Injuries+Fatigue= 4-9 in last 13 games.
By Kyle Bauer
The Tigers are in the midst of their worst slump of the season where they look as though they’re a last place team and not currently a head in their division by a half game. Thank goodness Cleveland has been slumping just as hard over the past 12 games as it seems both teams are waiting for the Twins to go on some rampage and snatch the AL Central from both of them ala last season.
Is there cause for panic? Yes there is. The reasons why are some of the things that I laid out in my previous blog; lack of clutch hitting, depressing bullpen but there’s been more alarming problems such as injuries and our rotation coming into every game looking fatigued. It hasn’t helped that the Tigers offense, the one crutch this team seemed to have has sunk and its not due to lack of skill but lack of effort.
The Oakland A's and Anaheim or LA or wherever they’re from Angels both have good pitching staffs but the Tigers caught Jared Weaver, who they’ve always touched up and then being shut down by Dallas Braden. These are pitchers you would expect the Tigers could take batting practice off of and really I believe other than Haren there’s no reason why they should had been shut down such as they were. I’m seeing apathy, I’m seeing this team not take the bat off of their shoulders, chasing balls in the dirt, check swings, not being able to hit any breaking balls. Magglio, Polanco and Granderson are the only 3 batters that have remained to get good swings and quality at bats on a consistent basis.
Of course injuries have hampered this offense almost as much as the pitching staff. Sheffield doesn’t have any feeling in his right arm and I’m guessing its some kind of nerve damage. Arguably Shef is the mvp of this ball club. Not only has it been his power but his speed to get extra base hits and lead this team in runs and stolen bases. When he’s not on the bags it takes away run and small ball potential that you need when you’re struggling at the plate and on the mound to inch out ball games.
I’m positive that Carlos Guillen is playing around 50% right now. There is a reason why the only deadline deal the Tigers even came close to making was for Pirates SS Jack Wilson. He’s has both knee and hamstring problems through out the year that hasn’t had time to heal because this team hasn’t has an adequate infielder to replace him. This has effected him at the plate causing his power to drop off and for him to take more cautious swings. If he does make contact it may end up being a matter of inches of him beating out a deep infield ground ball or stretching a single into scoring position. A more unconventional thought is that his injuries maybe causing him to play a more conservative, thoughtful SS, possibly leading to his 20 errors this season.
Marcus Thames is probably the most missed Tiger next to Zumaya. With Craig Monroe continuing to struggle, so in his head that he may never have a good at bat in his career again, I think even Thames .250 average is prayed for. Left field has became a hole hard to fill and so has Thames spot in the order. Marcus could be coming back in another week or 2 but this is a power hitter with a hamstring problem that may nag him for the rest of the year. Hamstring injuries are murder to power hitters, we seen it last year with Magglio and this year with Guillen. Thames wont be able to drive off of that back leg and transfer his power properly. When he comes back he may not be the same power menace and instead similar to Monroe, hitting weak pop ups to shallow left field. We can only hope he comes back and come back strong because his overall impact on the line up is huge with Monroe’s struggles.
Monroe really bothers me. He has the potential to be a .260 to .280 hitter with 30 to 40 homeruns and 100+ rbis. Mechanically, Monroe has always had a garbage swing. He pulls way off the ball taking over half the plate away from him. Any right handers can easily shut him down, which isn’t good because you face mostly right handers and a .191 average doesn’t cut it. He swings under many pitchers causing him to weakly pop up too. Right now he has a 5 game hitting streak but the quality of hits have a been questionably and untimely. Hopefully stringing together some bloop hits will give him confidence, which is another important trait he’s lacking, and he'll start driving or at least in his case turning on the ball. He has the potential and I’m sure he knows what he’s doing wrong. I thought a couple weeks ago that the Tigers could risk dealing Thames in a blockbuster figuring that Monroe was worth gambling on and he hasn’t been since, doesn’t look like he will be anytime soon, can only hope though because I’m rooting for him personally and I think many Tigers fans are.
I guess we'll find out if Dave Dombrowski’s strategy to stand pat at the trade deadline was a good one or not, in a month or so. We can speculate and criticize now though. Seeing that this bullpen has now lost 20 games I don’t like the idea of the Tigers pinning their hopes on an injured Joel Zumaya whose velocity may not be back up to the same level this year. With his injury it hurts his grip on the ball, which not only will hurt control on his pitches, especially his change up but cause him to take some off of his fast ball because he cannot have that snap, that’s how he strained the finger in the first place.
Fernando Rodney has looked decent in his rehab outings down in Toledo but I wouldn’t trust a guy who I still believe has a mental block fallowing his game 4 World Series melt down and had confidence problems before hand. His control has struggled which has caused him to press, go away from his change up and serve many fastballs that turn into either doubles or 400 foot homeruns.
I’ve exhausted the options and how I thought the Tigers could had bargained for a midlevel set up man like Jon Rauch from Washington or Ryan Franklin from St.Louis. These were guys that weren’t better than Zumaya or Rodney but better than Grilli, Seay, Byrdak, McBride and Cappelan and that’s all I believe we needed. Apparently, every team asked for the deal breaker Cameron Maybin which I didn’t figure because other GMs should know that he’s a dead end. With the rest of the Tigers farm system available including Dallas Trehen, Virgil Vaquez, Jar Jurjjins and guys who have been up with the Tigers frequently like Ryan Raburn and Mike Hessman, teams only wanted one man and it was Maybin.
Hopefully Rodney comes back to his 2006 form, so does Zumaya, if so this team will likely be fine. Maybin will turn out to be the 5 tool stud we keep hearing about and he'll carry this franchise a long with Verlander, Miller and Granderson for several years to come. Same could be said with Trehan and Vasquez. If that’s the case, then I guess I wont be mad that the Tigers didn’t make a move at the deadline. Hopefully it all comes into place.
To resolve the bullpen and injury problem the Tigers do have a couple more options to take a shot at. Virgil Vasquez and Jordan Tata have shown somewhat promising stuff. While Rogers is injured, Vasquez will probably get another start or 2 and maybe Tata should stay up with the club and come out of the bullpen, such as he did in 8 appearances last year. He’s young, inexperienced but if the problems continue and Rodney and Zumaya continue to hit road bumps in their rehab, I think the Tigers should go to him. How much worse could it get, so I don’t think giving Tata a shot in the 7th or 8th inning would hurt and who knows he might fill that gap the Tigers so desperately need filled. The downside to this option is that I’m not sure how what type of roster options Tata and Vasquez have, remember Miner is on bereavement due to family issues. There’s a good chance one of these guys, if not both will have to be sent down. If they do have minor league options and can stay up, I would like to see this experiment.
The last option is waivers but right now the only player that I know of likely to go on waivers that the Tigers are interested in is the afore mentioned Jack Wilson and he’s a SS, maybe he can pitch but I don’t know, probably don’t want to. With waivers, look for older guys on teams that need to dump salary. The Pirates are looking to dump Wilson because of his large contract and they may release set up man Shawn Chacon for the same reason. He's an older righty with a 1.38 WHIP but a 3.84 ERA and 3 blown saves in 4 blown save opportunities. He has a good strikeout to walk ratio at 47 to 27 but he would be a desperate grab, only if Rodney were continue to struggle. I’m not even sure if either of these guys will be dumped, waivers are anyone’s guess but you know the criteria, just keep aware because I see the Tigers picking up a back up infielder, left handed bat or another reliever.
Hopefully the Tigers will pull out of this but if they’re going to, they need to get healthy. Rodney, Zumaya, Guillen, Thames, Rogers, Robertson (who I believe has a sore elbow and will be back on the dl soon) and Sheffiled all need to be healthy for this team to make it deep but we'll see that’s just fate. The day off will be good but they have a crucial stretch against the White Sox, Devil Rays, which will be tricky and then the 2 biggest series of the season with Cleveland and the damn Yankees. I don’t think the Tigers will be healthy enough to be the real Tigers against these teams and it will hurt them.
The Tigers did go into a slump similar to this last season, spurred to a horrible, error filled raod trip in Minnesota, Boston and Chicago. They lost a 10 game division lead but hey the still got the wildcard and the rest is history. The difference this year? Last year only Polanco was injured, this year half the team is. We only have a 1 game lead to blow and much higher expectations.
You can hear more of my opinions every Tuesday 2 to 3 pm with Corey and Brad. Also occasionally on Wednesdays 5 to 6 pm with Corey , Brad and Kyle Horner
The Tigers are in the midst of their worst slump of the season where they look as though they’re a last place team and not currently a head in their division by a half game. Thank goodness Cleveland has been slumping just as hard over the past 12 games as it seems both teams are waiting for the Twins to go on some rampage and snatch the AL Central from both of them ala last season.
Is there cause for panic? Yes there is. The reasons why are some of the things that I laid out in my previous blog; lack of clutch hitting, depressing bullpen but there’s been more alarming problems such as injuries and our rotation coming into every game looking fatigued. It hasn’t helped that the Tigers offense, the one crutch this team seemed to have has sunk and its not due to lack of skill but lack of effort.
The Oakland A's and Anaheim or LA or wherever they’re from Angels both have good pitching staffs but the Tigers caught Jared Weaver, who they’ve always touched up and then being shut down by Dallas Braden. These are pitchers you would expect the Tigers could take batting practice off of and really I believe other than Haren there’s no reason why they should had been shut down such as they were. I’m seeing apathy, I’m seeing this team not take the bat off of their shoulders, chasing balls in the dirt, check swings, not being able to hit any breaking balls. Magglio, Polanco and Granderson are the only 3 batters that have remained to get good swings and quality at bats on a consistent basis.
Of course injuries have hampered this offense almost as much as the pitching staff. Sheffield doesn’t have any feeling in his right arm and I’m guessing its some kind of nerve damage. Arguably Shef is the mvp of this ball club. Not only has it been his power but his speed to get extra base hits and lead this team in runs and stolen bases. When he’s not on the bags it takes away run and small ball potential that you need when you’re struggling at the plate and on the mound to inch out ball games.
I’m positive that Carlos Guillen is playing around 50% right now. There is a reason why the only deadline deal the Tigers even came close to making was for Pirates SS Jack Wilson. He’s has both knee and hamstring problems through out the year that hasn’t had time to heal because this team hasn’t has an adequate infielder to replace him. This has effected him at the plate causing his power to drop off and for him to take more cautious swings. If he does make contact it may end up being a matter of inches of him beating out a deep infield ground ball or stretching a single into scoring position. A more unconventional thought is that his injuries maybe causing him to play a more conservative, thoughtful SS, possibly leading to his 20 errors this season.
Marcus Thames is probably the most missed Tiger next to Zumaya. With Craig Monroe continuing to struggle, so in his head that he may never have a good at bat in his career again, I think even Thames .250 average is prayed for. Left field has became a hole hard to fill and so has Thames spot in the order. Marcus could be coming back in another week or 2 but this is a power hitter with a hamstring problem that may nag him for the rest of the year. Hamstring injuries are murder to power hitters, we seen it last year with Magglio and this year with Guillen. Thames wont be able to drive off of that back leg and transfer his power properly. When he comes back he may not be the same power menace and instead similar to Monroe, hitting weak pop ups to shallow left field. We can only hope he comes back and come back strong because his overall impact on the line up is huge with Monroe’s struggles.
Monroe really bothers me. He has the potential to be a .260 to .280 hitter with 30 to 40 homeruns and 100+ rbis. Mechanically, Monroe has always had a garbage swing. He pulls way off the ball taking over half the plate away from him. Any right handers can easily shut him down, which isn’t good because you face mostly right handers and a .191 average doesn’t cut it. He swings under many pitchers causing him to weakly pop up too. Right now he has a 5 game hitting streak but the quality of hits have a been questionably and untimely. Hopefully stringing together some bloop hits will give him confidence, which is another important trait he’s lacking, and he'll start driving or at least in his case turning on the ball. He has the potential and I’m sure he knows what he’s doing wrong. I thought a couple weeks ago that the Tigers could risk dealing Thames in a blockbuster figuring that Monroe was worth gambling on and he hasn’t been since, doesn’t look like he will be anytime soon, can only hope though because I’m rooting for him personally and I think many Tigers fans are.
I guess we'll find out if Dave Dombrowski’s strategy to stand pat at the trade deadline was a good one or not, in a month or so. We can speculate and criticize now though. Seeing that this bullpen has now lost 20 games I don’t like the idea of the Tigers pinning their hopes on an injured Joel Zumaya whose velocity may not be back up to the same level this year. With his injury it hurts his grip on the ball, which not only will hurt control on his pitches, especially his change up but cause him to take some off of his fast ball because he cannot have that snap, that’s how he strained the finger in the first place.
Fernando Rodney has looked decent in his rehab outings down in Toledo but I wouldn’t trust a guy who I still believe has a mental block fallowing his game 4 World Series melt down and had confidence problems before hand. His control has struggled which has caused him to press, go away from his change up and serve many fastballs that turn into either doubles or 400 foot homeruns.
I’ve exhausted the options and how I thought the Tigers could had bargained for a midlevel set up man like Jon Rauch from Washington or Ryan Franklin from St.Louis. These were guys that weren’t better than Zumaya or Rodney but better than Grilli, Seay, Byrdak, McBride and Cappelan and that’s all I believe we needed. Apparently, every team asked for the deal breaker Cameron Maybin which I didn’t figure because other GMs should know that he’s a dead end. With the rest of the Tigers farm system available including Dallas Trehen, Virgil Vaquez, Jar Jurjjins and guys who have been up with the Tigers frequently like Ryan Raburn and Mike Hessman, teams only wanted one man and it was Maybin.
Hopefully Rodney comes back to his 2006 form, so does Zumaya, if so this team will likely be fine. Maybin will turn out to be the 5 tool stud we keep hearing about and he'll carry this franchise a long with Verlander, Miller and Granderson for several years to come. Same could be said with Trehan and Vasquez. If that’s the case, then I guess I wont be mad that the Tigers didn’t make a move at the deadline. Hopefully it all comes into place.
To resolve the bullpen and injury problem the Tigers do have a couple more options to take a shot at. Virgil Vasquez and Jordan Tata have shown somewhat promising stuff. While Rogers is injured, Vasquez will probably get another start or 2 and maybe Tata should stay up with the club and come out of the bullpen, such as he did in 8 appearances last year. He’s young, inexperienced but if the problems continue and Rodney and Zumaya continue to hit road bumps in their rehab, I think the Tigers should go to him. How much worse could it get, so I don’t think giving Tata a shot in the 7th or 8th inning would hurt and who knows he might fill that gap the Tigers so desperately need filled. The downside to this option is that I’m not sure how what type of roster options Tata and Vasquez have, remember Miner is on bereavement due to family issues. There’s a good chance one of these guys, if not both will have to be sent down. If they do have minor league options and can stay up, I would like to see this experiment.
The last option is waivers but right now the only player that I know of likely to go on waivers that the Tigers are interested in is the afore mentioned Jack Wilson and he’s a SS, maybe he can pitch but I don’t know, probably don’t want to. With waivers, look for older guys on teams that need to dump salary. The Pirates are looking to dump Wilson because of his large contract and they may release set up man Shawn Chacon for the same reason. He's an older righty with a 1.38 WHIP but a 3.84 ERA and 3 blown saves in 4 blown save opportunities. He has a good strikeout to walk ratio at 47 to 27 but he would be a desperate grab, only if Rodney were continue to struggle. I’m not even sure if either of these guys will be dumped, waivers are anyone’s guess but you know the criteria, just keep aware because I see the Tigers picking up a back up infielder, left handed bat or another reliever.
Hopefully the Tigers will pull out of this but if they’re going to, they need to get healthy. Rodney, Zumaya, Guillen, Thames, Rogers, Robertson (who I believe has a sore elbow and will be back on the dl soon) and Sheffiled all need to be healthy for this team to make it deep but we'll see that’s just fate. The day off will be good but they have a crucial stretch against the White Sox, Devil Rays, which will be tricky and then the 2 biggest series of the season with Cleveland and the damn Yankees. I don’t think the Tigers will be healthy enough to be the real Tigers against these teams and it will hurt them.
The Tigers did go into a slump similar to this last season, spurred to a horrible, error filled raod trip in Minnesota, Boston and Chicago. They lost a 10 game division lead but hey the still got the wildcard and the rest is history. The difference this year? Last year only Polanco was injured, this year half the team is. We only have a 1 game lead to blow and much higher expectations.
You can hear more of my opinions every Tuesday 2 to 3 pm with Corey and Brad. Also occasionally on Wednesdays 5 to 6 pm with Corey , Brad and Kyle Horner
posted by Kyle Bauer at 1:39 AM
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