Rapid Reactions: Tigers Take Game One Out West

Tigers 3, Athletics 0 (box)

West coast trips always seem hard on the Tigers, but it was good to see them start off this one on the right foot tonight.

  • Phil Coke was pretty darn good for his second start. I’ll admit that I didn’t think the move to the rotation was a wise one when it was announced, and I certainly didn’t think it would stick, but he’s looked good so far. I think he still needs to work on becoming a consistent strike thrower if he wants his early success to continue.
  • This is three days in a row that Jose Valverde has pitched, but he didn’t need more than 12 pitches in any of those appearances. I guess that means it’s possible that the could be available on Friday, but I’m sure Leyland would rather not use him on four consecutive days.
  • The Tigers offense recorded 11 walks and 7 strikeouts. That meant that 42.8% of their plate appearances ending without putting the ball in play.
  • Apparently Magglio Ordonez is hoping to return to the lineup on Saturday. Assuming he’s able to play in the outfield again (or at least soon thereafter), the question becomes who starts opposite him in left field? I have to think that Raburn has won that job back after Boesch’s hot start to the year “forced” Leyland into putting him in the lineup.
  • The Tigers need to get more hits. It’s nice that the pitching has come around and given them a few nice games here, but they have a few guys in the lineup that simply need to start hitting better. I’m looking mostly at Victor Martinez and Austin Jackson. The offense hasn’t been bad on the year, but they’ve had some pathetically poor spells over the past handful of games
  • Jim Leyland needs just one more win to reach 1,500 for his managerial career.

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