the first Spazzosaurus of the year

image by Samara Pearlstein

To be fair, the Spazzosaurus is probably chewing on Ryan Raburn as much as he is chewing on Justin Verlander at the moment, but Verlander gets depicted because his error in this game was a worrying reminder of his previous spacetime-bending whatever-throw.

This time around, Ichiro was on second base and Verlander turned to throw a pickoff. Halfway through the motion it was like he changed his mind; he seemed to decide he didn’t want to throw it, but went ahead and half-heartedly threw it anyways. His feet weren’t really set properly. Of course the ball went sailing into center field and Ichiro went scampering away. It was a lesser version of his Derp to Homeplate.

So… what the heck? This whole ‘start to throw a ball, then have second thoughts in the middle of the throw and consequently toss the ball away in a comically wild manner’ thing was never a problem for Verlander before (I don’t think?). Why is it a problem now? What in the world is going on with Verlander?

It must be the Spazzosaurus. It is the only explanation that makes sense.

The thing is, when Verlander is striking guys out, on those actual strike-out pitches, he looks as dominant as ever. It’s all the stuff in between those strike-out pitches that causes problems. And in this game, there was a LOT of stuff between strike-out pitches: he had thrown 100 pitches through 5 innings. Efficiency is not usually Verlander’s strong point but this was over the top even for him. It’s great that he had 8 Ks and all, but I don’t really care when all the results surrounding the Ks are like tonight’s results.

blah blah blah

–Four errors for the Tigers here: Verlander’s pickoff, a semi-self-created bad hop on Brandon Inge, a throwing ehrror for Jhonny Peralta, and a badly fielded ball for Ryan Raburn (back at second). Two of these were at least somewhat debatable (the Inge and Peralta Es), but things are just not going to go well when a team is committing four errors in one night.

–Raburn with the E tonight, and a big strikeout. Last night, of course, he helped Miguel Olivo’s ball over the fence. He did also have a double today, but in general he’s looked like a total mess of late. I’m not saying Will Rhymes is necessarily the savior here, but… I mean, where’s Ramon Santiago, at least?

–There was a play at the beginning of the game where Chone Figgins was called out at home. He slid in and Alex Avila reached back to swipe at him. Replays showed that not only did Avila fail to tag him before he hit the plate, he failed to touch Figgins at all. His glove had sailed through the air. I guess he sold it well. The beard lends credibility and tricks umpires into trusting him.

–Eric Wedge’s mustache is totally out of control. I know he already has a very horizontal face, but the mustache is emphasizing it to a ridiculous degree.

–Miguel Olivo was batting. Verlander ran the count to 3-2. There were men on second and third, one out. Avila decided he wanted to talk about it and went out to the mound. Someone in the crowd very audibly yelled “He’s batting .184!!!”

–I was flipping back and forth between the Tigers game and the Red Sox game, which was interesting because while Verlander was busy struggling, Josh Beckett was also having some issues. Seeing two power ace-types (or recently former power ace-types, in Beckett’s case) both fail it up was confusing, and caused the two games to merge in my mind until I could no longer tell what I was watching at any given time. Didn’t really matter, though, because it was all bad.

–At one point Rod and Mario were talking about yoga. Mario said he had tried yoga once before, but “never again”. Rod went off on a tangent about hot yoga, then revealed that his wife does hot yoga and has informed him that when he gets back home, he too will be doing hot yoga. He has been sentenced to hot yoga. Mario seemed more horrified by this idea than Rod was.

Mario: “I found I needed to be IN shape just to do yoga, to get myself in shape.”

–Things can always be worse. It was snowing during the Twins game tonight.

Our old nemesis returns to feast.

image by Samara Pearlstein

This game would have been better if there had been a brawl. At least a brawl would have been entertaining. There is really nothing entertaining about watching Rick Porcello and half the bullpen melt down against the Yankees.

The Yankees scored 9 runs in the sixth inning. There is only one thing that can explain this, only one creature whose presence could have made such an epic disaster of baseball fail possible. You know.

My one real hope is that he gorged himself in this game. Nine runs in one inning… four Tigers pitchers in one inning… surely that was enough to fill his orange saurian belly. So maybe– just maybe– he will leave the Tigers alone for a bit now. That seems fair, right?

I will once again be missing the Friday and weekend games, so there won’t be any new posts until Monday. Will the Tigers be able to beat up on the Racist Logos, something that SHOULD be well within their meager abilities? Or will they be so demoralized, so off-tempo, so… so gnawed-upon… that they will fall before the admitted horror of an imported bit of Cleveland? You will have to watch and let me know.

Tigers split the double-header, try to send all fans to an early grave

photo illustration thing by Samara Pearlstein

I don’t think I am strong enough to handle this division race. I mean, Tuesday’s double header nearly did me in. I am but a frail blogger, plus I have a cold, ok, my constitution is weakened. Things like THE FIRST GAME OF A DOUBLE HEADER GOING INTO EXTRA INNINGS and WHATEVER THE HELL HAPPENED AT THE END OF THAT SECOND GAME are just not stresses that I can take right now.

I must admit that I did not watch the first game all that closely, so while the overall stress was high (division lead down to one! argh! gack! forehead stabby!), the specific stress was not quite so bad (with Porcello more or less cruising, I was doing other things and not paying such close attention to each and every pitch) until the very end. Unfortunately then it was VERY bad. I don’t know who the dude out there on the mound throwing multiple wild pitches was, but it wasn’t any Brandon Lyon that we know. Our Brandon Lyon wouldn’t do such a thing. I mean, duh, we all know that. So it must have been… hmm… actually, it only could have been…

You know how he operates. Sneaky jerk.

That second game, ugh. I WAS watching that one closely, and by the end I really did think I was going to end up gibbering on the ground in front of the TV, my tender little mind destroyed forevermore. I tried to take notes, they may better demonstrate the fragile state of my mind at the time.

Notes From the Conclusion of a Near-Deadly Ballgame

**One out in the 8th. Verlander well over 100 pitches. 121? That is TOO MANY PITCHES. But he is staying in. Men on first and second, tying man in the form of Joe Mauer at the plate. On the one hand I’m thinking, even without first base open, he may walk this guy. On the other hand, awww sh–t.

A wild pitch opens up first. He’s got to just walk him now, right? 2-0, tying man… Joe freakin’ MVP Mauer… right?

Shattered bat ground out to first, scores the run from third, 5-3. Man on third, two outs. Not the worst thing that could have happened under those circumstances, I guess, but still. Meep meep meep.

Kubel, next man up, doubles. 5-4. ASF;LKJASDFL;KJLKJKKDSFA;LJ. Tying run in scoring position, Verlander must be up to 250 pitches by now. Awwww jeez I can’t handle this game, I can’t handle it, I am going to vomit up my spleen oh my holy cats Jim Leyland went out there to talk to Verlander SURELY HE WAS GOING TO PULL HIM, NO, NO HE’S LEAVING HIM IN THERE BECAUSE HE DOESN’T LIKE BRINGING IN FERNANDO WITH MEN ON BASE OH JEEZ OH JEEZ HOLY CATS ARGH

Cuddyer up. TYING RUN IN SCORING POSITION I AM GOING TO CRY VOMIT OUT OF MY TEAR DUCTS, FOR SERIOUS, I AM SICK AND AND AND THIS IS STRESS I DO NOT NEED

Slow roller to third, Inge comes in onto the infield grass to field it, takes his time with the throw, Miggy scoops it at first, Cuddler out, inning over, Verlander escapes, I make a sort of wheezing squeak of relief, fan my forehead weakly. I need a paper towel and an alcoholic beverage.

It’s the bottom of the 8th and all I can think about is the fact that we’re going to be seeing Fernando here in the 9th. CURTIS GRANDERSON 30TH HOMER OF THE SEASON TO LEAD OFF THE BOTTOM OF THE 8TH, OH CURTIS, I LOVE YOU, YOU ARE SO PERFECT, YOU ARE THE LIGHT THAT MAKES THOSE KIDS FROM THE CORNERSTONE SCHOOL COMMERCIAL SHINE.

Leadoff man in the 9th, Fernando throws an 0-2 pitch, the ball bounces off the heel of Polanco’s glove. It looks like an error to me and Rod Allen, but the scorekeepers call it a single.

Jose Morales pinch hits. Fernando is wiping his forehead a lot, which he always does, but I also see him blow his nose to try to clear it once. Does he have a cold? I have a cold too, Fernando. See, I feel your pain! Let me take on some of your pain, so that you may pitch with a clearer head. He strikes Morales out with a high fastball.

One out, Matt Tolbert up, dude on first. He pops up… Polanco camps under it, catches it easily. Two outs.

Little Nicky Punto up. Crowd chanting ROD-NEE, ROD-NEE… ohhhhhh no, Punto pops it up to center, Granderson has it… misjudges it, the ball is just over him, son of a fat raccoon leadoff man scores, 6-5, Punto the tying run at second, Denard Span up, ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh the crowd needs to stop chanting, they are just making Fernando more mental-gidget-y, it is not what he needs ok he has enough problems on his own oh jeeeeeezzzzz.

Span pops up. To left. Raburn gets it. Magic number down to four, Tigers BARELY win, but win they do. Thank cats. Oh, thank cats.**

Then I stretched out on the couch and quietly died for a few minutes until I felt able to change the channel and watch the end of the Red Sox game go about the rest of my highly productive evening business.

Just a couple other thoughts from these two games:

–So FredFred and Verlander both appear to be trying to grow full beards (i.e. not just the goatee that Verlander always has). Late season rally beards? FredFred might just be trying to look older, which might actually kind of work because he’s so freakin’ tall. It won’t work on us, though. We know his wee-pitcher-ness too well to be fooled by facial hair.

–Rod broke out a MR. SNAPPY for Verlander in this one. He really did have the good fastball today, though. Good curveball too, lots of movement. Throwing in the high 90s when his pitch count was well over 100. If ‘pitching’ was a person that could be called sexy, instead of an amorphous concept consisting of a number of arm motions, physical effects on baseballs, and MLB regulations, I would say that Verlander’s pitching today was mostly very sexy.

–Wilkin Ramirez came in to pinch run for The River Thames in the bottom of the 7th in the second game, and got picked off first. Unacceptable for a dude who was put in the game solely for his baserunning abilities. He wasn’t even trying to steal at the time, he was just farting around over there. I know he’s just a tiger cub, and I know he probably got his rump roasted by Leyland after the game, but still, I feel the need to point it out with a sternly disapproving frown.

–Curtis Granderson homered in both games. Just sayin’.

Welcome back, Bondo! Er. Or not.

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

Well, I guess we know one creature who will be pleased with Bondo’s return outing.

I don’t know what I expected. Fewer homeruns probably would have been a nice place to start. I’m not trying to put undue pressure on Bondo or anything, but, you know… three homers in four innings. Kind of a lot. I’m just saying.

Bondo was coming off of eight days’ rest, which probably wasn’t such a hot idea. His velocity was down, which was at least expected; his fastball tonight was sitting in the high 80s/very low 90s, when it normally hovers in the low-to-mid 90s. Before the game even started he had talked about throwing more changeups, partly because everyone and their pot-bellied pig knew that his velocity still wasn’t up to par. Great idea, I thought. He’s always needed to diversify his pitch armament in the worst way and maybe this whole injury thing will finally force him to do so. And it makes sense to rely less on a fastball when you know your usual fastball speed won’t be there. Maybe he’ll struggle with a pitch he’s less comfortable throwing on a regular basis, but in general I approve of this plan.

Then he went ahead and threw a ton of fastballs during the actual game. Cue horror, dismay, destruction, buildings exploding, cars running off the roads, goats being born with eight legs, etc. All three homers came off of fastballs, for whatever it’s worth.

Possibly the bit about the increased reliance on changeups was an attempt to feed false information to the Wrong Sox. Maybe the Spazzosaurus had got a taste for changeups and Bondo felt like he had to throw fastballs to try to starve the beast out (a strategy that clearly did not work). Bondo has always had a bit of a problem with homeruns and it stands to reason that a slower-than-usual Bondo fastball would be even more likely to leave the ballpark on the wrong end of someone’s big stick, but this is a logical conclusion that seems to have escaped Bondo and/or Gerald Laird at the time.

The most embarrassing bit was the Scott Podsednik homer. We’re talking about a guy who has not slugged above .380 since he came to the Wrong Sox in ’05. Scott Podsednik and Power Hitting are not buddies. Power Hitting goes out to all the happenin’ clubs with the cool kids every night, and Scott Podsednik is sitting at home by himself trading Pokemons over the internet. He almost looked embarrassed while he was rounding the bases, like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself.

I mean, I was embarrassed, for Bondo as a pitcher, and for myself as a fan of Not The Wrong Sox.

It was at this point that I realized Bondo was not merely experiencing run-of-the-mill return struggles, but was in fact under Spazzosaurus attack. It’s a shame. With Dontrelle firmly grasped in the tiny claws of our vaguely saurian orange friend, we could really use a starting pitcher who is not so tasty right now. But Bondo has a lot of meat on his bones and a lot of spazz-energy in his brains; he is prime Spazzosaurus fodder at the moment.

Of course he can’t be held accountable for the rest of the game, wherein the offense decided that they had used up all their hits in the first game and they should make no efforts to find more. I suppose you can credit some of that to Jose Contreras, but since he’s been mostly terrible this season, the bulk of the blame goes to the Tigs. Bad kitties, bad!

But speaking of that first game… how ’bout it, eh? Arrrrmando looked catawful early but managed to give the team nearly 7 innings while keeping them reasonably in the game, which was a) so incredibly key, at the start of five games in four days, and b) so much more than we expected from him after that first inning.

Zumaya got the always annoying blown save + win after giving up a homer to Paul Konerko in the 8th. This is truly a statistical Worst, because Zoom managed to screw up and nearly blow the game (by allowing Konerko to tie the game), AND screwed Armando out of a win that should, in a just world, have been his.

At least there were some friggin’ hits in this game, though. Not a whole lot of power (the only Tigers homerun of the entire day was that River Thames blast in the 9th inning of the night game), but thanks to Brandon Inge and a bunch of Wrong Sox errors and even an RBI for the Pineapple, it was enough to make some temporarily victorious Cats.

The game was a little bittersweet, as we were treated to the disagreeable spectacle of two former Wolverines, playing for the Wrongest of Sox. I am speaking, of course, of Clayton Richard, who was the afternoon’s starting pitcher, and Chris Getz, who started at second in both games. I love to see Wolverines playing in the Majors, but it is rather painful to see them tarted up in Wrong Sox uniforms. A form of cognitive dissonance that I do NOT enjoy.

Speaking of college players… Tuesday is the Draft! For some sick reason they’ve expanded it to three days, with the first day being televised on the MLBN, starting at 6 pm. Because that second day wasn’t boring enough, see. The Tigers pick 9th (first round), 58th (second), 89th (third), and 120th (fourth)– beyond that, who knows. In any event they definitely don’t currently have any compensation/supplemental round picks, so WYSIWYG.

As Tuesday night’s game is not until 8, we should all have a little time to follow the Draft, if only to see how stupid MLBN’s broadcast inevitably will be.

Tigers welcome back their reptilian friend

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

Unbelievable. The second I return my attention to the Tigers, look who decides to mosey on over. By now we all know that the Spazzosaurus is with us always, usually just out of sight, waiting for his moment, but come on. This is a bit much.

Nate Robertson taking a relay throw off the thumb I could see, even though the team JUST told Zach Miner that he would no longer be competing for a starting spot. That brand of absurdity is typical for the Tigers these days. Adam Everett spraining his ankle I could see, even though he is still so new that I have not yet figured out a good way to render him in big-headed doodle form.

But… both at once? SPAZZOSAURUS, YOU WILY BEAST, I SEE YOUR CLAWMARKS ALL OVER THIS ONE.

Sigh.

Our pitching situation is still so up in the air that it is hard to say exactly what kind of impact Nate’s injury will have on the whole mess, if it ends up being an injury that actually has an impact. I don’t want to invoke The Porcello, but… well. Anyways, wouldn’t it be just perfect if this somehow jump-started Dontrelle into figuring himself out and he started pitching like a real big leaguer again? DARE TO DREAM!

If Everett is going to be hobbling around for any prolonged period of time, I expect that we’ll be enjoying a good amount of Ramon Santiago. Woohoo? At least it’s familiar?

This story also smacks vaguely of the Spazzosaurus, although I’m not precisely certain how. It just has that certain Spazzosaurus flavor about it, if you will.

Apparently the Detroit home opener is set to conflict with some particularly holy Good Friday hours. I am shocked and appalled. Clearly we cannot have a baseball game that clashes with an important religious date! I mean, how could anyone ask baseball players to be on the field during such a time? How could they ask fans to choose between their religious obligations and their baseball teams?

MLB would never, ever want to do such a thing. Of course not! That’s why there are never any baseball games on Yom Kippur, right?

The Tigers season is over. Let's cover it again… comic book style.

Why? More like WHY NOT!

Click the pages to see them bigger/more readable.

To be continued!

the Spazzosaurus makes friends with Gary Sheffield, Gary Sheffield makes fights happen for the Spazzosaurus

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

He’s baaaaaack!

This game featured a(nother) excellent start from Armando (had some time to rest up, I guess), TWO two-run homers for Miguel Cabrera The Most Majestic of Pumas, and a triple (!) from Ramon Santiago (!!). There was also a brawl. The Tigers lost the game on a walk-off after having been up 5-2 at one point, so we’re mostly going to talk about the hilarious fighting.

A fight summary, as near as I could make out from the Cleveland broadcast:

Sheffield got hit by a pitch. He stared on his way down to first. He stared and stared and stared. He also carried his bat aaaaallll the way from homeplate to first, where he eventually handed it off to the batboy. Apparently it’s more threatening to carry your bat with you. Carmona kind of eyed him as he went, but he was also wiping his nose a lot so it didn’t seem like a big deal.

It was pretty obvious that Sheff thought the pitch was intentional, and it seemed almost certain that the pitch was NOT intentional, but you cats know how Sheffield gets. He takes things personally. Very, very personally. He also has been extremely frustrated by this season, and one may assume that this frustration is only increasing as the season goes on.

The ridiculous/amusing thing here is that it did not look like there was going to be any kind of altercation following the HBP, because, aside from the staring and the bit with the posturing with the bat, Sheff took his base without complaint. It was only when Carmona threw a ball over to first to check on Sheff that the trouble began, because at that point Sheff gestured sweepingly towards the batter and vehemently invited Carmona to quit bollocksing around and throw home.

Carmona said something that looked an awful lot like, “Oh, you want a piece of me?” Steps were taken by both towards one another.

Sheff charged in, taking the low route and… well, let’s not put too fine a point on it, he head-butted Carmona in the stomach. If it was not already incredibly obvious that Sheffield was fully in the thrall of the Spazzosaurus and his feeding-on-spazz-energy feedback loop, it was made clear at the moment when Sheff’s cranium made contact with Carmona’s jersey.

Although this position may have been momentarily advantageous for Sheffield, it quickly began to work against him, as Carmona got him in a headlock and started punching him on the top of his head, all Nolan Ryan style (although he didn’t seem to be throwing punches nearly as hard as Nolan Ryan’s; these were sort of like extra vigorous noogies). The Cleveland broadcasters would later say that Sheffield’s nose was bleeding, but it was hard for me to tell whether or not that was actually the case on my small pixelly window of MLB.tv glory.

You can see Carmona and Sheffield locked in a Spazzosaurian dance in the middle there. The hatless blonde dude on the right is Brandon Inge, who leapt into action to tackle Victor Martinez to the ground… not, apparently, to beat up on him, but just to keep him temporarily down and out of the way.

Scrum scrum scrum! In the top screenshot you can see Rafael Perez with his jersey all verklempt. One of the coaches fixed it up for him like a mom, it was very sweet. In the bottom screenshot you can see Dusty Ryan (52) on the right trying to jump on top of the pile. He didn’t really get up there.

After he escaped from Inge, Victor Martinez had to be restrained by Miguel Cabrera. Miggy and Magglio actually were very dedicated to Stopping the Violence here, and basically spent the entire brawl running around holding people back dramatically and probably shouting things like, “Why can’t we all just get along?!” The Spazzosaurus, so giddy with the abundance of feasting materials before him, must have overlooked them in the buffet or something.

Carmona was at one point being restrained almost entirely by Tigers players – here he’s being held back by a highly concerned-looking Magglio and what I am pretty sure is Kenny Rogers. His own team did pull him back eventually…

…including this touching moment with Sal Fasano, who tried to calm Carmona down the only way catchers know: with lots of, well, touching. Carmona pressed his fist into Fasano’s stomach, not hard, just as a kind of ‘arrrgh I am so riled up man I cannot even express’ gesture, and Fasano held onto his wrist as if to say, ‘I know dude, I know, I’m here for you.’ With lots more swearing on the part of Carmona.

Sheffield was eventually forcibly restrained by coaches, led away, and later herded away from the dugout exits by Gene Lamont, who did not seem to be having as good a time as Gibby had back in ’05.

Sheffield, Polanco, Carmona and Martinez were all ejected. The Racist Logos went on to win in stupid ARRRGH BULLPEN fashion. Some pretty amazing postgame quotes from Sheff:

“There’s a point I get to where it’s hard to come back from,” Sheffield said. “And when I get to that point, they’re going to have to deal with me — today, tomorrow and the next day, until I get you.”
…
“He called me out,” Sheffield said. “If you call me out, I answer the call.”
…
“I’m trying to throw him to the ground,” Sheffield said of Carmona. “That way, I can see what’s coming at me. But when I’m throwing him to the ground, I’m getting punched in the back of the head.”

He eventually discovered who was punching him. After he was ejected, he went into the clubhouse and watched replays to find out.

“I saw the tape,” he said. “I know who they are. And I guarantee you, they’ll have to deal with me.”

Those replays also showed Sheffield landing a punch on Carmona once they collided.

“I got the one hand I needed to get in,” Sheffield said, “and I guarantee you he felt it.”
…
“If he wants to do something, charge right there [after the hit-by-pitch],” [Victor] Martinez said. “He didn’t say anything. Just shut your mouth and keep playing the game.”

Sheffield took particular issue with Martinez, especially once he started yelling.

“This guy, I don’t know how many years he has, but his act is tired,” Sheffield said, “all this macho [act], throwing the equipment off. … One thing I don’t like is when somebody’s talking and making a big scene and backing up. If you’re going to talk to me, be a man.”
Jason Beck/DetroitTigers.com

Gary Sheffield is a crazy man filled with crazy. And anger. And more crazy. He will certainly be issued a suspension, and I would assume the same for Carmona at least.

Now, here are my remaining big questions about this and other important Tigers matters.

What did Polanco do to get ejected?
I’m not really sure. I thought I saw him grappling a bit with Martinez at one point, but it kind of looked like he was restraining the guy, not trying to spike him in the spleen. Sheff, Carmona, and Martinez were all fairly obvious tossings… I guess there’s always one random in every brawl.

Where was Kyle Farnsworth?
This brawl was nowhere near as good as The Last Great Tigers Fight, and this is in a significant way attributable to the distinct lack of Kyle Farnsworth going crazy and beating the baseball out of some opposing player. We finally get the guy back on the team, we FINALLY have a brawl, and he’s a non-factor? No pile-drives? No unstoppable evasion of desperate coaches? No holding a dude down and punching his face until he looks like a hockey player? I am SORELY disappointed in you, Kyle.

Why are the Cleveland announcers so annoying?
Nowhere near as annoying as the Wrong Sox announcers, of course, but they were 128% convinced that Gary Sheffield was the root of all troubles in the world, that Fausto Carmona had done nothing wrong and was the most innocent victim in this entire thing, and other such homerisms. Sheff WAS the instigator, clearly, but come ON, Carmona was barking back at him and that’s what set him off in the end.

If he’d ignored Sheff then Sheff probably would have huffed and puffed and blown himself out, and after the game he would’ve made some overly generalized and vaguely racist comment about Latino players (again) and we all could’ve put this behind us without anyone getting so much as a jockstrap out of place.

Plus they kept saying, “That’s it! Thankyouverymuch!” whenever a Tigers pitcher was pulled, and it got obnoxious.

How sad is Armando right now?
Probably pretty sad. Poor guy bounced back from a couple of bad games and had himself another quality start, only to watch it overshadowed first by a bunch of men in spandex pants jumping on each other, and then overshadowed again by a bunch of men in spandex pants completely failing to hold a three-run lead. He pitched 7.2 innings and didn’t walk anyone and struck out five and got nothing for his troubles.

Will there be photos of rookie hazing?
THERE DAMN WELL BETTER BE. Granderson was in charge of outfits this season, and the following rookies were tormented with the following costumes:

Freddy Dolsi — French maid
Armando Galarraga — Cha Cha girl
Chris Lambert — Bridezilla
Clay Rapada — Female cop
Dusty Ryan — Caveman with a club
Dane Sardinha — Hercules
Jeff Larrish — She-devil
Matt Joyce — Neverland fairy
Curtis Granderson/ESPN.com blog

I would say that Sardinha and Dusty got off easy, but that really depends on whether or not their costumes include pants. Regardless: there had better be photos from someone, somewhere, and they had better be made available to the public. I’ve already seen/been traumatized by this year’s rookie hazing of the Red Sox and Padres kittens. The Tigers can’t fall down on the job.

The Race to .500!
is officially dead. With today’s loss there are NO SPARE LOSSES REMAINING and the Tigers are guaranteed to finish the season UNDER .500. Awesome. And by ‘awesome’ I mean ‘terrible’.

Saturday’s game is at 7:05 pm EDT, Justin Verlander vs. Jeremy Sowers. It will probably not be as entertaining as tonight’s game… unless Sheff is out there again and decides to exact the revenge he threatened in those quotes up above. You may want to watch for that. Go Tigers!

a Tigerlicious present for you

Since we had the offday Thursday, and Friday’s game doesn’t start until 10 pm, here’s a little something to tide you over: desktop images!

All of these wee images will take you to a 1024×768-sized version when you click them. I know this isn’t everyone’s computer desktop size– in fact it’s not even MY desktop size– but it’s a standard one, and I am lazy. These images are for you, the reader. Feel free to download them, use them for your computer desktops, print them out and hang them on your walls, share them with your friends and/or enemies, whatever. I only ask that you not post them around elsewhere on the internet without attribution. Yay? Yay.

That’s all for now. There will probably be more at some undetermined future point in time. Remember, Bo(v/n)ine/Maddux at 10 tonight, for all your hilarious pitching mismatch needs! Go Tigers!

From the Hastily and Sketchily Drawn Sketchbook: 6 possible reasons the Detroit Tigers are struggling

Oh my holy cats I don’t want to talk about it. I have already talked about it. I talked about it in the previous post. I have nothing more to say.

I have also found that the more the Tigs struggle and the more disgusted I get, the more I want to just write this entire blog in sarcastic LOLcat language. We’re heading there, folks. It may only be a matter of time. I CAN HAS ACTUAL BASE BALL TEEM?

So: sketchbook! 6 possible reasons the Detroit Tigers are struggling, rendered hastily and sketchily, for your viewing (dis)pleasure!

Possible Reason #1:

Baseball am too heavy 4 Kenny.

Possible Reason #2:

The second-hand smoke generated by Jim Leyland’s stress-smoking is choking the rest of the team to death.

Possible Reason #3:

Somehow, unbeknownst to the rest of us, Ugie has come back. And this time he means BUSINESS.

Possible Reason #4:

Miguel Cabrera’s weird beardlet/goatee…. THING has so horrified his teammates that they are unable to carry on with life and baseball.

Possible Reason #5:

Why no Japanese players??

Possible Reason #6:

Jordan Tata breaks his hand the stupid way

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein

Oh man, you know who I did NOT want to see in Spring Training? Huh? Can you guess? I’ll give you a hint: he’s orange, he makes his nests out of energy drink cans and discarded slinkies, and I don’t even have the patience for hinting right now so HE’S THE SPAZZOSAURUS.

But no, we have to meet up with the Spazzosaurus before it’s even FREAKING APRIL because Jordan Tata is a gigantic pile of IDIOCY and pathetically raging male hormones and went and BROKE HIS HAND PUNCHING A DOOR.

WAY TO BE THE NEW KYLE FARNSWORTH, TATA.

The Spazzosaurus is having a frelling FEAST on this one, because Tata’s injury is 100% spazz-out. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t an in-game injury. It wasn’t even like he got in a fight with someone else. He got pissed off because he’s been having a lousy spring, and he punched a door. Because the way to improve a lousy spring is to punch inanimate objects. Why couldn’t he have just THROWN SOMETHING FOR CATS’ SAKES?

Yeah, it’s his pitching hand. Of course it’s his pitching hand! WHY THE HELL WOULDN’T IT BE HIS PITCHING HAND, YOU KNOW, TO MAKE SURE THIS IS AS ASININE AN INJURY AS POSSIBLE.

Last I heard the estimate was about 6 weeks. Oh, and he said his shoulder was hurting him, which is why his pitching had been sucking raccoon nuts before this. Maybe putting him on forced rest for 6 weeks will benefit his shoulder in the long run. Probably not, though. With our luck he’ll come back in 6 weeks and his shoulder will need another month to get back up to playing ability, or the pain will be an infestation of parasitic worms that have taken up residence under his shoulderblade and will have eaten away most of his shoulder tendons before the team doctors find them.

The only people who can feel good about this are the Spazzosaurus and Joel Zumaya. The Spazzosaurus is obvious. Zoom can feel good because he’s no longer the most irritatingly irresponsible Tiger on the team.