The Tigers fell victim to a three game sweep at the hands of the Rays over the weekend.  The first game starred a lack of hitting by the Tigs.  After running Scott Kazmir out of the game in the fifth, at which point he had thrown 110 pitches, walked 6, yet only allowed 3 hits, the Tigers managed just one more hit throughout the rest of the game against a foursome of Rays’ relievers.  Game two featured Kenny Rogers and his 7 earned runs.  The Roaster threw 109 pitches (!) through 3.1 inninngs.  That’s hard to recover from, especially when you leave ten guys on base.  Those two games were tough, but game 3 was the crown jewel of suckitude.

Before the game, Jim Leyland had some comments.  From DetNews via Detroit Tigers Weblog:

“But we’ve had some performances that have been terrible. I’ve been disgusted the last few nights. The last few weeks, we had situations where we should have dominated a game and we didn’t come close. 

You’ve got to step it up if you want to be in the hunt. If not, go home and come back next spring training. I’ll bring up some kids to play.

If you don’t want to grind it out, then start your vacation early.

We should be embarrassed,” Leyland said, ending his soliloquy. “And I’m not sure enough people are.”

Mumble Grumble

He’s obviously frustrated with his team.  And maybe he asked them to go fetch a switch off the ol’ oak tree.  Or, maybe not.  But they played hard in a game they needed to win yesterday afternoon.  Armando Galarraga continued to pitch well and gave the Tigers a quality start.  When Kyle Farnsworth gave up three runs on two bombs in the eighth they did not give up.  They tied it in the ninth and regained the lead in the tenth.  Bottom of the tenth, up by one, bring in the closer!  (Queue Bad News Bears music).  Fernando Rodney comes in and promptly walks a guy, hits a guy (he’s lucky he didn’t kill him), walks a guy, gives up a hit to tie the game, then walks in the winning run.  Yay!  There’s nothing I love more than a walk-off-walk. 

Rodney has blown more saves in a week and a half than Todd Jones had all year.  I’m not saying make Jones the closer again, he’s on the DL anyway, but something’s got to give.  (Mike in Waterford says make Zumaya the closer!  It couldn’t be any more obvious!  The guy throws a-hundred!  What are you stupid?  He throws a-hundred!).  Well, I guess Mike has a point, it doesn’t seem Rodney can handle it, so we should give someone else a shot.  Joel Zumaya?  I guess.  But he walks too many guys also, plus he’s a little banged up right now (surprise).  How about Bobby Seay?  At least he can hit the plate and he sports the best ERA on the team. 

I think we can safely say this season is beyond hope for a playoff appearance.  Let’s look forward to the September roster expansion and see what we can get out of some of the young additions to the bullpen at that time.  For now let’s just hope they can score 18 runs every game down the stretch.  That should be enough.