How Was The Game? (April 23, 2015)
An evening out.
Yankees 2, Tigers 1
After a rocking 6-0 start, the Tigers are now 5-5 in their last 10 after falling to the Yankees on Thursday. While the record is starting to normalize, the big positive today was that Anibal Sanchez (4 GS, 22.2 IP, 5.96 ERA, 4.79) looked much more like himself. The Tigers couldn’t get a ton going offensively and when they did, they couldn’t cash in the big runs. After an awful pitching display on Wednesday, that part of the roster did their job when the bats didn’t. The club will welcome the Indians to town behind Shane Greene (3 GS, 23 IP, 0.39 ERA, 2.76 FIP) on Friday.
The Moment: VMart knocks in Gose in the 1st.
How Was The Game? (April 22, 2015)
Bad, and it should feel bad.
Yankees 13, Tigers 4
So this was a giant mess. David Price (4 GS, 24.2 IP, 3.28 ERA, 2.91 FIP) couldn’t get a grip on the ball and was wild and got rocked from the start. After a six run 1st, all looked lost, but the Tigers bats actually rallied back for four in the bottom half to make it a ballgame. Unfortunately, the Yanks grabbed two more in the 2nd and kept adding on against the hapless Tiger pen. The weather was a mess, the pitching was poor, and the defense was suspect. You can’t hate the offensive output overall, but after applying pressure early they failed to close as the game wore on. Let’s all agree to forget this one and turn around for Anibal Sanchez (3 GS, 16.1 IP, 7.71 ERA, 5.71 FIP) Thursday afternoon.
The Moment: The Tigers grab four in the 1st to give the team some early hope.
Revisiting James McCann Catching Jacoby Ellsbury
If you happen to follow along with me on Twitter, you’re no stranger to my commentary on great catching. I grew up catching, so while you couldn’t classify me as “naturally talented,” I’m a student of the craft. And James McCann put together a dandy on Monday. Here’s me reacting live.
And here’s the throw live:
Notice a couple things. First, Gardner is bluffing the bunt which keeps McCann back. Second, it’s not a great pitch to throw on because it’s low. Third, watch how quickly McCann unloads this throw while keeping it right on the money. You couldn’t hand that ball to Kinsler in a better location.
But that’s not all. The base runner is Jacoby Ellsbury and Ellsbury is one of the best base runners of his era. He’s added 30 runs just via stolen bases in his career and another 10 runs doing other good base running stuff. From 2013-2014, he was worth about 2 WAR in base running alone. And you can see it in the little box in the corner, he got a good jump.
Another angle, tells the story. It wasn’t the best jump in the history of baseball, but he’s off and running and gets to top speed quickly. When McCann gets the ball, Ellsbury is about halfway to second.
I’m an Avila fan, but James McCann isn’t to be trifled with.
How Was The Game? (April 21, 2015)
The downside.
Yankees 5, Tigers 2
The Tigers got a nice start from Kyle Lobstein (2 GS, 11 IP, 3.27 ERA, 3.57 FIP) who offered six innings of one run baseball, but Eovaldi danced into and out of problem, holding the Tigers to just a single run as well. The difference in this game were the bullpens, as the Yankees shut the Tigers down and the Tigers, by way of Krol, Gorzelanny, Alburquerque, and Hardy allowed four runs in three innings of work on dingers and walks and all sorts of bullpen nonsense. The Tigers had their chances but bounced into a few double plays along the way, but they really turned the heat up in the 9th, loading the bases and pushing across a run before Iglesias finally struck out, sending them to loss number three. They’ll give the ball to their ace, David Price (3 GS, 22.1 IP, 0.40 ERA, 2.48 FIP), on Wednesday evening.
The Moment: Tigers load them up in the 9th to make it interesting.
How Was The Game? (April 20, 2015)
Flashy.
Tigers 2, Yankees 1
Alfredo Simon (3 GS 20.2 IP, 1.74 ERA, 2.91 FIP) surrendered an early home run, but he settled in well after Teix took him deep and wound up pitching into the 8th inning. The Tigers bats were slow to develop, but they only needed a pair of runs thanks to some amazing defense from two of their youngsters. After the Yankees outfield stole hits from the Tigers in the 5th, James McCann cut down Jacoby Ellsbury trying to steal second and then Iglesias robbed Gardner of an infield hit. The got their runs thanks to a hit and a good base running play from Davis, a walk to Martinez, and then singles from JD and Cespedes in the 7th and then Joba and Soria combined to collect the final five outs. The Tigers have 11 wins in 13 tries and will give the ball to the young lefty, Kyle Lobstein (1 GS, 5 IP, 5.40 ERA, 3.01 FIP), on Tuesday.
The Moment: McCann and Iglesias make sterling defense plays in the 6th.
Anibal Sanchez’s Early Dinger Problem
If you’re looking at a calendar, you’re aware that it’s April 19th and that most of the early season narratives will melt away once we get a few more weeks under our belts. Jose Iglesias probably isn’t Tony Gwynn and Shane Greene isn’t Pedro Martinez. The Tigers have played tremendous baseball over the season’s first fortnight, but we know lots of the highs and lows will even out as the year goes forward. While most of the Tigers’ 12 game run has been full of joy, one of the most concerning aspects has been Anibal Sanchez’s most recent two starts in which he gave up eleventy billion home runs.
Now, you’re probably thinking that “elevently billion” isn’t a “real number,” but in 382.2 innings as a Tiger entering the season he had allowed 21 HR. If you don’t like doing math in your head, that’s 0.49 HR/9, which is a terrific mark. In 16.1 innings this year, he’s already allowed 5 HR, which is 2.76 HR/9. Obviously, that number is enormous, and it’s equally obvious that number will come down as the season goes on. Even bad pitchers don’t allow that many dingers. The size of the number is a function of a small sample. A couple bad pitches have a huge impact on your numbers when you’re only 16 innings deep into a season.
But, while I’m a huge fan of Sanchez, I’m not going to tell you the last two starts have been flukes. He threw bad pitches and got hit hard when he did. In Pittsburgh, he actually did keep most of the batters off balance, but when he made mistakes they were bad ones. On Saturday against the Sox, there weren’t a lot of positives.
So the question we have this early in the season is if there are any concerning signs other than some badly timed mistakes.
Let’s start with the good. His strikeout rate (23.3%) is shy of his 2013 peak, but it’s perfectly in line with 2014 and some of his other good seasons. His walk rate (5.5%) is also very good. There’s more to pitching that those two statistics, but he’s not allowing too many balls in play and he’s not allowing a lot of free base runners.
The first warning sign is velocity loss, and Sanchez hasn’t thrown as hard this year as he did last season. Now, early season velocity data can be tricky because there are temperature issues and calibration problems, but Brooks Baseball tries to correct for those things and he’s lost about a full mile per hour off his fastball in 2015. To mitigate that concern, however, is the fact that in 2012 and 2013, his velocity went up as the season went on, so this might not be a red flag. It’s something to watch, though.
He’s allowed a .401 wOBA against in 2015, which is obviously very bad. In his last two seasons, he’s been in the .270 wOBA allowed range. Over a full season, you’re talking about allowing another 3-4 runs per 9 innings, so the ERA is reflective of the actual hits and walks allowed. He’s allowed a .612 slugging percentage on the young season, to give you some idea.
He’s allowed six doubles and five homers, which is basically one third of the way to his extra base hit total from a season ago. The single rate isn’t crazy high, so we’re really worried about the power. Let’s take a peak at how these home runs have happened to see what’s there.
First, we have the leadoff homer by Harrison. It’s a straight fastball up in the zone, but it’s not as hard as it needs to be to generate a swinging strike. Not a good pitch, but if you notice, Avila is set up low and away, so it’s a command mistake.
He’s a slider to Pedro Alvarez. Avila wants it at the back foot and he leaves it up, asking to be crushed. It hangs too, which is a recipe for a bomb.
Corey Hart takes this slider to souvenir city, and while the location is a lot better here, it doesn’t slide and winds up like a BP fastball.
Adam LaRoche probably deserves some credit here. It’s a hard fastball off the plate inside. It needs to be lower to be effective, but it wasn’t as bad a pitch as the ones in Pittsburgh. Still not good.
Oh dear. PITCHf/x called this a cutter, but it looks like a bad slider again and it’s just right in the danger zone. Bad pitch.
It’s hard to draw a ton of conclusions from a couple of starts. The average movement on his sliders isn’t much different from last year, so there’s a velocity question and a command one. All five are bad pitches to varying degrees, so this surely isn’t a question of bad luck early in the season. I won’t slow your computers with six more GIFs, but I watched the doubles too, and there are some bad pitches there as well.
We can’t take two starts and say for sure that Sanchez is broken or that he will continue to allow the hard contact, but this isn’t hard luck damage. It’s possible that his bad pitches just happen to all have been clobbered when most of the time hitters miss mistakes some of the time.
This is something to keep an eye on going forward. I don’t think there’s any one single thing he’s done wrong, just that he’s made some bad pitches that have been crushed. All pitches do that at some point during the season, so we need to wait and find out if this is a problem for him going forward or he just happened to get his clunkers out of the way early. He’s getting killed on mistakes, but after only 16 innings, it’s too early to say if he’s making more mistake pitches or it’s just noise. Let’s hope for the latter.
How Was The Game? (April 19, 2015)
A punishing.
Tigers 9, White Sox 1
After yesterday’s thumping, the Tigers got everything straightened out quickly on Sunday. Shane Greene (3 GS, 23 IP, 0.39 ERA, 2.69 FIP) did more Shane Greene things over seven innings of one run baseball and the offense exploded courtesy of two massive Yoenis Cespedes home runs in the first and third innings that delivered six of the team’s nine runs. Victor Martinez also have three his including his first extra base knock of the year as the Tigers cruised passed White Sox for their fourth straight series win to start the 2015 season. They’ll welcome the Yankees to town on Monday with Alfredo Simon (2 GS, 13.1 IP, 2.03 ERA, 2.92 FIP) looking to build on his strong start in Pittsburgh.
The Moment: Cespedes launches a first inning grand slam.
How Was The Game? (April 18, 2015)
Ugly.
White Sox 12, Tigers 3
After starting 9-1, the Tigers were due for a clunker, but that didn’t make this one any more pleasant, especially because of the way he Sox teed off on Anibal Sanchez (3 GS, 16.1 IP, 7.71 ERA, 5.61 FIP). He wasn’t dominate in the first two innings, but got the job done, and you could argue a bad play in center in the third exacerbated the the the four run 3rd inning. Yet two doubles, a walk, and a bomb in the 4th removed any doubt that Sanchez wasn’t fooling anyone on this day. The Tigers bats drew a tough assignment in Chris Sale and gathered a pair of runs off him in 6 innings, which is better than the average team performs against him. Blaine Hardy was also tagged in relief to turn it into a laugher and everyone just got some work in as the game wound down. The Tigers will still have a shot to win their four straight series on Sunday behind Shane Greene (2 GS, 16 IP, 0.00 ERA, 2.16 FIP).
The Moment: Miguel Cabrera singles after a nine pitch first inning AB.
How Was The Game? (April 17, 2015)
Ig-credible.
Tigers 2, White Sox 1
For most of the day, the Tigers were putting runners on base and failing to cash them in, but a solo bomb from Yoenis Cespedes bailed out David Price (3 GS, 22.1 IP, 0.40 ERA, 2.45 FIP) and the home run he allowed to Avi Garcia. Aside from the homers, the pitchers dueled for eight innings, with Price racking up nine punchouts and six base runners as he got stronger as the game went on. Castellanos ripped one to right to start the 9th and when Garcia bobbled the ball he went for two. Castellanos was tagged at second, but the ump called him safe and Ventura failed to challenge, giving Avila a chance to bunt the pinch runner to third. Iglesias stepped in and slapped a single to right center to plate the winning run and pushed the Tigers to 9-1. Anibal Sanchez (2 GS, 13 IP, 3.46 ERA, 4.14 FIP) takes on Chris Sale on Saturday.
The Moment: Iglesias punches one through to collect the walk off win.
How Was The Game? (April 15, 2015)
Efficient.
Tigers 1, Pirates 0
Looking to take their third straight series, the Tigers turned to Alfredo Simon (2 GS, 13.1 IP, 2.03 ERA, 2.89 FIP) to get them off on the right foot and he did not disappoint. The new Tiger allowed just two hits and no walks over 8 innings and held the Pirates to zero runs. In those situations, you don’t need much offense and the Tigers didn’t waste any energy, scoring a single run on a Rajai Davis solo homer in the 6th. If you were worried about the game being a little too ordinary, in the 9th inning, somehow the Jerry Lane caught a ball in the mask, knocking him out of the game while no one really knew if Cabrera fouled off a pitch or walk. They said he walked, but we’ll never really know what happened. Joakim Soria got the 9th and handled it as if it were his job. They’ll take the day of Thursday before welcoming the Sox on Friday behind David Price (2 GS, 14.1 IP, 0.00 ERA, 2.06 FIP).
The Moment: Davis launches one over the left field fence.
New English D 