OT--Tigers vs. Pirates Open Thread
Ramon Santiago (!) just hit a homer to tie it at 1 in the sixth.
It's the first interleague weekend of the year. It's always fun to watch the pitchers bat, but Leyland has said recently how much he hates the interleague games. Is he right? Discuss. No DH means Victor Martinez is catching and Avila is sitting.
Interesting stat just mentioned: Tigers are only MLB team to have an extra base hit in every game this year.
I hate the DH and am a National League kind of guy but I can't help but think that the current system really favors the American League in both inter-league play and the World Series.
When an American League pitchr has to hit, I'd say the NL has a marginal advantage because theirs hit all the time. BUT, we are talking pitchers here, what's the real difference between your average NL pitcher hitting and an AL pitcher's average when they have to hit? With no data, I'm inclined to say not so much.
When a NL team has to field a DH, they pull their best bench guy into the starting lineup. If you compare the stats of that guy against the average DH hitter, I am going to guess that you will find a much bigger and more significant difference.
So, I'm one of those people who say both leagues should have a DH or niether should.
Also, Go Bucs!
Who knew the pirates could hit like that!
Is back!! Wouldn't it be nice if he could do that 3 up 3 down thing on a regular basis?
The pitching tonight is making me want to hurl.
I love interleague play, although other baseball fans don't seem to share my zeal and enthusiasm towards this event.
In some markets interleague may not be interesting, since the teams don't have a local rival from an opposing league. But in markets like NY and LA and WAS / DC, interleague provides a chance for a little feud between two teams in the same markets.
There's a knock of interleague getting "overplayed", but it's 3 weeks out of a 162 game season. That's not overplayed. It happens so infrequently every year that I see no reason to complain about it.
I'm on the fence about interleague play.
I hate the idea of it from a pure baseball perspective but the selfish part of me likes it because I live in Portland and I get to see the Pirates play in Seattle every 5 years or so.
Without that, I'd have to go to San Fran to see them play which is a much bigger deal and if I am going to necessitate airfare, then I might as well just fly to Pittsburgh.
So, it's much like smoking bans, politically I couldn't disagree more but selfishly don't mind reaping the benefits (although in this case it is very infrequent but better than never).
Villareal was tearing it up .....my kids wanted to watch "Power Rangers Samurai" fortunately.
Hate interleague play. It was cool at first, but the novelty is over. Not only does it mean you see some American League teams less, but it really has sapped the uniqueness out of the All-Star game and World Series, which at one time could offer matchups you'd see nowhere else.
It also has showed us that, in most years, the AL blows the NL out of the water. The record has been ridiculous, to the point where I actually don't want to know that one league is that much better than the other one. When an NL team wins the World Series now, it looks like a huge fluke because we all know what the better league is.
The bullpen has just been pissing all over themselves lately. But then again, so has the offense.
The offense has been downright pitiful for most of the season. We really need to pick up a bat here soon. Starting pitching has been pretty good, bullpen maybe below average, but the hitting is terrible. I'm starting to believe that Dombrowski was sort of a flash in the pan for that 2006 season. His personnel moves have been questionable since then.
offense has been inconsistent not neccasarily pitiful. The Tigers are 6th in runs scored in the AL out of 14 teams. That's not that great, but not pitiful either. The bullpen has been far worse than "maybe below average", that is what has been pitiful. The bullpen has the worst ERA in the AL, at this point that the biggest concern. As far as Dombrowski goes, yes some of the recent moves haven't worked out and i haven't neccasirly agreed with all of them, but he is still a quality GM. If people want to bag on him for current moves that didn't work out it's only fair that get's credit for the ones that have worked out. Most notably acquiring Miggy, when you consider his production with the Tigers and the fact that Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin haven't done jack at the big league level. The bottom line is that people need to remember where the Tigers were before Dombrowski came here, and the Tigers have been in contention for a playoff spot in 3 of his 5 years as GM. And to be fair the Tigers record last year would have been better if they weren't derailed by mutiple injuries in the second half of the season.
Why would Leyland hate interleague games? He has like a .600 winning percentage in them.