Judging the Royals

Games » Detroit Tigers

Lee Judge

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This was the kind of game that makes me long for the sizzling excitement of Olympic curling. My wife had to use jumper cables and a Sears Die Hard to get me through the last three innings. I have a DVR and the MLB package for this job, but I might need to invest in some crack and a less comfortable couch.

Things the box score won’t tell you

Butler had a bad game at first, missing two short hops that could’ve and should’ve been handled. Neither one was scored an error, but a first baseman either makes everyone on the infield better or worse. Today, he made people worse.

Hochevar appeared to be up with a lot of his pitches. When he’s down, he gets ground balls, when he’s up, he gets hit. Overthrow and the pitches stay up. Baseball is a weird game that’s best played at about 90%. Muscle up and bad things happen. Russ Morman once told me I should play the game like I’d had two beers. I told him I must be really good because I play like I’ve had 12.

Getz had a better game than the box score will indicate. Two line drive outs, two walks and two runs. For a guy with no hits, that’s a very productive day. His error was on a double play ball. Damon slid into him pretty hard and made Getz bounce the throw. It hit Butler in the mitt, but Billy clanked it so hard it rolled far enough away for two runs to score.

Betancourt had a worse game than the box score will indicate. One of Getz’s line drives went to the shortstop and Betancourt had taken a couple steps toward third. He didn’t appear to have checked where the shortstop was positioned and he didn’t freeze on a line drive, which is the basic rule of thumb, unless you know it’s going through…and you only know when you’ve checked on the defensive positioning. He also failed to move a runner at second base with no outs in the ninth.

I don’t know what kind of stuff Parrish has, but he doesn’t appear to be afraid to throw strikes…maybe it’s a fad that will catch on.

Guillen fouled one back and then sniffed his bat. When you just barely clip one, sometimes you’ll smell wood burning…Completely unimportant, but kinda weirdly interesting.

DeJesus made a move to lay down a drag bunt for a hit. He pulled the bat back, but he had just watched Podsednik get a hit by doing that weird little check swing thing of his and beating it out for a single, and I think he wanted in on the fun…gotta love speed…as they say, it comes to the ballpark every day. Sometimes the three-run homer stays home. If the new guys can have that kind of influence on the team, that’s a good thing.

OK, gotta get ready for tomorrow’s game…honey, where’d you leave the jumper cables?