Gerald Laird Likely to Lose at His Uniform-Number Shell Game

On May 29, Gerald Laird changed his uniform number from 8 to 12 in the hope his offensive luck would change. Who could blame him for trying something — anything — to inject some life into his bat.

How’s it worked? He’s 2 for 16, or .125 since the switcheroo.

Before he had clubhouse guy Jim Schmakel sew him up a new uni, Laird was 16 for 101, or .158. And his overall stats for Laird while wearing #8 — the ones we’ll compare below with his predecessors are: .184 avg., 5 HR, .271 OBP, .553 OPS

This uniform-change ploy got me thinking about recent Tigers players that wore number 8 or number 12 to see which had the best offensive numbers and if, based on recent history (going back to 1995ish), Laird might luck out by some numerical karma.

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Final Thoughts: The Call Was Blown, Now Leave It Alone

Armando Galarraga‘s brilliance on Wednesday night has been tarnished enough by a bad call.

Any move by official scorers, Major League Baseball, the Players’ Union or Amnesty International to “correct” the umpiring gaffe and hand Galarraga a perfect game 18 hours later will tarnish his performance even more.

Isn’t one asterisk enough?

Seriously, how can the official scorer charge an error on the penultimate play? He can’t ding Miguel Cabrera for the throw, it was fine. He can’t penalize Galarraga either; he made the catch, he tagged the base.

For me, the bottom line is that this can only get worse if “they” start tinkering with the results. In many ways, this game will be even more memorable because of Jim Joyce‘s goof.

Think about it, even if Galarraga never wins another major-league game he’ll always be remembered as that guy who threw the perfect game that the umpire blew. Not ideal but not Bill Buckner either.

And what, pray tell, is Galarraga expected to do if he was suddenly — what’s the appropriate word here, awarded, handed, reimbursed? — a perfect game? It makes no sense to try to right this wrong.

It stinks, yes, but it’s how baseball works — or doesn’t sometimes.

Armando Galarraga’s Near-Perfection By the Numbers

What has gotten lost in all the calls for do-overs and commissioner over-rides is the remarkable precision with which Armando Galarraga pitched against the Indians Wednesday night.

A quick look at the bottom-line stats are stunning on their own:

88 pitches
67 strikes
21 balls

As ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick points out, that pitch count includes the five pitches Galarraga threw to Trevor Crowe for the final out.

Awesome, right? Well, it actually gets better.

Thanks to a Pitcher Report Card produced by the good folks at Inside Edge, we gain insight into these nuggets of statistical goodness:

86 percent of Galarraga’s first pitches were thrown for strikes
93 percent of his first two pitches were strikes
75 percent of his fastballs were strikes
77 percent of off-speed pitchers were strikes
93 percent of two-strike at bats became outs
4 percent of Indians at-bats went to three-ball counts

In fact, out of the 23 categories Inside Edge uses to grade a pitcher’s performance, Galarraga earned an A+ in 20 of them. The three in which he fell short were:

50 percent of 1-and-1 counts became 1-and-2 counts (the MLB average is 54 percent) – Grade: C+
7 percent of outs were strikeouts in four pitches or less (MLB average, 12 percent) – Grade: C-
7 percent of Galarraga’s pitches were swing-and-miss strikes (MLB average, 15 percent) – Grade: F

As you might have guessed, Inside Edge graded the outing an A.

Galarraga’s surgical approach to the Cleveland lineup also included first-pitch strikes to every right-handed batter he faced (73 percent to lefties). Remarkable.

For a while, perhaps a long while, baseball fans will remember this game for what happened when the 27th batter hit a ground ball to Miguel Cabrera. That’s fine.

But I hope Tigers fans will also remember how tremendous — rather, how virtually perfect Armando Galarraga’s pitching was on June 2, 2010.

So Who Is Billy Buckner?

It’s pretty clear that the Tigers don’t have big plans for newly acquired Billy Buckner.

Yesterday Dave Dombrowski described the right hander’s role in the organization thusly:

“He gives us depth at Toledo.”

Didn’t they say the same thing about poor Mike Hessman?

Given Buckner’s numbers — a 6.56 ERA for the Diamondbacks in 29 games (16 starts) in parts of three seasons — and a 0-3, 11.08 ERA record this season, you can’t argue with the Tigers doing nothing more than simply plugging a roster opening at Toledo with Buckner. And, because tonight’s starter, Armando Galarraga, appears set to stay in Detroit for a while the Mud Hens needed a body.

So, play along as we noodle the idea of Buckner arriving in Detroit some time this summer. Is he as bad as his stats would indicate?

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Jose Lima Dies at 37

Who knew that when Jose Lima was called up to the Tigers in 1994 he would become a 20-game winner and a big-league character? Lima, whose best seasons in the majors came as a member of the Astros, died this morning at his home in Los Angeles of an apparent heart attack. He was just 37 years old.

The cause of death was ruled a heart attack, according to his wife, Dorca Astacio.

“Jose was complaining while sleeping and I just thought he was having a nightmare,” Astacio told ESPNdeportes.com. “I called the paramedics, but they couldn’t help him.”

Lima signed with the Tigers as an amateur free agent in 1989 and arrived in Detroit during the 1994 season, appearing in just three games. In 1995 he was primarily a starter for the last club Sparky Anderson would manage. Lima posted as 3-9 record with 6.11 ERA. The following year he split time between the rotation and the bullpen finishing at 5-6 with three saves.

On December 10, 1996, Tigers GM Randy Smith sent Lima, Brad Ausmus, Trever Miller, C.J. Nitkowski and Daryle Ward to the Astros for Doug Brocail, Brian Hunter, Todd Jones, Orlando Miller and cash.

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Remembering Ernie, Billboard Style

Here’s a photo from a reader in the Grand Rapids area. Nice.

Ernie Harwell.jpg

Ernie Harwell By the Numbers

I’ve been thinking about Ernie Harwell‘s 42-year career in Detroit and began wondering how the Tigers fared over that time. Here’s a look at the numbers behind a Hall of Fame broadcasting career:

Total games played during Ernie’s career in Detroit: 6,663
Tigers’ record: 3,337-3,326 — a .501 winning percentage
Tigers’ record in his first season, 1960: 71-83, 4th place (of 8 teams)
Tigers’ record in his last season, 2002: 55-106, 5th place (of 5 teams)
Tigers’ best one-season record: 104-58 in 1984 (one game better than 1968)
Tigers’ worst one-season record: 55-105 in 2002

I expected a much worse overall Tigers record during Ernie’s time in Detroit. And I feel worse today remembering that they were such an awful team in his final season.

Do these numbers surprise you?

Remembering Ernie with a Fungo Flashback: “An E for the Day”

Like so many others, I started to write a post tonight about Ernie Harwell. Then I realized I’d already written everything I possibly could about him in a post on January 25, 2008 — Ernie’s 90th birthday. I wrote the following post in much better spirits than the ones in which I find myself tonight.

Opening Day 1979 was, like so many in Detroit, bitter cold. (How cold was it? Neither team held batting practice.) It was the first Opener I’d ever attended but I remember it like it was the day before yesterday.

Not because the game was on a Saturday. Not because it was a blowout, 8-2 loss to the Rangers behind Ferguson Jenkins‘ complete game. (Johnny Grubb went 2 for 5 with a first-inning homer off starter and losing pitcher Dave Rozema.)

And not because Dan Gonzalez pinch hit for Alan Trammell (!!) in the bottom of the ninth, one of only 25 big-league at bats Gonzalez would ever get. (He flied out to right to end the game.) No, what I’ll always remember about that day was that I met today’s birthday boy, Ernie Harwell.

My brother, his friend Freddie and I were walking around the field in the lower deck when my brother spotted Ernie chatting it up with fans behind the Tigers dugout. We took our place in the makeshift line and Ernie signed my program.

(I have no idea where that signature ended up, but I take solace in the fact I have the one shown here from a signed copy of Ernie’s 1985 book Tuned to Baseball.)

I had the chance to ask a question and here’s what my nine-year-old bean came up with: Is Paul up in the booth?

Ernie replied that Paul Carey was, in fact, up in the booth preparing for the game and that he hoped I had fun at the ballpark that day. Talk about a thrill — even more thrilling than getting Jim Northrup‘s autograph at my annual baseball banquet later that year. And every year on Opening Day I think of it (Ernie’s signature, not Northrup’s).

As Ernie turns 90 today, we’re hearing countless tales from around Detroit. (Read this one.) Do you have a brush-with-Ernie’s greatness story? Share it here.

Even if you didn’t get a chance to meet him in person, given the number of games he called for us on the radio, doesn’t it feel like you did?

Happy 10th Birthday, Comerica Park

Ten years ago today the Tigers opened Comerica Park with a 5-2 win over the Mariners. Anyone who was there might still be thawing out.

Here, courtesy of the Tigers Media Guide, are some Comerica Park firsts — some from that day, others a bit later:

First Pitch: April 11, 2000 — 1:18 p.m. (Brian Moehler, strike to Seattle’s Mark McLemore with umpire Rick Reed behind the plate)

First Hit: April 11, 2000 — Seattle’s John Olerud, double, top of first off of Brian Moehler

First Single: April 11, 2000 — Gregg Jefferies, bottom of first off of Seattle’s Freddy Garcia

First Double: April 11, 2000 — Seattle’s John Olerud, top of first off of Brian Moehler

First Triple: April 11, 2000 — Luis Polonia, bottom of first off of Seattle’s Freddy Garcia

First Home Run: April 14, 2000 — Juan Gonzalez, bottom of third off Tampa Bay’s Ryan Rupe. With Gonzalez’s three-run shot, it marked the longest stretch without a home run of any new ballpark opened since 1989.

First RBI: April 11, 2000 — Gregg Jefferies, bottom of first

First Stolen Base: April 12, 2000 — Seattle’s Mark McLemore off Dave Mlicki/Brad Ausmus, 2nd base.

First Shutout: April 12, 2000 — Seattle’s Aaron Sele, 4-0.

First Grand Slam: April 19, 2000 Boston’s Trot Nixon, top of the 6th off Jim Poole.

First Tigers Grand Slam: June 27, 2000 — Dean Palmer, bottom of fifth off New York’s David Cone.

First Inside-the-Park Home Run: September 2, 2000 — Juan Gonzalez, bottom of the first off Texas’ Kenny Rogers.

Detroit Tigers 2010 Season Preview

Nanoseconds after Carlos Gomez slid across home plate in the final regular-season game of 2009, sending his Twins team to the playoffs and dispatching the Tigers to an offseason of soul searching, the last thing a Tigers fan wanted to do was think of Opening Day 2010.

Maybe I’m just projecting my own coping skills on the legion of Tigers followers, but it’s safe to say that, considering how the 2009 season ended, we all needed a break. The good news is: break’s over.

Opening Day 2010 is here and with it comes the joy of seeing the Royals, White Sox, Indians and, yes, the Twins 18 times each over the next six months. Think of it. Savor it.

And, bathe, won’t you, in the Opening Day clichés that will flow over the next 24 hours – Hope springs eternal on Opening Day! Everyone’s tied for first place on Opening Day! Jeremy Bonderman discovered a third pitch in time for Opening Day!

But in the meantime, let’s take a look at what’s in store for Jim Leyland’s Tigers in 2010, at least from our view.

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