Grab Bag of Oddities

Gerald Laird has changed his uniform number from 8 to 12, snatching Lloyd McClendon's uniform number! I find this most unusual. How often do players just change their uni number solely as a slump-buster? Also, John Keating reports that Laird has made no compensation as of yet to McClendon, and plans to do so only if he benefits from the change (improved offensive numbers)! Hilarious. Did McClendon just go for a straight swap and take Laird's number 8? I don't know, nobody mentioned it. Why was this not part of the story???

Carlos Guillen struck out in the bottom of the second inning, and I exclaimed with mildly stern disapproval, "Carlos," and my son chimes in from the other room "Guillen, suckage." He didn't even know what had happened! What did I do in my current or former life to deserve my son hating the Tigers? It hurts, so deeply inside, it hurts. Then, to add insult to injury, my husband quips, "he'll be injured in the next two weeks. Do you think other teams' general managers think "durability" when they think of Carlos Guillen?" Really, the gears in my brain are circling feverishly trying to identify terrible things I must have done to be the subject of such cruel barbs from my family. I'm heading to a local sports bar to watch the games in a non-hostile environment from now on.

Rick Porcello came into the game with a 2.29 groundball to flyball ratio, which Rod said is the best in the majors (over some time period, but I didn't catch exactly what, I think it was the time period since Rick came into the majors until now). This game was characterized by fly ball after fly ball for Pretty Little Ricky. What gives? Magglio Ordóñez made a funny catch against the right/center field wall. He went back for it, tripped against the wall at the last second, fell down as the ball came into his glove, but mercifully held on to it. If he had dropped it, derisive laughter would have followed from the previously mentioned Tiger haters in my household. As it was, we chuckled at the play, but it was all good-natured from my end, I assure you. Never any bad vibes for Mi Magglio.

The following is not an oddity at all. I'm not the least bit surprised that Roy Halladay threw a perfect game. He has always shown that he's more than capable of accomplishing the feat, and tonight he pulled it off. Congratulations, Roy, it's an achievement worthy of your stellar career. I followed the last couple outs on MLB.com's Gameday, and FSN showed the final out, a nice play at that, to preserve the perfection.

Tonight's Tiger game does not compare favorably to Roy's perfect game, so I won't mention any further details (like Laird being robbed of a home run, and later failing to pick a ball out of the dirt from cutoff man Adam Everett). Sigh.

Old English D Does Lakeland

Well, not exactly "does" Lakeland. More like blows in and out of town. I was staying on Anna Maria Island, almost an hour and a half away. We had four kids in our group and almost had mutiny on our hands trying to tear the kids away from the ocean and the pool to go to the game. Consequently, I missed all the pre-game warmups and whatnot, which are kind of important at Spring Training games....sigh.

Roy Halladay started for the Phils, and it was great to see him. He did not have it all together (thankfully, as we scored our three runs off him in the second inning). The best part of seeing him was not his pitching, however. You may be aware that he legged out an infield hit! off Ni. It was most AMAZING to behold. First, it was great that the Phils went without the DH because Halladay needed to get some batting reps in. Then Halladay gets the infield single. I swear, our whole section was giddy and giggly with delight when that happened. There were a lot of Phillies fans at the game, as the Phils play in Clearwater, not that far away, and I saw at the Tampa airport that there was some kind of Phillies group tour thing going on that weekend, so they probably hit a bunch of stadiums. Sadly, Polanco did not play due to the tweaked knee, but Phils fans assured me that he is adjusting well to third base. Best of all the best to you, Placido!

Anyway, Ni pitched well, Bonine pitched well, Ramon Santiago hit a triple, Carlos Guillen made a sliding catch in left, the weather was glorious. I could go on, but I'll let a few snapshots do the talking. Look how crowded the berm was. I just saw that the crowd was the fourth largest ever for a Spring game at Joker Marchant.

I just have to point out on an unrelated note, that Luke Scott, noted Tiger killer, got attacked by some seagulls! This is just too good to be true. But, the photo evidence does not lie...unless it was photoshopped. Oh well. I take it at face value. You should too. Enjoy!

Excuse Me, Are You Sure This is 2009?

Time warp.  I could swear tonight's game was straight out of 2008.  If it weren't for Gerald Laird, Adam Everett and Josh Anderson, you would have been hard-pressed to convince me otherwise.

There was Justin, racking up 35 pitches in the first inning, and 80 over 3 2/3, before being bombed out of the game.

There was a reliever (granted it was Eddie Bonine, who made five starts with the big club last year, but no relief appearances), letting inherited runners score--with flair, though--a three run homer to the first batter faced!  To be fair, he then settled down, and did just fine.

There was another reliever (ok, another one who wasn't with the Tigers in 2008, Juan Rincon) who had runners circling the bases like little tots getting dizzy on the Big Cat Carousel.

It's the events of the game that gave the feel of 2008, not necessarily the personnel, except for Verlander, who was impersonating his filthy-in-a-bad-way 2008 performances spot on.

On the bright side--believe it--Nate Robertson looked pretty darn good in relief.  Let's hope that bulldog pitches "more left-handed" and earns his spot back, so we can have at least one lefty in the rotation.

Well, the first one is under our belt, and I admit that I was a little nervous before the game.  Geez, I'm not even a player.  What a doorknob.

I started my blog after the season last year, so this is my first "in-season" post after a game.  I haven't read any other commentary (neither mainstream media nor blogs) yet, and didn't even watch "Tigers Live" after the game on FSN due to the NCAA championship.  I'm glad, because I don't want to inadvertently be influenced by others' analysis.  So, anything here that echos anything else is purely coincidental, ya dig?

Here are a couple of final notes:

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Bonine was facing second baseman Aaron Hill, and threw a spectacular pitch on a 2-2 count to strike him out.  The bottom dropped out so well that the ball got away from Laird and he had to track it down and complete the strikeout by throwing over to first.  That pitch was a little diamond (ok, maybe a diamelle--one of those synthetic diamonds) in a steaming pile of manure that was our pitching tonight.

I liked what Rod Allen said about Gerald Laird and his take on Nate Robertson's pitching performances from last year.  Texas got a hold of him pretty good a couple times last year (hey, who didn't?), so Laird saw what was happening.  Rod suggested that maybe Laird can give Robertson a fresh perspective on his pitching.  I hope that's true.  Take all the advice you can get, Nate, and use it to make us all forget your irrational, malcontented ravings about not starting.

I'm going to be like a pitcher tonight, and put a bad game QUICKLY out of mind.  Move on.  The rest of the Jays staff isn't exactly Roy Halladay, and we did get to him a little tonight.

Tomorrow's game will be played in 2009.

Who's Your Non-Tiger?

What players do you like to watch from other teams?  It could just be that you like their game, and enjoy seeing them play.  Maybe you wish they were a Tiger, even if it's only because you can't stand facing them, or because they've got a reputation as a "Tiger killer."  Maybe it's a fun personality that has you hooked.

Here are a couple of my favorite non-Tigers, and I'd like to hear yours.

I love to see Vladimir Guerrero play.  He's a bad ball hitter, and it's a lot fun to see him golf one off his shoe tops. He must really get under a pitcher's skin.

Jose Reyes is fun because he's hyper, and he drives pitchers crazy on the base paths.  His speed is something to behold.

I'm looking forward to watching young Carlos Gomez of the Twins' development.  He's fast, covers a lot of ground in the outfield--quite a sparkplug.

Roy Halladay is one of my most feared pitchers.  I don't like it when we face him.  Thankfully he's not an AL central foe.

I am always in awe of Albert Pujols.  I couldn't believe it when I read that the NL MVP was "wide open" this year.  I thought he was a lock.