Celebrating Detroit Tigers teams, players and games from 1977 to '89.
Month: February 2009
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Miguel Cabrera #24 Height: 6′ 4″ | Weight: 240 2008 Stats: .292 – 37 HR – 127 RBI Miguel Cabrera wasted little time in 2008 showing Tigers fans why he’s one of baseball’s premier hitters. His towering home run on Opening Day set the tone for a season in which he’d lead the league with…
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Placido Polanco #14 Height: 5′ 10″ | Weight: 195 2008 Stats: .307 – 8 HR – 58 RBI Like most of his teammates, Placido Polanco struggled at the outset of the 2008 season. The usually fast-starting second baseman – he has a .307 average for April spanning 2006-08 – was expected to pickup the slack…
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Curtis Granderson #28 Height: 6′ 1″ | Weight: 185 2008 Stats: .280 – 22 HR – 66 RBI If anyone doubted Curtis Granderson’s value atop the Tigers lineup, the first few weeks of 2008 likely convinced them. Without their leadoff hitter – Granderson suffered a broken finger at the end of Spring Training – the…
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Fernando Rodney #56 Height: 5′ 11″ | Weight: 220 2008 Stats: 0-6, 4.91 ERA, 13 Saves In a bottom-line business like major league baseball, fans tend to overlook stats such as 49 strikeouts in 40 innings or 13 saves from a late-inning reliever like Fernando Rodney. Six blown saves and an ERA a whisker under…
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Armando Galarraga #58 Height: 6′ 4″ | Weight: 180 2008 Stats: 13-7, 3.73 On April 15, 2008, the Tigers summoned Armando Galarraga from Toledo for what most presumed was a short-term stint for the rookie right-hander. He made his Tigers debut on April 16 in Cleveland – a period when the Tigers desperately needed wins…
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Edwin Jackson #36 Height: 6′ 3″ | Weight: 210 2008 Stats: 14-11, 4.42 ERA When the Tigers traded Matt Joyce to the Tampa Bay Rays for Jackson, Detroit fans scratched their heads – and not only because Joyce appeared to have a future in the Tigers outfield. Jackson is an unknown quantity outside of the…
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Jeremy Bonderman #38 Height: 6′ 2″ | Weight: 220 2008 Stats: 3-4, 4.29 ERA It seems that every season baseball experts predict that it will be the year that Jeremy Bonderman finally emerges as an ace, discovers an effective third pitch, and challenges for the Cy Young Award. The 2008 season was no different but…
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The results of our most recent poll indicate that loyal Daily Fungo readers would prefer Dontrelle Willis (43%), Zach Miner (38%) or perhaps even Felipe Lira as the Tigers’ fifth starter over Nate Robertson (19%). Nevertheless, we want to continue our series of player profiles today with The Nater for two reasons — actually three,…
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Happy 51st to perhaps the classiest guy ever to wear the D. Today’s also the birthday of two former Tigers pitchers: Bill Slayback, a member of the 1972 A.L. East Division champs, turns 61. A seventh-round pick in the 1968 draft, he pitched three years in Detroit posting a 6-9 record and 3.84 ERA in…
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This is the first in a series of player profiles of the 2009 Tigers. I’ve developed them for each of the position players and the starting rotation — at least some of the pitchers in contention for a rotation spot — and will roll them out over the next week. We kick things off with…