Detroit Tigers Notes And Quotes 6-17-11
--LF Brennan Boesch is going to make it very difficult, if not impossible, for manager Jim Leyland to restore RF Magglio Ordonez to his accustomed third spot in the Detroit batting order. Boesch, hitting above .350 for the month, singled three times in four at-bats in his team's 6-2 victory over Cleveland. And for the last two of those singles, he was down in the count but went to left field and up the middle for his hits. Boesch keeps getting better at working the count and now has begun shortening up his swing a little with two strikes on him. He didn't have an RBI, but his first two hits contributed to scoring rallies.
--1B Miguel Cabrera is tough to pitch to in situations where he shouldn't be pitched to. Twice he came up with runners at first and second, and both times he got singles. The first loaded the bases, and the second drove in a run. He is 26-for-59 (.441) with runners in scoring position this season.
--C/DH Victor Martinez is the top two-strike hitter in the league. Martinez hit a sacrifice fly on a 2-2 pitch in Detroit's two-run first inning, creating a 2-2 tie. He is batting .323 with two strikes on him as opposed to the league average of .177. It was his only at-bat of the game with two strikes. He had a first-pitch RBI single in the fifth.
--RHP Max Scherzer threw a series of hittable pitches in the first inning before settling down to earn his ninth win of the season. Scherzer gave up three consecutive two-out extra-base hits in the first inning to hand Cleveland a 2-0 lead. However, the Tigers got those two back in the bottom of the first, and Scherzer regained his control with his fastball and slider. He left with the bases loaded and two outs in the sixth, but nobody scored.
"The key was the first inning," manager Jim Leyland said. "Max got on fast-forward a little bit. The only issue was he didn't get over to third to cover (in the first)." In his middle four innings, only three batters reached base -- on an error, a hit batter and a double.
--RHP Al Alburquerque got the final out of the sixth inning with the bases loaded and two outs, and then he went on to pitch a solid seventh inning to set the game up for RHPs Joaquin Benoit and Jose Valverde. Alburquerque faced four batters in the seventh but struck two of them out with his slider, both whiffs sandwiched around a single. He's averaging nearly two strikeouts per inning.
--2B Ryan Raburn might be about to launch his second-half surge for the third year in a row -- or maybe not. Raburn is being used periodically by manager Jim Leyland while he struggles to regain his form. His second time up Thursday, he slammed his sixth home run of the season, but it was his only hit in three at-bats. Early this month, Raburn hit a grand slam, but shortly after that, he went into a three-game tailspin.
He rejoined the Tigers earlier in the week to begin taking grounders and batting practice. "I don't like to admit it much, but this one beat me up a little bit," he said. "It wasn't fun. Definitely one of the harder stints to deal with."
BY THE NUMBERS
1 -- Rank of DH/C Victor Martinez among American League players with two strikes on him. Martinez enters Friday's action hitting .323 with two strikes, much higher than the league average of .177. Martinez hit just one time with two strikes on him in the series finale with Cleveland, and he hoisted a sacrifice fly to center in the first inning.
QUOTE TO NOTE
"I don't want to belabor the point, but it just doesn't seem sensible. We live with the DH. That's what we do in our league. When you have that, and when you lose it for six straight days, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me." -- Manager Jim Leyland, on the eve of his team's six-game road trip to two National League cities (Colorado, Los Angeles) where it will not be allowed to have a designated hitter.
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