You and I may have given up hope for the 08 season, but the Tigers still have to finish.  They have to keep going to the yard everyday and throw, hit, catch, and run.  Some of the goats from early in the season and down the stretch will be able to pad their stats and salvage their years now that the lights are off.  Others will continue to fail, forcing fans to realize that some of our players just aren’t that good and forcing managment to make tough decisions. 

The great debate as of late has been Nate (ha).  Nate Robertson has been brutal.  His ERA is a point higher than his career average, which wasn’t that great to begin with.  He’s given up the most ER in all of baseball, and he hasn’t won a game since the middle of June.  Apparantly he’s lost his slider.  Nate, an inning eating .500 starting pitcher at best, probably should go hire Baggar Vance to help him find it, since Chuck Hernandez obviously cannot.  At best, he’s hurt and will find himself next season, either as a starter or perhaps as a long reliever.  At worst, he’s a ragarm who had great season in 06, got a contract he didn’t deserve, and is put up with because of his fun personality and gum-time attitude.  Either way, I don’t want to see him continue to throw gas all over the field for the next month.

Edgar Renteria, who has been brutal in the box and on the field pretty much all season, has improved as of late.  Detroit Tigers Weblog offers up an “inning report” every 18 games, exactly 1/9 of the season (1/9 of the season equals one inning, get it?).  In the “7th inning”, Renteria is .322/.385/.508, making him about 4th best on the team.  Good for him, and good for us, maybe his improvement will allow the Tigers some leverage in trading his dumpy behind.  I really gotta believe Ramon Santiago has to be the starting shortstop next year.  His defense has always been good, and his hitting has been surprisingly good in a limited 75 AB.  I think we could all live with historically poor hitting guys Santiago at SS and Brandon Inge at C if the rest of this lineup would live up to expectations.

Fernando Rodney has also played well in the “7th inning”.  Since his initial brutality when taking over the closer role he’s got an ERA of 1.86 and a WHIP of 0.83.  I’m not buying it.  Rodney has been consistently inconsistent his entire career, and now that nothing hangs in the balance he has been playing well.  This only adds to the theory that this guy does not have the mental capacity to handle big games and situations.  To quote Crash Davis, “Let’s see that million dollar arm, ‘cause I’ve got a good idea about that five cent head of yours.” (Mike in Waterford:  And his hat’s crooked, too!!)

In other news, I recieved my 2008 post-season tickets invoice in the mail recently.  Ha.  Anybody willing to give the Tigers $2500 to hold onto for more than two months is a real fee-simple sonofabitch.  Let’s be real nice and underestimate:  $1000 dollars up front per seat x 20,000 seats= 20 million dollars.  I wish someone would give me 20mil to hang onto and make interest, or 10%, or whatever on for two months.  I hated to do it last year but had to.  This year the silver lining of not even coming close to the postseason is that I don’t have to loan Mike Illitch an interest free $2500.