A full baseball season can be broken into Nine 18-game segments. I have termed these 18-game segments as an “inning” of a season. In the past I have provided analysis of each “inning” at www.detroittigersweblog.com. For 2009, I am going to post the analysis on my own blog www.samhoff.com.

Let’s compare the first six innings of 2009:

                                                                      Starters:         Bullpen:

       W-L  RS –RA     HR-SB-AVG/OBA/SLG    W-L- IP-  ERA     W-L-S-ERA

1st:  10-8  102-84     21-12-276/349/432    7-6-103.1-4.62    3-2-4-3.96

2nd:  10-8   99-86     20- 6-265/342/436    8-5-104.0-3.63    2-3-3-5.68

3rd:   9-9   67-65     14-13-252/317/370    9-8-114.1-3.23    0-1-5-4.23

4th:  12-6   85-84     29- 8-259/335/459    6-5- 97.2-4.98    6-1-6-4.08

5th:   7-11  70-76     23- 7-234/307/403    5-7-108.1-3.90    2-4-3-3.66

6th:  10-8   82-86     16- 7-268/338/412    6-6-113.2-4.75    4-2-5-3.44

 

The sixth inning saw the Tigers finish 10-8 for the 3rd time in 2009. The Tigers were outscored by 4 runs, but helped by a 7-3 record in one and two run games. Interestingly, the Tigers had identical 29-25 records in the first two thirds of the 2009 season, but digging deeper you find that the Tigers outscored their opponents by 33 in the first third, but were outscored by 9 in the second third.

 

The last third of the season is going to be critical for the Tigers and especially Jim Leyland. The Tigers under Leyland (2005 to 2009) have a combined .533 winning percentage in the first 54 games of the seasons. They have a combined .570 winning percentage in the middle third of seasons. In the final third of seasons, they have a combined .407 winning percentage. In fact, their worst performance in every single year has been in the last third. Many people have a lot of respect for Jim Leyland, but he consistently seems to lose his team down the stretch. I sincerely hope 2009 proves to be different.

 

Starting Pitching: In the ten games Verlander, Jackson, and Porcello started the Tigers were 8-2. The two other wins were the game Eddie Bonine was called up from Toledo and gave a respectable performance in the second half of a double header verses the White Sox, and a 10-8 win against the Twins where Galarraga was far from sharp. Washburn was swapped for French to try to reverse this trend, though it didn’t work on the first try. For the season, the Tigers are 40-25 when the big-3 (Verlander, Jackson, and Porcello) pitch. They are 18-25 in all other games.

 

Name G IP W L S K ERA WHIP
Justin Verlander 3 24    2 0   25 3.00 1.08
Edwin Jackson 3 19    1 0   16 3.32 1.37
Rick Porcello 4 24    2 1   9 4.88 1.21
A Galarraga 4 25    1 2   14 5.76 1.52
Eddie Bonine 1 6    0 0   4 4.50 1.50
Lucas French 2 10 1/3 0 2   8 6.10 1.74
Jarrod Washburn 1 5 1/3 0 1   2 10.12 1.50

  

Bullpen: The bullpen has continued to improve. The 3.44 bullpen ERA in the inning was a season best performance and came on the heels of the previous season best (3.66). Rodney is still getting the job done, though he creates some anxious moments. Lyon, Perry, and Ni were all sharp. Seay is going through a bit of a slump. Miner is performing mostly in low leverage situations, though he did get a shaky save in 12 inning affair with Cleveland. Fien had a nice debut against the White Sox, but then pitched his way back to Toledo. 

Name G IP W L S K ERA WHIP
Brandon Lyon 7 9    1 0 1 11 0.00 0.67
F Rodney 8 9    2 0 3 12 3.00 1.33
Ryan Perry 6 9 1/3 0 0 0 10 2.89 1.07
Fu-Te Ni 8 7    0 0 0 6 2.57 1.00
Zach Miner 6 9    0 0 1 5 4.00 1.67
Bobby Seay 6 5    1 1 0 4 7.20 2.00
Casey Fien 4 4    0 1 0 6 9.00 2.25

 

Offense: The offense performed better in the 6th inning than in the 5th inning. Their 4.56 runs/game is slightly below the 4.84 league average for 2009. They were building momentum through the inning as they scored 52 runs in the last 9 games after scoring 30 runs in the first 9 games of the inning. Granderson, Cabrera, and Thomas were all very effective. Polanco seems to have his old stroke back and Carlos Guillen has been a welcomed addition to the lineup.  Magglio Ordonez was not his old self, but was slightly improved. Brandon Inge has fallen off recently as he has been nursing a sore knee and the shortstop platoon of Santiago and Everett continue to stink offensively. In two games, Alex Avila had as many doubles, one more HR, and only two less RBI than the backup catchers (Treanor, Sardinha, and Ryan) had through the first 106 games.  

Name G AB HR RBI SB BA OBP SLG
Miguel Cabrera 18 75 4 14 0 .360 .429 .613
C Granderson 17 72 3 8 3 .292 .370 .528
Placido Polanco 17 75 1 10 1 .333 .362 .440
Carlos Guillen 13 51 2 8 0 .294 .368 .471
Clete Thomas 17 46 1 8 0 .283 .389 .391
Magglio Ordonez 13 49 2 6 0 .265 .308 .449
Ryan Raburn 15 42 0 6 1 .262 .311 .333
Alex Avila 2 8 1 5 0 .500 .500 1.125
Brandon Inge 18 59 1 3 0 .237 .318 .322
Ramon Santiago 10 25 0 3 0 .200 .323 .320
Marcus Thames 13 38 1 1 0 .184 .311 .316
Adam Everett 14 39 0 5 1 .179 .190 .205
Gerald Laird 14 42 0 1 1 .167 .222 .238
Dusty Ryan 6 11 0 3 0 .182 .250 .182
Josh Anderson 1 4 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000
Wilkin Ramirez 1 3 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000

 

After back to back home 2-1 losses to Seattle in games 2 and 3 of the 6th inning, the Tigers stood tied with the White Sox. After that, three straight home wins against the same White Sox built the lead to 3 games which is where it currently stands. The Tigers have picked up a quality fourth starter in Washburn, have a healthy Carlos Guillen, and a couple of veterans in Polanco and Ordonez who seem to be regaining their strokes while having millions of dollars personally riding on a good late season performance. The Tigers seem to be positioned for a good late season run, but only time will tell if they reverse their trend of collapses.