On Wednesday morning I wrote about Tigers manager Jim Leyland saying he wasn't sure when he was going to use Joel Zumaya again. Going off of what he'd been seeing from Zoom while on the mound, Leyland felt that something had to be wrong with flame-throwing reliever.
Well maybe Jimmy should start up a psychic hotline, because it turns out his fears for Zumaya were dead on...
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While the Tigers learned something new about Gary Sheffield on Tuesday - that he hits really well when he's angry about being placed on waivers - they also saw something they've known about for a while. Their bullpen sucks. After Sheffield's two home runs helped get a lead for the Tigers, the Detroit bullpen came in and blew the game like they normally do.
Tuesday's goat was Joel Zumaya, who walked three Blue Jays and gave up the game-winning runs without recording an out, all to the chorus of boos from the hometown crowd. As a result, Jim Leyland doesn't plan on using Zumaya again anytime soon, but it's not because of his performance...
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The Tigers Gary Sheffield has been in the papers a bit lately thanks to some comments he made to the Boston Globe in recent days. In the article Sheffield says he'd be open to a trade if the Tigers felt like moving him was the right thing to do, and that he'd be happy to go somewhere else in hopes that he'd get to play in the field everyday and possibly win another World Series.
You see, Gary isn't that big a fan of his role as designated hitter...
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On Thursday afternoon the Detroit Tigers were about to start a four-game set with the Minnesota Twins that they were hoping would help get the team right back in the AL Central race. Well, three days later the Tigers are finishing up their series with Minnesota just trying to salvage a game.
After finally getting above .500, the Tigers have dropped three straight to Minnesota and are a game below again, 6.5 games behind the Twins for second place. What's made the last three losses even worse is the fact that they've all been one-run defeats. It's enough to make Jim Leyland's stomach hurt, and damn it, he wants yours to hurt too...
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Yesterday I wrote about Tigers manager Jim Leyland's complaints about the Tigers only having three days off every year for the All-Star break while other teams get four days of rest. To be more specific, The Black Lung said that the scheduling was "It's a joke. Silly is what it is. Not responsible."
The Lung also asked that his quotes be printed in BIG BOLD PRINT so that MLB would hear his complaints and hopefully do something about it. Well, they heard (or read) them, and they'd like Jim to know that they're not out to screw the Tigers...
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For a sports fan, baseball's All-Star break is generally the three dullest days of the year. Sure, there's the actual game and the home run derby that goes with it, but other than that, not much goes on in sports for three days. Well, unless you consider summer league basketball a must see event. For the players that don't make the team though, the days off are a blessing they can use to get some rest and try to remember their wife's name.
Of course, not everybody is happy with the time off, or at least not the amount they get anyway, as Jim Leyland isn't quite sure why the Tigers have only gotten three days off the last three years...
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Before the Detroit Tigers had their bi-weekly offensive explosion on Tuesday night against Seattle (one their bullpen did everything in their power to blow), manager Jim Leyland was asked about some comments made by former Tiger reliever Jason Grilli.
Grilli was traded earlier this season to the Rockies, and was recently asked by some reporters out there what he thought was going wrong back in Detroit, where the Tigers have failed to live up to expectations. Grilli's response was that he thought the Tigers hurt their team chemistry by bringing in new stars...
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Remember earlier this week when I told you about how happy playing in the outfield makes Gary Sheffield? How the grass looks greener, the air smells sweeter, the ball looks bigger, and life just seems better for Gary when he's not relegated to a role as a designated hitter. I hope Gary cherished those memories of chasing down fly balls, because he's not going to get the chance to do it too much in the near future.
The Black Lung has pulled the plug on the experiment...
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Now that we're about a quarter of the way into the season, it's a lot easier to start judging teams based on what we've seen from them and their performance. When the Tigers started the season 0-7, it was easy to say that they sucked, but really, we had no idea. We had to see them play a lot more before making that judgement.
Now that they're about 40 games into the season, you can make a lot more of an educated guess as to how things are going to work out in Detroit. You see that the offense is still struggling, particularly with runners in scoring position, and that the pitching is still inconsistent...
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When Jim Leyland announced a few weeks ago that he would be moving Miguel Cabrera from third to first base, not too many people were surprised. It's not exactly breaking news that Miguel isn't that good of a third baseman, and is probably better suited for first base.
Still, that doesn't mean the transition has been easy on Cabrera, so that's why Leyland was out there with him before yesterday's game helping him get acclimated...
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After the Tigers lost to the Twins on Saturday, manager Jim Leyland put out his cigarette and told the reporters around him that he would be making changes to his lineup for Sunday's game. Then Sunday came around, and The Black Lung turned in the same lineup card he'd been turning in all season. His team rewarded him for his faith by scoring six runs in the first inning off of Minnesota's Boof Bonser.
Then the Tigers bullpen reared it's ugly head...
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The way the Tigers have been playing this season, you knew it could only be a matter of time before manager Jim Leyland had seen enough and tore his team a new one. Leyland has never exactly been the type of manager to keep his feelings to himself or coddle his players, so it was obvious that he was going to reach a breaking point if the Tigers continued to play as horribly as they have, and that breaking point was after the Tigers' 11-0 loss to the White Sox on Sunday that saw them drop to 2-10.
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While there are a quite a few different reasons for the Detroit Tigers 1-8 start to the season, manager Jim Leyland knows what area of the team needs to improve the most if the Tigers are going to dig themselves out of an early grave. Sure, the lineup isn't producing much at all at the moment, but it's only a matter of time before the Tigers start to hit.
The problem lies in the pitching staff, and it's not just the bullpen...
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| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas |  4 |
| 2 | Alabama | -- |
| 3 | Penn State | 3 |
| 4 | Southern Cal | 4 |
| 5 | Texas Tech | 2 |
| 6 | Oklahoma State | 5 |
| 7 | Oklahoma |  6 |
| 8 | Florida | 6 |
| 9 | Brigham Young | -- |
| 10 | Missouri | 6 |
| 11 | Utah | 2 |
| 12 | Boise State | -- |
| 13 | LSU | 10 |
| 14 | Ohio State | 1 |
| 15 | Kansas | 1 |
| 16 | Georgia | 1 |
| 17 | South Florida | 1 |
| 18 | North Carolina | 2 |
| 19 | Tulsa | -- |
| 20 | Wake Forest | 3 |
| 21 | Ball State | 1 |
| 22 | Michigan State | 2 |
| 23 | Vanderbilt | 13 |
| 24 | California | 2 |
| 25 | Virginia Tech | -- |
