Tonight the Jays match up against the Gambler himself, Kenny Rogers. 43 years young, Rogers is pitching in his 20th major league season, which is pretty impressive. He struggled with injuries last year, and this year hasnt been very good - he's 0-3 and allowed 11 runs in 14.1 innings with 8 walks and 8 strikeouts. Of course the Tigers didn't score a single run in any of his three starts, which might be why he took the loss each time. Rogers has had a pretty awesome career on the whole though. It's hard to believe that it was fourteen years ago that Rogers through a perfect game. I didn't remember it either, I know, but I was in grade school at the time. Rogers is also the owner of five Gold Gloves, and one of the best pickoff moves ever - he has 91 in his career, which puts him in a tie for first all time. Rogers can hit 90 on the gun occasionally (and definitely on the Sportsnet gun...) with his fastball, and will mix in a steady diet of curves, sliders and changes. Current Jays have hit him hard: Thomas is 21 for 61 with six homers, Wells is 12 for 36, Rios 9 for 20, McDonald 5 for 10, Scutaro 6 for 19.
Saturday we see Jeremy Bonderman take to the mound. Bonderman is only 25 but has a career 57-63 record and hasn't lived up to some of his early promise. He did throw 530 innings in the majors before he was 23. In any event, Bonderman has not been sharp this year - he has both struck out and walked 8 batters in 17.1 innings. He's been tweaking his changeup lately in an attempt to get on track. He wont throw a lot of them - he works off his fastball, which he can dial in in the mid 90s, or a little harder if need be. He also throws a plus slider in the mid-80s that has a lot of break and looks like a slurve, apparently. He'll get into trouble if he becomes too fine with his fastball and starts nibbling. Eck is 4 for 10, Stairs 12 for 24 with 3 home runs, Stewart 8 for 20, Wells 6 for 19. Everyone else has struggled - Zaunie is 2 for 13, Thomas 2 for 16, Rios 3 for 13, Hill 2 for 11.
The Sunday matinée sees AJ Burnett face off against left handed veteran Nate Robertson. Robertson, like every other Tiger starter, has struggled to begin the year. He's allowed 13 runs in 16.2 innings, striking out 16 against 4 walks. He left his start last Tuesday with tightness in his left lateral muscles but expects to pitch on Sunday. Other than that he is a quintessentially nondescript pitcher, except for his awesome glasses. He throws a low 90s fastball and a slider he uses to get righties out, as well as a changeup. He struggles going deeper into games and begins to elevate his fastball. He is poor at holding runners on, so expect to see some stolen bases - Pudge isn't what he once was behind the plate either, allowing 55 stolen bases against 24 caught stealing since 2007 - still pretty good, but poor considering he had thrown out almost 50% of would be basestealers before 2007. Scutaro is 4 for 14 lifetime with 2 home runs, Hill 7 for 14 with two dingers and Thomas 5 for 15 with one longball. Everyone else has struggled.
Another afternoon game on Monday, this time featuring call-up Armando Galarraga. He replaces the injured Dontrelle Willis. Galarraga one hit Cleveland over 6.2 innings Wednesday, walking none and whiffing six. He is 26 and not much of a prospect, however. He has a career 4.13 era in the minors in seven seasons but has posted pretty good k/bb numbers - in AA last year he whiffed 114 and walked 47. None of the current Jays have faced him I believe... It appears he throws mostly fastballs and sliders with the occasional change, with his fastball able to reach 93/94 on the gun. Take that with a grain of salt though.
The Tigers offense, meanwhile, was the much ballyhooed coming into the year, with multiple people suggesting they could possibly become the 8th team since 1900 to score 1000 runs. Former Mets GM and current ESPN, uh, analyst Steve Phillips suggested they had the "most dynamic offense in the history of baseball." No editorial comments here...
Anyway, offensive sparkplug Curtis Granderson has missed every game so far with a broken bone in his hand. Best case scenario is he returns in the middle of next week. Clete Thomas has been called up to replace him in the meantime and performed admirably, though he is a little bit over his head hitting leadoff methinks.
Pudge Rodriguez was recently anointed the best Puerto Rican ever to play in the bigs by noted historian Ozzie Guillen. The comments have apparently not gone over so well. Still, Pudge recently collected his 2500th hit, and is 11 homers away from 300. He's also caught the third most games all-time, behind Cartton Fisk and Bob Boone.
Carlos Guillen made the move to short to accommodate newcomer Edgar Renteria and has been hitting gangbusters style since, putting up a .367/.475/.653 line this year. He's tweaked a hamstring, however, and though he figures to stay in the lineup because he's playing first, don't expect to see him leg out a triple anytime soon (he has 44 in his career).
Placido Polanco's errorless streak finally came to a close after 186 games. Ironically he made the miscue trying to nail Manny Ramirez stretching a double into a triple. I know. The streak had been kept alive by generous scorekeeping for a while though, and he isn't the defensive second basemen A-RON is by any means.
In other news, Magglio Ordonez is back to hitting about where he should be... Brandon Inge has caught three games, played CF for 8 and 3B for another 7, all while hitting .304/.400/.543 in 56 plate appearances. Give than man something shiny... Gary Sheffield has both finger and shoulder problems and has been slumping at the plate; he's batting .209... Yorman Bazardo is actually named Yorman Bazardo.
Injuries: Dontrelle Willis fell awkwardly while pitching a week and a half ago and is on the DL for the first time in his career. Fernando Rodney has been given a clean bill of health after seeing Dr. James Andrews, and is expected to begin rehabbing soon. Joel Zumaya, the 100 mph man, strained his wrist playing guitar hero. Seriously. He's throwing off flat ground and could be back rehabbing on a mound in a week.
The Credit Section: All offensive stats, pitches per PA for pitchers and league average stats are from the Hardball Times. Pitchers' stats and leverage indices are from Fangraphs. Minor-league stats are from Minor League Splits and First Inning. K% and BB% are strikeouts and walks as a percentage of plate appearances; GB% + LD% + FB% = 100. These are 2008 stats, except where noted.
