Patti Engineering Insight

Each 18 games represent 1 inning of a baseball season. The Tigers record for the first 7 innings in 2008:

        Starters:     Bullpen:

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

1:  6-12  74 -112    15-10-262/345/404    3-9- 96.2-5.96    3-3-3-5.28

2:  9-9   98 -87     21- 6-261/350/426    5-8-105.2-5.11    4-1-2-3.61

3:  8-10  89 -75     19- 2-275/326/442    8-5-109.2-4.19    0-5-4-3.83

4:  11-7  85 -74     19- 8-268/350/416    8-4-113.0-3.27    3-3-5-5.17

5:  12-6  86 -78     25- 6-297/347/476    6-4-106.1-4.23    6-2-6-3.43

6:  9-9   118-96     25- 8-299/368/483    8-6-105.0-5.49    1-3-2-4.03

7:  7-11  93- 103    26- 8-265/353/455    7-7-104.0-4.67    0-4-4-4.92

In the 7^th inning found the Tigers start the inning with a 5-game losing streak that seemed to drain the life and energy out of the team and their fans. The season thus far can be broken into 3 distinct segments: The abysmal 24-36 start that dug a huge hole, the 28-13 run that started June 7^th with a Thames’ lead comeback win against Cleveland that got the team to 52-49, and the most recent 10-15 run that was started July 25^th with Dye’s 2-run 9^th inning homerun off of Todd Jones.

The starting pitching improved as a unit from Horrible to Mediocre, the exception being Galarraga who was great. Displaying from best to worst:

In the Bullpen, the emergence of Fernando Rodney as a closer was a bright spot. Bobby Seay continued to do well and Gary Glover provided 2.2 innings of perfect work. Other than those 3, it was pretty much like throwing gasoline on a fire. Displaying from best to worst:

The offense did OK. The 93 runs do not match a 1,000 runs/season pace, but scoring over 5 runs per game should be sufficient. Overall, I would give the individual hitters in the 7^th inning a passing grade except our Catching tandem (Inge and Sardinha), and the extremely cold Marcus Thames. Displaying from best to worst:

Even if the Tigers were to go 28-8 over the remaining 36 games to get to 90 wins, both Chicago and Minnesota would have to play at or below .500 to win the division. The Wild card is even more daunting as the Tigers are 11 games back and would have to pass four teams. The last two innings should tell a lot about 2009 and what kind of direction the team will take in the off season. That is the only reason to keep watching this train wreck at this point.

www.DetroitTigersWeblog.com

An Internet Friend of mine (aka Billfer) owns the Detroit Tigers Weblog. It is one of my favorite destinations on the World Wide Web. Billfer’s writing style is great. He keeps his site up to date on the latest Tiger News and he has lots of good comments posted by many Tiger Fans.

Starting last year I have been submitting a post to Billfer’s site. I take the 162-game Tiger Schedule and break it into 9 “innings” of a season. Each inning consist of 18 games. By breaking down the season in these even chunks you can evaluate how the offense, starting pitching, and bullpen are doing as a unit. You can also evaluate which players are hot and cold. A team that wins 100 games will average an 11-7 record. A 10-8 average will lead to 90 wins.

My latest post at Detroit Tiger Weblog recaps the 2008 Tigers after 2 innings.

Some other interesting inning by inning results:

1984 Tigers (WS Champs): 15-3, 16-2, 10-8, 12-6, 9-9, 10-8, 10-8, 10-8, 12-6 = 104-58

2003 Tigers (Historically Bad): 1-17, 7-11, 6-12, 4-14, 6-12, 5-13, 2-16, 6-12, 6-12 = 43-119

2006 Tigers: (AL Champs): 11-7, 12-6, 13-5, 12-6, 13-5, 11-7, 9-9, 5-13, 9-9 = 95-67

See you at Billfer’s site.

I just finished a good book and recommend it for anyone who is a baseball or golf fan. The title of the book is “Ty and the Babe” by Tom Stanton. The Book is about Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth and details their relationship from the point that Babe Ruth came into the league (9 years after Cobb) until the time of Babe Ruth’s death in 1948 (Ruth died of throat cancer at age 53, while Cobb lived until 1961 - age 74). Of the 18 comments on Amazon.com, 16 people give the book 5 out of 5 stars while the remaining 2 gave it 4 stars.

The book is about a lot more than baseball and you will realize that Stanton did some outstanding research for the book. The last third details a 1941 3-city golf tournament between the two that raised money for charity. The one thing that resonates throughout the book is that the modern day perception of Ty Cobb is overblown. Tom Stanton does a great job of explaining this on his web site.

So, Ty Cobb wasn’t such a bad guy?

Cobb was nicer than most people think. He was not the Satan of baseball. He was not, as one historian has described him, the “single black mark” on the game. Cobb was smart, articulate, and socially polished, and he could be charming and winsome. Contrary to his image, he did have friends. Over the years, I’ve come upon many people who knew Cobb and have wonderful memories of him. He was always extremely competitive, and in his early days he was quick to use his fists. But I can’t think of a more maligned figure in baseball history. A fan from his time wouldn’t recognize Cobb based on how he’s portrayed now. In his day, he was admired and respected, which isn’t to say he was an angel.

Why did his image change?

Much of how we view Cobb was framed by writer Al Stump, who spent several months with Cobb near the end of his life. By that time, Cobb was in the grips of alcoholism and cancer. He was a bitter man who had buried two adult sons. After Cobb died, Stump captured that bitterness in an ugly portrait of him for a 1961 magazine story. Eve