What? Playing not to lose? Laird had done nothing all game...even popped out a bunt attempt. There was no reason to not put Avila in against the righty
Music tribute. YouTube - Crazy world of arthur brown - fire YouTube - Napoleon XIV: 'They're coming to take me away'
Thus endeth this year's version Of Tiger Chat. Tune in next year as the tigers win the Al Central with the best three starter rotation in baseball. Stay tuned for Tiger WrapUp later on tonight as I now must go to the hospital to sew up my spilt wrists!!
You knew there wasn't going to be any way the Tigers were going to celebrate at the Metrodome. They have no karma in that place. None whatsoever. They had their chances and did not take advantage. Go Yankees.
Ok it's over...who takes the blame?? Raburn misjudging the ball hit to left in the 10 th inning, the short stop and the second baseman letting the ball through the middle when a certain DP was setup?? The ump who said that Inge was not hit by the ball with the bases loaded I think Mr. Leyland has to take the blame here. The Tigers had a 7 game lead with 27 games to go on 9/7 and went 11-16 down the stretch. The Twins went 19-8 for the same period. The Tigers had 2 game lead with 3 to go and layed an egg winning only 1 of their last 4. Cabrera could take some blame, for the poor showing over the weekend, but he did his part today when needed, so lets that leave that one alone. JL probably pulled Porcello to early and left Miner in to long. He took out Maggs in 9th inning thereby removing a hot bat from the lineup...that wasn't the first time this happen this year. Tigers blew two leads today on shoddy pitching and defense. Gerald Laird???? Dude is fine behind the plate, but an absolute liability standing next to it....going 0 for 6 today and leaving countless runners on base. Inge did hit in what we thought was winning hit, when some guy name Kelly scored from first, and then almost got an RBI when he thought he was HBP, but the ump, who was more favorable to Porcello than the other pitchers ignored it. Otherwise Inge was as bad as Guillen as no one after Cabrera other than raburn could do a thing out there to clear the bases... I am thinking that Leyland retires gracefully over the winter if he is not fired before the end of this week. Oh by the way, does anybody need some Tiger 2009 division champs caps and t shirts??? The tigers got a whole box of them that will probably be shipped to American Somoa for those people over there that lost their belongings during the EQ... They shipped their champaign over to Twins lockeroom as the ice had melted last Friday....
Really bad strike call against Polanco. The hardest guy to strike out in the AL is at the plate with a runner at 3rd and no outs and he gets a called strike on a call 6 inches inside? Next iffy one was the double play. Looked like Grandy got back to the bag. And of course, the Inge jersey hit... although I think that rule is pretty weak. The amazing call was the out at home from Raburn's throw. I slowed their replay to a crawl on my DVR b/c I thought the ump blew the call. But he was literally out by an inch. He must have guessed right. Man do I hate the vibe of the Metrodome. Good thing they are getting out of there.
Grat points to ponder...but how about the management of the game...your thoughts on JL letting Laird hit with the bases loaded in the 12th when he had already stranded a total of 7 base runners....Avila was available and would have at least made Gardenhire blink again. Decision not to at least have granderson attempt a steal second in the top of the ninth when he was on 1st and Everette was on third with no outs. He had a chance to disrupt Nathan while he was pitching to Polanco who eventually struck out. How about subbing out Mags in the 10th which allows Clete Thomas to open the 12th with a fly out to center ....and the next two batters get on base. Do you think that Porcello despite giving the solo HR in the 6th inning deserved to be pulled?? He had the Twins befuddled and was only up to 90 pitches by then. I would have left in there thru the 8th at least especially since Miner gave up 4 hits the next inning...
There were a lot of bad calls on both sides. The Twins starting pitcher was squeezed pretty much the whole game whereas Porcello had a really liberal strike zone, I thought. If you want to get into the playoffs, you can't leave it up to the umps. Raburn said he lost that line drive in the lights, and I believe it. If you watch the replay, he had a beat on it the entire time until the last second. His glove was not in the right spot when the ball was coming in.
