June 30th, 2010
Verlander meets Tom Seaver
The Tigers had three rough days in New York last week. Justin Verlander had a particularly rough outing in the series opener last Tuesday, but he might’ve gained something from a meeting with Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver. The point was to get Verlander to look at a lineup and determine where his outs are.
“Not to give too much credit to good hitters,” Verlander said. “That’s basically what I got out of it. Believe in yourself. Don’t try to overthink stuff.”
Jim Leyland talked before the game about looking down a lineup and determining where your outs are, which hitters are going to be tougher battles than others, and formulating a game plan that way. That seemed to be one of the points Leyland wants Verlander to gather, not that he’s usually one who lacks for confidence.
Ni optioned to Toledo
The much-pondered question of what the Tigers would do with Fu-Te Ni got an answer Wednesday afternoon, when he was optioned to Triple-A Toledo postgame. No return move was immediately announced, but the first candidate you probably thought of isn’t the guy. Leyland said Ryan Perry would not be the guy coming up.
Wednesday: Tigers at Twins
It’s the end of the nine-game, nine-day, three-city road trip, closing out with a noon local time game, but there’s a good number of Tigers taking part in the optional batting practice, Brennan Boesch among them.
By the way, if Avila had been catching today, the Tigers would have five rookies in the field, including the pitcher.
- Jackson, CF
- Damon, LF
- Ordonez, DH
- Cabrera, 1B
- Boesch, RF
- Guillen, 2B
- Inge, 3B
- Laird, C
- Worth, SS
- Denard Span, CF
- Orlando Hudson, 2B
- Delmon Young, LF
- Justin Morneau, 1B
- Jason Kubel, RF
- Michael Cuddyer, 3B
- Jim Thome, DH
- Nick Punto, SS
- Drew Butera, C
Jason Beck
