Rants and Raves on 6/29/11

We are sitting down to enjoy this Tigers game, and here are some thoughts that are running through our minds as we watch:

So by now obviously you have all heard about/seen Jim Leyland's epic charade meltdown. Two words for ya: HOT. MESS.  We are girls who love when a player (or manager) shows some character, and ol' Jim definitely did on Monday. Only increasing the hilarity was poor Andy Dirks, who looked like he was trying verrrrrryyyy hard not to giggle. He was doing a lot better than Rod & Mario, though, as they sounded as if they were going to wet themselves.  It was all kinds of awesome, and the Tigers ended up winning, so no harm done. In our opinion, Leyland's stock in Badassery increased significantly.

Rick Porcello, however, is a different story. He was still a Hot Mess, but a different kind. Not a good kind. We don't know what is going on with him lately, but he played like crap yesterday. Actually, Daniel Schlereth was worse, giving up two (!!!!!!!) grand slams. Who does that? Not all eight of those runs were on him, but still, thats pretty freaking terrible. Meanwhile, Porcello's average ballooned to 5.06. It seemed like only a few weeks ago it was in the sub 4.00 range.

The Mets, meanwhile, are not hot messes. They are just plain hot, ad we're not just talking about their looks. Right now we're watching the game and the Mets have already posted a 4-spot in the first inning. Look. Jose Reyes is spectacular, but no one else on that offense is. How are we supposed to win when our starting pitching isn't even giving us a chance?? Obviously the game isn't over yet, but Sweet Jesus, it's not looking good.

One thing is for sure: the Mets are an insatiable team. Putting up 14 runs last night wasn't enough for them, apparently. Greedy bitches.

This is such a gloomy post, we thought we'd offer A Ray of Light: Magglio is playing well. We have to be honest, we were divided in our household as to whether it was a good thing that he was coming back. Well, we can happily say that we think he will continue to be an offensive asset. However, he does have the worst luck we've ever seen, as opposing teams' defense continuously make amazing plays against him. Like Jason Bay just did. CRAP.

Let's just hope our boys can pull of a miracle here. It doesn't look great, and technically we shouldn't be publishing this blog post before the game ends, but whatever, we don't care. Besides, this does not look like that fun of a game. Now that we said that, watch the Tigers put up 10 runs or something. We can only hope....

Don't Forget the Little People

Our Tigers are now 42-36 and have a full one game lead over Cleveland in the AL Central. We fans have witnessed two great games in a row, in which our two biggest stars have come through in outstanding fashion. On Saturday we saw Justin Brooks Verlander continue his year of amazing-ness, striking out 14 (14!!!!) and going eight innings while allowing only 4 hits. The next day we saw Sparky Anderson's number retired in an emotional ceremony and then watched Miguel Cabrera be clutch--again--while driving in the game-winning runs in the bottom of the eighth.

As great as these two are, and as much as we should appreciate their skills, we do have to remember that others on our team have been making significant contributions as well. In fact, we would argue that without  certain players stepping up and filling in key supporting roles, we wouldn't be winning the Central right now.

Austin Jackson-The Catalyst. Despite his pretty bad day at the plate yesterday (4 strikeouts-yeeeeesh), Ajax has been hitting well lately, and whenever he's on, the whole team follows. Obviously nothing needs to be said about his defense. We all know how good he is at that.

Victor Martinez-The Quiet Leader. More than a few Tigers have commented on how good a leader V-Mart is. He seems to lead both in the clubhouse and on the field, and it is great to see him get all emotional and riled up whenever he delivers a clutch hit or slides dramatically into home. He also has helped out a bunch of younger players (Jackson, Alex Avila) with their offensive swings this year.

Alex Avila-Pitcher's Compliment. Verlander is obviously an amazing pitcher, and Max Scherzer is getting a lot of work done, too. However, people tend to forget that not only is Alex Avila kicking ass and taking names at the plate, he is also helping out our stellar starters behind it. He is a genuinely good guy, too, and deserves perhaps more than anyone on this team (save Verlander) to start the All-Star Game. If you haven't voted yet, vote!

Juh-honny Peralta: The Comeback Kid. No one, especially us, thought Juh-honny would be an offensive asset this year, especially coming out of Spring Training. Not only is he hitting over .300 but he also has the best fielding percentage of all shortstops in the American League. Quite a departure from his lackluster seasons the past few years.

Brennan Boesch-The Comeback Kid Pt. 2. After his miserable second-half last year, many wondered, including us, if Baby B was just a fluke. He has (hopefully) proven us wrong again, hitting close to .300 and getting on base whether he's hitting 2nd, 3rd, 6th, or wherever.

Max Scherzer-All I Do Is Win. What is it about Mad Max? He gets on the mound, we score runs. Period. Sometimes he doesn't deserve the win, but why quibble? A guy like that is always an asset to the team, and his W-L record shows it. Hopefully he can get win number 10 tonight.

Jose Valverde-The Stopper. Despite him giving us a few heart-attacks this season, Papa Grande has not blown a save this year, not a one. Perhaps he wasn't as completely dominant as he was last season, but he gets the job done, and acts like a rock star while doing it.


Al Alburquerque-The Surprise. This guy isn't just having a few good outings--he is consistently making batters look like assholes as they miss his sinker by feet. He is on pace for a ridiculous number of strikeouts this year, and he has only let one runner he has inherited score. Oh, and he's 5-1.  No one expected this out of him, which is part of what makes him so amazing.

Don Kelly, Ramon Santiago, Casper Wells, Andy Dirks-Supporting Players Extraordinaire. Though many people have issues with one or more of the Tigers above, we love them all. They have consistently stepped in this year and delivered. All of them! Though we may mock Don Kelly for his sometime unfortunate hitting skills, his defense is not to be ignored, and lately he has been coming through in the clutch.

Ryan Raburn-The Comic Relief. This has to be the reason he's starting all the time. Jim Leyland must love to get a good laugh in, right? There can't be any other reason, right?!?!

So, as much as Verlander and Cabrera deserve to be credited for getting us into first place (and believe us, they deserve a lot of that credit!) the Tigers mentioned above are vital to our success, too. We're liking the look of this team a lot, and not just the physical one. A few pieces aside, we seem to be on track to be serious, serious contenders in our division (fingers crossed!).

AL All-Stars: April in the D Edition

It's about that time of year again, folks: All-Star Voting time. If you haven't voted for Cabrera, Avila, Peralta, or any other deserving Tigers, you need to get off your ass and VOTE. Everybody has their own opinion of who should be starting in Arizona this year. The three of us do too, but we do it a little differently over here.

Instead of being boring and just saying who is most deserving to go (it's getting kind of obvious now), we have decided to spice things up a little. So, we have compiled two AL starting lineups: one based on skill, and one based on, you guessed it, SEX APPEAL. Yes, ladies, this one's for you. You are welcome.

Catcher


Skills: Alex Avila, Detroit Tigers. Kid has been phenomenal this year. We knew he'd be decent, but we never expected him to hit .300 so close to the All-Star break. He's not just hitting well for a catcher anymore--he's hitting well period.

Sexy: Joe Mauer, Minnesota Twins.

 St. Mauer has been the bane of our existence for many years now, but as much as it kills us to say it, he's pretty damn sexy. Ladies, I'm sure you agree with us on this: he could catch our eyes anytime. Bad pun, we're sorry.

First Base


Skills: Adrian Gonzalez, Boston Red Sox. As much as we love Big Mig, Adrian is hitting .350 with an OPS of 1.006 and dominating an already outstanding field of first basemen. Looks like he'll actually start the game, too. Go America!

Sexy: Mitch Moreland, Texas Rangers.

Photo by Elsa/Getty Images North America

Mitchy headed up a weak first baseman class, but despite not having a lot of competition, he is pretty attractive. Just look at that smolder! 

Second Base

Skills: Robinson Cano, New York Yankees. While we hate the Yankees, he's head-and-shoulders above the incredibly weak second base class this year. Just look at our own crappy situation at second base! We miss Polly. 

Sexy: Gordon Beckham, Chicago White Sox.

You may be thinking, "What's wrong with these girls? Two guys from our AL Central rivals?!" We're trying to be objective here, and Beckham is hot in a blond, muscle-y southerner kind of way. Fun fact: he also attended one of our rival high schools! Not that we knew him, but obviously we wish we did.

Third Base

Skills: Adrian Beltre, Texas Rangers. It's a tight race between Beltre, Alex Rodriguez, and Kevin Puke-lis, but we're giving it to Beltre, mostly because we hate the Yankees and Puke-lis on principle. Yeah, we vote fair. 

Sexy: Evan Longaria, Tampa Bay Rays.

So this isn't the best picture of Evan Longoria you've ever seen, but we tried our best, okay?!?!?! But seriously, he's as hot as third basemen get in the American League, apparently. Trust us, we've checked.

Shortstop

Skills: Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland Indians. As much as we love and applaud Juh-honny Peralta, Asdrubal has been awesome this year. He should definitely starting this game over the hated Jeter.

Sexy: Elvis Andrus, Texas Rangers.

He may not make the All-Star team this year, but Elvis Andrus definitely qualifies as one of the hottest shortstops around. Look at that smile! 

Designated Hitter

Skills: David Ortiz, Red Sox. After having a couple less-than-stellar seasons, Big Papi is having a monster of a 2011 campaign. Just shows you can never count the big guy out.

Sexy: Victor Martinez, Detroit Tigers.

Since designated hitters are usually player who are, shall we say, past their prime, V-Mart stands out as being significantly sexier than all the other candidates. With his Latin Lover swag and his devil-may-care  attitude, Victor runs away with the crown (but hands off, ladies! Victor is happily married with two beyond-cute children. We don't support homewrecking at April in the D).

Outfield 

Skills: Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays, Curtis Granderson, New York Yankees, Adam Jones, Baltimore Orioles. The best. Period. Bautista and Granderson are hitting with crazy power numbers, and there is no one better defensively than Adam Jones.

Sexy: Austin Jackson, Detroit Tigers, Curtis Granderson, New York Yankees, Matt Joyce, Tampa Bay Rays. 

You know what we realized? Outfielders are really, really good-looking. Can we also add that all three of these strapping young fellows at one time played on the Detroit Tigers? Maybe we're a little biased, but we have also seen these men's glorious looks up-close and personal. In fact, when we met Curtis Granderson, we nearly passed out. Gorgeous. Just gorgeous. 

So, that concludes our AL All-Star picks. We may do the NL as well, but honestly we don't really follow National League ball as much as American League. With that being said, who wouldn't like to see this sexy team take the field?! Hot Damn!!!

The Ballad of Danny Worth

Picture by the Detroit News

Though it hurts us to say this, it must be said: Ryan Raburn should not be a full-time player. We at April in the D have been his biggest champions throughout the years, always bringing up his freak months where he hits over .400 and frequently bringing up his spectacular errors in the outfield fondly (falling through doors, dropping then kicking a ball, hitting a ball over the wall for a HR, etc.). But now it sickens us to see him starting almost everyday, bringing as much usefulness to the lineup as a pitcher (although pitchers can draw bases-loaded walks, right Rick Porcello?!?!). 

Also, if you're going to mention Ryan Raburn, you have to mention Don Kelly in the same breath. Why is he starting everyday? The bigger question: why is he batting second?! You may point out that with Inge on the DL, we have no other options. Well, people, we do. We have a man who could play for both Raburn and Kelly. Remember him? His name is danny worth. 

You may ask, why such a small text size for danny's name? Because a) Rod Allen never fails to point out how quiet danny is in the clubhouse, and b) Jim Leyland apparently doesn't know he exists. How come Mighty Mouse and Scott Sizemore got their chances to start at second base and danny didn't? Really, people? Ryan Raburn is not even a remotely good option anymore. He can't hit, and we obviously know he can't field. When danny worth has actually been given a chance to have some at-bats, he's hit .400 and has an OPS of .955. That's certainly better than anyone else has done in 20 at-bats, and no doubt he's hitting better than Ryan Raburn will anytime soon. 

We all know that when Inge comes up, danny will be packing his bags for Toledo. Why doesn't he get a decent chance? Does Leyland just not like him? Does he not see him as an everyday player? That's bullshit, in our opinion. Anything would be better than Raburn at this point, but it looks like time is winding down for poor, sweet danny. He never had a chance. 

Let's hope Crazy Phil Coke can shut down the Rockies tonight. It won't be fun to watch a game like last nights, unless we're the ones bringing the pain. The thought of the Indians alone in first again makes us ill.

One final note: You know how on SI.com they have that "Weekend Clicks" section or whatever where they have a hot woman of the week for no good reason? Well, we would like to have our own version of  Weekend Clicks, except with baseball players, for all you girls out there. It's called Player of the Week. They won't necessarily be from the Tigers, but this Player of the Week is none other than Austin Jackson! Take a peek. He was named one of the best-dressed people in Detroit a while back, and it shows. Work it, Austin. 

Justin Brooks Verlander is on the Edge of Glory

The three of us have never felt any love towards the Cleveland Indians. None whatsoever, especially this year, and especially since Laura goes to school in Ohio and is surrounded by Cleveland fair-weather idiots. So to see Justin Verlander almost touch no-hitter greatness for a second time this season against the Indians was a beautiful thing indeed.

Before we get into our huge amounts of Justin-worshiping, we need to share with everyone our level of maturity regarding the Indians. This is a little ditty we wrote a few years back, to the tune of "Frere Jaques":

I hate Cleveland, I hate Cleveland
Cleveland Sucks! Cleveland Sucks!
Indians are assholes, Indians are assholes
Go die now. Go die now.


Grady Sizemore is a douchebag
Tribe must die! Tribe must die!
Indians are assholes, Indians are assholes
Go die now. Go die now.


Good, right?! We're obviously very smart and creative young ladies who channel our Cleveland-hatred effectively. As you can obviously tell, the type of people who would make a song like this obviously are the type of people who love watching Justin Verlander strike the snot out of the Cleveland Indians. So, here are some notes on Justin's amazing game and the team in general.

• Nothing, and we mean nothing, gives us more pleasure than to see Grady Sizemore strike out. We don't know why. Maybe it's because we're sickened seeing someone so smoking hot on the roster of a division rival he's overrated. Whatever. So to see Justin strike him out four times practically brought tears to our eyes.

• As good as Justin has been in his career, has he ever really been this good? I mean, even he said that every time he takes a no-no into the third or even the second inning, he thinks he can pull out the no-hitter. And the crazy thing is, everyone else believes he can, too. We are so, so not worthy to be watching such a great being pitch for our team. 

• Twelve strikeouts. TWELVE. This man is clearly not human. 

• As far as hitting goes, clearly, CLEARLY, the catalyst on this team is Austin Jackson. That has never been more obvious as it has been in the month of June. Austin sucks in April, we suck in April. Austin heats up in May, we heat up in May. You get the picture. Thats a lot of pressure for such a young player, but we have to believe that Austin's hot streak will continue. 

• Breaking news: ALEX IS BEATING JOE MAUER IN THE ALL-STAR VOTING. This is amazing. The People have some sense after all! Now-just 700,000 more votes until we catch Russell Martin. Watch your back, Russell. 

• Also about Avila-Leyland is thinking about playing him at 3rd base when we go to Colorado on Friday. Though we adore Don "Struggles" Kelly, it would be verrrry interesting to see if Avila can handle the hot corner. It definitely would be a strange sight to see his fuzzy mug at third instead of concealed behind his catching mask. 

• Brennan Boesch did not shave his disgusting beard until he finally had an 0-for-5 night against Seattle. Good riddance, we say. First off, it blocked his adorable face. Second, it was a really sad excuse for a beard to begin with. Brian Wilson, he is not. 

• The three of us didn't get the chance to watch the game yesterday, but obviously we missed a good one. It was too cool to see Ramon get his first (!) walk-off win, and V-Mart, after his initial exultation as he slid home, looked like he was going to die. Oh, how we laughed. 

• Finally, a Moment of Cuteness: Did anyone else see Andy Dirks try to conceal his triumphant grin win he hit his first RBI single? We sure did!!!!

Obviously, it has been a good few days for our club. And Magglio's back! We feel like whenever people count Maggs out, he comes roaring back to hit comfortably above .300. We shall see, Magglio, we shall see. But for now, let us bask in the glorious glow of Justin Brooks Verlander, and look forward to whipping the Indians again tomorrow. 

Where is the Love?

Our Tigers are currently lurking a game behind the Cleveland Indians with a record of 34-28. We are 6 games over .500, matching our season best. We have also won 10 of our last 12 games, making us one of the hottest (if not the hottest) teams in baseball. We are getting offensive production from nearly everyone (sorry Ryan Raburn) with a team OPS of .741. This means that not only are we getting on base but also hitting for power, and it has showed in recent games. Our starting rotation has pitched quality starts in over half of the games we've play this year. Alex Avila is the best hitting catcher in the American League. Miguel Cabrera has the fifth best batting average in the American League, followed closely by Juh-honny Peralta (!!!). Baby Brennan and Action Jackson have been on a hitting surge lately, hitting .342 and .341 respectively in their last ten games.   Rick Porcello is a man on a mission, going 5-1 with a 3.58 ERA in his last six games started after starting off 2-2 with an ERA of 4.25. Justin Brooks Verlander has been, typically, Justin Brooks Verlander.

So, we ask you: Where's the Love?

We can assure you: had the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, or San Francisco Giants done something comparable to these feats then everyone would be talking about it. And they have. The Red Sox and Phillies have both been outstanding this season, and they have gotten a  large amount of attention over it. For example, in the recent ESPN power rankings, the Tigers were ranked at a mediocre 15th, while the Yankees (33-26) were 1st, beating out the sensational Phillies (2nd) rotation and the then-red-hot Texas Rangers (4th) to name a few teams.

Not that some of these teams don't deserve the attention. They totally do. But so do we!!! Why is it that no one outside of the Tigers fanbase seems to appreciate our ragtag bunch of misfits? A forum in which this neglect is all too obvious is in the All-Star Fan Voting (a stupid thing to begin with; We don't really need the average Danny McDumbass to be voting all his fave Yankees into the game). Alex Avila is currently in third. Not bad, you say? Well consider the fact that he is 100,000 votes behind Joe Mauer, who has played NINE GAMES this year (NINE GAMES!!!!!!!!). Maybe even more ridiculous still is the fact that he is 600,000 (?!?!?) votes behind Russel Martin, who has a hefty (not) average of .238. Really, America? Really?

But can we even blame our ignorant populace? There are not nearly as many people who live in Detroit as compared to New York City, but if the schmucks at ESPN and other major sports media didn't ignore the Tigers as much as they do maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation. For example, Juh-honny is hitting .313 and is over 1,000,000 votes behind Derek "Mr. 3000" Jeter. His batting average? A full .50 points lower than Juh-honny's at a robust .261. This is crap! And don't even get us started on poor, poor Miguel Cabrera. Wasn't his DUI notoriety enough to get him to at least second in the voting?! (Kidding. Kind of). If the people who are currently in first place in the starting lineup remain there, then we are probs losing the All-Star game, people. We're pretty freaking positive that A-Roid should not even be going to the game, let alone be starting.

Look. This isn't just a call-to-arms to vote for the Tigers. This is us saying that the Tigers deserve more recognition than they're getting. Hopefully within the next week we don't go on some crazy losing streak to completely make this post irrelevant, but we're pretty sure we won't. Frankly, we're proud of this Tigers, and we're sick of feeling like the only people who have noticed this team's ability are our own fans.

EDIT: Look who listened to us! It's definitely not the best article we've ever read (why Brennan?) but still. It's tough for us, being so influential.

An Emotionally-Charged, Overdramatic Account of Tigers vs. White Sox, 6/4/11

Where do we even begin with this game? The Tigers score two runs in the first and make Edwin Jackson look like a fool. Then they leave ten men on base, score no runs, and let the hated Chicago White Sox, led by bleached-blond bully AJ Pierzynski, get back in the game. Then, when all seems lost and it looks like the Sox steal the game, magic happens.

First comes "The Catch." Verlander, with two outs and men on first and third, faces AJ. The sight of his mean, brutish face elicited jeers and screams of hate from us. No one wants to see AJ Pierzynski come up with a clutch RBI, especially not Justin Verlander. The 2-1 grounder from AJ looked as if it was doomed to shoot up the middle, but Justin had other plans. With the Tiger-like reflexes instilled in him by the Baseball Gods, Justin, sprawled on his back, grabbed the ball with his left hand, and fired to first to end the inning. His middle name may not be Grace (it's Brooks) but he damn sure got the job done. Afterwards, while walking oh so cooly to the dugout, he flashed a smile of mirth. He knew how good he looked. Our hearts melted.

After that, the tide had changed.

After Justin got out of the jam, it looked like the team knew they had to pull out this win for their ace. First up was Austin "Action" Jackson. Jackson was on a mission all night, and decided to add to his already impressive stats by living up to his nickname and drilling a triple in deep center. The three of us were extremely pleased. Obviously, with a man on third and no outs this was going to be cake.

WRONG.

DK stepped confidently to the plate. After all, all he had to do was hit a simple sac fly or even a well-placed groundout to secure the lead. So, in true DK fashion, he popped out to second base. At least we got some emotion out of him. Dramatically slamming his well-oiled bat against the ground, DK stormed off to the dugout where we assume he was greeted with frosty silence from Justin Brooks Verlander. In our home, we were slightly worried, but we knew that with only one out, our boys could get it done.
Especially with Brennan Boesch up next. Baby B, with a 2-run homer already under his belt,  swaggered to the plate. We knew out of anyone he could put in a good sac fly, right?

WRONG. AGAIN.

Baby B struck out, and one look at Verlander's dangerous expression indicated that if this run did not score, there would be blood. Then stepped up Miguel Cabrera, who so far had gone 0-for-3. As true Tigers baseball fans, We Believed.  
Miguel quickly worked the count to 0-and-2. The three of us, in our den of anxiety, ranged in emotion from tense to hysterical. We knew our boy definitely had the ability to do it. But would he?

THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM.

Miguel launched the most beautiful shot to right field. Yes, you guessed it, a two-run-homer to give the Tigers the lead! Justin exulted, the dugout erupted, Cabrera side-stepped his way to glory. We screamed like lunatics. The resulting celebration included a joyful hug from Verlander, who was grinning ear-to-ear, a high five so forceful it was audible on our television screen from Austin, and the single most badass handshake that we've ever seen from Baby B. It. Was. Amazing.

It was so amazing that we had completely forgotten poor Victor Martinez, who promptly grounded out to third. But no matter. Valverde danced his way to a win and the entire team seemed to be on cloud nine. Not only that, but we moved even closer to the evil and hated Cleveland Indians and produced one of the most memorable games of the season. Did the Tigers play perfectly? Absolutely not. But this is the kind of win that stays in the heart, and swings momentum in our direction. Well done, boys. Well done.

PS-Were we the only ones who saw that crazy, M&M jacket-wearing White Sox fan sitting behind home plate? He was hysterical. His hateful reactions to Adam Dunn alone seeped through the screen and into our living room. And who thinks it's appropriate to wear and M&M jacket to a baseball game?! To anywhere?!?!?! He was a treat. No pun intended.