Verlander & Schlereth of Series (Royals)

Another series complete means another Verlander/ Schlereth to award.  This series was rain shortened, and kept Duane Below from making his first start this season.  It also meant that Detroit had a great shot of sweeping the 2 game series with Verlander on the mound yesterday.  Some things are just not meant to be, and apparently scoring runs for Verlander is one of them.  It was the real MVP’s 6^th start of the season, and it was the 5^th time that the Detroit bats couldn’t score more than 3 runs for him.  Luckily, Brenann Boesch hit a game tying 2 run home run in the bottom of the 8^th to keep JV from the loss.  He still is 2-1 with a sub 2.50 ERA.  Anyways, let’s move on to awarding some guys from the series.

Verlander: This award goes to Austin Jackson.  He is the second Tiger, EVER, to have 3 four hit games in the first month of the season.  He finished with 5 hits in the 2 game series, and continues to be the Tiger’s most important offensive weapon.  In the 12 victories this season, Austin has an OBP of greater than .400.  In the 12 losses the Tigers have already suffered, his OBP is less than .300.  

Schlereth: This is a tough choice between the entire offensive approach and Benoit.  While Benoit has not been pitching like he did in the 2^nd half of the season, he still has been more effective than he was in the first 2 months last year.  It is frustrating to see him come out of the pen and walk people, or even get into 3 ball counts over and over again, but I think him (and Valverde) will begin to pitch better as the season progresses.  That is why I am going with the offensive approach yesterday.  Jonathan Sanchez was on the mound for the Royals, and somehow he carried a no-hitter into the 5^th inning.  This is the same pitcher that walks a batter per inning, yet for some reason the Tiger batters only drew 2 BB’s (in his last inning).  This guy is not pitching well at all right now, yet the aggressiveness really hurt the Tigers yesterday.  They continually swung at bat pitches, and they swung early in the count.  There was no reason why the Tigers shouldn’t have given Verlander his 3^rd win of the season.  One day after the bats exploded for 9 runs, the offense fell back into old habits. Yes, I know Detroit will not score 7+ runs every game, but Verlander had a huge pitching advantage yesterday and yet we needed a 2 run homerun in the 8^th inning to get our first 2 runs of the game.  Another problem I have been seeing lately is the at bats at the end of games.  Yesterday after Boesch took Crow deep, I was less than impressed with Miggy and Biggy’s approach.  It looks like every batter steps in the batter’s box after the 7 inning and just tries to swing for the fence, which usually results in some very bad swings and easy outs.

Hopefully the Tigers can find some offense against the White Sox, even though the Chicago pitchers have been a lot better than Sanchez has been in 3 years.  It will be nice to win a series again, especially against the White Sox.