Baseball and Not Baseball

NOT BASEBALL

I discovered today that it takes only a few seconds to set up a WordPress blog.  I plan to use this for my course announcements next semester.  I can still update on my smart phone when needed using the WordPress app. 

Creating the site and entering a couple posts was done within a few minutes.  Uploading a picture for the menu bar took a couple tries because the navigation for resizing the picture was having some flaky problems. 

The New Blog for Course Announcements

 Adding links was easy- but there was no place to store documents so I am still using the public folder in Dropbox for that.

One advantage for the students is that their is a pull down menu that will allow them to look at messages that are only for their course.  I will not have to battle the artificial 140 character limit either.

 I’ll decide at the end of the semester whether I prefer this to Twitter for updating course announcements.

BASEBALL

The Tigers lost to the Blue Jays 3-2.  Magglio Ordonez broke his ankle sliding into home when trying to tie the game in the third.  He is out 6-8 weeks.    Carlos Guilen also left with a strained calf.  Damon was ill so Ramon Santiago took  on the DH duties for the Tigers.  The Tigers did not announce a roster move right after the game.  Leyland and Dombrowski were meeting to decide how to proceed.

A twin win leaves the Tigers in third 2 1/2 behind Chicago and half a game behind Minnesota.

The Tigers win 5-2.  Verlander had a rough start loading the bases in the first inning and allowing two runs in the second inning.  The Tigers fought back to a 2-2 tie and then scored 3 in the eighth.  Valverde saved the game showing none of the control problems from yesterday.

BASEBALL

The Tigers broke a seven game losing streak with a 4-1 win.  We took advantage of the early entry season ticket holder and my daughter got four balls again.  She gave away three and was going to keep one, but then felt the little boy next to us was too cute so she gave him the fourth.

The memorable, rare moment from this game was a two-run home run by Gerald Laird. 

Scherzer threw 120 pitches and seven innings.

Boesch continued to slump.  His average has dropped 30 points since the game before the All Star Break.

Valverde started his appearance with a four-pitch walk.  Then he hit Guerrero with the first pitch.  He threw two more balls before his first strike.  He did get the hold, however, helped by Cruz swinging at a ball.  A wild pitch moved the runner that scored on a ground out to third.  It was a rough outing.  Hopefully he is healthy and just had a bad day.

BASEBALL

 The Tigers are currently on a seven-game losing streak.  I wanted a sense of how bad that is.  Rather than use probability to figure how likely, or unlikely such a streak is I decided to find the longest losing streak for each team in the AL this year.

 For thirteen teams I used the baseball-reference streak analyzer.  http://www.baseball-reference.com/games/streaks.shtml.  For the Rays I just went to their website and counted on their schedule page because for some reason the streak analyzer had no Rays information.

Team/Longest Streak
White Sox/4
Twins/4
Tigers/7
KC/7
Cleveland/7

 NY/3
Tampa Bay/3
Boston/5
Toronto/5
Baltimore/10

 Texas/6
LA/7
Oakland/5
Seattle/8

The teams are in standing order.  Not surprisingly, good teams have shorter losing streaks.  The Angels are the best team to lose seven straight this year.  If the Tigers lose their eighth straight tomorrow then they will be the only team with a winning record to have lost eight straight.

BASEBALL

The Tigers lost to the Rangers 8-6 in fourteen innings.  This is their sixth straight loss and they are lucky to be only 2 1/2 games back of the White Sox.

Comerica does have a fourteenth inning stretch.  They do not have graphics for it.  They just reuse the seventh inning graphics.

There was lots I can use to remember this game.

Ordonez and Cabrera hit back-to-back home runs.  Cabrera hit home runs in consecutive at bats and drove two other balls to the warning track for fly outs on other at bats.

Jackson got a double off a Ranger pitchers head.  Fortunately he is OK.  Brandon Inge had his hand broken when he was hit by a pitch.

The defense was terrible.  The Rangers infield had three errors.  The Tigers had two errors.  Guillen does not pass the eyeball test at second.  He had a small range today and didn’t seem to be able to bend to get balls at the edge of his limited range.

The Tigers lost 7-2 as Cleveland completed a four game sweep. You know it’s going to be a long day when your team gives up an in the park home run when the centerfielder, Raburn, crashes into the door of the Indians bullpen and he ends up in the bullpen when the door opens.

My nephew did get Jose Valverde’s autograph at a turnpike rest stop. He was driving back to Detroit since his family stayed in Cleveland with him.

BASEBALL

Miguel Cabrera hit a two-run homer in the ninth to tie the game.  Johnny Damon, who hit his 2500th career hit earlier in the game, hit a two-run homer in the eleventh to win it.

BASEBALL

My youngest daughter got to throw the ceremonial first pitch.  She was the only one that day.  She threw from around 30-35 feet and got it to Don Kelly in the air.  (It might have been a little high, but it was close to a strike.  It looked like a breaking ball in the air.)

The Tigers won 12-9 in a game that took almost 4 hours.   Millwood the Oriole starter lasted 1 inning.  Oliver for the Tigers pitched 1.2 innings.  It was a day game with the temperature in the 90′s so the fans were not excited about walks with the score 8-7 after 3 innings.

BASEBALL

Bonderman gave up two three-run home runs and Cliff Lee allowed only one run in eight innings.  ’nuff written.