Postseason game times

Disappointing result on Infante's grounder. He must have had some trouble getting out of the batter's box because I think he useually beats that out.

Nice hiiting UP THE MIDDLE by the middle of the lineup.

Bonderman looks sharp---let's hope he is like a Gillette today.

They're PLAYIN' today boys.

Nice hustle all around and the creative Guillen gets a big one forus.

Bonderman needs to hammer a nail next inning. Very important to back this up with a well pitched inning.

Bonderman walks the lead off hitter, after our big inning.

What a surprise........lol.

I hope JL will have a quick hook with him today. He has shown, he is more than capable of blowing a big lead. He pitches better in tight games.

I think he will have a quick hook. This kind of momentum shift scenario has been a problem all season. If the offense soes the job then the starters relax and taper off. Or the offense scores a bunch then goes dormant the rest of the game.

The momentum needs to be turned around again--offense needs to come back and get those 3 back to let everyone know it is for real.

Bonderman has gone from sharp to shaky.

Sure like DeJesus as a player.

DeJesus has a future, and since he on the Royals, and they only give long term contracts and keep players who don't play(Sweeney), he'll be available.

Ahead 6-0, Bondo on the mound. It is now 6-3. Have we seen this scenario before?...lol.

I don't know if I can watch.

Casey really needs to attend the Wee Wille Keeler "Hit 'em where they ain't" school.
I have never seen anyone hit so many balls drectly at fielders.

Leyland should be taking him out right now after that last pitch to Gathright.

Robbed of a homer, and that Casey liner coulda dropped...........things would look a LOT different at 8-3.

It is pretty apparent, Bonderman still has some growing to do.

Okay........enough of this, get Bonderman out of there!!!

I cannot believe, this guy does not have the heart, to pitch when success is so imminent.

It is very discourageing to have starting pitchers than get so easily rattled. A good pitcher can have a bad inning and then regain command. Verlander, Bonderman and Robertson all can have a bad inning followed by a lousy effort.
Bonderman gettin ahead 0-2 then loses him--give up hits to 8th and 9th hitters-all signs of lack of concentration. Poor effort on Bonderman's part.

Nice job by Zumaya. We find out today what kind of character this team has and who has it.

If anyone makes an error behind Bondo, he loses it. Didja see the look on his face, when Inge oculd not come up with that short hop??

This kid needs to grow up.

Zumaya, on the other hand, is a man in a kids body. Tenacious. He shut 'em down, but it begs the question:

What do we do now? Who pitches the 6th, 7th, and 8th?

Have the Tigers gotten anyone home from third, with less than two out, the entire season?

I don't remember one.........

Scratch- I expect Zumaya will keep going if he can keep gettin outs. I would think he could be kept around for the 6th and 7th. He's not thrown many pitches so far.
Then Leyland will throw Rodney and Jones in the 9th.

Bad at bat by Inge. Very bad. That kind of at bat can actually be another momentum shifter. Squandered opportunity.

Joel Zumaya - MVP of Division Champs. How does that sound? In answer to the question, bring him out in the 7th, and we'll go from there.

For sure--he has only thrown 15 pitches the question is do you bring him out in the 8th if he breezes thru this inning.

With all the stupid baseball and choke action we have seen lately it is hard to be comfortable with this 3 run lead. The team looks like it is willing to be "polite" again and that is always an invitation for disaster.

We need to get thru this inning and to have some good at bats in our half. 4 straight balls. Whoa--we don't like that.

This is like water torture......drip, drip, drip.

I don't know if it is the hitting coach or not, but it seems to me the only player on the roster who adjusts his swing with two strikes, is Polanco.

Inge, with two strikes, is still trying to hit it into the mezzanine. And when there is a man on third, that is not what a professional hitter does.

Ya gota give the Royals credit. Going nowhere anytime soon, last series of the season, the golf course beckoning, and they have come into Detroit and handed the Tigers their lunch.

Oh my gosh. Rodney in now. He does not have a good record with inherited runners as far as I can recall. If he doesn't walk or hit the first batter then we have a chance.

DeJesus hs been playing superb baseball and you know he is having fun right now---way more fun thean us!

OK Casey I'll take back at least half of all those things I ever said about you. Rodney you should be spanked! Lets get some runs now.....man, I can't take any more of this!!!!

We can all laugh at that throw by Rodney but this is part and parcel of his problem. He is so laissez-faire about everything.

At least he stopped the ball. Man this is a tough game and it's too early in Western Canada to start drinking yet.

"Character"---let's see it now Ingie!

Don't dig in Royals. Rodney forgot to wear his contacts today.
Short leash JL----short leash

A hit batter, and a walk, to start an inning, up by three, with the division on the line.

Can you say: CHOKE?

With the best ERA in the league, why do we have such a hard time closing anyone out?

I have said it many, MANY, MAAAAAAAAAANY times here...........if the ball is hit towards Inge with the game on the line, we are in trouble.

This guy has been around long enough, to be better than this. He has probably made ten errors late in games with runners on base this year.

I have also been chastised here and in the forum for saying that Inge is not the answer at third, for his production, and his inability to make even the simplest play when it counts. Again, he chokes when his team needed him most.

I know I am whining a lot here, but isn't this my worst nightmare??...lol.

Possibly getting swept by the Royals, at home, the last three games of the season with the Division on the line, with two of the games having HUGE leads. The Royals???

Another thing, i wish the Tiger announcers, Rod Allen in particulart, would call it as it is. The Tigers are choking. Period. Rodney tried to give it away with his high throw. Then, he did give it away by walking and hitting the first two batters in the eighth. Inge giving it away by not being aboe to make a throw any A-ball player would be cut for not making. Jones, walking batters(these are Royals remember). Bonderman gagging and puking all over himself.

These announcers should call the game that is in front of them, and it is clear these Tigers are not ready for prime time.

And that folks is why the Tigers picked up Matt Stairs for 15 days!

Scratch--there is truth in Inge being able to handle pressure. He doen't do it well. I have defended his potential and his range. I have always said that any play thao he has to think about can becaome a bad play. That's where he makes a lot of errors. That one was just tupid. He didn't have to throw the ball at all. The runner on 2 nd was stopped and had nowhere to go.

The team does not deserve to win this 'championship"

And I can tell you that I have never felt comfortable with this bullpen--I don't care what kind of opponent Bat Avg or ERA anyone throws around they can not be relied upon.

Rodney is just plain wild, Zumaya is pretty predictable and Jones --like I said before, throw strikes but that's what batting practice pitchers do to. I said along time ago Jones will break our hearts. I expect Rodney to disintigrate but Jones did break my heart today.

That's what Stairs is supposed to do!!! Late inning LHB PH.

Do we deserve this reprieve?

We deserve it.........but I fear for our team if it goes extra innings. Who in the world will shut this great hitting(lol.......yeah, I know, isn't it the Royals???)down?

The plays that inge has messed up cannot be defended. And the real problem, as I see it, is that they are not due to mechanics, or a lack of ability. Both of those can be worked on and improved. No, his errors are due to flat out choking, and as we all know, that is something that cannot be fixed. If one chokes that bad when it counts, time after time, the kid just doesn't have what it takes.

BTW, why don't the guys in the bullpen break out the gum when one of their own is hitting guys and walking guys in the eighth? Shouldn't this help?.....lol.

Ahhh well, playing like this, it oughta be a short post season, but it truly has been a fun season anyway.

Am I being cynical when I say it sure looks like Pudge is more interested in taking walks when it protects his .300 season average?

I've never seen him take so many pitches.

ROGERS! I guess they really do want to win this thing.

Oh no..............Inge up, less than two out, everything up for grabs.

Is Santiago available?....lol.

I am speachless.

Nice job Inge...first the error and then you leave 9 runners on base for the day.

Once again, a runner on third, less than two out.....and we look like a little league team.

Did anyone see that swing Inge took, with two strikes on him, with everything at stake? Way too big, as always. Of course, he was so jittery, he pull hooked the two that were grooved down main street.

Very discouraging.

We deserve this.

We have absolutely stunk up the place since August 1st.

Anybody up for a game of T-ball?

Hope they are as angry as us fans. Maybe they will cause some trouble for the Yanks.

Yeah, giving up 28 runs to the Kansas City Royals in three games at home gives every reason to suspect we can hold down those banjo-hitting Yanks.........lol.

If I were the Yankees, I would just hit the ball at Inge. Guaranteed success.

I still wonder why there was such a large celebration by the Tigers for simply clinching a playoff spot. I believe any celebration should have been delayed until a division title was won.

It's time to back off a little in my opinion guys. Nobody criticized our play anymore than I did, especially plate discipline. Plate discipline didn't lose five of these last six games. What got us here failed us when we needed it most, and I hope that's just a blip. If not, we can take it home. Inge's all star plays kept us in games that we should have lost earlier. Hey, the guy lives went to high school fifty miles from here. He doesn't adjust his swing. all of our players had hot streaks. You all kept crying for shelton, and hevery chance he had, he struck out. You bemoaned Stairs, but we played four extra innings because of him. I have been a Tiger fan since 1959. Not much to crow about in those 47 years, but I bleed old English Blue. If we go out in three, I can't wait until mid February to do it again. If we make it past the Yanks, that's farther than we've been in a long time. Good grief. Back off, and enjoy the 24 game im,provement. I'm sorry if this offends someone, but at this point, I don't really care.

I've held out of today's conversation until now, in hopes of gaining some perspective.

Anybody remember Billy Crystal's great movie, "'61?" After Roger Maris failed to hit his 60th homer in game 154, the writer Artie says something along the lines of "He couldn't handle the pressure." And the older writer asks Artie "Did you ever PLAY baseball?"

That question came to my mind several times today as I read the comments being posted to this blog. Words like "choke" and "heart" being thrown around while some people whined like Red Sox fans. You should have realized some weeks ago that this was no longer a good baseball team and enjoyed what you had, namely, a dog in the hunt. You just experienced several hours of gripping, pressure packed baseball. Would you rather have spent October 1st watching the Lions?

Only one team wins it, guys, the rest participate. Did you really think this year's Tigers were going to win the World Series? I don't think so, but you would have complained over that final playoff loss as if someone had just stolen your puppy.

David, I'm with you come February. I've spent my hard earned dollars buying the baseball TV subscription and the MLB.com subscription ever since it became available, for the sole reason of getting to see my boyhood team play. They weren't very good, but I kept watching. I was rewarded this season and will continue to be rewarded starting Tuesday night, in New York.

There will be a few of us there in February, David. We can expect the rest along about June, IF the Tigers are playing well.

Now we're going to go into New York and get our butts handed to us, and I'll be there every step of the way. That's what "us" means.

And if this offends anyone, I'm with David, I don't care.

Absolutely a very disheartening weekend. Humiliating actually. As bad as we are down on them, I imagine a good number of those players are feeling every bit the same. Since the first of September I have been trying to remind everyone these fellas played way over their heads (and our expectations last April)and got a lot of breaks the first three months of the season. Fortunately, they made the playoffs, unfortunately they have to play in Yankee Stadium. It doesn't look good... ok, it looks bleak at best. Trying to find a way to be positive is pretty tough. Maybe the self-imposed pressure of trying not to "choke" is over. Now they must realize they are back to a new season, and not too much is going to be expected of them the next three games. Maybe that is a good thing to be such an underdog. Maybe they will relax, get a few breaks, and play with a little more of the success they experienced early. Ok, maybe not. Again, I will be at a bar in western NY with a large screen tv. I will have my Tiger hat on. I will bring a designated driver, a bodyguard, and keep the cellphone handy to call an ambulance. At worst it will be humiliating, but at best, maybe one of the multitudes of Yankee fans will faint when we beat them! I always remind them it is EASY to be a Yankee fan. That's why there are so many of them.

One thing good about the Tigers "settling" for the wild card - we'll get swept in 3 games against the Yankees instead of agonizing thru 4 or 5 games before being eliminated by the A's... Oh wait - the lowly Royals swept us, so it wouldn't have mattered who we played in the playoffs!!! PLEASE USE THIS AS B-BOARD MATERIAL, TIGERS!!!

Oh - btw - the Tigers were something like 24-32 after they dropped Shelton. I'm not naive enough to think that's why they couldn't hold on, but it IS something to think about!

It was an exciting season. As a twins fan I am happy that the Tiger fans had something to cheer about, but obviously I am happy with today's outcome. Good luck. I would love to see an all central division final!!

At a young age I saw the tigers win the world series in 1968, I was a soon to be young married man when they won in 1984. I am now a man who soon will be a grandfather and I will see the tiger win the world series in 2006. Maybe it is wishfull thinking, but watching how hard the players have played the entire season, I could only see them going all the way. Granted it was heart breaking to see them loose first place in the last game of the season, but I am sure they feel alot worse then I could ever feel. I give the Detroit Tigers on a scale from one to ten a solid ten for there hard work and great spirit of the game. It is not easy what they have achieved in the past season. I am happy that they are our Detroit Tigers

I just found out that Konerko, Dye, and Crede didn't play today. Thanks Ozzie.

WELL THE TIGERS SHOWED THEIR TRUE COLORS IN LOSING 3 TO KC.I FEEL SORRY FOR OUR PLAYERS BECAUSE I KNOW THEY TRIED.I BLAME LEYLAND BECAUSE HE AND DROMDOWSKI SCREWED UP OUR CHEMISTRY BY PUTTING A MEDIOCRE PLAYER AT FIRST[NO WAY WOULD BIG RED HAVE PLAYED AS BAD AS THE NEW FIRST BASEMAN]LEYLAND SHOWED NO LOYALTY TO THE GUYS WHO GAVE US FIRST PLACE AND BY PLAYING SUB PAR PEOPLE HE COST US NOT ONLY THE DIVISION BUT HE SCEWED UP THE MINDS OF GOOD PLAYERS LIKE BIG RED AND CLEVLEN.HE SHOWS ONCE AGAIN HOW LOYALESS HE IS BY PUTTING PEREZ AND THE OTHER FIRST BASEMAN INAND LEAVING BIG RED AND CLEVLEN OFF THE TEAM. WITHOUT CLEVLEN IN RIGHT WATCH HOW THE YANKEES PUT ON A HITTING EXPEDITION IN RIGHT FIELD.LEYLAND IS DOING A DISSERVICE TO US FANS AND OUR TIGERS BY USING HIS FRIENDS AND NOT OUR BEST PLAYERS.BEST MANAGER IN BASEBALL IS MINNESOTO'S MGR WHO WAS IN 1ST PLACE ONE DAY-THE LAST AND THE ONLY ONE THAT COUNTS

Well said David Tiger, Rich, and Dsmith of Rochester. I too have waited in thought and retrospect, trying to make some kind of baseball sense of all this. I still haven't. No rallying cry, no rock to cling to, no solid ground. This regular season simply was what it was. It has taken us to the highest baseball highs and the lowest baseball lows. Isn't that fair enough? Tears of joy and tears of sorrow are both equal in blessing, don't you think? Though I am deeply disappointed, it just ain't worth getting bitter over. Like somehow having won today would make us more complete human beings. We're just fans after all. We are simply impassioned by, we love this game of baseball, and what a great game it is! These guys are just young men doing what we all have dreamed of doing. They aren't gods or even demi-gods. All our anger, all our whining and crying will not change anything.
Rich, I love that line, "DID YOU EVER PLAY BASEBALL?" I was thinking it was in the movie "The Natural" (by the way, my favorite baseball movie for a ton of reasons), where Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford)asks the cynical beat sports columnist played by Robert Duvall the same question. It's a question that strikes a chord in all of us who have ever had the joy of playing the game. He asks the writer still more questions in his line of thinking. Each one congering up the very smell of childhood, playing ball on spring days when the snow hadn't even finished melting, hot dry summer days when the dust clung to every part of your body after sliding and diving all day, and even cold late fall days when you just weren't ready to give up the game. Heck, we played all the time, sometimes in the snow. Baseball, like all competition, in large part has been a game about winning and losing. To the victor goes the spoils as they sat...bragging rights. But in the greater higher part it is about simply the joy of having fun. Do you remember those days where you only had 5,6,7 guys but you still managed to make time itself stop? You simply designated left or right field off limits, supplied a catcher for the defensive team, sometimes even designated ghost runners on base when they were full and there was nobody left to hit... You always had your glove but the number and condition of bats and balls was never a given. Sometimes the bat was a big ol heavy "left out in the rain" too many times affair, sometimes it was the cracked one you had to use in a pinch. Sometimes it possessed both these qualities together. Balls, yeah there was usually one with a seam or two coming lose, maybe even with a flap going on, and also the dark brown one left out in the rain or found that weighed about 3 times what it should have. Whatever it took....What am I getting at? It's a great game, the best game God ever gave us. It'll break your heart like a childhood sweetie, it'll make you feel like the luckiest person who ever lived. Anyone who ever hit a 3 run homer to win a championship game in the top of the 13th, or some such similar mighty thing, would have to agree with me on this.

Today the Tigers lost. There have been a lot of joys, sorrows, and disappointments along the way but today would have to be the absolute saddest. My point is, you got to keep things in perspective. You got to be thankful for what you have. You can point to this guy or to that guy for falling short, choking, blowing it, squandering golden opportunities, failing to be truly great when fickle elusive opportunity comes knocking. As true fans that's our charge, our duty. There were so many what if's today, probably the biggest two that come to mind for me were DeJesus' pick of Infante's home run ball and Inge's slight pull of what could have been a game winning walk off grand slam in the 10th I think it was. So point out all the chokes , the embarassment of losing to the last place Royals. It's all part of the game. Take it or leave it.

You know what? Tip your hats to the Kansas City Royals. They're not a joke. They're a professional team last I checked. They played the Tigers head to head baseball this weekend. That's what they were supposed to do. They did the same against the Twins and the White Sox. All I saw out there today was an outfield swarming on everything hit to them. Running down line drives, pulling home runs back into the ball park, diving catches. I saw an infield that agressively made plays all day. Decent pitching and pretty tenatious hitting. They simply would not go away. I tip my hat to them. Yes, I see a squandered 6 run lead, but I tip my cap to the Tigers too. They were absolutely trying their best to win.

Has anyone seen the painfull , if not beautiful irony in all of this? Here is this scrappy, youthful, small market bunch of KC ballplayers, many of which will probably be playing for the Yankees, Mets, Braves, Dodgers one day, and they crush the very hearts of a Tiger team that was in their exact position 3 years ago. Now the Tigers will have to turn around and be the underdogs playing against the best team money can buy (all the TRUE Yankee fans will gleefully admit to that, with a smirk) and in their yard to boot. Doesn't seem fair does it? Whoever said baseball was fair? It's fun yes but nobody said it was fair. So let's pick up the pieces and move on. Hey, we ARE still in it. Baseball IS a game of inches as they say, might as well add bounces, angles, umpire calls, all the things that make each game what it is. So whether it's 3,4,5, and out or 3,4,5, and in, we get to see our beloved Tigers in the national spotlight. Not a bad deal I'd say. The pressure's on the Yankees, they're the ones who are supposed to win.

I've enjoyed bantering with you all since coming aboard Beck's Blog. It's been fun calling all these guys, (admit it, at one time or another) bums even though in a game of 4 on 4 they could kick our collective butts from here to tomorrow. And it's been fun second guessing the manager for all the "terrible" decisions he has made this year even though he's probably forgotten more baseball than we ever knew. Hey, that's baseball... it's a great game, which is as good as money.

Well the Minnesota Zen prevailed.

I never felt real comfortable with this game after Bonderman couldn't drive a nail in the coffin after THE ONR big inning.This has been alluded to previously and it is the one thing the Tigers lack both with their pitching and their hitting. They can't build on success. They tend to relax instead of turn it on. Maybe this will come with experience.

This season ending experience has been agonizing and ominous. We have to wonder IF they will be able to compete at all in the playoffs after the performances we have witnessed. We have seen the deconstruction of a vibrant and exciting team.

The playoffs have a way of changing things. These same group of guys could suddenly get hot and start doing everything right.

Somebody suggested that using words like choke and heart were unfair or misplaced. I don't think so. Choke certainly applies. Does it mean we think they are bad people or bad ballplayers--no it means they were given a multitude of opportunites for something coveted by all players and choked. The "heart" come into adopting the philosophy of determination that you will not let yourself fail.

These guys did not believe in themselves and they got spanked for it.

Game over.

Now on to the playoffs.

What possibilities exist if the Tigers win the first game?

Well they are endless.

What this team cannot do is to surrender to defeatism by permitting self congratulations for a good season predominate over the job they have AHEAD of them.

Let's quit making excuses for them, there are none. Turn the page and go win some baseball games.

Hey Marty, nice thoughts. Very nice. I had forgotten the "Did you ever play baseball?" was also in "The Natural." Sure, and Duvall answers "No, but I make it more fun to watch." The question in question was in both movies. How about that?

Let's not forget that long forgotten ball that was completely wrapped in black electrician's tape. And I had a bat once that was taped completely, thus hiding the fact (I found out years later) that it was totally cracked at the handle. The tape was the only thing that held it together, but it seemed to provide a whipping action that I had used to great advantage one summer. Who needs cork or steroids? :-)

Dan, we'll agree to disagree, because I still don't like labeling someone as a choker. Brandon Inge today, for example, played as he's always played. He didn't get the big hit, which is no surprise, and that high hopper he jumped to grab presented a tough decision for anyone at any time, even spring training. Do I get this runner coming from second, or do I try to finish this inning completely with a doubleplay? Split second is all you have, and if you choose wrong, I don't think you choked. In the case of Bonderman, he's been doing that sort of thing for weeks, months maybe. I don't think they cracked under pressure, they just played as they always do. Just didn't work out this time.

So like you say, turn the page and go win some baseball games. The pressure is on the other guys now.