Tigers trade Ledezma
He’s off to Atlanta for Macay McBride. I’m not in Washington for the series, so I can’t give you much more. All I can say is this looks like step 2 of the bullpen makeover (De La Cruz was step 1).
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Wow. Lefty for lefty. Could this be another steal by Big Dave?
McBride’s walk totals are a little high, but improving lately. The question now is Seay or Byrdak? Or neither?
Well, you can’t accuse the Tigers of sitting still, that’s for sure.
Not a bad move. I’ve never been big on Ledezma, and I like McBride’s upside. I like the recent bullpen shakeups.
I hope they continue. The Tigers are one of the best built teams in the game with the bullpen being the obivous weakness. If that improves, it’s going to take a lot to stop them.
http://www.theorphan.mlblogs.com
Well I’m not sure how much that will help but I, for one, won’t miss Ledezma. You would have to expect McBride gets sent down since he is optionable. The wierd thing is that he is ANOTHER southpaw!
Rogers
Robertson
Miller
Maroth
Seay
Byrdak
McBride
If two of them go down I think it would be Seay and McBride—-unless JL & DD want Miller to rotate in Toledo. If he slams the door on the Braves there is no way that is gonna happen.
Judging by the lineup it looks like JL wants to win this game badly enough to not rest Pudge or Guillen. Another test for Granderson too against the lefty.
With recent developments it looks like I’m not gonna see my man Darensbourg anytime soon!
Should we run a first inning pool on Jeremy today?
Doesn’t look like this will be easy. You can sense the bats going to sleep and let’s hope that the 2nd time trhrough wakes em up.
Something this might mean is this….Ledezma didn’t have any options left. McBride does. My feeling is that McBride will be optioned to Toledo to make room for Kenny Rogers on Friday, then Durbin or Maroth will be moved to the ‘pen
I hope JL “talked” to him about coming in in a non-save situation!
Couple of comments here in the 9th–I’ll bet Granderson learned something from Monroe’s liner–he is keen and a manager’s dream.
Great ABs by Infante in the and Granderson in the 6th sandwiched around a very impatient AB by Sheffield.
Let’s hope Pudge is OK–Rabelo is a little “unpolished” behind th plate.
Well Jones got ‘em 3 up 3 down.
Nice to have a sweep.
According to my quick mental review, this is the most games above .500 the Tigers have been all season. I did think they should sweep a crippled Washington team. So we stand at 42-29 without Kenny Rogers. I’ll take that.
The bit about McBride having options came up later and yeah, that’s probably exactly what will happen.
Now, how about we trade Rodney? JL looked absolutely ticked off when he sent Hernandez out. Rodney is now the worst pitcher on the staff and he’s the setup guy? Anyone else could do better. I’m not going to be kind about this anymore. No more head cases. Even the Washington announcer (Don Sutton) commented on his demeanor. Sutton said Rodney looked like a guy who didn’t want to be out there. Sound familiar?
Former Tigers firstbasemen:
Young
Stairs
Pena
They are all having pretty darn good years.
Would I trade Casey for any one of them–no. Though Pena might be tempting.
Congrats to Sean for pulling through a tough stretch. One of the best things about him though is his glove.
Well far be it from me to stick up for Rodney a little in this case. But he did come in with Brydaks runner on base, hot got the next two batters to fly, then popout, yes he did hit a batter then he got a bad call in Schneiders at bat. My blind 94 year old Grandmother could see that it was a strike, that guy did not walk. Then he got the next guy. What I really notice about Rodney is that if he losses his cool or gets a bad call, he sometimes emplodes. Just like last week with Milwaukee, he got a few really bad strike/ball calls, then he winds up giving up the homerun. He wouldn’t even have been in that position if the ump would of gotten it correct. Even Mario and Rod commented last week on how bad the calls were and they don’t usually comment on that aspect of the game too much. That being said he has got to get it together, I wonder if his confidence is shaken so he is over throwing a bit.????
Well, I can’t say that Ledezma was my favorite Tiger player but I always pulled for him to do well. Obviously he was not going to be a starter on this team and he was out of options so there was no longer any room for him, nor was there any longer a good fit for him in a bullpen full of lefties. This trade meant nothing more than creating options for JL. With Seay and Byrdak already here I can’t figure out why they chose a lefty reliever though, other than maybe it was simply the best offer they received. It was a trade that needed to be made but I think at this point Atlanta might have gotten the better deal. Time will tell. But I wish Wilfredo well, at least he went to a quality team. I’m a little worried that Byrdak and Seay are now vulnerable. I think they’ve been doing a great job, but 3 lefty specialists? Something has got to give as JL has alluded to.
Glad to see those 3 first basemen are doing well. Always liked Pena and didn’t want to see him go either. He was a smart young player, who I recall struck out too often for management’s liking. Young is having a very good year, and hit well in this series but did anyone notice how he didn’t come through in a couple of important at bats? In the first game didn’t he strike out with the bases loaded, as if he was trying to prove something, and lost his focus? I’ll still take Casey. Not sure why he continues to wear those 5 lb ankle weights during games, as sometimes it seams he’s running through wet concrete to reach the bag after snaring or stabbing a hard grounder deep at first. For being so slow he has great footwork around the bag. Must be those dancing lessons paid off. Plus he has a quick soft glove and routinely saves the infield throwing errors.
Well the Tigers did what they were supposed to against a struggling Washington team, now lets see what they do against Smoltz. That will be a true test of their hitting. Should be a good one.
Rodney gets bad calls because he’s always wild. You can’t be struggling to throw strikes then have the umpire suddenly give you a borderline pitch. That may not be right, but it’s baseball. It won’t change. Last night he finally threw a fat one to Belliard, and Ronnie just got under it a little or we would have had a game tying grand slam and another disaster to howl over. At the very least, use someone else in the setup role.
Sean Casey has made (most) everyone forget Chris Shelton. I noticed on that pickoff error charged to Bonderman that it was a throw Casey would have scooped out. Marcus knew he should have had it too, you could tell by his body language after that run scored.
If anyone got the Washington feed, they had Dimitri miked up and he was his usual gregarious self out there. He had a rather long conversation with his buddy Inge over at third, and he greeted C-Mo at first after his sharp single by saying “THAT’S the Craig I remember!”
Marty, I think the hitters have passed all tests. Smoltz just might shut them down tomorrow night, but he’s a Hall of Fame pitcher. If he’s getting those calls near the corners, we don’t hit.
Well I am satisfying my Baseball Jones today by listening to Nates rehab start at Erie.
At this point he has thrown 5 innings, given up no hits, struck out 6, allowed 1 walk and has been throwing hard.
BTW-the SeaWolves are ahead 10-0
Speaking of the farm–Ryan Raburn is playing real well in Toledo. Shelton has been pretty ordinary. Hessman is leading the league in HRs and RBIs (I think) and Perez is still hitting over .320. Darensbourg gives up a half a run every 9 innings and Lopez is doing great as well.
Well Nate has thrown 6 now and got bailed out by a diving catch by the Wolves leftfielder to close out the inning. He is under his pitch count quota of 75 and I presume that he gets left in to see if he can complete the no-no as today’s game is a 7 inning contest.
Interesting days ahead for management if Nate comes back strong.