I recall a discussion over dinner at a friend's house. This friend was married to a woman from the Dominican Republic, and her dad was there along with another Dominican couple. In classic Dominican fashion, about 3 or 4 different conversations were being carried out at the same time, loudly, and in heavily accented Spanish. It was REALLY hard to follow, and I'm pretty fluent.
At one point, in an attempt to contribute, I remarked to my friend's father-in-law that I'd heard that in his home town there were a lot of times when they were without electricity. He kind of laughed and said, "No, where I come from there are a few times when we HAVE electricity."
This distinction came to mind recently when I was thinking about the Tigers' closer, Joe Nathan. He doesn't have periods of unreliability, he has a few periods of reliability in between all the unreliability. Check his game log: He gave up 6 runs in 10 appearances in April, 6 runs in 11 appearances in May, 9 runs (plus 1 unearned) in 10 appearances in June, 3 runs in 9 appearances in July, 4 runs in 11 appearances in August, and now 3 runs in 6 appearances so far in September. His WHIP is 1.57, a terrible number for supposedly the strongest arm in the bullpen and much higher than his career 1.12. His ERA is at 5.10, higher than his career ERA of 2.90, and more fitting of a guy you would trot out in a 10-2 laugher, not in the 9th inning of a close game.
Fans have been clamoring for Joakim Soria to take over the closer role, and rightly so. After a rough start with Detroit in July, he's allowed 1 run in 6 appearances in August & September. Unfortunately, Ausmus seems to be dead set on sticking with Nathan, who has done little to deserve the loyalty he's getting. Ausmus even suggested he might start using Soria more in the 6th inning of the upcoming (and very crucial) Royals series. I'd actually be okay with this if it means that Ausmus plans on using Soria when the game is most in jeopardy, regardless of the inning. I suspect, however, that it means Soria can pitch either the 6th or the 7th, or the 8th is Joba isn't available, and Nathan still gets the 9th no matter what.
This isn't even based on old, crusty managing. The specialization of inning-specific pitchers didn't emerge until the 1990's, and has been largely viewed as a fallacy by advanced stat-heads. You want your best pitcher pitching when the game is on the line. If that's in the 9th inning, then fine, but that moment may come in the 8th, 7th, or even the 6th inning. The game may be tied, or the Tigers may even be down a run and in danger of being down even more. Why not use your best reliever when you need him most instead of when the 9th inning rolls around?
As much as I loved the David Price trade at the time, I had some concerns about it. Price is on my fantasy team, so I knew the Tigers weren't getting the same guy that won the Cy Young award 2 years ago. And sure enough, Price hasn't helped as much as Dombrowski hoped when he made the deal. To make matters worse, Drew Smyly has been a virtual ace since arriving at Tampa Bay, going 3-1 with a 1.70 ERA, 0.755 WHIP, and 44 Ks in 47.2 innings and has only pitched 1 game where he allowed more than 2 runs (he allowed 3 on 8/5 vs. OAK). Price, on the other hand, has gone 3-5 (for a better team) with a 4.09 ERA, 1.22 WHIP (ok, not bad...), and 66 Ks in 61.2 innings (ok, that's not bad either). He's allowed more than 3 runs on 4 of his 9 starts, including two 5-run outings and an 8-run start. Yikes.
And I like Rajai Davis, but getting rid of Austin Jackson didn't completely open up CF for Rajai. The Tigers have played Ezequiel Carrera there when the matchup didn't favor Davis, and Carrera is basically a replacement level bat. Jackson hasn't exactly been tearing it up in Seattle, but losing him weakened an offense that has gone through its share of dry patches.
Despite the struggles of some of the more notable pitchers (Verlander, Price, Nathan), Cabrera seeming more human than usual, and some questionable use of the bullpen, the Tigers are half a game ahead of KC (really a full game ahead, since KC still has to make up that 1/2 inning that got rained out in the 12th after Cleveland had scored 2 runs). Verlander faces Vargas, the big matchup is tomorrow with Scherzer getting James Shields, and then Porcello wraps it up on Sunday vs. Jeremy Guthrie.
KC isn't playing good ball right now, but then again Detroit just dropped 2 out of 3 against the TWINS, who are not a good baseball team. This Detroit team has been a roller coaster, and they don't look like a World Series team to me, but crazy things happen in the playoffs. Anything could happen.
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