Who's It Gonna Be?

With Spring Training winding down and Opening Day looming right around the corner, it's almost the time when the final cuts are made and the official 25-man roster is formed. So far some semi-interesting decisions have already been made (Jacob Turner and Quintin Berry are gone) but, as expected, the major question marks still linger. Will Brandon Inge or Ryan Raburn get the nod at second base? Will Inge be on the team at all? Will Miguel Cabrera really be ready for Opening Day? Will Andy Dirks or Clete Thomas get the fourth-outfielder spot? And, most intriguingly, which young gun will get the fifth starter job?

First things first. Brandon Inge has long been a topic of conversation on this little blog, not to mention all of Tiger Universe, so we know we're kind of beating a dead horse when we bring him up. We don't think he should start. Period. His fielding at the 2nd base position has been decent, but his hitting has been poor as usual, hitting a whopping .174 with very little power.

That's been the problem with Inge his whole career. His spectacular defense used to make up for his hitting, but that has diminished as he's gotten older. In our minds, there is no question that Raburn should  start at second, given his massive RBI production and power this Spring. The defense hasn't been horrific either, so that's a plus! The question that Leyland and the Tigers face now is to keep Inge on the team at all. Want to know our opinion? Bench player. But we'll see what the coaching staff thinks…

In good, happy news, it looks as if our poor Miguel Cabrera will be ready for Opening Day! He was cleared by the doctors this morning and his eye is de-puffed, and as usual he's hungry to get playing. We had to admit, the image of Miguel all bloodied and badass with his teammates and coaches frantically swarming him made us incredibly worried, but it seems like everything's all good. We'll meet you in Comerica, big fella!

But who else will we meet in Comerica? Clete Thomas or Andy Dirks? People (read: Jim Leyland) keep making this sound like an actual freaking debate, but we don't think it is. Andy Dirks all the way, baby. He's younger, faster, has a bigger learning curve, and is just plain better offensively. Andy is raking up the hits, while Clete is playing at his same lukewarm pace. Look. We love our selves some Clete Thomas (who doesn't?), but it would be absolutely ridiculous for him to be chosen over Andy "Forrest" Dirks.

The final, big, most interesting question of who should get the starting spot? We have no idea. Three young, attractive guys are neck and neck. No problems here. Sure, we think it would be great if Drew Smyly got a chance, since Andy Oliver is stumbling a little recently. But Duane Below, dark horse that he is, looks pretty decent too, though he might be better suited for the bullpen at this point. Smyly has that 1.13 ERA, after all. And there ain't nothin wrong with that.

This Spring Training isn't really that cut-and-dry. But that's what makes it so exciting. Whatever Leyland chooses to do with Inge, Dirks, Smyly and the rest, the 25 men we will have in Comerica Park in less than 10 days is going to be a great group.

Stars over...Kansas?

The three of us here at April in the D are very very excited.  Why, you ask?  Because a brand new star outfielder is coming to the Tigers. We know you're screaming right now, "YOENIS CESPEDES?!" and doing a happy dance, but we have to tell you that this star is even better.  A brand new baseball celebrity  has been born, and that star is this man:

Yes, Detroit's big new baseball sensation is the corn-eatin', tractor-ridin', Kansas-born, thick-necked sweetheart Andrew "Andy" Dirks!

We know. We were surprised to hear this too, but according to this article, Andy is quite the smash in the Dominican Republic, where he is currently playing with the Dominican Republic's Escogido Squad in the Caribbean League.  He had recently made a quite a few clutch, late-inning plays, and although he's only hitting .262 or so, the fans there absolutely love him.  Chants of "Andy! Andy! Andy!" have apparently been heard in the stadium on multiple occasions, and his performance has turned him in to a "mini-celebrity" on the island. 

We're proud of our boy Andy, and we hope he can bring this momentum into Spring Training and hopefully into the 2012 season as well.  However, if Andy enjoys his celebrity, we wouldn't actually mind him staying there if we can get Yoenis Cespedes in the meantime. In all seriousness though, we didn't know lil' Dirks had this in him, and we're really proud that he's reppin' the D all the way in the Dominican Republic!  With Prince Fielder, Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, and most importantly, Andy Dirks, we have far and away the most star power in the AL Central, as if they weren't far enough behind already.  Take that, Twins!

In other news, we can't wait for the season to start!  We need baseball. Enough with the waiting.

Random Tigers Thoughts From Laura Pt. 1

Hey everyone! I'm planning on doing 2 posts on two entirely different topics, one today and one tomorrow (hopefully). So here's Part One of randomness...

Is our team freaking weird or what? When it rains, it pours, apparently. And I guess the opposite is true as  well. Now that they boys are on a two-game winning streak, snapping our previous five-game losing streak, which in turn snapped our seven-game winning streak (etc.), should we expect four or five straight wins followed by five or six losses? What is the formula with this team?
In theory, we sound like a team with bipolar tendencies that has strengths and weaknesses across the board. In reality, we have one extremely good pitching staff, one freakin' terrible bullpen, and an offense that is truly a mystery.

Well, okay, maybe our bullpen isn't terrible anymore. With the joyous fortunate timely demise of Brad Thomas's arm, Charlie Furbush, only recently called up from Toledo, came into the game to kick some serious ass, rookie-style. It speaks to the levels of suck that our bullpen has reached this season that Charlie (I can't call him by just his last name) gave possibly the best relief appearance by anyone this season. This includes Papa Grande, who has been perfect in save situations, and pretty crappy outside of them (see Monday night's game for a prime example). Lets hope Thomas stays injured (or his green card expires; I'm not picky) and that Phil Coke is okay. Charlie is a pleasant surprise, and so adorable!

Speaking of pleasant surprises, Juh-honny Peralta has really shocked me so far this season. Second on the team in home runs and hitting almost .300? Damn. Who thought that Juh-honny of all people would be, at times, carrying our offense? It would be nice if Juh-honny, V-Mart, and Cabrera would all click at the same time. When they do, our team can't be beat. When they don't, we have zero offense, which is inexcusable. I was terrified we were going to lose Porcello's beautiful start on Sunday because a) we weren't really hitting, and b) our bullpen is crap. Maybe Lloyd McClendon could wake up from his interminable nap long enough to do his job and get our offense to hit consistently. Is that really so much ask?

So. If we can take these next two series at home against two very good teams, we should be back on track. So much work needs to be done. However, nothing warms my heart more than seeing two rookies propel our team to a win. Keep it up, kids.

Welcome to the Bigs, Andy!

It'd really be something if it was a girl!

When we heard that Andy Dirks was called up to replace the oft-injured Magglio, we couldn't help but smile. Dirks had a monster Spring Training, so huge that he almost beat out Casper Wells for the last roster spot. And yes, while he might appear to be another Generic White Outfielder, he actually could be a very reliable asset for our team.

First of all, Andy is 25, a "baby" as Jim Leyland affectionately called him, and has been a beast who can actually hit for power in triple A.  He had six home runs with the Mud Hens, and had a SLG of .527 in 145 plate appearances..  It wouldn't hurt to have another outfielder who can hit for power, especially since  he is replacing the battered and broken Magglio Ordonez, who has hit for basically nothing this year. As much as we love Maggs, it was time for him to go to the DL, and hopefully, Andy can amaze us, as Brennan did last year,  by hitting and fielding like a real big-leaguer.

Although he wasn't anything spectacular in his first game, it was great to watch him run around and giggle and smile and be generally adorable.  It's pretty fun to watch people play their first game in the bigs, and Andy was no exception, smiling and laughing whenever he caught a fly ball.  It must have been a real treat for his parents and girlfriend (sigh) since they were all at the park today, which is just the cutest most happy thing ever. He's a "country boy," which means that Ryan Raburn will finally have a friend! Not only that, but he had one of the four tigers hits of the day. It's nice to see that he got his first big league hit in his first big league game because now that he's gotten it out of the way, he can continue hitting in the games to come!

In terms of his future with the Tigers, we here at April in the D actually think he has one. Laura watched him belt a walk-off in Spring Training, so we know the kind of power he has. The only question is whether he can hit big league pitching, which remains to be seen. If he can, then we think he could most definitely contribute. Maybe he's not a Miguel Cabrera (okay, yeah, definitely he's not a Miguel Cabrera), but it is definitely within his potential to be a solid Ryan Raburn or Brennan Boesch in the outfield (with better fielding skills), and he could be more than that too. Then again, you can never tell with these rookies, and the three of us also are in love with Clete Thomas (a perennial minor-leaguer). All we know is, with Maggs hitting the way he was hitting, Andy has nowhere to go but up!

 Let's ignore the ugliness of our loss, and the supreme ugliness of Benoit's pitching, and just bask in the warm happy glow of a 25-year-old kid who just had his childhood dreams come true.  Also, we're actually not going to worry to much about this loss (even those blasted Indians won again, too bad they haven't played anyone legit yet) because of the ridiculous win streak we've been on. Hopefully we turn it around tomorrow and get some offense going!  Keep your eyes on Andy Dirks, because we actually see big things from him.

P.S. VOTE AVILA (and Verlander and Cabrera, obviously) FOR THE ALL-STAR GAME!

Spring Training Thoughts

My only picture, and it sucks. Sorry.

As some of you know, last Saturday I (Laura) was in attendance at the Tigers vs. Braves game at Joker Marchant Stadium. We had really good seats--directly behind the dugout--so I was ready to take zillions of pictures of our glorious team. So, naturally, my camera died as soon as I snapped my first shot. But, no matter. I was still able to make a ton of observations on our team!

• Miguel Cabrera is my Tiger. Seriously. You have to see this guy, because he looks amazing. I know some of you have heard Rod Allen and others rhapsodize about how "firm" Miguel Cabrera's legs are, or something equally as disturbing. I also have heard many people say that Miggy is "fat". I am pleased to say that he really is much more muscled than I have ever seen him, and it looks like he lost a lot of the fat. So, for the people complaining about his weight? Muscle weighs more than fat. Duh. Also, some idiot in the row behind me had the audacity to scream stupidly about what a drunk Miggy is. Really? Say that to his face, a**hole. No one wants to mess with a 6-5, 270 pounds of (almost) pure muscled "alcoholic." No one. This has to work in our advantage-- Miggy is now ten times as intimidating as he was last year! And now other teams can't even pitch around him because...

• Victor Martinez is perfect. Even though he didn't get a hit or even a walk in the game I attended, V-Mart is going to do wonders for our team, both on and off the field. Not only are pitchers going to be kept up at night, dreading about how they'll deal with the Miggy/V-Mart one-two punch, but Martinez seems to be one of the nicest, most beloved players in the game. Every time he would walk to the mound to talk to a new pitcher, he would put his arm around him, pat him on the back, give him a hug (kidding about that last one. But that would be adorable). Everyone knows how much the Indians and Red Sox adored him, so our team should be no different. Dave Dombrowski wins again. Speaking of which....

• Dave Dombrowski was at the game! I don't know if he goes to all of them or what, but he was sitting about six or seven rows back behind home plate, just chillin' in his orange-and-white striped polo. I was thrilled to see him. Wouldn't it be sick to sit next to Dombrowski at a Tigers game?! 

• Will Rhymes wins second base spot. I honestly was not expecting this. I thought that Scotty would get it for sure. Neither of them started the game I attended--that honor belonged to danny worth. I can't say I'm not pleased about this, because who doesn't like Mighty Mouse and his twitter? Lets hope he can duplicate his success from last season while simultaneously give us unique tweets.

• Rick Porcello looked sharp...in more ways than one. He gave up one run and only three hits. He did give up about three walks, but he also had two double plays. So it really evened out. I am PRAYING that Ricky is over his sophomore slump and is ready to kick butt in the Verlander-Scherzer-Porcello triumvirate. Also, he looked tanned and gorgeous from the Lakeland sun, unlike some of the other lobster-red, sunburned Tigers. Just an observation.

• Andy Dirks....Detroit Tiger? Andy Dirks, as most of you probably know, is having a monster spring. A non-roster invite making the team? I kind of doubt it, but after seeing him in action on Saturday and driving in two runs in the bottom of the ninth for a walk-off win, who knows? I'm rooting for him, but he is still in a four-man race for only two spots. I feel like Brennan and Casper have the edge. I wish they ALL could make it.

• WTF Moment: Robbie Weinhardt didn't make the team? What?! I did not see that coming. He pitched really well in the game I went to, and he had been having a pretty good spring. Puzzling choice. We'll see what happens.