How Was The Game? (August 20, 2014)
Rick Porcello Night in America.
Tigers 6, Rays 0
Would you believe that a massive VMart grand slam isn’t the focus of this recap? Sure you can, you’re not an idiot. You’ve been here before. We’re all about Rick Porcello (24 GS, 165.1 IP, 3.10 ERA, 3.58 FIP, 2.9 fWAR) here. Sure VMart had a day, but Porcello allowed a double to the second batter he faced and then retired 20 straight Rays pretty easily. He had them frozen and he had them pounding the ball into the turf pretty much at will. The pitch count was low and he was chasing a Maddux all night long. He gave up a hit in the 8th, but went to the 9th at 93 pitches needing a quick inning to lock in his second Maddux of the season. He didn’t get there, but he grabbed his MLB-tied-for-the-lead third shutout of the year in convincing fashion. Never in doubt. The Tigers will look to sweep as David Price (26 GS, 193.1 IP, 3.12 ERA, 3.02 FIP, 4.2 fWAR) returns to his old stomping grounds.
The Moment: Porcello caps off the shutout.
How Was The Game? (August 19, 2014)
Longer than necessary, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Tigers 8, Rays 6 (11 innings)
After an off day and some time to take stock of the rapidly changing AL Central landscape, the Tigers turned to Max Scherzer (26 GS, 176 IP, 3.07 ERA, 2.81 FIP, 4.7 fWAR) to right the ship. With the way this stretch has been going, Scherzer surrendering a three run bomb to James Loney in the first inning made too much sense. Max got his act together, however, allowing one more run and really locking in as the game went on. He ended up going seven, allowing four runs, and punching out nine Rays. The bats rallied big time in the 5th with three hits, two ROEs, and a walk to pull within one and then Davis scored Avila to tie it in the 6th. The big hit was a JD Martinez go-ahead home run in the 8th, but you know this story so it wasn’t unexpected when Joba allowed the equalizer. In extras, specifically the 11th, Balfour did lots of walking and the Tigers took the lead and added a couple more. It was Nathan time and he welcomed a run before ending it. Rick Porcello (23 GS, 156.1 IP, 3.28 ERA, 3.66 FIP, 2.6 fWAR) gets the ball Wednesday.
The Moment: JD Martinez gives the Tigers the lead with a big home run.
How Was The Game? (August 17, 2014)
Ugly.
Mariners 8, Tigers 1
I don’t really want to tell you about this game, but let me give you the basics. Robbie Ray (5 GS, 25.1 IP, 5.33 ERA, 3.65 FIP, 0.4 fWAR) was okay, giving up four runs in five innings while allowing seven hits and a walk and striking out two. He wasn’t horrible, but he didn’t do much to help the team win. To his credit, the offense and defense were worse and combined with the bullpen to allow an additional four runs to come across. There wasn’t a lot to like. Max Scherzer (25 GS, 169 IP, 2.98 ERA, 2.76 FIP, 4.6 fWAR) gets the ball Tuesday against the Rays.
The Moment: Jim Johnson made a pretty nice defensive play?
How Was The Game? (August 16, 2014)
Worth the Price of admission.
Tigers 4, Mariners 2
With big crowds converging on Detroit for dream cruise, One Direction concert, and marquee matchup at Comerica, David Price (26 GS, 193.1 IP, 3.12 ERA, 3.01 FIP, 4.2 fWAR) did not disappoint in his home debut. Price gave the Tigers eight innings of one run baseball, courtesy of three hits, three walks, and seven strikeouts. The bats had a tall order, facing the AL’s best starter in Felix Hernandez, but they wore him out early and were in to the pen by inning number six. They grabbed a run in the second, Nick broke a 1-1 tie with a blast in the 4th, and then the Tigers added on a pair of runs with three hits and a walk in the 7th. Price loaded the bases with one out in the 8th, but he punched out Jackson and induced a ground ball to escape. Nathan didn’t lose it in the 9th but allowed a run, giving the Tigers a big win against the league’s toughest pitcher. They’ll go for the series win behind trade-centerpiece Robbie Ray (4 GS, 20.1 IP, 5.31 ERA, 3.57 FIP, 0.4 fWAR) on Sunday.
The Moment: Price leaves the bases loaded in the 8th, leaves to a standing ovation.
How Was The Game? (August 15, 2014)
Deflating.
Mariners 7, Tigers 2
The Tigers welcomed Austin Jackson and the wild card rival (?!) Mariners to Detroit on Friday and it didn’t exactly go as planned. Rick Porcello (23 GS, 156.1 IP, 3.28 ERA, 3.65 FIP, 2.6 fWAR) hung in there for six innings but he wasn’t at his best and had to pitch around some very sloppy Tigers defense. He allowed three in the 2nd and one each in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th, but kept it from getting totally out of hand and draining the bullpen on day one. The bats didn’t do much, grabbing a run on a triple and ground out from Davis and Kinsler for their only early run, to which they would add to with one in the 8th. Melvin Mercedes made his MLB debut and retired six batters, but nothing else of note came of the late innings. The Tigers will need to punch back on Saturday in a battle of titans, with David Price (25 GS, 185.1 IP, 3.21 ERA, 3.03 FIP, 4.0 fWAR) lining up against King Felix.
The Moment: The Comerica faithful gives Austin Jackson a warm welcome.
Max Scherzer Forgot To Change Anything
Max Scherzer had his best season to date in 2013. After it was over, my basic message about Scherzer was that he will continue to be good but he had simply reached his peak and his career year was already behind him. In a way, I was sort of right. In another way, I was totally wrong. You see, Max Scherzer didn’t get better this year but he also didn’t get worse. Max Scherzer is exactly the same pitcher he was last year to the point where it is actually a little bit weird.
Let’s run through the numbers a little bit:
| Season | GS | IP |
| 2013 | 32 | 214.1 |
| 2014 | 25 | 169 |
Technically, he’s getting one extra out per game, averaging 6.2 innings in 2013 and 7 in 2014. Oh well, look at this! Just look at it!
| Season | K% | BB% | HR/9 |
| 2013 | 28.7 % | 6.7 % | 0.76 |
| 2014 | 28.7 % | 6.7 % | 0.75 |
What? Like serious, Max what the hell? Are you a robot?
At least his BABIP is way different, which means we’re probably going to see a big swing in ERA.
| Season | BABIP | ERA | FIP | xFIP | RA9 |
| 2013 | 0.259 | 2.90 | 2.74 | 3.16 | 3.07 |
| 2014 | 0.312 | 2.98 | 2.76 | 3.01 | 2.98 |
Oh.
Going into the season, we were planning on getting a little less from Scherzer in 2014 simply due to normal regression, but Max, ever the intellectual, completely avoided what was supposed to happen. If you know baseball well enough, you know that this is completely ridiculous. Even if he was exactly the same pitcher, you couldn’t have had identical results like this if you tried.
Max is very good and did a nice job staying on top of his game, but what you’re seeing him do this year is one in a million.
How Was The Game? (August 14, 2014)
A Scher thing.
Tigers 5, Pirates 2
Max Scherzer (25 GS, 169 IP, 2.98 ERA, 2.75 FIP, 4.6 fWAR) was tired of fan malaise and just decided to make sure no one was complaining after this one. He started by getting his first seven outs on strikeouts, mixing in a cost stealing, and winding up adding eight more over the course of his afternoon. He was dominant and most of the Pirates had no chance up there today as he went full on Blue Eye. The Tigers got a big home run from JD Martinez and tacked on another run, but then busted it open in the bottom of the 8th to avoid any unpleasant “Joe Nathan pitches.” Coke got the 9th, walked the leadoff man and allowed a home run but Joba made sure it ended there. The two home wins in the series were much needed and they’ll get a chance to put some distance between themselves and Austin Jackson’s Mariners starting Friday behind Rick Porcello (22 GS, 150.1 IP, 3.11 ERA, 3.61 FIP, 2.6 fWAR).
The Moment: Scherzer gets a ground out and pumps his fist to a standing ovation after 8 scoreless.
How Was The Game? (August 13, 2014)
Much needed.
Tigers 8, Pirates 4
Buck Farmer (1 GS, 5 IP, 7.20 ERA, 5.33 FIP, 0.0 fWAR) was called on to play the role of stopper. Wait, what? Farmer has some nice moments and flashed some potential, but five innings of four run baseball won’t get you a contract extension. He gave up a bomb, six hits, a walk, and punched out four in his debut. Granted, he probably needs two more years of seasoning, so that’s not a bad outing at all. The bats woke up too. Castellanos plated VMart in the 2nd, Avila homered in the 5th, and then lots of guys helped add two more later in that inning. Nick untied it in the 6th with a blast and then the Tigers added three more in the 7th. Joba did the trick and Nathan put two on and survived. The win was needed and the Tigers will look to split with Max Scherzer (24 GS, 161 IP, 3.13 ERA, 2.88 FIP, 4.2 fWAR) on the hill Thursday.
The Moment: Nick hits a go ahead homer in the 6th.
How Was The Game? (August 12, 2014)
A long hangover.
Pirates 4, Tigers 2
Robbie Ray (4 GS, 20.1 IP, 5.31 ERA, 3.58 FIP, 0.4 fWAR) went from being the Tigers number six starter to their number four starter in a hurry and he pitched about like you’d expect from a backend guy on a normal team. He gave the Tigers five innings of four run baseball while allowing six hits and two walks. He also punched out five. The bullpen didn’t allow any runs, but it was already two late as the Tigers got one run in the first and then another on an Alex Avila home run in the 4th before they quieted down for the evening. They gave it a run in the 9th, but fell short. Given the state of the pitching staff, it’s hard to be shocked by losing a pair in Pittsburgh, but the Tigers will have to straighten things out in short order to make sure they don’t dig much of a hole. Buck Farmer (MLB Debut) will try his hand at the MLB level on Wednesday, because yes, it’s come to this.
The Moment: Avila launches a solo shot.
The Tigers Offense Is NOT Under Achieving
I think it’s probably safe to say that most people are upset about the state of the Tigers offense. We’re resigned to the bullpen woes, defensive struggles, and bad baserunning, but people counted on this offense to be better. Not so fast. Not so fast, at all.
The Tigers offense is not under achieving at all. They may go into slumps, but this is exactly how they were expected to perform. Allow me to demonstrate.
I grabbed all 13 players that have at least 50 plate appearances. We don’t care if Tyler Collins was bad in a dozen trips and we don’t care about how Iglesias was supposed to hit. No one would criticize a team for playing poorly because guys got hurt. What we care about is how the players who are on the team have performed relative to our expectations about them specifically.
Certainly, Cabrera is hitting worse and we all seem to think that’s because he’s injured, but let’s look at those 13 players with their preseason Steamer projections. Steamer is a projection system that forecasts how a player should perform based on their history. Below is a table of relevant wOBA’s.
| Name | Proj PA | Real PA | Proj wOBA | Real wOBA | Diff |
| Alex Avila | 391 | 337 | 0.329 | 0.313 | -0.016 |
| Andrew Romine | 155 | 195 | 0.278 | 0.246 | -0.032 |
| Austin Jackson | 642 | 420 | 0.338 | 0.322 | -0.016 |
| Bryan Holaday | 163 | 116 | 0.281 | 0.259 | -0.022 |
| Don Kelly | 364 | 134 | 0.299 | 0.280 | -0.019 |
| Eugenio Suarez | 131 | 182 | 0.282 | 0.316 | 0.034 |
| Ian Kinsler | 676 | 520 | 0.333 | 0.328 | -0.005 |
| J.D. Martinez | 69 | 291 | 0.304 | 0.391 | 0.087 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 656 | 497 | 0.423 | 0.376 | -0.047 |
| Nick Castellanos | 538 | 399 | 0.314 | 0.312 | -0.002 |
| Rajai Davis | 383 | 356 | 0.303 | 0.331 | 0.028 |
| Torii Hunter | 620 | 405 | 0.337 | 0.335 | -0.002 |
| Victor Martinez | 567 | 448 | 0.336 | 0.396 | 0.060 |
Some players are doing better, some are doing worse. But on the whole, they are hitting exactly as we thought they would.
I took it a step further and weighted this group’s projected wOBA by their projected PA to get a projected team wOBA of this particular set of players. It came out to .334. I did the same thing with their actual performance and it’s .335.
In other words, the Tigers are exactly the offensive club we thought they were.
You’re going to look at this list and see Cabrera and Avila (and Jackson) below their projections and you’re going to say these guys are under-performing. Sure, but you can’t just say that and ignore how much better JDM, VMart, Davis, and Suarez are hitting. That’s cheating! If Romine was hitting like an MVP this year and Cabrera wasn’t a scrub, you couldn’t rightfully say the team was under-performing because Cabrera wasn’t hitting because Romine was over-performing to the same degree.
I’ve said this all season long, the Tigers are an 89-91 win team. They upgraded a little but then got torched by injuries, so they’re probably an 87-88 win team right now. That’s who they are and who they’re playing like. If you think they should be better, that’s a failure of expectation. The preseason projections have been spot on offensively.
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