⅓ innings before getting yanked. He faced 15 batters, and eight of them reached base, four by the base hit and four via the base on balls. Huff gave up five runs, all of which were earned. It’s been said that walking batters will kill you, and that was certainly true tonight, as two of the batters Huff walked came around to score; had Brandon Inge’s third-inning ground-rule double stayed in the park, it would have been three.
The Tribe bullpen fared little better. Chad Durbin and Rafael Perez combined for 4⅓ innings, giving up no earned runs. Unfortunately, sandwiched between these performances was a dismal outing by Frank Herrmann, who gave up five hits and one walk in 1⅓ innings of work, allowing three earned runs. The Tigers finished the game with 13 hits. The last time Detroit had that many hits, they were made by people like Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, and Smokey Robinson.
As far as the Indians’ offense goes, well, it consisted of a solo homer by Shin-Soo Choo. Choo had a good game, going three for four, and Carlos Santana got a couple of hits. But Michael Brantley, Asdrubal Cabrera, Kosuke Fukudome, and Lonnie Chisenhall each went hitless for a collective 0 for 17.
According to the SportsTime Ohio announcers, Indians manager Manny Acta said that while this series with the Tigers is important, none of the games were “must-win games.” Well, tomorrow’s game sure looks like a must-win game to me. If the Indians win it, they remain in the position they were in before tonight’s game: 2½ games out of first, and only one back in the loss column. If the Indians lose, they fall to 4½ games back. That’s a lot of territory to cover with only six weeks left in the regular season. Let’s hope Ubaldo Jimenez can have a decent game tomorrow and give his team a chance to win. If he can’t, well, things will be looking bleak for the Indians.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to go. I have some litter boxes to scoop out.
You scoop out the kitty litter while I carry the garbage out for my Tiger-lovin’ girl friend.
Metaphor fail! The Tigers have many flaws, but hitting the ball isn’t one of them. Your Indians have 124 hits in three games to catch them. It is demonstrably weak writing to reach for a reference when it isn’t relevant.
Jason, thanks for your comment, but I don’t think I understand what you’re saying. “124 hits in three games”? I don’t get it.
The Tigers had 20 hits in back-to-back games against Texas earlier this season. I get what you’re trying to do with the Motown dig, but it just makes you look a little foolish to stretch that far and act like a team with four different .300 hitters and 3 all-stars in the lineup got lucky to light up a mediocre lefty.
Why do I suspect you haven’t seen a single Tigers game outside Progressive Field all season?
I agree, the game wasn’t as close as the score would indicate- and in that case there’s precious little you can write, and none of that is good. In my opinion, the absolute low-point of the game was Brantley’s error in the 5th. Not only was it the thing that put what had been a close game out of reach, it was an error that would have gotten a Little Leaguer benched. They stunk the place out on every level Saturday- not just pitching, but both offense and defense as well. And the fact that Manny Acta is saying the individual games aren’t that important worries me, too. That almost sounds like he’s already starting to make excuses for not winning the division.
Cleveland is 27th out of 30 teams in total team hits. Detroit is fifth. We’ve played tree more games than the Tribe up to this point. After adding last night’s totals, the Indians now have to club 130 hits in the three game difference to tie Detroit.
In half of the Tigers’ games this year, they’ve recorded at least 10 hits or more. Cleveland? 38%
Boston……50%
Texas……..50%
Detroit’s team batting average ranks third (.270) in all of baseball. Cleveland? They wouldn’t be even an average hitting team in the NL (.247 vs .253).
If any parallels between music hits and baseball hits are appropriate, it is not Motown. It appears that the only hits in Cleveland are found in the Rock ‘n’ Roll HOF.
Jason, thanks for clarifying your earlier comment. CM, thank you for your comment as well.
Point taken, gentlemen. The Tigers are a decent offensive team. They get a lot of base hits and they score more than their share of runs.
As this is a family blog, I had to refrain from expressing myself on here the way I do at home when I watch such lopsided defeats on television. Instead of cursing, I turned to humor to mask my pain.
Thanks for reading.
Vern, don’t worry about those nitpickers. They’re just Tigers fans butthurt by the fact that you implied that 13 hits was a lot. I appreciated the metaphor.
Been on vaca for several days and just now catching up on the the blog posts, so this response will probably not be read by anyone, but… Vern, I appreciate your responses to …errr….challenges. I like this blog because Tribe fans can rant, rave, analyze, joke, bitch, and whine…without it getting ugly. Your responses have been classy.