Posts from the Tigers Category at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Just when you think things are starting to go right in Detroit, the Tigers take another big blow. Sure, the Kitties are two games over .500 now, have won their last six, and are only five games out of first place, but as I told you yesterday: not all is well in Tigerland.

Detroit had to place Magglio Ordonez on the disabled list on Sunday, and now 48 hours later, they may have to do the same thing with Miguel Cabrera.

Cabrera left in the third inning with a "tight left hip flexor," an injury that may or may not knock Cabrera from manager Jim Leyland's lineup. Cabrera had to leave the game after wobbling through some defensive maneuvers at first that appeared awkward and included one of Detroit's three errors.

"He's had this before," Leyland said of Cabrera, who was limping on and off the field in the early innings. The Tigers won't know until today if Cabrera will join Magglio Ordonez (disabled list, strained oblique muscle) as the latest middle-of-the-order bat to vacate the order.

Needless to say, if Cabrera has to join Maggs on the disabled list, it's probably going to temper any talk of the Tigers making a run at the White Sox for a while. The two of them have combined to hit 23 homers and drive in 98 runs in the first half of the season.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

I don't know about most of you, but I know that I've grown tired of interleague play in baseball. When MLB implemented it, I loved it and I supported the move as a way to try and bring fans back to the game after the player's strike in 1994.

It's kind of like when you're in a new relationship with a girl and everytime you're hanging up the phone after talking to her you get into that "No I love you more!" debate. It's kind of cute and charming at first, but frankly, after a few months of it you're screaming at her "OKAY I GET IT! YOU LOVE ME MORE! SHUT THE [expletive] UP ABOUT IT ALREADY!"

I've reached that point with interleague play, and I'm ready to get back to some real baseball. Divisional baseball. The games that will actually play a part in deciding who is going to play in October, and who isn't. Three such matchups after the jump.

If there is any team that's incredibly sad to see interleague play end in 2008, it would be the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers feasted on their senior circuit competition, going 13-5, and have now won 17 of their last 21 games. They're finally over .500 for the first time this year at 41-40, and are within five games of the White Sox in the AL Central.

Of course, before catching the White Sox the Tigers will have to pass the Twins, and it so happens that they're starting a three game set in the Twinkiedome tonight, and play Minnesota four more times next week. It's the perfect chance to climb in to second place. If only they had Magglio Ordonez to help them out.

The Detroit Tigers placed right fielder Magglio Ordonez on the 15-day disabled list with a pulled muscle in his right side on Sunday.

Ordonez pulled his oblique muscle in the third inning of a 7-6 win over the Colorado Rockies on Saturday night.

That's got to be a kick in the teeth for Tigers fans who were just starting to get excited about this team.

Ordonez had his worst month of the season in June, hitting .266/.343/.403 with three homers and 15 RBI, but now that the Tigers are starting a stretch where 19 of their next 27 games are against division opponents, this isn't exactly the best timing. The team has called up Matt Joyce to replace Ordonez on the roster, but it's doubtful he can replace his production.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing matchups

San Diego Padres (32-47) vs. Minnesota Twins (42-36) - 3:35PM Est.

I tried to put an end to it yesterday by mentioning it in the On Deck, but apparently the On Deck Curse is only effective when I lead the post with it. So today, now that the Minnesota Twins have climbed within a half-game of the White Sox and won their last eight games, the Twinkies are getting the star treatment.

As I've already explained in recent days, I have no idea how the Twins are winning so much this season, yet here they are. Earlier this month the Twins were three games under .500 and 6.5 games behind the White Sox, and I thought their record then was a lot more indicative of the type of team they had.

It was only a matter of time before the suddenly resurgent Tigers and maybe even the Indians passed them by, and the Twins became merely a footnote in the 2008 season. All they've done since then is win, win, and win some more.

The upside of doing a Magglio Ordonez impersonation is that it's relatively easy; you just need long, curly black hair and a Detroit Tigers uniform to pull it off and anyone that watches much baseball is going to know what you're doing.

The downside is, who has time these days to stand around in a Tigers uniform and make semi-mock Mags? That would be our good friend Todd Jones, who took advantage of the recent rain delay at Comerica to do his best 2006 ALCS-winning home run impersonation of Ordonez.



Okay, okay. For all my dislike of Jones (for fantasy reasons), I probably need to rethink the way I feel. Because that impression alone should be worth a lifetime of a 3.00 WHIP. Oh, and is there anything hotter than rain delay entertainment right now? Anything remotely close?

H/T: LBS

In fairness, Brandon Inge is not blaming his inability to properly lift a pillow for the entire extent of the injury that has him headed to the disabled list. The injury has been bugging him for a while, and this just put it over the top. Because, lifting pillows can be a pretty dangerous activity.

Inge said he aggravated the injury moving a pillow for his three-year-old Monday night. He said if not for that mishap, he probably would have tried to continue to play with the injury, which he said has bothered him since he suffered it on June 1 in Seattle.

Told of Inge's account of the pillow, Tigers manager Jim Leyland said, "That's a first."

Yes indeed it is. There are tons of horrible injuries in baseball (meaning stupidly ridiculous ways that the players get hurt) but this is kind of absurd. I mean, sneezing (Sammy Sosa) and Guitar Hero (Joel Zumaya) are at least respectable.

Okay, not sneezing. But if you move your three year old's pillow around and see a vertabrae lying on the ground when you're done, just pull a Vladrad and tell everyone it happened while you were lifting weights or something.

Via FanIQ

The Detroit Tigers may be playing their best baseball of the season right now, winning eleven of their last fourteen games to move withing six games of the White Sox, but closer Todd Jones and his teammates have something else on their minds right now: San Francisco Chronicle Giants beat reporter Henry Schulman.

While the Tigers were in San Francisco last week, Schulman wrote a column in which he referred to Ryan Raburn as a "scrub" after Raburn hit a home run off of Jonathan Sanchez. Well, Jones writes a column for the Detroit Free Press, and in his latest effort he explains why he and his teammates do not appreciate such remarks.

When we read that, we lost our collective minds.

Henry Schulman just called one of our teammates a scrub.

Isn't that a little harsh? I can't think of anybody who has ever played in the major leagues as a scrub -- not even Bob Uecker.

The Detroit Tigers six-game win streak came to an end last night in San Francisco when John Bowker welcomed Fernando Rodney back to the bigs with a three-run homer to give the Giants the win, but that doesn't mean every streak in Detroit died on Monday night. Marcus Thames took Tim Lincecum deep in his first two at-bats thanks to a hanging curveball and a belt-high changeup, making Monday the fourth game in a row that Thames has gone deep.

Still, that's not the streak I'm talking about. Since June 7th, Thames has gone 7-for-29 (.241) which is very much in line with his .257 average on the season. Of course, his slugging percentage since June 7th is .966 because all seven of those hits have been home runs.

No singles. No doubles. No triples. All Mr. Thames has done lately is plant balls in the seats.

Now what I'm trying to figure out is, how impressive is this? Is it even impressive at all? I kind of has to be doesn't it? Sure he's not hitting well overall, but when he does he's really making it count. He says he's never been on a streak like this, and his manager Jim Leyland says he's never seen anything quite like it either.

Though it could just be that all Thames is good for is hitting home runs, as while this seven-hit streak is rather odd, it's not exactly anything new for Marcus. After all, he only has 29 hits on the season and 12 of those have been home runs.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

San Francisco Giants (30-40) vs. Detroit Tigers (32-37) - 10:05PM Est.

It's been a very odd year for the Detroit Tigers. After getting off to a horrible start this season, there have been times when they seem to be getting their act together and then suddenly they're horrible again in the blink of an eye. As Joe Morgan would probably say if you asked him about it, "I'm friends with Gary Sheffield." "They're consistently inconsistent."

Still, after sweeping the division-leading Chicago White Sox last week, I asked the question if this was the start of the Tigers turnaround. Was it a sign of things to come?

Well, the Tigers didn't stop there as they followed that sweep with another one against the Dodgers this weekend, and they've now won six in a row to creep back into the race.

I suppose the comparison is inevitable. Rick Ankiel was a stud pitching prospect who completely lost the strike zone, stopped pitching forever, and moved to the outfield. Dontrelle Willis is a decent hitting pitcher who's seemingly lost his stuff. One plus one equals two, right? Among other people, Mike Celizic sure seems to think so.

I've got one word for everyone that's drawing the comparison: stop. There have been a million pitchers and pitching prospects that have flamed out over the last 50 years and exactly one of them has become a serviceable player at another position. Rick Ankiel's career arc is so unique it's crazy to think that another pitcher can duplicate it just because he hits well and stopped throwing strikes.

When Ankiel quit pitching, he was 24. Willis is 26. Ankiel had a very public meltdown, elbow surgery, and clearly a mental block to throwing strikes. He wasn't just wild, he was beyond help. When he switched to the outfield, he told the Cardinals in no uncertain terms that he was no longer a pitcher, no matter what the team wanted from him. The Cardinals were nice enough to provide a spot for him in the minors, and that afforded him the chance to turn himself around.