October 25, 2006
Playoffs Today
The Tigers send Jeremy Bonderman, in some ways their best pitcher, to the mound tonight in game four. He'll face Jeff Suppan, superman in his home park. The weather forecast does not look good tonight, but it does look better than tomorrow or even Friday. The heavy rain is south of St. Louis right now. If it stays there, the teams should be able to get in tonight's game.
Both pitchers tonight go into situations in which they excel. Bonderman is on the road, where his walk and home run rates both go down. Suppan is at home, where his walk and home run rates both go down.
Suppan, like Carpenter, faced the Tigers during the regular season in Detroit and was knocked around a bit. He gave up nine hits and three walks in five innings, but it only led to three runs. Bonderman pitched one of his better games against St. Louis, striking out eight and walking just one in seven innings of work.
There's not a lot in the way of history between Bonderman and the Cardinals. Jeremy pitched to Belliard a number of times and handled him just fine. The person Suppan's seen the most is Magglio Ordonez, who is 17 for 43 vs. Jeff, a .393 batting average. Throw in five walks and Ordonez's OBA against Suppan is .469.
Leyland is talking about changing his lineup due to the slumps of Granderson, Polanco and Rodriguez. He may just want to put Monroe, Guillen and Ordonez together in the lineup. If the three of them can put together hits, there's a good chance the Tigers will score a run. Guillen's the best hitter on the team and should be batting higher anyway.
Enjoy!
The problem with Thames, since there's no DH in St. Louis, is where to play him in the field. He's (barely) acceptable in LF or RF and that's about it -- and I don't think you want to take Ordonez or Monroe out of the lineup.
As for why Leyland hasn't used him as a pinch-hitter, or DH at home, I have no idea. Maybe there's been some violation of team rules or something.
Knowing Leyland, he'll do something really wacky with the lineup -- starting Infante and Santiago and batting them #1 and 2, something like that. And the way things have gone in 2006, the Tigers will score eight runs.
Maybe we'll get to see Neifi Perez play in a game. He could bat 9th and Bonderman 8th. It would all lead to the same result.
When I looked at Leyland's rotation for the series, my big question was why he only had Bonderman in for one game.
Gomez and Casey should be bunched together too, IMHO
I agree completely about the Guillen/Ordonez/Monroe bunching. At the very least, get Pudge away from Guillen.
And Adam - I agree. The Tigers rotation order doesn't matter a whole lot, but Bonderman needed to pitch twice in this series.
Yeah, but so far, it's a light rain.
Actually, now it's starting to pick up. Not a heavy rain, but more of a medium one. Just got back from walking my dogs, and they were soaking wet.
