8-5-07 Is It Over Yet?

Honestly, at this point I'm not even going to bother with any sort of analysis. The team is playing terrible. However, the troubles are slowly shifting from pitching to offense. Sheffield is hurt, Sean Casey took a pitch off his elbow, Guillen is reportedly a bit hobbled, Thames is still on the DL...it seems like it cant possibly get worse.

Now I'm willing to give the team a bit of a break at this point. I still expect them to go out there and play hard, and they are doing so, but there are several factors acting against them. As stated above, half the team is banged up or outright hurt at this time, but the thing that really has begun to irk me is the management decisions made by Jim Leyland. His lineups are not utilizing our weapons properly and he is giving way too much playing time to guys who really dont have much business being on a competitive big league roster.

The biggest offenses are Craig Monroe and Mike Hessman being written into the lineup just about every day for the last 2 weeks. I have no idea what is going on with Monroe. I've always thought of him as a below average player, but even I dont believe he is this bad. The one redeeming factor for Monroe has been his power, and that has all but vanished lately. Most of his hits lately have been seeing eye grounders and bloops off the end of the bat. Nevertheless, if we want to have the best shot at winning, it would seem that Monroe needs to spend a lot more time on the bench. Monroe could still help this team out, but the odds of that happening are getting slimmer and slimmer.

As for Hessman, he's always been a poor hitter in the minors up until this year. He was having a great year in Toledo, except his batting average was only at .256. I'm not a huge fan of the batting average statistic as a way to measure a players value, but you need to be able to hit higher than that if you're going to really help a club out. Like Monroe, Hessman's big upside is his power...but even that hasnt translated into the big leagues so far (granted its a small sample size in about 30 ABs). With the slump the Tigers are in, I cant understand us continuing to put these two in the lineup. The lineup each day should be the best combination of players that we have right now, and unfortunately, Monroe and Hessman are not among them.

I suggested this lineup on motownsports, but obviously its not gonna happen

Raburn, LF
Polanco, 2B
Guillen, SS
Sheffield, DH
Granderson, CF
Ordonez, RF
Rodriguez, C
Casey, 1B
Inge, 3B

This eliminates (or at least shrinks) the giant hole in the bottom of the order. It also puts Granderson in a spot where his power is going to make more of a difference, and it allows him to be protected in the lineup by Sheff (Grandy would get plenty of ABs with someone on base) and Ordonez (Among the leaders in hitting.) With Grandersons speed, he should be able to get himself into scoring position both with his bat and with his legs. Since Rodriguez and Casey are pretty much singles and gap hitters, I would think run production between the two of them should go up with having Granderson and Ordonez in scoring position often in front of them.

Guillen is our best all around hitter (when healthy) and he should be hitting third. I dont mind Sheffield in the 3 hole, but putting Polanco and Guillen ahead of Sheffield is gonna be that much more devastating, especially if Raburn can keep up the good work. He's getting on base at over a .400 clip in 60+ ABs.

Long story short, I think that lineup makes the best use of what we have right now. When Thames returns, I'd like to see him get the bulk of the ABs at first. Casey has far exceeded my expectations (which were very low at the start of the season), but he's not the future at first.


I'll end this rather short post by saying that I was very encouraged with the job Fernando Rodney did today. One inning, one walk, no hits, no runs. Control seemed decent (by Rodney standards) and the velocity was very strong. Of course, the downside is that his return is coupled by the loss of Andrew Miller to the 15-day DL with a strained hamstring. Chad Durbin is going to be in the rotation for the time being, which I think is a good move.

Once there's actually something positive to talk about, I'll probably post more often. But now I'm just frustrated with this teams play and I dont want to ruin my blog by venting too much. A series vs. Tampa Bay may be just what the doctor ordered, of course I thought the same thing about two series vs. the White Sox and a series against the A's.....