OT - Brandon Inge walk off grand slam
Title says it all. Walk off Grand Slam to beat Toronto 7-3. That gives him 2 HR and 8 RBI the last two games. Raburn has 0 HR and 2 RBI all year. Glad the Tigers kept him.
/s
Nick Castellanos is batting .421 in the minors. Can't he play second!!
You don't jump from single A to the majors where you then learn a new position.
Plus Castellanos is 6-4 and 225 pounds-- don't see too many of them at 2B!
...He better learn the outfield. The Tigers have big money long term deals in place at first and third.
I believe Cabrera's deal is up in 2014 or 15, Which is around Castellanos' ETA to the majors. By which time, Cabrera will probably DH if we resign him. So he probably won't have to learn the outfield. He will if he wants to play in the majors next year, which he won't except for possibly a September call-up.
Inge will not bat above .230 this year. The Tigers were smart to get rid of him.
Water always finds its level. And with Inge, that means at least two strikeouts a game. If the bases were loaded in the 9th, then obviously someone in the bullpen was having a rough night.
I will never understand why Inge garnered so much hatred from Detroit fans towards the end of his career here-- perhaps it was time for him to move on, but he deserved better treatment IMO. And Raburn has been awful this year! It's early so maybe he can turn it around, but if the Tigers wanna make some noise in the playoffs (or even reach them), an upgrade at 2B and another bat (preferably at DH and move Dirks to LF) would be nice
It's because he is a career .234 hitter. Even with all his "success" in Oakland he is hitting .179 there. ONE SEVENTY NINE. He is a fucking corner infielder. A power position. Other notable 3rd basemen: Evan Longoria, Adrian Beltre, David Wright, Poblo Sandoval, Alex Rodriguez, Micheal Young, etc. The only position where you can afford a .179 BA with limited power is P or C and POSSIBLY SS. Inge is a shitty baseball player. That's why we hate him. Because he stinks.
My point is not that he is a great player or even that it wasn't time for Detroit to look elsewhere. Admittedly, the guy always carried a low BA for his position, but the guy played for us for 10 years and was around when the whole team stunk! He also came up with some clutch hits throughout his career. Also, in a clutch situation, can you honestly say you'd rather have Raburn at the plate?
Just saying I though he deserved better treatment, not a different end result.
He probably didn't deserve the boos at the end, but the guy was a borderline minor league player for alot of his career and the town talked about him like he was Pete Rose during that time, so that more than makes up for it.
Inge didn't deserve the treatement he got from the fans in Detroit. Then again, we are talking about the fanbase that ran Sparky Anderson out of town, so it's not like the bar has been set very high.
He may not have deserved the boos, but he probably didn't deserve all the love for most of his career. He was a fan favorite for a majority of his career despite not a ton of production. We'll call it even.
When the player you use in a "who would you rather have bat in a clutch situation" is Ryan Raburn, that tells you all you need to know.
Honestly I think it was kind of a build-up. He'd been such a fan and media darling for so long without being good enough that it all just came to head. Now that we have the talent, a lot of people have been sitting around the last few seasons scratching their heads asking themselves why the hell does Brandon Inge still have a roster spot.
He seemed like he got arrogant towards the end too, the stuff he'd say in interviews. Coming out of spring training this year he said that even though his average didn't show it, he could hit the ball just as good as anybody else out there, which, come on. He also commented something like "I must be doing something right" when asked about getting booed by Tigers fans.
Inge didn't deserve shit. I honestly still can't fathom how he wasn't cut with everybody else after the 2003 season (when he batted a whopping .203). The guy blessed Detroit with nearly a career's worth of monumental suckitude. Frankly, I hope that he gets to endure a long, miserable life with a slow, painful death.
I'm not a fan of Inge's in the least bit, but the end of your summary makes me not a fan of yours either. Grow up
Is there such a thing as taking sports way, way, way too seriously?
And I am pretty sure it follows the same guide as taking the internet way, way, way too seriously.
was a career .246 hitter. Brandon is a .234 career hitter. Brandon has also hit almost 80 more HR than TB. Brookens played 10 years on the infield for Detroit. He was a 1st round pick. Where is all the hate for him??
How could you hate a guy with such sweet glasses and mustache?
Brookens never ran his mouth like Inge did. With Inge, he always had something to say, even when he should have just shut up
Because there's no difference in how the media works between 1985 and 2012.
That's definitely a fair point, but it still seemed like there were plenty of moments where he should have kept quiet. People did take some of his comments too far (like jumping on him for saying that he's going to compete for his job), but he could have avoided quite a few of his problems by not talking
I loved Tom Brookens with his .246 BA and total lack of power. Jack Morris and Dan Petry loved him, too. He was the Tigers' best 3rd basemen of the 80's. (Maybe my tune would be different if we had kept Howard Johnson around a little longer, but even HoJo was a career .249 hitter.) For a supposed position of such offensive importance, the Tigers had a decade largely devoid of an offensive threat. Brookens was definitely the best of this list (apologies to Darnell Coles and his one-hit wonder year):
Tom Brookens | 3B | 1979-1988 |
Chris Brown | 3B | 1989 |
Marty Castillo | 3B | 1981-1985 |
Darnell Coles | 3B | 1986-1987, 1990 |
Howard Johnson | 3B | 1982-1984 |
Mick Kelleher | 3B | 1981-1982 |
Wayne Krenchicki | 3B | 1983 |
Jim Morrison | 3B | 1987-1988 |
Stan Papi | 3B | 1980-1981 |
Al Pedrique | 3B | 1989 |
Chris Pittaro | 3B | 1985 |
Rick Schu | 3B | 1989 |
Doug Strange | 3B | 1989 |
(Table from http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/det/history/players.jsp)
Aside from personal stats & fa, Brookens also played on a World Championship team in 1984. Inge was a member of the 2003 squad that was one of the all-time worst teams ever. Being a "winner" counts for a lot around here.
I really dont think people hated Brandon Inge. They hated how much some people love, and defended his borderline minor league level talent. I am not a Brandon Inge fan, but he didnt deserve to be booed. He gave it his all. We should have pranced out all the Inge appologists and booed the shit out of them.
Is Brookens the all-time franchise leader in strikeouts? Shortly after taking that illustrious crown, did Brookens tell the media that "strikeouts are an overrated stat"?
OMG did Inge say such a thing, Egads he should be crucified. The nerve
you hate someone you have never met? I don't like him starting for my favorite baseball team, but don't you think it is a little sad that you hate him and apparently can't get over the fact that he is gone? He did alot more positive in this world (see Mott donationas) than bad (can't hit). Can you say you provided a serious financial benefit to sick kids?
in the minors...
He's not a shitty baseball player. He's just not a player worthy a spot in a MLB lineup at this point in his career.
See, I always thought Inge got a fair bit of leeway from the fans considering he was a mediocre hitter for virtually his entire run with the Tigers. I mean, his career best in batting average was pretty meh (.287), and whatever pop he had earlier in his career he lost toward the end. His range was fine at 3rd but never great, and he had a penchant for making it public knowledge when he wasn't happy with his playing situation. I'm happy that he has two homers and 8 RBIs, but I kind of doubt he'll keep up that pace, which means you have a part-time defensive replacement who hits below .200. Yeah, I think the Tigers can survive his loss.
Offensively Inge was always sub-par. But you are wrong about his range. His range, especially before he had double knee surgery late in his career, was outstanding. Back in the 2006-2008 range it could be argued that he was the best defensive 3B in the game, or that he was at least one of the top few. Bill James defensive metrics back that up.
He lost some of that defensive ability when he tore cartlidge in both knees during his All-Star season.
when he was healthy and has functional knees, he was the best defensive 3B in the league and his range were outstanding. He made plays that no defensive 3B can make because they typically lacked the athleticism or range to do it.
short... can dunk!!!
Well that was a one in a million shot and based on the fact it was Inge it was more like a one in twenty million shot.
makes 3 Brandon Inge walkoff home runs in the last two years that I think of off the top of my head.
Well the fact that he swings for the fences every at bat, he is bound to hit one over every once in awhile.
Inge was the least of their problems . How's that bullpen working out??
You said least? No, not least. He was one of many problems. His play at 2B was shitty, his offense was worse. Then there's the bullpen problem. Also the bats need to heat up. There is still plenty of time but Inge had to go. He was useless in Detroit.
As for the grand slam, cool. 1 walk off hit doesnt mean he deserves to play horribly the other 161 games. I was at the game a few weeks back where he basically cost Porcello the game in the 1st inning. Porcello was so deflated by the multiple poor defensive plays he had behind him by Inge that you could see he just wasnt in it.
Still glad to see Inge gone.
Brandon is stil hitting .146 this season and has an OBP that, I believe, is in the neighborhood of .200. Even if you projected his stats to date out over the season, he would still have a Rob Deer-esque sort of year, and nobody could talk himself out of good at-bats like Rob Deer when he was a Tiger.
I didn't think first half Raburn would be this bad, especially after that spring training, but he'll pick it up in a big way. The A's can have Jnge
He's been stinking it up real bad the past 2 seasons in Detroit. He didn't look good at second, and he wasn't going to knock Cabrera off of third. It was time for him to go. If he'd have the bases loaded in Detroit, he woulda struck out. His BA was .051 or something like that. It was way past time for them to part ways. Maybe a change of scernery is what he needed? But time will tell. He could start stinking it up in Oakland and bat .100 for the year, or he can find his game and be an all star. Regardless, it wasn't going to happen in Detroit.
Yeah, the Tigers have really played better ever since they got rid of him. /s
Because if we had kept him then our bullpen issues never would have existed right?
correct.