Tigers win in Baltimore, but …
The story of the night in baseball — really, the story of the season so far — is the Indians’ home opener in Milwaukee. Hopefully some of you had a chance to peek in at it either online or onthe TV — many cable systems in the area are doing a free preview of
the Extra Innings package this week, while MLB.TV has a free preview running through April — but it was quite a show. I’m not in Baltimore this week, so I had the chance to do some channel-flipping.
It could’ve (and probably should’ve) been a disaster, but by game’s end, Miller Park had almost 20,000 paying customers, and many of them were rooting for the Indians. Slider the Indians mascot lived up to his name by going down Bernie Brewer’s slide after each of Cleveland’s home runs, and they brought out the sausage race. The only other time you really were conscious of it being Milwaukee was when Tribe closer and former Cub Joe Borowski got some boos in the ninth. Good stuff.
Jason Beck
I did get to see the highlights from Milwaukee. And absolutely, if it’s the Indians home opener, they should have been rooting for the Tribe. I liked the sign that said “Bring In Wild Thing.”
I asked myself, would I run up to RFK to see a game under similar circumstances, and my answer was, heck yeah I would.
It’s a big BUT!
A good sign is that we are winning games that we either could have or should have lost.
“Finding a way to win” is an art form in professinal sports.
The middle of the lineup is on holiday right now and when they get back we can expect to see some solid Tiger victories again. Sheffield is likely still adapting to his role as a DH. I hope he is suited to it but my opinion is that Ordonez is more suited to it than Sheff. I think Sheff is a gamer, a former shortstop who probably likes to get his hands on the ball. Ordonez, on the other hand probably cringes when he sees a LHB or a spray hitter come to the plate.
Inge needs to get a couple of hits and maybe some personal instruction from Mr Tiger. He’s lost right now, no matter how much he says he is “on the ball”. My fear with him is that he is going to start throwing the ball around the yard if he continues to stuggle and press at the plate.
The middle of the lineup really needs to come around. If they are not busting fences then the best we can expect is for them to clog up the base paths. (Dave, how about Ordonez for Carl Crawford? Please give Andrew Friedman a call, he might want Maggs.)
I hope the season turns out well for the club and that Ordonez proves me dead wrong, but I think his most productive days are definitely in the past.
Durbin showed some signs of being able to handle the job the other day. When you can get a breaking ball over for strikes like he was doing it can make you formidable on the mound. A couple more starts under his belt and we should have a good idea how he is going to pan out.
Tough break for Rogers and Vance Wilson this year. Both guys might have some trouble coming back at this stage in their career. I hope they can, becasue they both add more than stats to this club.
Jason-
Anyway you can help us northwest Ohio fans out?
I’m a DirecTV customer in the 43416 zip code and an avid Tigers fan and season ticket holder. I was very upset when I realized that FSN Detroit was blacked out for baseball. I called DirecTV and got the run around. I’ve always got the Tigers since I joined DirecTV by purchasing the sports pack. I was told that even if I purchased MLB extra innings that FSN Detroit would still be blacked out for baseball. My life isn’t complete without the Tigers, Mario, & Rod in the summer!!
I just saw this on Danny Knobler’s blog: http://blog.mlive.com/tigersinsider/2007/04/tv_problems_in_northwest_ohio.html. It explains how to fix this issue with DirectTV. If you can’t get DirectTV to fix it, you can threaten to switch to cable as it isn’t a problem.
Craig Monroe just seems to focus better under pressure. He does it better than about anybody. If he could focus like that all the time he’d be a regular 300 hitter easy.
Great pitching tonight…or was it poor hitting? A bit of both I suppose. The Tiger hitters just can’t lay off those breaking balls in the dirt. So what’s new? I did like the umpire’s strike zone though. It keeps the game flowing and pitchers aggressive. And I like the Oriole broadcasters. Jim Palmer does a great job, fair and accurate, as does the play by play guy.
The Orioles play by play guy is Gary Thorne, and MASN is very fortunate to have him. He’s vastly experienced with ABC and ESPN and you may have heard him during last year’s postseason. I know him best as the “voice” of the NHL playoffs during all those great Red Wing runs. And having heard far too much of Jim Palmer over the years, it’s great to see that Thorne actually seems to keep Jim from talking so much.
So let’s start a pool: which Tiger hitter will be first to break out of his slump? I’ll take Sheffield, this weekend in Toronto.
After all the weather, the near total lack of offense, and key injuries, I’ll take this 5-3 record and be happy with it.
Thanks Rich. I remember that voice now. Thorne does an excellent job. I’ll take 5-3 too. How’d they do that? Generally solid pitching and some clutch hitting I guess. Just enough guys are coming through. It hasn’t been inspiring though. Are we getting TOO used to this? And I agree, Sheffield would be a good bet Rich.