Killer B

Craig Biggio entered tonight needing 4 hits for 3,000 in his career. Biggio is an interesting player when looking at his place in history.

He started his career as a catcher before winning 4 Gold Glove awards at 2B; only Sandberg, Morgan and Mazeroski won more in the NL. He leads all active MLB players in doubles with 658, is 6th in history, and is the tops among right-handed batters in history.

Biggio led the NL in runs twice and scored 100 or more 8 times; his 1,820 runs are 15th in history. He was a top base stealer in his prime and got hit by an unusually high number of pitches.

On the downside, he struck out frequently and never had an MVP-type season; his highest finish was fourth in 1997. His career BA is .282 and he had only four .300+ seasons.

Nonetheless, he compares favorable to several Hall of Famers (not all second basemen, but contemporaries). He has more homers (286) than Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Joe Morgan and Ryne Sandberg. His BA is better than Morgan's (.271) and comparable to Yount's and Sandberg's (both .285). His .800 OPS is better than Sandberg's .796 and Yount's .772. In fact, his BA and OPS both are better than Cal Ripken's (.276 and .787). But Yount, Morgan and Ripken all won multiple MVP awards and Sandberg won one. Molitor finished second once and had an .817 OPS.

According to Hardball Times, Biggio ranks second in win shares for all active batters, behind only Barry Bonds. He is third among all active players; Roger Clemens is the only pitcher ahead of him. Hardball Times also came up with a calculation for "win shares above bench," which ranks Biggio as the fifth greatest second baseman in history. It's an interesting list and you can check it out here.

You had your chance, Phillies and Braves

This week began just like any other in June with the Mets losing a series, this time to the Twins. The offense came to life in a game one win, but they were unable to repeat the performance in game two or three. But over the weekend they bounced back at long last, sweeping the A's for their first series win in seven tries.

Tom Glavine, Orlando Hernandez and John Maine each pitched excellently against Oakland and the offense scored at least nine runs twice. No one hitter carried the offense as nine men had at least one multi-hit game with Carlos Beltran doing it twice. Every spot on the diamond had one except for catcher and Ramon Castro did provide a double and score the only run of Saturday's game after Paul Lo Duca got ejected for acting like a jackass. Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran each had five hits on the weekend including a home run by Beltran and two doubles by Reyes.

The rest of the NL East has completely failed to take advantage of the Mets' (41-32) poor June and as a result they were able to stretch their division lead back to three games over the Phillies (39-36) with their modest win streak. The series with Oakland began a stretch in which the Mets will play at least one game on seventeen straight days including a doubleheader this Friday. So they picked a pretty good time to start playing well again.

This difficult stretch of games, which in no way resembles the Bataan Death March, continues with four games against that team that got lucky last October and isn't even ahead of the Cubs in the standings right now, the St. Louis Cardinals (33-39). Jorge Sosa (6-3, 4.05), Oliver Perez (7-6, 3.16), Glavine (6-5, 4.38) and El Duque (3-3, 2.77) will start for the Mets. Mike Maroth (5-2, 5.06) will make his first start for St. Louis since being acquired from the Tigers and will be followed by Todd Wellemeyer (2-1, 6.65), Anthony Reyes (0-9, 6.64) and Adam Wainwright (6-6, 4.58).

Roaring

The Tigers completed their 9-game NL swing with an 8-1 record and 7-game win streak. One of the more remarkable features of the streak is the fact Detroit batted around in 6 of those games, all without the benefit of the DH. The offense simply continues to be scary good. The Tigs went 14-4 in interleague play.

Making the situation better (at least for Tig fans, perhaps not the AL) is the staff is coming into form. Kenny Rogers returned and immediately recaptured his 2006 brilliance. Nate Robertson is slated to come off the DL and start Tuesday. Justin Verlander and Jeremy Bonderman keep winning. Chad Durbin got a three-inning save in his first appearance out of the pen. Over the last 5 games, Detroit gave up just 6 runs -- and 4 of those came in one game. Granted, the span came against the Nats and struggling Braves, but it's still a good sign. (And the Nats, it should be noted, took 2 of 3 from Cleveland over the weekend.)

After being a sore spot much of the season, the bullpen is enjoying one of its best stretches. Over the last 5 games, the relievers tossed 15 IP, giving up 8 hits and 1 run while striking out 14 and walking 5. That's a 0.60 ERA and 0.87 WHIP.

The Tigers will have to make some more moves with Robertson and Zach Miner returning to the staff. I'm interested to see what becomes of 23-year-old Eulogio De La Cruz, who has been sharp in 3 relief appearances. He's supposed to have a 95+ mph fastball and big league curve and change. Plus, his numbers in the minors show him to be a groundball pitcher. Detroit might have another unheralded weapon in its arsenal.

Detroit now returns to Comerica for a 13-game homestand. The Tigers could really help themselves in the AL Central race if they continue to play well the next two weeks. It begins with a 4-game set against Texas, and for the first time this season the rotation will resemble 2006: Bonderman - Robertson - Rogers - Verlander.

The Tigers have been coming through in clutch spots this season. The hitters are batting .313 with a .963 OPS with 2 outs and RISP (387 plate appearances). The pitchers are allowing a .244 BA and .722 OPS in that situation (308 PA).

Goodbye, Mike

This is a sad day for me as a Tigers fan, having to bid the expected farewell to pitcher Mike Maroth. When I was deciding to buy a jersey last year, Maroth was the player's I picked; no one better symbolized the team's rise to success from the despair of 2003. Maroth lost 21 games in 2003, the first 20-game loser since 1980, and never once complained or asked to be taken out of the rotation to avoid the ignominious distinction.

He was a man, on and off the field. The past two seasons, Maroth was the Tigers' nominee for the Clemente Award for his charity work in Detroit.

"Mike Maroth is class personified," Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski said, "he and his wife, Brooke -- the whole family. He's grown into an established Major League pitcher. He's gone through a lot of adversity. He dealt with it front and center. He's first-class in every regard."

I hold a special place for the guys from 2003 that got to be a part of last year's AL champions, particularly Maroth, Brandon Inge, Craig Monroe, and Jeremy Bonderman.

There was no spot left for Maroth with Kenny Rogers' return to the rotation, plus the expected returns of Nate Robertson and Zach Miner, and the emergence of Chad Durbin as a (so far) reliable arm and promotion of young Andrew Miller.

Maroth was 50-62 for the Tigers, but 24-18 since the start of 2005. He's not overpowering or flashy, he's just Mike Maroth, and that's why I loved him. Had it not been for elbow trouble that derailed him last season -- while pitching the best ball of his career -- this trade probably doesn't happen.

The Tigers will get a player to be named later from the Cardinals for Maroth. As for Maroth, he will get a chance to remain a starter and should benefit the St. Louis rotation. Here's wishing him all the best and thanks for being a great Tiger.

No relief

I love this note from Philly.com:

Charlie Manuel has had to mix and match 14 relief pitchers at different times this season.

Just two pitchers have been in the bullpen since the start: Geoff Geary and Antonio Alfonseca.

Brett Myers, Tom Gordon, Ryan Madson and Francisco Rosario have spent time on the disabled list. There is Clay Condrey, who was designated for assignment once and outrighted once. There are Yoel Hernandez, Mike Zagurski, Matt Smith, Fabio Castro, Brian Sanches and Joe Bisenius, who have either been called up from the minors or optioned to the minors.

The scary thing is the Tigers and Phils have remarkably similar numbers from their relievers, as far as BA/OBA/SLG:

Detroit .275/.351/.437
Philly .278/.364/.430

Those numbers are fairly dreadful. Here are relief numbers for all teams, clumped somewhat by effectiveness:

San Diego .216/.279/.312
Toronto .218/.296/.333
Boston .232/.319/.349
Angels .232/.302/.370
Dodgers .233/.292/.344

Yankees .235/.338/.360
Seattle .239/.333/.339
San Fran .240/.323/.376
Mets .240/.324/.403
Texas .240/.325/.375

Milwaukee .241/.307/.367
Arizona .241/.324/.395
Oakland .242/.312/.359
Atlanta .244/.330/.361
Cleveland .246/.324/.368

St. Louis .247/.312/.381
Minnesota .248/.322/.368
Cubs .248/.328/.383
Florida .258/.344/.382
Washington .259/.327/.409

Cincy .263/.347/.399
Houston .264/.342/.429
Baltimore .267/.356/.380
KC .267/.343/.428
Colorado .269/.345/.400

Pittsburgh .273/.349/.449
Detroit .275/.351/.437
Philly .278/.364/.430
White Sox .289/.381/.441
Tampa Bay .292/.376/.458

June boom

Here's what the Tigers have done so far in June:

Magglio Ordonez .500-1-18
Brandon Inge .373-3-17
Placido Polanco .370-0-7
Gary Sheffield .369-5-19
Omar Infante .343-0-6
Curtis Granderson .342-1-11
Carlos Guillen .326-5-13
Ivan Rodriguez .322-2-13
Sean Casey .321-1-15

Surprisingly, the only time the Tigers have been shutout came in June. Detroit is 1-5 in June when scoring 5 or fewer runs. Kenny Rogers return, hopefully, can help remedy that.

Left out

The Tigers traded lefty reliever/starter Wil Ledezma to the Braves for lefty reliever Macay McBride today. The move is billed as giving Detroit flexibility as Kenny Rogers and Nate Robertson get ready to return to the staff because Ledezma is out of options and McBride is not.

I hate to see Wil go, but this deal seems to make some sense for the Tigers, although given the bullpen woes, I’m not sure about McBride’s future. It seems he could help now, rather than be sent to the minors.

McBride, a 24-year-old former No. 1 draft pick, is great against left-handed hitters, holding them to a .176 BA and giving up 2 HR. His WHIP is 0.93 vs. lefties. He was 6-1 with 2 saves and a 3.99 ERA in 112 career games for the Braves, all in relief. He reportedly struggled with his control earlier this season and was sent to the minors for a stint.

Lefties hit .293 with 8 HR off Ledezma, who is 26. Ledezma was 15-18 with a 5.15 ERA in 106 games, 33 starts, for Detroit.

"We could do nothing with Wil," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "We wish we could have sent him out and started him. It was just one of those deals. He's been very good on some occasions and just OK on others, but there's a lot of potential there."

A vote of confidence

Somewhere around April 21, old Sparky declared Sean Casey a dead man walking. The Mayor was hitting .158-0-1 at that time and his .238 OBA and .193 SLG didn’t help. That’s a .431 OPS for those unwilling to do the math.

Since then, Casey is batting .333-1-25 in 37 games and his OPS is .825. He even has a stolen base!

One of the stats to most concern me at the beginning of the season was Casey’s lack of doubles. Since April 21, he has 14, which translates to 1 every 11.3 AB. His best rate was in 2004 when he hit one double every 13 AB. It also was the second-best season of his life (.324-24-99).

Granted, his power is lacking for a corner position, but the Tigers don’t need power from that spot. Maybe, just maybe, Casey is the player we thought prior to the season. (Count on a prolonged slump from here.)

The Runs Created All-Stars

NL

C: Russell Martin, LAD, 39.6
1B: Prince Fielder, MIL, 62.1
2B: Chase Utley, PHI, 62.1
SS: Jose Reyes, NYM, 57.6
3B: Miguel Cabrera, FLA, 58.2
OF: Matt Holliday, COL, 61.6
OF: Eric Byrnes, ARI, 52.9
OF: Ken Griffey Jr., CIN, 51.3

AL

C: Jorge Posada, NYY, 47.1
1B: Kevin Youkilis, BOS, 54.3
2B: Brian Roberts, BAL, 46.9
SS: Derek Jeter, NYY, 51.3
3B: Alex Rodriguez, NYY, 68.9
OF: Magglio Ordonez, DET, 69.8
OF: Grady Sizemore, CLE, 58.9
OF: Vlad Guerrero, LAA, 58.3

The OPS All-Stars

NL

C: Russell Martin, LAD, .824
1B: Prince Fielder, MIL, 1.023
2B: Chase Utley, PHI, .967
SS: Edgar Renteria, ATL, .915
3B: Chipper Jones, ATL, 1.014
OF: Barry Bonds, SF, 1.067
OF: Matt Holliday, COL, 1.019
OF: Ken Griffey Jr., CIN, .965

AL

C: Jorge Posada, NYY, .965
1B: Casey Kotchman, LAA, .967
2B: B.J. Upton, TB, .941
SS: Carlos Guillen, DET, .938
3B: Alex Rodriguez, NYY, 1.107
OF: Magglio Ordonez, DET, 1.115
OF: Vlad Guerrero, LAA, .992
OF: Gary Sheffield, DET, .945

Pitching in

Since the start of the 2000 season, 16 pitchers have won at least 100 games. Here’s the list, with their record and ERA.

Randy Johnson 124-61, 3.17
Greg Maddux 118-80, 3.59
Tim Hudson 114-62, 3.54
Curt Schilling 114-59, 3.54
Bartolo Colon 110-68, 3.98
Andy Pettitte 109-62, 3.67
Tom Glavine 108-80, 3.66
Barry Zito 108-70, 3.60
Mike Mussina 106-71, 3.85
Roy Oswalt 105-51, 3.09
Jamie Moyer 104-70, 4.13
Mark Mulder 103-57, 4.11
Roger Clemens 102-45, 3.28
Mark Buehrle 101-69, 3.80
Livan Hernandez 101-95, 4.14
Freddy Garcia 100-68, 4.07

Only one pitcher on the list has a save (actually 9 of them) – Curt Schilling. Bartolo Colon caught me by surprise. It's also easy to forget how remarkable Maddux is; he tossed 210 IP last year at the age of 40. It was his fourth consecutive 200+ effort. The only time he threw fewer than 200 IP since his rookie year in 1987 came in 2002, when he went 199.1 IP. He might not be great anymore, but he's still good. Or maybe Woody Allen was right that 80% of success is just showing up.

Pedro Martinez (2.78 ERA) and Matt Morris have 99 wins.

The Gambler returns

Kenny Rogers is slated to pitch Friday for the Tigers after two rehab starts in the minors. Hopefully, he is ready and not rushing. Detroit is still winning games, thanks to its mind-boggling offense, so the team could afford to be cautious.

But this comment from Jim Leyland is telling:

"Anytime you get some guy back with the quality of a Kenny Rogers, obviously you're tickled to death, because it solidifies your rotation more and you're not grasping for straws like we have been all year," Leyland said. "We need to get our pitchers straightened out. It's still a mess."

Philly

I think I've finally figured out Philly fans. They want their teams to be good enough to keep them interested, but bad enough so they can complain. It's fitting that "Rocky" was from Philly. He is quintessentially what Philadelphia loves -- someone who tries earnestly and fails.

Poor Charlie Manuel can't get a break. He managed the 7th inning of Sunday's loss to Detroit, from my perspective, perfectly, except his players failed to execute. So Philly fans continue to howl Manuel is a moron. He was ultimately done in by Craig Monroe lining a single off Abraham Nunez's glove after an intentional walk to Placido Polanco. Monroe was in a 2-for-15 slump with 8 strikeouts prior to the single. In fact, Monroe was just 5-for-35 going back to June 6.

To quote from the AP account of Sunday's game:

Then came the sound as familiar in Philly as the vendors shouting "Hot dogs!"

Boooo!

Now, I don't necessarily blame the fans for booing or being upset. But take it out on the players, not Charlie. Ultimately, I think Manuel will go because the organization will need to do something, and firing the manager -- in this case one that has become hated by the fans -- is the only move. But a new manager isn't going to make the bullpen better. Look at Jim Leyland; he doesn't look like the genius he was last year when Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney were lights out in the late innings. Funny how good players, performing well, make you smart.

Kill me now

The Mets are just awful at everything right now. They lost five of six games this week, outscored 37 to 17. Only once did a Mets starter pitch more than 5.2 innings or allow fewer than four runs. The team hit just .243/.285/.328. And the bullpen ERA was 4.41. Oliver Perez pitched a heck of a game against Roger Clemens, though.

The Mets scored three or fewer runs in five of these six games, with an eight-run outburst on Saturday padding the team's averages considerably. Right in the middle of the ineptitude were Carloses Delgado and Beltran. Delgado's been "slumping" more or less all season long while Beltran is playing hurt, just as he did in his disappointing 2005, with similar results. This week the pair had just six hits with a combined line of .157/.157/.196. That's right, neither of them even drew a walk. The Carlos Of The Week Award clearly goes to Mr. Gomez, who had seven singles and one free pass in these six games. A lot of Mets had a bad week, but this team is never going to turn things around with Delgado and Beltran playing this poorly. If the Mets weren't already down three outfielders it would probably make sense for Beltran to hit the DL and rest his sore quad for a couple of weeks. Since that's out of the question, I'm not sure how this team is going to regain its stroke.

Facing a Twins team (34-33) with one of the top few pitching staffs in the American League is probably not going to help. The Mets (37-30) are still atop the NL East, but their margin over the Braves is down to just 1.5 games. John Maine (6-4, 3.05), Jorge Sosa (6-2, 3.42) and Oliver The Great (7-5, 2.93) will take the mound for New York in this series. Carlos Silva (4-7, 4.07), Johan Santana (6-6, 3.19) and Scott Baker (1-2, 7.33) will likely have some of their best starts of the year in opposition.

Keystone combo

Since the start of the 2005 season, Placido Polanco ranks tied for 7th in MLB with a .320 batting average. Carlos Guillen is No. 10 at .317. Here’s the top 10:

Miguel Cabrera .332
Derek Jeter .329
Derrek Lee .328
Matt Holliday .326
Albert Pujols .326
Vlad Guerrero .325
Placido Polanco .320
Joe Mauer .320
Ichiro Suzuki .319
Carlos Guillen .317

The Tigers’ Magglio Ordonez is 14th at .314, behind Freddy Sanchez, Michael Young and Miguel Tejada.

Polanco has struck out just 65 times since the start of 2005, a span of 1221 at-bats. Mike Lieberthal has struck out only 57 times during the time frame, the best in MLB, but in just 629 AB.

A few of my favorite things

Pitching Rotation

Two 90-year-old men, Moe and Joe, have been friends all of their lives. When it's clear that Joe is dying, Moe visits him every day. One day Moe says, "Joe, we both loved baseball all our lives, and we played minor league ball together for so many years. Please do me one favor: when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's baseball there."

Joe looks up at Moe from his deathbed, "Moe, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favor for you." Shortly after that, Joe passes on.

At midnight a couple of nights later, Moe is awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to him, "Moe, Moe."

"Who is it?" asks Moe, sitting up suddenly. "Who is it?"

"Moe -- it's me, Joe."

"You're not Joe. Joe just died."

"I'm telling you, it's me, Joe," insists the voice.

"Joe! Where are you?"

"In Heaven," replies Joe. "I have some really good news and a little bad news."

"Tell me the good news first," says Moe.

"The good news," Joe says, "is that there's baseball in Heaven. Better yet, all of our old buddies who died before us are here, too. Better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always springtime, and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play baseball all we want, and we never get tired."

"That's fantastic," says Moe. "It 's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news?"

"You're pitching Tuesday."

DoH

The Tigers begin a 9-game NL road trip, which means no DH. I've checked all the Tiger Web sites and haven't found any indication of what Jim Leyland's plan is for getting Gary Sheffield into the lineup. I'm guessing he will play LF or 1B depending on whether Leyland plans on sitting Craig Monroe, Curtis Granderson (against lefties) or Sean Casey.

Detroit is coming off back-to-back losses and won't face an easy task in Philly, which is only 2.5 games worse than the Tigers. Fortunately, the rotation favors the Tigs with Jeremy Bonderman, Andrew Miller and Justin Verlander getting starts.

Tonight, Jon Lieber goes for the Phils. If Bondo and Lieber are on their games, this one could be finished in under 2 hours. Philly sends Jamie Moyer on Saturday and Adam Eaton on Sunday, although Cole Hamels originally was slated for that start.

The Tigers go to Washington and Atlanta following this series.

Ranger wrecks

Here are lowlights about the Rangers, as pointed out by NY Daily News writer Bill Madden:

Traded Travis Hafner for Ryan Drese and Einar Diaz.

Traded Francisco Cordero, Kevin Mench and Laynce Nix for Carlos Lee (lost to free agency).

Traded Chris Young (the pitcher) and Adrian Gonzalez for Adam Eaton (lost to free agency) and Akinori Otsuka.

Signed Vincente Padilla for $33.75 million.

Released Doug Davis.

I'd gladly pay you Tuesday ...

There's a story making the rounds, which I just came across, about Justin Verlander needing 50 cents to buy chocolate milk one day while a sophomore in high school. He made a deal with a friend to give him 0.1% of his signing bonus if he would lend him the money for the milk. The friend wrote down the terms on a napkin, Verlander signed it, and got his milk. Later, after Verlander signed with the Tigers, the friend produced the napkin.

"I forgot about it, but after I signed, he whips out this old napkin. I'm like, 'Oh my God!' My bonus was 3-point-something million," Verlander said.

"Was a chocolate milk worth $3,000? I want to say yes. I was parched."

Brilliant

What can you say about Justin Verlander's game tonight? Brilliant. The first no-no for the Tigers since Jack Morris in 1984 and the 6th in team history.

I missed the first 3 innings, but once I saw Verlander set down the Brewers in the 4th, I immediately thought he was going to throw a no-hitter. He was so in command it was scary. Bill Hall was the only Brewer to "solve" Verlander, getting 3 of the 4 walks allowed by Verlander.

Verlander struck out a career-high 12, including 2 in the 9th. He reportedly was clocked at 102 mph in the 9th. He also had his curveball and filthy change working. He was hitting the corners at the knees with his fastball at 99 mph and coming back with knee-locking curves or 85 mph changes. It was pitching.

Magglio Ordonez made a sliding catch of a flyball in the seventh and Neifi Perez started a terrific double play, with great pivot by Placido Polanco, to end the eighth. That really was the only times Verlander was in trouble, if you can call it that.

I almost posted after the 4th a prediction that Verlander would throw a no-hitter, but wimped out fearing the jinx.

Verlander joins Hideo Nomo and John Montefusco as ROYs to throw a no-hitter the following year.

Inge rises

Tigers 3B Brandon Inge is batting .319-7-23 over his last 34 games. He’s got 22 runs and a .971 OPS. Perhaps most encouraging is the fact he’s got 15 BB and only 23 K during that time. Over his last 9 games, he’s batting .387 with a 1.145 OPS and 12 RBI.

Inge is batting .242-10-29 for the season with a .775 OPS. He was hitting .111 on April 24.

* * *

The Phillies need pitching help, both starting and relief it now appears, and the Tigers have supposedly been shopping lefty Mike Maroth. Might there be a deal in these teams’ future? I’m not sure the squads match up well for a trade now, and I don’t know if the Phils would have interest in another soft-tossing lefty. But imagine what Maroth could learn from Jamie Moyer. I’m guessing Detroit might also use Marcus Thames as a chip. Thames could hit 40 HR in the Zen.

* * *

Have to wonder if Brad Lidge being returned to the closer role in Houston is to showcase him for a trade.

* * *

Also wonder if a Maroth-Thames package might be good enough to pry Eric Gagne from Texas? When you look at the Rangers’ outfield of Marlon Byrd, Frank Catalanotto, Victor Diaz, Jerry Hairston and Kenny Lofton, you’d think they should be interested.

NY Daily News columnist Bill Madden had a great piece about Texas and its ineptitude over the years. I’ll post a snippet tomorrow.

Death to Flying Things

Really.

One win is better than none

A Mets starting pitcher was bound to have a bad day eventually. Jorge Sosa shutting out the best offense in baseball for eight innings on Friday only served to tempt fate. The Mets' offense showed some signs of life, scoring as many runs in each of the last two games as they did in the entire Philadelphia series. Still, what may be the Mets' toughest two weeks of the season did not get off to a promising start.

After Sosa's gem, Oliver Perez and Tom Glavine both got smacked around. Perez gave up five runs in five innings and Glavine was charged with nine in four and a third. Neither got any help from their bullpen as Guillermo Mota and Joe Smith had particularly bad weekends. Mota has pitched five times since returning from his suspension with three good outing and a pair of disasters. His 7:2 K:BB ratio is nice, but the eleven hits he's given up in 6.1 IP are less pretty. As for Smith, perhaps his heavy early season workload is catching up to him a bit as he's allowed at least two base runners in his last four outings. He's seemed unhittable at times this year, but far from it this past week.

The offensive ineptitude of the past week was a total team effort and so was the turnaround in the last two games of this series. Seven starters had hits in each game, though David Wright did lead the way with three hits, including two home runs, and a pair of walks in the two games. Wright has raised his slugging percentage fifty points to .511 in the last six games with eight hits including four home runs and a double. Unfortunately, he is the only Met slugging over .500 aside from Ricky Ledee, who had a very un-Newhanlike weekend, going two-for-seven with two doubles. Shawn Green did not return to the team this weekend, but the Mets sent Ben Johnson back to New Orleans on Sunday night, so Green will likely be back on Monday.

From Detroit, the Mets (36-25) fly to Los Angeles, after which they'll head back to New York as part of the MLB scheduling department's continuing assault on their sanity. The Dodgers (35-28) also lost two of three this weekend and five of their last six. Someone will have to win these three games, so why not the Mets? Orlando Hernandez (3-1, 1.94), John Maine (6-3, 2.78) and Sosa (6-1, 2.64) will give it a shot. Randy Wolf (7-4, 4.03), Hong-Chih Kuo (0-1, 4.85) and Brad Penny (7-1, 2.26) will provide the opposition. The Mets are hitting .320/.379/.475 against lefties this season, so perhaps they will be able to keep up the hitting against Wolf and Kuo.

Win some, lose some

The Mets and Tigers have split the first 2 of their series, with NY shutting out Detroit on Friday night and the Motor City Kitties roaring back to get today's game 8-7.

Friday's game, played in a crisp 2:14, marked the first time the Tigs were shut out this year and was the direct result of our praising their offense. Saturday's game, played in an interminable 3:29, showcased Detroit's season in a nutshell -- a good amount of Polly and Maggs and Guillen, then hold on and pray the bullpen gets the job done. (As a side note, the Fox broadcast team of Dick Stockton and Eric Karros almost made me yearn for Buck and McCarver.)

Maggs hit another double today, giving him 30 and putting him on pace for around 80. The MLB record is 67, set in 1931 by Boston's Earl Webb. Colorado's Todd Helton, who hit 59 in 2000, is the only player in the last 70 years to hit more than 58.

Curtis Granderson has 12 triples this season and is on pace for around 30. The record is 36, set by Pittsburgh's Chief Wilson in 1912. It's been 58 years since anyone hit as many as 23.

* * *

Bad news buried in a note in last night's AP story on the Tigers' game: Jim Leyland said Joel Zumaya could miss the rest of the season. On the bright side, Kenny Rogers is slated to make his first rehab start Sunday.

* * *

We were totally wrong about Freddy Garcia giving a good effort in KC, and he was placed on the DL today. We were totally correct about Jose Mesa gaining employment with the Phils.

Eureka!

The Baltimore Orioles finally won a baseball game in which they scored 4 runs, defeating the Colorado Rockies 4-2 last night in Baltimore. Steve Trachsel (5-4, 3.82) notched the win, pitching 6 innings and allowing 7 hits and 2 earned runs.

Nick Markakis belted a two run homer in the bottom of the 5th inning to give the O's a 4-1 lead. From the moment Markakis took that swing, I could sense the impending doom.

Sure enough, in the 6th inning the Rockies advanced a runner to 3rd base with two outs and Trachsel was called for a balk, scoring the runner from 3rd and cutting the lead to 4-2.

For those unfamiliar with Steve Trachsel, he balks on every pitch he throws from the stretch. O's talking heads Buck Martinez and Rick Dempsey both have explained to television viewers that umpires around the league have advised them "he does it on every pitch, therefore, there is no intent to deceive the runner. It is his natural motion and thus, it is not a balk."

So, apparently, Steve Trachsel does not balk on every pitch. Except when he does. O's skipper Sam Perlozzo went ballistic with 1B umpire Larry Vanover and got ejected. Trachsel gave up a smoking line drive double on the next pitch.

But then something happened that I didn't see coming. Trachsel retired the next hitter (and thus the side) on a routine ground ball. Then the O's bullpen took over and pitched 3 scoreless innings to preserve the victory.

The novel approach improves the O's record to 1-11 on the season in games in which they've scored exactly 4 runs.

Kids want to play for ... Detroit?

It hasn't taken long for the Tigers to become cool. Remember when nobody wanted to play for Detroit? Remember when the Tigs had to overpay to get what were viewed as shaky free agents (Pudge, Maggs) to come to town? That's no longer the case, apparently.

The Tigers are being hailed for getting Jersey high school star Rick Porcello -- one of the best players in this year's draft -- with the 27th overall pick. Porcello is being compared to Josh Beckett and Justin Verlander. Time will tell.

But this is what I found most interesting, reported in the Free Press:

Fred Porcello, the pitcher's father, said in a telephone interview that the Tigers were very high on the family's wish list of possible teams. Detroit's appeal was surely enhanced by a stockpile of young pitching stars (Miller, Verlander, Jeremy Bonderman and Joel Zumaya) and its status as the defending American League champion.

"The pitching staff has a tremendous amount of charisma and skill," the elder Porcello said. "The entire baseball world is going to be watching this team. It doesn't hurt when you're in the World Series."

KC barbecue

The Phils go to KC for 3 games and can really make some noise before returning home to face the White Sox and Tigers. Philly needs to take 2 in KC, if not sweep. The last time Philadelphia was in KC was the 1980 World Series.

Hard to believe how good the Royals were in the mid-70s to mid-80s. The Royals have had just 7 winning seasons since taking the 1985 Series against St. Louis. Probably cosmic payback for Don Denkinger's call. KC had 9 winning season from 1975-85.

Freddy Garcia goes to the hill tonight. I think he will give a good showing tonight. Garcia has been decent on the road, posting a 4.50 ERA, 1.18 WHIP and holding foes to a .256 BA. It’s been totally different at the Zen, where he has a 5.50 ERA, 1.69 WHIP and .331 BAA.

I’m not sure what to make of this stat: Garcia has 11 K in 22 IP on the road and 38 K in 34.1 IP at home. That’s 4.5 K/9 IP on the road and 10 K/9 IP at home. I’m guessing Garcia tries to be too fine at the Zen because of its dimensions. That leads to more strikeouts, as well as more walks (3.1/9 IP at home and 2/9 IP on road).

Hit men

The Tigers are riding an incredible wave of run-scoring production. Over the last 9 games, Detroit has scored double digits 4 times and scored 9 runs twice. For the season, the Tigs have hit double figures 10 times and scored 9 runs on 4 occasions. That's nearly one-quarter of their games to date.

Last year, Detroit had 16 games with 10 or more runs and another 8 with 9 runs. Five of the 2006 double-digit bashings came against Kansas City.

Over the last 9, the Tigs have put up some unbelievable numbers. They are hitting .350/.402/.556 with 13 HR and 75 RBI overall. They're bashing lefties at .375/.430/.608 and hitting righties at .338/.387/.530. With RISP, they're .394/.438/.576. They're also getting off to fast starts, batting .458/.490/.833 in the first inning. They're hitting no worse than .375 in any of the first four innings during this span.

Now the Mets come to town after getting swept in their Bizarro World series with the Phillies. The Tigs will send Chad Durbin, Jeremy Bonderman and Andrew Miller to the hill. Miller has taken over the rotation spot from Nate Robertson, who was put on the DL with a "tired arm." I think that means Detroit got tired of seeing that arm come forward and not get anyone out. The Tigers also put pitcher Zach Miner on the DL.

The Miller-Glavine matchup holds potential as one of the game's great lefties meets one of the (hopefully) next great southpaws. The 22-year-old Miller threw 6 shutout innings against the Cardinals in his only start this year. He was 2-0 with a 0.59 ERA in 4 starts at Double-A Erie. He struck out 24 and walked 5 in 30.2 IP and had a 0.88 WHIP.

Ugh

What an awful series. The Mets got three excellent starting pitching performances and wasted them with a combination of bad hitting and worse relief pitching. And to top it all off, Endy Chavez pulled his left hamstring and likely won't be back anytime soon.

Tom Glavine, Orlando Hernandez and John Maine combined for twenty innings pitched in this series and allowed just four runs. That makes nine straight quality starts for Met pitchers, adding up to a grand total of three wins. If this keeps up, Glavine's going to have to come back next year for number 300.

In these nine games, the Mets have scored just twenty-five runs, or 2.78 per game. This series was the worst of the last three with just seven runs scored. The Mets have too many good hitters for this to continue for very long and Jose Valentin's return to the lineup should help a little bit. Yet even with so few runs scored, the Mets were ahead on the scoreboard in two of these games and tied in the other when the ball was first handed to a relief pitcher.

Met relievers, who had been largely excellent this season, completely fell apart in this series, allowing ten runs in ten innings. I, of course, blame Scott Schoeneweis. The lefty, whose entire purpose on this team is to retire the tough lefties of the NL East, such as Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, pitched in all three games. He allowed a walk, a single and a double to Utley. He did retire Howard in the first two games, intentionally walking him in game three. Schoeneweis now has an ERA of 7.17 with 20 hits, 19 walks and 9 strikeouts in 21.1 innings. That is the same number of innings Jorge Julio pitched for the Mets in 2006 and Julio's 5.06 ERA seems downright adequate in comparison. Three-year contract or not, Schoeneweis needs to not be on this team anymore.

To be fair, the Big Scho was not the only reliever who failed to live up to the job title in this series. The game one loss was the result of Pedro Feliciano and Joe Smith combining to give up four hits and two runs in one inning. Game two saw Aaron Heilman turn a 2-0 seventh inning lead into a loss like he was pitching to a whole team of Yadier Molinas. And game three wouldn't have even gotten to Chase Utley's personal batting practice pitcher had Billy Wagner not blown his first save of the season by allowing a home run to noted pain in the ass Pat Burrell. At this point, the Mets spending four of their first six draft picks on college relievers almost makes sense.

The Mets (35-23) still hold a comfortable 3.5 game division lead thanks to the Braves losing three in a row and the Phillies having been eight games out in the first place. But the schedule gets rather torturous now as their next five series are against the four 2006 American League playoff teams and a very good Dodger team. Meanwhile, the Phillies get to play the Royals three times this weekend, but I digress. The Mets' punishment for being good last year starts this weekend with an interleague battle for DTFT bragging rights in Detroit. Jorge Sosa (5-1, 3.22), Oliver Perez (6-4, 2.80) and Glavine (5-3, 3.36) will get the starts for the Mets against Chad Durbin (5-1, 4.75), Jeremy Bonderman (5-0, 3.27) and Andrew Miller (1-0, 0.00) of the Tigers (33-25). Hopefully the Mets will make it to town with enough healthy hitters to field a DH.

Big mouth, big bat

Gary Sheffield’s mouth is getting more publicity than his bat right now, which is saying a lot considering how hot his bat’s been. Since the famed Daniel Cabrera plunking on April 30, Sheff has batted .323 with 14 HR and 32 RBI. He’s got a .418 OBA and .685 SLG during that span.

Only Prince Fielder has put up better numbers since April 30. Fielder, who looks very much like Big Daddy, is .328-16-34. Victor Martinez also has 34 RBI during the time frame, to go with 10 HR and .326 BA.

No. 3 on the list of HR since April 30 is Ken Griffey Jr., with 11.

Magglio Ordonez is .385-9-30 during the span.

O's Win! O's Win!

The Baltimore Orioles defeated the Seattle Mariners 9-5 yesterday afternoon in Seattle to complete their longest road trip of the season at 5-5 and halt their most recent losing streak at 5 games after winning the previous 6. What a treat!

Daniel Cabrera (5-6, 4.71 ERA) notched the win for the O's. After a shaky start (1 run in the 1st, 3 in the 2nd), Cabrera settled in and pitched 8 innings allowing 7 hits and the 4 earned runs. Chris Ray finished up in the ninth surrendering what has become the O's bullpens' obligatory run (minimum per appearance).

After 60 games, the O's are 28-32. In 2006, they were 27-33. So, they really are better than last year!

Since declaring Danys Baez the only concern on the pitching staff, the O's embarked on a 6 game winning streak followed by a 5 game losing skid during which the bullpen puked all over the place. Oh well, I suppose I had that coming. I still expect the bullpen to get back on the beam. Strike One men, Strike One!

The Orioles are 23-4 when scoring 5 or more runs. They are 5-28 when scoring 4 or less including 0-11 when scoring exactly 4 runs. 0-11! @%&#@%&#@

The bullpen and offense both need to step up, however, the team as a whole has to figure out how to make 4 runs stand up.

Nate's not so great

Nate Robertson got shelled last night in Texas, failing to get an out. This is of great concern because Nate was able to scuffle through poor outings in the past, and now seems unable. His last 6 starts have resulted in a 1-5 record and 9.12 ERA. He’s given up 50 hits (including 7 HR) and 12 walks in 25.2 IP. Ouch.

Amazingly, Nate’s ERA during the span ranks only 8th worse among pitchers with at least 10 IP. (This goes back to May 9.) Here are those who make Nate feel better:

Levale Speigner (WSH) 0-2, 14.06 ERA
Matt Albers (HOU) 0-3, 11.68
Ramon Ortiz (MIN) 0-2, 10.80
Robinson Tejeda (TEX) 1-4, 10.62
Nicholas Masset (CHA) 1-1, 10.45
Rick White (HOU) 0-0, 10.22
Kelvin Jimenez (STL) 0-0, 9.82

Unfortunately, the Tigers will miss Tejeda and Vicente Padilla (1-4, 9.00 in his last 5 starts) during this trip to Texas.

In other news, Kenny Rogers threw 2 innings in a simulated game and reported all went well. Meanwhile, former Tigs reliever Troy Percival will toss for scouts as he attempts a comeback. Detroit will be among those watching the workout. The Phillies, too, will be there.

How Big is it?

As suspected, the Orioles have followed a 6 game winning streak with a (currently active) 4 game losing streak. Only once this season have the Orioles followed a winning streak (2 consecutive wins or more) with a losing streak of fewer games than the winning streak.

The O's have also only once executed a non-losing road trip this season. It was a 3 game trip to Tampa Bay where they took two, but I suppose it still counts.

The O's are 4-4 on the current road trip with two games left in Seattle. Win one of the two and the O's will have both a winning streak as long or longer than the successive losing streak as well as a non-losing road trip.

It's an opportunity for the O's to demonstrate that the one occurrence of each of these achievements thus far this season were not flukes. This is as big a 2 game set as an O's fan has to look forward to.

Wish I could fly like Superman

There still seems to be a lot of talk about the Phillies inability to "protect" Ryan Howard in the lineup. I think people are missing the boat. There are only about a half dozen players that could protect Howard, and it would take a hitter of Howard's caliber to do so. You need a situation like Big Papi and Manny in Boston to make it worthwhile.

Philadelphia's failure is that the players batting behind Howard don't make anyone pay for putting Howard on base. That's what you need. Look at the Giants with Bonds, particularly when Jeff Kent was there. Kent never "protected" Bonds even though he drove in more than 100 runs in all 6 seasons in SF and had 3 years with 120+ RBI. The most important thing he did was make teams pay for walking Bonds.

For the 3 seasons of 2000-2002, Kent batted .313-69-273 in the No. 4 spot in the lineup (1,459 ABs). The Giants went 97-65, 90-72 and 95-66 in those seasons, and should have won the World Series in 2002. I couldn't get Kent's stats for 1997-99 with SF.

Philly's No. 5 hitters (excluding Howard) since the start of last year are batting .247-24-111.

Three out of six ain't bad

Numerous injuries finally started to catch up with the Mets this week as they won a mere fifty percent of their games. This was the first Monday-to-Sunday period this season in which the Mets failed to win more games than they lost and the weekend series against Arizona was their first series loss to a team outside the NL East. They haven't had a win streak longer than four games all year, but this consistency has left them with the best record west of Boston.

A bruise to Carlos Beltran's knee was the final nail in the coffin of ordinariness as the Mets' outfield was so depleted that they resorted to starting David Newhan. Twice! Beltran says he'll be back in the lineup on Tuesday, but he also says he still feels "a little bit of pain" when he runs, which ought to disturb any Mets fan who remembers 2005.

The Mets' offense was the main culprit this week, as they scored just eighteen runs in the six games. Only two Mets--Jose Reyes and David Wright--had more than ten at bats and a batting average above .200. Carlos Delgado hit three home runs and a double, but unfortunately those were his only hits all week. Carlos Gomez has cooled off considerably since his hot start and is hitting just .229/.263/.286 for the year. If the Mets had anyone to replace him, the twenty-one would surely be back in AAA by now.

The team as a whole has stopped hitting for power, with a team slugging percentage of just .424 compared to last year's .445. On the bright side, the team OBP is up to a league-leading .348 from last year's .334. The team's 4.87 runs per game is good for third in the league. It's down from 5.15 last year, but that was also just the third best in the league. The average NL team is scoring only 4.44 runs per game compared to 4.76 last year.

It is to the credit of the pitching that the Mets were able to scratch out three wins this week. No Met starter allowed more than three runs or pitched fewer than six innings. Oliver Perez had two seven-inning, three-run performances and didn't get a win in either. Perez pitching well has become commonplace, but Orlando Hernandez's second post-injury start was more encouraging. He gave up just two runs on two hits and one walk in seven innings. Mets starters now have an ERA of 3.48, third best in the majors.

Up next for the Mets (35-20) is a three-game series with the under-phive-hundred Phils (28-29). Game one features a couple of starting pitchers who throw with their left hand and would likely not be described as "young" in Tom Glavine (5-3, 3.44, 41 years of age) and Jamie Moyer (5-4, 4.23, 44). El Duque (3-1, 2.20) and John Maine (6-3, 2.81) will follow for New York, Adam Eaton (5-4, 6.28, 3 years, $24.5 million) and Cole Hamels (8-2, 3.55) for Philadelphia.

Number crunching

I decided to take a look at the Tigers’ pitching from 2006 and compare it to the pitching this season, through the same time period. Here are the results for opponents’ BA, OBA and SLG:

Staff 2006: .246 - .312 - .389
Staff 2007: .274 - .345 - .432

Starters 2006: .256 - .315 - .403
Starters 2007: .271 - .339 - .432

Relievers 2006: .222 - .308 - .357
Relievers 2007: .278 - .357 - .431

Staff with runners in scoring position
2006: .244 - .333 - .384
2007: .286 - .362 - .439

Staff with one-run lead
2006: .198 - .267 - .316
2007: .288 - .344 - .425

Obviously, the numbers in 2006 were outstanding. Of course, this season the Tigers have dealt with injuries to Kenny Rogers, Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya, plus losing Jamie Walker to free agency and not adequately replacing him in the pen (see: Mesa, Jose). Also, Mike Maroth was healthy for much of the 2006 time period while this year he is coming back from elbow trouble.

The surprising emergence of Chad Durbin has helped offset the loss of Rogers, and the starters’ numbers aren’t too far off from 2006. But the pen is going to need some help, it appears. The Tigers have 11 blown saves this season, compared to 16 for all of 2006. Rodney’s return, if he’s healthy now, will help.

Detroit is 32-24, so it’s nice to consider what the Tigs might do if they get improved pitching.

As far as the hitting, here are the numbers again for BA, OBA and SLG:

2006: .276 - .332 - .460
2007: .287 - .348 - .475

With runners in scoring position
2006: .260 - .337 - .413
2007: .321 - .403 - .510

Against starters
2006: .285 - .336 - .483
2007: .293 - .343 - .491

Against relievers
2006: .257 - .323 - .412
2007: .277 - .357 - .446

Strikeouts/Walks
2006: 391-148
2007: 345-179

So, the hitting is improved from last year, which we knew. Thanks to Baseball Musings for its database making this easy.

Mesa grilled

The Tigers released Jose Mesa to make room for Fernando Rodney coming off the DL. Mesa gave up 16 ER in 11.2 IP. Hopefully, Rodney is healthy and can return to 2006 form, which would be a huge boost to the Detroit pen.

Meanwhile, why do I have this feeling Mesa will resurface somewhere -- like Philly.

Split decision

Seeing how the Tigers scored 5-11-9-9 runs in their 4 games in Cleveland, it's a little disappointing to only get a split. Todd Jones' 9th-inning meltdown Friday night certainly could have spelled doom for the entire series, but Detroit bounced back to take the final 2. So I'd say the Tigers passed a big test as far as resolve, which is nice. It's also nice to see the offense roll up runs without Carlos Guillen and Brandon Inge in the lineup.

From 2nd place in the AL East

The AP reported that O's 2B Brian Roberts is sanguine. No word on how long it's expected to last.

I noticed this quote in the story: "People have to realize, it's a long, long season," Roberts said. "You're going to have your streaks, you're going to have your ups and downs, individually and as a team. You can't panic."

Seems almost exactly what Sparky was saying yesterday. We print it here, it comes out there.

That long road

It’s easy to forget that a baseball season is a marathon, unlike a football season, where the result of every game carries great weight. I’m trying to remind myself of this fact as I watch the Tigers struggle through their current 1-5 slide.

I hated to see Detroit swept at home by Cleveland, but consoled myself with the knowledge that the Tribe is a good club. Losing 2 of 3 in Tampa Bay, especially the bullpen meltdown on Memorial Day, was tougher to take. Of course, the pen wasn’t helped by Curtis Granderson playing a single into a triple or Mike Rabelo’s throwing error.

The Tigers sure have been streaky. Since the final week of April, they’ve gone 11-1, 1-4, 5-1, 1-5. Hopefully, another 11-1 is around the corner.

That might be tough with a 4-game set in Cleveland upon us. Justin Verlander (5-1, 2.71) meets C.C. Sabathia (7-1, 3.54) in tonight’s opener. The Tigers are expected to be without SS Carlos Guillen (groin strain) and 3B Brandon Inge (chip fracture in toe). Not exactly the news we wanted to read.

Tomorrow it will be Mike Maroth (3-2, 5.04) vs. Fausto Carmona (6-1, 2.89) followed by Chad Durbin (4-1, 4.39) vs. Cliff Lee (2-2, 5.86) on Saturday and Jeremy Bonderman (4-0, 3.34) vs. Jeremy Sowers (1-5, 6.29) on Sunday.

If Verlander wins tonight, the Tigs got a chance to take 3. I'd be happy with a split.

Skipper Jim Leyland remains confident, telling Tigers.com: "I don't want anybody feeling sorry for us. We've got what we've got and what we've got is pretty good. I'll take this team anywhere."

It's a boy, Mrs. Walker

Former Tiger reliever Jamie Walker's wife gave birth to a son. They named the child James Leyland, but, remarkably he's not named after Tigers manager Jim Leyland.

What is it?

The Baltimore Orioles are enjoying a 5 game winning streak after Eric Bedard (8IP, 4H, 5K) and Chris Ray combined on a 3-0 shutout of the Kansas City Royals last night in Kansas City. The streak is composed of 2 wins over Oakland in Baltimore and a 3 game sweep of the Royals in Kansas City.

A 5 game winning streak is joyous as is, but what makes this particular one even sweeter is that the Oakland A's were 14-2 in their previous 16 games in Baltimore and Baltimore was 8-16 on the road coming into Kansas City.

The O's have done everything well in the 5 games. All 5 wins were collected by starters. The last 7 days shows O's pitching with a 5-2 record, 2.25 ERA, 21 BB and 42 K in 64 IP. O's hitters have heated up in that same period with a .272 AVG, 10 HR and 40 Runs. O's fielding still leads the AL.

The O's are headed to Anaheim for a 4 game set with the Angels. The O's have had a few winning streaks this season, but thus far, with one exception, they've followed winning streaks with losing streaks of equal or longer duration.

So, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Is it daylight, or an oncoming train?

At least the Yankees lost again today

It is Memorial Day and I, like much of America, did not have to go to work today. So of course the best baseball team in the biggest media market in the country did not play a game. Bangup job, MLB.

The Mets did have a pretty good week as far as the standings went as they won four of six and extended their division lead to four and a half games despite losing their third straight series to the Braves. Whenever this team is struggling a little bit, a series against the Marlins seems to be all they need to get back on track. (Note to many, many sportscasters and writers: yes, "untracked" is a word, but it doesn't mean what you think it means.) This week did bring some new and exciting injuries for the team to deal with but the literal and figurative returns of a couple of key players helped ease the pain.

The Mets' outfield is in tatters, to the point that Damion Easley started a game in left over the weekend, as Shawn Green appears headed to the disabled list with a broken bone in his foot and Carlos Gomez is dealing with a strained hamstring. Ben Johnson (.282/.367/.436 in New Orleans) will come up to take Green's spot on the roster for a few days until Moises Alou is ready to return. That the Mets are dealing with injuries is hardly surprising given how old two-thirds of their opening day outfield was, but things like Green's broken bone and the injuries to Gomez and Lastings Milledge fit better in the category of freak occurrences than predictable events. Luckily, Endy Chavez's offensive production has been just as freakish at .337/.385/.482 so far, giving the Mets some room for error.

While Alou may not be ready to return from the DL just yet, the Mets did get one of their elder statesmen back this week. Orlando Hernandez took the mound on Friday in Florida and pitched six shutout innings on just two hits with four strikeouts and no walks. And though the Marlins may not have put up much resistance against the Mets so far this year, they have scored the third most runs in the National League, so shutting down their offense is hardly an easy assignment.

The same could not be said of Carlos Delgado for most of this season, but this past week may have seen him finally turn things around. Prior to the Atlanta series, he was hitting .214/.294/.321 with three home runs on the year. At the time, fewer than twenty players had enough plate appearances to qualify for their league's batting title and a lower OPS than Delgado. Such offensive powerhouses as Juan Pierre and Jacque Jones had him beat. This week he went nine for twenty-five with two home runs, raising his season averages to .234/.306/.359, passing both Pierre and Jones and nearing the lofty heights of Mark Ellis and Ryan Freel. As odd as it sounds that the Mets need someone to make up for Shawn Green's production, that is the case and Delgado may be just the man for the job.

The Mets (32-17) return home this week to get some fresh duct tape to hold their outfield together and host the San Francisco Giants (24-25). While the starting lineup may feature a question mark or two, the same cannot be said of the rotation as the Mets will send out the best they've got. A red hot Oliver Perez (6-3, 2.45) starts game one having shut out the Braves for seven frames in his last start. Perez is now in the top five in the league in wins, ERA, WHIP (1.059) and strikeout rate (8.42 per nine innings). He'll take on rookie Tim Lincecum (2-0, 3.08), who's also had a pretty good month of May. Tom Glavine (5-2, 3.39) and El Duque (2-1, 2.13) will face Barry Zito (4-5, 4.70) and Matt Cain (2-4, 3.23) in the final two games of the set.

Waiting for Dr. Longball

The Baltimore Orioles are 22-27 through 49 games this season. Through 49 games in 2006, the O's were...... 22-27. Despite this, there is still optimism for a winning campaign.

Orioles fielding has been solid. O's fielders have been charged with the fewest errors in the AL (21) which has them leading the AL in Fielding Percentage (.989). They are 5th in the AL in turning double plays.

O's pitching has been competitive. The only concern at this point is the ongoing struggles of reliever Danys Baez, who has recently formed the habit of throwing belt-high, middle of the plate fastballs in 2-0 counts. If the starters continue to perform well and the rest of the pen stays on the beam, having 1 struggling reliever on a 12 man staff is a problem you can take the time to work out.

O's pitching is 2nd in the AL in HR Allowed, 4th in Average Against and 6th in Earned Run Average. On the downside, they are 13th in Walks. This is the big contributor to 8th in WHIP and 9th in On Base Percentage. Solid fielding has diminished the ill effects of this charitable characteristic.

Starters Bedard and Trachsel have performed as would reasonably be expected with their respective track records. Jeremy Guthrie has been a wonderful surprise (11 Games, 5 starts, 2-1, 3.09 ERA, 1.10 WHIP). Daniel Cabrera still struggles with the Base on Balls, but has significantly improved in this regard. In 2006, he finished at 6.32 BB/9. Thus far in 2007, he's at 4.1 BB/9. The loss of Kris Benson (for the season) and Adam Loewen (at least for a couple months) hurts, but the rotation has absorbed these injuries well.

It is the Orioles (lack of) offense that is the primary contributor the Orioles 22-27 record. O's hitters are 8th in the AL in Batting Average, 7th in On Base Percentage, 7th in Hits and 6th in Bases on Balls. These numbers, combined with decent pitching and solid fielding, are good enough to fashion a winning record. However, the O's are 14th in the AL in Home Runs, 12th in Runs Scored and 12th in On Base + Slugging Percentage.

While there is clearly a power outage in Baltimore, the telling numbers for the O's offense are 5th in Total Plate Appearances, yet 9th in Total Pitches Seen. O's hitters are impatient. Many games they (as a team) seem to be in a hurry to make an out. The O's have a competitive lineup, not a great lineup. They are not talented enough to be free swingers. The more pitches thrown, the more mistake pitches thrown. Make the opposing pitcher work. Throughout the lineup, they're good enough to make pitchers pay for mistakes. They must give opposing pitchers more opportunities to make mistakes.

Earl would say, "What we need is a visit from Dr. Longball." Unfortunately for the Orioles, you can't make appointments with Dr. Longball.

You have to be patient and wait for him.

Bat men

Over the last 30 days, the only Tigers regular hitting under .281 is Pudge Rodriguez, who is batting .253 during the span. Maggs is .379-9-25, Guillen is .366-4-20, Casey is .329-0-9, Polanco is .296-0-15, Monroe is .293-5-16, Sheff is .293-8-16, Granderson is .281-4-16, and Inge is .281-5-11. That's some thumpin.

Casey seems to have come to life after I wrote he might be done.

While the pitching carried last year's team, this season it's really been the bats. During the same 30 day span, Verlander (3.19) and Durbin! (3.25) have solid ERAs and are 7-1 combined. Bonderman pitched well coming off the DL, which might indicate his 4.26 ERA over the last 30 should continue to drop. Maroth (4.85) has yet to settle into a groove, unless, perhaps, this is the groove he'll have for the entire year. Robertson (5.56) has struggled in his last 4 starts.

Fernando Rodney went on the DL today and Zach Miner was recalled from Triple-A Toledo. Bobby Seay (6.30), Jason Grilli (6.75), Jose Mesa (8.10) and Wil Ledezma (8.25) need to improve on those numbers over the last 30 days to aid the battered bullpen.

Write on

Sparky and the Detroit writers think so much alike it's scary. They must be tapped into DTFT.

One day after Sparky comments ...

It hasn't been this much fun to be a Tigers fan since 1984. Last year was good, and memorable and exciting, but it was so unexpected that you kept waiting for the bottom to fall out. This season, you feel the Tigs belong.

... this appears courtesy of Michael Rosenberg in the Free Press:

Anyway, the point is that the Tigers entered the game with the second-best record in baseball and left it in second place. They are now 29-18. Last year, they were 33-14 through 47 games, but because they had lost for so many years, it didn't feel real. There was still that lingering fear that they would go on a 16-game losing streak and re-sign Deivi Cruz.

This is different. Everybody expects the Tigers to be in the race all season. This year, everybody is in his or her seats for the start of the movie. Everybody gets to experience all the wonderful moments of a playoff race.

First-place clash

It's been a while since I've had time to post. What a week! Sweep the Cards. Bonderman comes off the DL and gets through a first inning without giving up a run. Maggs smacks balls all over the yard -- and out of the yard. Wee!

It hasn't been this much fun to be a Tigers fan since 1984. Last year was good, and memorable and exciting, but it was so unexpected that you kept waiting for the bottom to fall out. This season, you feel the Tigs belong. You have no doubt they're right up there with Boston and Cleveland and Chicago and Minnesota as one of the best teams around.

It's almost too good to be true. No Rogers yet, Zumaya on the DL, Bonderman sidelined once, early offensive struggles, inconsistent bullpen -- and the team is on pace to win 102 games!

As for Maggs, hopefully he can stay healthy. It would appear his knee woes aren't affecting him this season. To me, the most telling stat is his ML-best 23 doubles. I would think that means he's driving the ball well, something he wasn't always able to do in the past with his injuries. It looks like the old Maggs is back.

Cleveland vs. Detroit now for the top of the AL Central.

Maybe playing the Yankees six times this year isn't such a bad thing

Watching the Mets beat up on the National League and win a series against the Yankees is a lot of fun. This weekend's series provided both a tight pitchers' duel, with great performances from Oliver Perez and Endy Chavez, and an offensive explosion led by David Wright. But part of the fun of being a Mets fan is having a player or two on your own team to hate.

Even during last year's great run we could choose from Jose Lima or Chris Woodward or Michael Tucker at various times. And of course Shawn Green really hit the spot in the playoffs. This year, David Newhan has put up a pretty good showing in an attempt to fill this role. But this past offseason, Omar Minaya ensured that Mets fans would be able to get their hate on for years to come when he handed a three-year, twelve million-dollar deal to Scott Schoeneweis.

Last year, Schoenweis had a 4.88 ERA with 29 strikeouts and 24 walks in 51.2 innings. How this got him a three-year contract rather than a Spring Training invite, I don't know. In his career, he has been good at retiring left-handed hitters, holding them to a mere .229/.303/.298 prior to tonight's game. Of course, righties have historically smacked him around at a .291/.364/.465 clip. Spending four million dollars a year on a guy to only face lefties might be somewhat defensible if the Mets didn't already have Pedro Feliciano, who does it just was well for less than one-sixth the price and isn't a complete disaster against righties. As it is, Schoeneweis provides Willie Randolph with a pitcher he can use in games he's not particularly interested in winning and gives fans a direction in which to focus their ire when everything else is going pretty well.

This Saturday was such an occasion as the Mets built up a six-run lead against a parade of Yankee pitchers. The Big Scho entered the game with one on and none out in the seventh and wound up facing seven batters before being removed in the eighth. Of the four lefties he faced, he retired three and walked the fourth. The three righties hit a single and two home runs, turning an 8-2 game into an 8-5 game. The late innings of a blowout are a reasonable time to use the worst pitcher in your bullpen, but when that pitcher is a lefty specialist, letting him face Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Alex Rodriguez in that situation is not quite as reasonable. Schoeneweis now has a 6.50 ERA with 15 walks and 9 strikeouts in 18 innings.

Still, the Mets (28-15) won two of three this weekend while the Braves (26-18) lost two of three, giving the Mets a 2.5 game lead in the division as they head to Atlanta for a three-game series beginning on Tuesday. The Mets will take advantage of this day off to skip the fifth spot in their rotation, sending Jorge Sosa (3-0, 2.25), Oliver Perez (5-3, 2.90) and Tom Glavine (5-1, 3.43) to the mound in this series. The Braves' starters will be Kyle Davies (1-2, 5.17), Chuck James (4-3, 4.15) and John Smoltz (6-2, 2.85). The Mets have a definite edge in those first two matchups and game three should be another fun Glavine/Smoltz matchup. These two teams seem to be the class of the National League and the Braves have won four of their six meetings this season. Hopefully the Mets can begin to turn that trend around with this series.

Hi, we're the replacements

One of the keys to the Mets' success in the first quarter of the season has been the good play of their reserves. The team has had to deal with significant, if not surprising, injuries and the way some guys have stepped up to fill the holes has allowed the Mets to just keep rolling. This has never been more true than in the games of the last two days.

After splitting the first two games of a four-game series with the Cubs, the Mets turned to Jorge Sosa who joined the rotation when Orlando Hernandez went on the disabled list. Sosa responded with the best of his three 2007 major league starts, allowing just one run on one hit and three walks in seven innings. He's now 3-0 with a 2.25 ERA. Sosa's career stats aren't those of a guy likely to keep this up, but with Mike Pelfrey in the minors and Jason Vargas failing to distinguish himself on Thursday, he'll get plenty of chances to try.

Willie Randolph was apparently so impressed with Sosa's performance that he decided to fill almost his entire lineup with backups in the series finale. Shawn Green shared the outfield grass with Endy Chavez and Carlos Gomez while Carlos Delgado was joined on the infield dirt by second baseman David Newhan, shortstop Roben Gotay and third baseman Julio Franco. Even Damion Easley, who's been the poster boy for surprising fill ins, excelling in Jose Valentin's place, got the day off. Ramon Castro got the start behind the plate, but that's not much of a downgrade from the starter at this point.

While Vargas's Mets debut went a little better than Jose Lima's last year, that's about all that can be said for it. He gave up five runs in seven innings of work, four of those coming on two sixth-inning two-run home runs. It seemed a bit much for the Mets' lineup of scrubs to overcome. Then the Cubs brought in their closer to preserve a four-run lead.

Newhan, inexplicably batting sixth instead of, I don't know, ninth--Vargas is a career .310/.341/.381 hitter compared to Newhan's .253/.316/.383--started the ninth inning with a single and after he narrowly avoided getting doubled off first base on a Castro lineout, the Mets were off to the races. Gomez singled, Carlos Beltran pinch walked and Chavez drew another free pass to bring home a run. Randolph then let Gotay hit with the bases loaded instead of using Jose Reyes or David Wright but it worked as he drove in run number two with a single. After Lou Piniella removed Ryan Dempster in disgust, Wright got a chance to hit for Green and drove Scott Eyre's first pinch into center to bring the Mets within one. Delgado took a ball before grounding a single into right to bring home two runs for the win.

Hopefully the Mets will never start a lineup like that again, but it was certainly was a fun way to win three out of four from the Cubs. Easley, Chavez and Castro are all having good years off the bench which is a good thing given that they all back up guys who are either injured or not hitting very well right now. Franco and Newhan are off to pretty bad starts but the Mets still seem to have assembled a pretty decent bench.

Having dispatched one team struggling to reach .500 the Mets (26-14) host another one this weekend. The Yankees (18-21) will face the business end of the Mets' starting rotation as Oliver Perez (4-3, 3.00), Tom Glavine (4-1, 3.31) and John Maine (5-1, 2.15) get the starts. Andy Pettitte (2-2, 2.68), Darrell Rasner (1-2, 3.28) and Chien-Ming Wang (2-3, 4.54) will tangle with the NL's top offense.

Thoughts on Philly

The Phillies pulled out another dramatic win tonight, and maybe this team is starting to get on a roll. Granted, there are still glaring problems, most notably with the bullpen and bench. But if Eaton and Garcia can give them quality starts, that will take some of the pressure off those concerns.

Philly is 2-8 vs. the NL East’s top two teams, the Braves and Mets. That makes them 17-12 against everyone else. True, the Phils will have to beat Atlanta and NY at some point to truly make noise, but they might not be as bad as their record. They entered tonight averaging 5.2 runs per game, second to only the Mets’ 5.3. Only Florida and Colorado, however, were giving up more runs per outing. Getting Howard healthy and Eaton and Garcia going would be big pluses.

Catching up

Detroit took 2 of 3 in Minnesota, which is plenty fine with me despite Sunday night’s nationally televised blowout. Virgil Vasquez got hammered and was returned to the minors. He started because Jeremy Bonderman is out with a blister-related cut finger. Vasquez was rated the Tigers’ 24th best prospect by Baseball America. He was 4-2 with a 2.88 ERA at Triple-A Toledo this year. He seems to hit batters frequently – 20 times last season and 4 this season (not counting last night).

The Tigers start a 4-game series in Boston tonight with Nate Robertson facing Dice-K. I think Detroit can score on Dice-K, but I also think they could whiff a bunch of times, too. Of course, the Red Sox have had their way with Nate over the years.

For the rest of the series, it will be Justin Verlander vs. Tim Wakefield, Mike Maroth vs. Julian Tavares and Chad Durbin vs. Curt Schilling. I haven’t been following Boston’s rotation closely, but I wonder if Wakefield’s success (1.79 ERA) this season is partially the result of following Dice-K.

Durbin is 3-0 with a 2.13 ERA over his last 4 starts. I wonder if Maroth watches Jamie Moyer pitch. If he doesn’t, he should.

Boston and Detroit are tied for No. 2 in runs in the AL, with 198, just 2 behind the Yankees. The Red Sox are batting .278 (No. 1) and the Tigs are hitting .272 (No. 4). The teams rank 1-2 in OPS, with Boston at .810 and Detroit at .787.

The Red Sox’s ERA is 3.27 (No. 2) and the Tigers is 4.45 (No. 6).

Brandon Inge is .450-1-5 over the last 7 games (best of all only 2 K). Magglio Ordonez is .389-2-6 while Craig Monroe is .368-1-2.

There's no such thing as too many Carloses

Another week, another four wins for the Mets. They slipped to second place, a half-game behind the Braves, and Moises Alou got hurt again but otherwise it was another good week for New York's leading baseball franchise.

It was a pretty ordinary week for the offense as they scored thirty runs in six games. Not so ordinary was the contribution of David Wright, whose bat seems to be finally coming alive. The Met third baseman had nine hits in twenty-four at bats including three doubles and a home run and he also stole four bases including three in Sunday's game. He's still hitting just .262/.358/.404 for the season, but at least he's starting to come around. Carlos Delgado is even further from respectable numbers at just .209/.287/.328, but at least he hit a couple of home runs this week.

Not all struggling Mets will get as many chances to succeed as those two as Mike Pelfrey found out this weekend. After a Saturday start in which he gave up four runs on eight hits and three walks in five innings, Pelfrey was sent down to AAA New Orleans. In six starts he went 0-5 with a 6.53 ERA. He gave up 36 hits and 17 walks in 30.1 innings and struck out just twelve. I have little doubt that Pelfrey will be back in the majors at some point this season, but he clearly has a lot of work to if he's going to develop into a successful starter.

With Pelfrey in the minors the Mets are left with just four starters for the time being as they called up outfielder Carlos Gomez to replace Pelfrey on the roster. The twenty-one year old Gomez entered the season as one of the Mets' top prospects and held his own at AAA despite his youth, hitting .286/.363/.414 in thirty-six games. He got the start in right field on Sunday and wasted little time in making an impression at the major league level, hitting a double and a single, stealing a base and looking very good defensively. Gomez is probably not long for the Mets' roster as they'll need a starting pitcher on Thursday. He's better off playing every day at AAA than sitting on the bench in the majors anyway and he still needs to add some power to his offensive game before he'll really look like a major league corner outfielder. But what he showed on Sunday gave Mets fans a glimpse at a very promising future. The Mets have a rather old outfield now but there may be some very exciting reinforcements from the minors in the next couple of years with Gomez, Lastings Milledge and eighteen-year-old Fernando Martinez all looking like potential major league regulars.

Also giving fans something to be excited about on Sunday was Oliver Perez, who bounced back from a rough start earlier in the week in which he gave up eight runs in one inning thanks in large part to some awful defense behind him. With a terrific outfield of Gomez, Carlos Beltran and Endy Chavez backing him up, he flirted with a shutout, allowing just one hit to the opposing pitcher in the first eight innings. He allowed a solo home run and left the game with one out in the ninth but it was still a brilliant performance. In addition to the two hits, he gave up two walks while striking out six and lowered his season ERA to an even 3.00.

Up next for the Mets (23-13) is a four-game series at home against the Cubs (17-18), who lost two of three in Philadelphia over the weekend. Tom Glavine (4-1, 2.98), John Maine (5-0, 1.79) and Jorge Sosa (2-0, 2.77) will start the first three games for the Mets. Hopefully game four will not be a repeat of the Chan Ho Park experiment. For the Cubs it will be the inexplicably sucessful Jason Marquis (5-1, 1.70) along with Carlos Zambrano (3-3, 5.83), Rich Hill (4-2, 2.51) and Angel Guzman (0-0, 3.57).

Nightmare Weaver

How bad has Jeff Weaver been this year? Today he gave up 6 runs in 5 IP and LOWERED his season ERA by a run. Another multi-hit game from Brandon Inge for the Tigers, who have won 8 of 9 and moved into a tie with Cleveland for first in AL Central.

Mendoza line

Brandon Inge has 6 hits in his last 11 at-bats (three straight multi-hit games) and is now hitting a cool .200. He was batting .111 on April 24.

Surprise, surprise, surprise

Milwaukee 24-10
Ian Kinsler 9 HR-24 RBI
Sammy Sosa 7 HR
B.J. Upton .366 BA
David DeJesus 27 R
Barry Bonds .338-11-23
Adam Dunn 6 SB
Shawn Green .344-4-19
Fausto Carmona 3 wins-2.97 ERA
Mark Hendrickson 2 wins-1.95 ERA

Hit parade

The hits just keep coming in Motown. Five Tigers had multi-hit games last night, including Craig Monroe, Omar Infante and Brandon Inge. Detroit will be very tough to beat if that type of hitting continues at the bottom of the order. They drove in 7 and scored 4 times.

Infante is developing into a super sub. Last night he played in CF for Curtis Granderson. He's just 25 and it might be time for Jim Leyland to find him more at-bats. I have a feeling he could see more action in CF when the Tigs faces lefties (sitting Granderson). The previous two seasons he got a total 630 AB and hit 13 HR with 68 RBI. Not too shabby.

Magglio Ordonez hit 2 doubles and now has an AL-best 18. His 1.056 OPS is fourth in AL. Carlos Guillen (.914) and Granderson (.892) rank 13th and 14th, respectively.

Monroe and Maggs also made diving catches in the 9th last night to help preserve the win. The Tigers have scored at least 7 runs in 4 of last 8.

Jeremy Bonderman gave up 3 runs in the first inning last night. He's got a 15.43 ERA in the first innings of games this season and 1.18 ERA the rest of the way.

Mariners visit

The Tigers play 3 against Seattle starting tonight. It will be Horacio Ramirez (2-1, 6.64) against Jeremy Bonderman (1-0, 3.69) in the opener. Amazingly, the ERAs get worse from there for the Mariners: Cha Seung Baek (0-0, 7.53) faces Nate Robertson (3-1, 2.48) and Jeff Weaver (0-5, 15.35) meets Justin Verlander (2-1, 2.75) in the finale.

Baek is tough to figure; he got shelled in Yankee Stadium in his past start, but had a no-no into the 6th inning against KC. Oh, wait; maybe that’s not tough to figure after all.

Bonderman got extra rest because of a blister. The Tigers will be seeing Weaver for the first time since he ended their World Series nightmare. Can the Tigs extend their win streak to 10 before heading to Minnesota?

Joel Zumaya is out for at least 12 weeks. Aquilino Lopez has taken Zumaya’s spot, but that might be temporary. Zach Miner filled in as a starter and reliever last year for the Tigers, but this year is 0-4 with a 6.69 ERA at AAA Toledo. Dennis Tankersley has pitched fairly well (3-1, 3.47) at Toledo and could be in the running to join the big team, I would think. I wonder if Detroit might bring him up with the idea of dealing him. He’s still only 28 and once was a very bright prospect. I’d say he’s in a position where he needs to help the club now; I can’t see the reason to keep him around at Toledo, especially after Rogers returns. Detroit appears to have plenty of starting pitching prospects in the minors, already.

Hopefully, too, Jose Mesa is better.

Hot hitting

The Tigers over the last 6 games are slugging .545 (best in AL during span) while batting .318 (2nd) with 42 runs (2nd) and 9 HR (2nd). Playing the Royals, who looked nothing like the team that showed some spark in early April, is a help. But so, too, it seems was Daniel Cabrera throwing at Gary Sheffield.

As soon as I started worrying about Sean Casey, he goes 7-for-13 with two doubles. Craig Monroe says he stopped thinking, which led to a .348 BA the past six games. Those are two key bats in the bottom part of the order. Even Brandon Inge hit .227 over the last six (yes, not great, but double what he’d been hitting).

Now Detroit must overcome the loss of Joel Zumaya. Hard to imagine dislocating your finger (or whatever he really did) by throwing a ball. He will be the third key Tiger pitcher from last year that will either miss the entire year or part of it, joining Jamie Walker (gone to Baltimore) and Kenny Rogers (surgery).

In 2006, Rogers was 17-8 with a 3.84 ERA, Zumaya was 6-3 with a 1.94 ERA and Walker was 0-1 with a 2.81 ERA. Tough to lose those types of numbers.

Rockets red glare

If you think you can stomach it, check out Suzyn Waldman's reaction to Clemens in the house.

American League Least

The Baltimore Orioles are 3-10 in their last 13 games and tied for 3rd in the division, one game behind the Yankees and 6 1/2 games behind the division leading Red Sox (the only team in the division with a winning record).

2 of the 5 starters in the O's opening day rotation are on the DL, however, if your starting pitching isn't very good to begin with.....

While recent outings against the Mariners and the signing of Roger Clemens suggest the Yankees have solved their pitching woes, this remains to be seen.

The Red Sox can generally be relied upon to come back to their competition.

So, while I remain hopeful that the O's can still get it together and post a winning campaign, I'm starting to wonder if they have a better chance of winning the division.