photo by Samara Pearlstein
Excellent game. Miller was shaky early, but it looks like Glavine was shakier overall. How many 22 year old kids get to say that they went up against Tom freakin’ Glavine, and outdueled him? Granted, 4 runs in 5.1 innings isn’t too great, but it’s loads better than 9 runs in 4.1 innings, which is what Glavine managed. Big pat on the back for Miller. He earned every swing of that offense explosion today.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that some TV station somewhere is a bunch of jerks (I think I need to blame FOX for this one, right?), I didn’t get to actually SEE the game. Since I therefore don’t have much more to say about it, today’s a good time for some more pug marks.
pug mark 1
Brandon Inge should break his toe more often.
Since his return from the injury (which he is playing through), Inge has been 6-for-17 with a home run, a double, and 5 RBI, all for a line of .353/.450/.588. For comparison, in the 5 games before his injury, he was 3-for-17 with 1 double, no home runs, and no RBI.
Either Brandon Inge is a secret masochist and the pain is helping him hit, or the pain meds are making him feel just fiiiine and groovy up there at the plate.
pug mark 2
JUSTICE MUST BE DONE!
It’s coming up on that time of the year again. Yes, All Star voting time. Now, the world is used to seeing the All Star game smothered in an excess of Yankee bile, but usually the Yankees involved have SOME claim to the position. This year, however, we are seeing a crime perpetrated right before our very eyes.
Placido Polanco, who is superior to Robinson Cano in pretty much every way, is trailing him in the All Star voting standings, due only to the fact that Cano is swaddled in pinstripes. Quo Vadimus, a Detroit blog, has a Campaign for Righteousness, telling people to go to the polls and vote for Polanco.
A vote for Placido Polanco is a vote for freedom!! JOIN US IN OUR GLORIOUS CRUSADE. Unlike religious crusades, you can happily engage in this one, secure in the knowledge that you are ACTUALLY, PROVABLY IN THE RIGHT.
pug mark 3
The plans to demolish Tiger Stadium have been OKed. Nominally OKed. This is Detroit, after all, and we all know how efficient Detroit is when it comes to getting things done. Especially when it comes to buildings.
Big Al wants the city to just get on with it already. I agree with him that I think the place is beyond ‘saving’ at this rather late date. I am a bit more nostalgic for it than him, though. This probably has something to do with my constant exposure to Fenway Park.
pug mark 4
Kenny Rogers had a promising rehab start. Woo. Miller’s start today may have worked out alright in the end, but I wouldn’t like to rely on the offense that heavily again, you know? I’d be happy to get Kenny back sooner rather than later. Uh. Obviously.
Curiously enough, one of the only triple-Aers to get any hits off of Rogers in 3.2 innings was former Pirate and briefly former Toledo Mudhen Tike Redman.
pug mark 5
Is there anything worse than losing a no-hitter with two outs in the 9th? And having that one hit account for the one run that means you lose the game? I would say no.
Alas for me and all Michigan fans, because that’s what happened to Zach Putnam and the Wolverines yesterday. The link is to my write-up of it over at my other blog; it was traumatizing enough that I’m not keen to get into it a second time over here. Sniffle, sob, etc. We knock off the #1 team in the country, Vanderbilt, and then get stuck with last year’s national champions. Someone up there really wants us to suffer.
Game 2, which is now a possible elimination game, is at 4 pm PST (7 EST) on, I think, ESPN2. So if you’re keen on watching it, there y’go.
pug mark 6
I was going to link one of the analytical pieces over at Tiger Tales here, but then I couldn’t decide which one to link. There’s the most recent Run Preventing Events post…. there’s a good post about Bondo (almost) leading the universe in Fielding Independent Pitching… there’s a nice little concise prospect report. Just go check Lee’s stuff out if you’re into baseball analysis and Deep Thought and all those things you’re less likely to get ’round here.
pug mark 7
If you have ever expended one tiny bit more thought on baseball mascots than they deserved, you should read my insane rant on the subject. I have very strong feelings about mascots, OK? And some of them are just… well, they deserve strong feelings. I’ll give Paws credit, though… he’s moved up some in my estimation with his new, less mothy suit this season.
pug mark 8
This is kind of hilariously recursive… I’m linking to Mack Ave. Tigers’ version of a pug marks post. LOL INTERNET. But it’s worth it, because Kurt goes into who he likes and dislikes in the bullpen before he gets to the links, and I mostly agree with him. Except I would say that instead of “sorta disliking” Fernando, I “hate and mistrust” Fernando, and I’m much higher on Ledezma than he is.
Roar of the Tigers 
Hi Samara. I vant just to tell you:
1. Al Kaline’s grandson drafted by Tigs!!!!! happy yes!!
2. Zoomy is out for the whole season, Leyland told the Freep on Sunday. Samara, I will die now because of this. May I please send to Zoom-Zoom (via PO Mail) a copy of your “Ode to The Zumaya” , so beautifuly written whilst we were all in the throes of great Sturm und Drang because of our beloved’s injury last season? This is too unbearable!! I know that the Zoomyman would love to read that. I have a feeling that he won’t know (or care) who William Blake was. Just as I cannot hurl a baseball at 100 MPH, but merely fling it about 15 feet. I call it my Limp-wristed breaking ball.
Have you read My Most Adored Tiger’s ESPN blog at all? Well, you know that it is***Mr.” Long,Tall, Handle-that-Ball, High Socks & All, Old-School-Playin’, Ladie’s-Heart’s-Breaking” Curtis J Granderson, #28***, CF and AL 3B leader, thank
you. I was soooo shocked and dismayed and confused. I could barely walk away from the computer, oy I was terribly discombobulated. The blog title from 6/11/07 was…it was..my god…Marriage Proposals. Now WTF is that???? And the way he posted was wierd. Jeez, man! ilovehim
4.Placido. Your latest turn of the poetic pen was the ultimate of Samara style and greatness. Placido is truly an unusually large-headed man, and I think that God made him mostly bald so that we could all better enjoy the interesting aspect. Like with Carlos’ ears. Snoods must be hard to find in the Placido range. 5.The All-Star ballot is an OUTRAGE this year. I hate the younkees with every little piece of my heart and why the hell did Senor el Batardo sin Clase have his name on the ballot instead of Curtis? WTF with that?? We already have the beautiful, softspoken, squinting Magglio. We don’t need no f*****g Scary ex-Yankee here.
6. Don’t you love how Maggs like squints, kind of like he’s nearsighted, like blinking and doing the Bewitched thing with his nose, when he’s at the plate?
6. Why. Why has that narrow-minded, large-mouthed uneducated ex-yankorg passed our long-haired Venezuelan batting hero in HRs? That makes me sick. But now, a sickness can overtake us all, because Aclod is 1st for HRs.
7. A little more Magglio. Stats for last Sunday, no Shcumfield leads or even top ten except HRs. Our Maggs: SLG% .665, BA .366, both #1. HRs 13, 6th in AL. RBIs 54, 2nd in AL. Hair, best in AL. Ass too.
8. I think that Grady Sizemore should just go away. I never even heard of him until some obviously poorly informed news guy asked poor Curtis how he felt about being called The Next Grady Sizemore. And I’m like, who the hell is that? And then Sizesmall says ….you get the picture. Like he’s been AROUND, man. “Oh, yeah. Granderson. It’s nice to see him having a good season this year”. Excuse me, Mr. I didn’t even bother going to college, Mr. I look like a beanpole who is really a vampire that plays baseball somehow. (probably sucked Yankee blood all winter ha!!) Maybe his childhood, not that he seems to have outgrown it, hero was…Derek Jeter!
9. FLASH!! Breaking go out and get you some news! Derek Jeter has his own line of men’s toiletries by…ha! AVON!! Yes! And this line of toilet products is called…DRIVEN.
I know it is true, I read it in the Sunday Detroit Free Press.
Thank you for allowing me the space to rant. I love being able to share my deepest Tiger Feelings with people who, while they may find my posts too long and bizarre (someone must like to read them, though, right?), at least understand the necessity
of getting them out!
Byrdie
Wow, that was some rant, Byrdie… I know I’m probably in the minority, because most folks just love, love, love C-Mo’s “clutchiness”, but if the idea was that Sheff had to replace one of our OF’s on the ballot because of the whole NL-park-no-DH thing, I’d have preferred to have Sheff, Curtis & Magglio on the ballot. Leave C-Mo and his stinky OBPs (the last 3 years — you can look it up — plus this one go like this: 337, 322, 301, 296) off. Not to say that having C-Mo, who can play CF in a pinch, patrolling the several thousand acres known as left field in Comerica doesn’t have his uses, because he does. But All-Star material he is not. Curtis certainly showed the potential last year and is living up to it now.