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Monday Morning Manager 2011, Edition 19

Last week: 4-2
This week: at Cle (8/9-11); at Bal (8/12-14)

So, What Happened?

The mantra at this time of the year, when a division is there to be won, is “Just win two out of three, baby.”

The Tigers did a good job of that last week.

They played a first place team and a last place team, and it didn’t matter; the Tigers beat the Rangers and Royals 2-of-3 for a successful 4-2 week.

Even more impressive was that the Tigers finished their season series with the defending AL champs at 6-3, a point manager Jim Leyland stressed over the weekend in Kansas City.

Justin Verlander’s march to 20 victories drew closer as he won no. 16 Saturday.

Hero of the Week

There have been three Brennan Boesches so far, and he’s just in his second year in the big leagues.

There was the 1st Half Boesch of 2010, who lit up the league. There was the 2nd Half Boesch of 2010 who couldn’t hit his way out of a wet paper bag. And there’s the 2011 Boesch, who has been mostly good and very consistent—an amalgam of last year’s Jekyll and Hyde versions.

Boesch struck twice last week, a hero coming to the rescue—directly winning two games for the Tigers.

He hit a dramatic home run in the eighth inning on Tuesday night, through raindrops, lifting the Tigers into the lead over Texas. Jose Valverde cemented the victory in the ninth.

On Friday night in Kansas City, Boesch delivered a clutch single in the 10th inning, driving home pinch-runner Andy Dirks with the eventual gane-winning run.

Boesch is becoming a calming presence at the plate in tense situations, which can only help the Tigers down the stretch as each game takes on greater significance.

Honorable mention: Valverde, who had four saves last week, remaining perfect in 2011.

Goat of the Week

This is a tough call and some may say even unfair, but MMM is going to pick on Carlos Guillen and name him GotW.

Guillen struggled all week, his batting average sinking to the low .200s.

And his struggles came on the heels of last Sunday’s tension-filled game with the Angels, in which Guillen clubbed a notorious home run off Jered Weaver, which led to quite a hub-bub.

It’s probably coincidence, but MMM finds it odd that Guillen went into the tank, albeit temporarily, after the fireworks against Weaver.

Some in Tiger Nation have suggested that the Angels game pitting Weaver against Verlander, because of its high theater, might be looked back upon as the turning point of this season—for the good, a la the Stanley Cup-winning Red Wings of 1997, who kicked it into another gear after the famous brawls with the Colorado Avalanche late that season.

MMM guesses that Guillen hasn’t gotten that memo yet.

Under the Microscope

MMM hopes this is much ado about nothing, but catcher/DH/1B Victor Martinez tweaked his knee on Saturday, trying to avoid a tag at the plate.

V-Mart was held out of Sunday’s game, likely as a precaution. Leyland wasn’t too concerned about Martinez’s knee on Saturday night.

But knees, like backs and groins, can take a turn for the worse in a hurry.

Martinez is in line to be the first Tiger since George Kell in 1950 to drive in 100+ runs while hitting fewer than 10 home runs.

Martinez’s arrival has made the 2011 Tigers a far better team than last year’s.

Which is why he—specifically, his knee—is UtM.

Upcoming: Indians, Orioles

MMM thinks this could be the week that the Tigers break the backs of their contenders in the AL Central.

The staggering Indians, 26-41 since their 30-15 start, are ripe for the picking. The Tigers’ lead over the second-place Tribe is currently four games.

Remember the mantra?

If the Tigers can win 2-of-3 in Cleveland, their lead will be five games, and guess who’s next on the schedule?

That’s right—the last-place Orioles of the AL East.

With August approaching its halfway mark, the Tigers could see their lead grow to six or more games, if they put together a good week against two slumping teams.

The Orioles are 44-67, but they’re 27-30 in their home ballpark—and they took 2-of-3 from the Tigers way back in the season’s opening week.

Verlander pitches Thursday, setting him up to go against the Indians again when they visit Detroit the weekend of August 19-21.

That’s all for this week’s MMM. See you next week!

Me at the Stanley Cup Finals, Game Five

Just a reminder to join me LIVE tonight during Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals as I, once again, Twitter during the game from the press box at Joe Louis Arena. I’ll also post live blogs here and at www.GregEno.com during the first and second intermissions.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/thegregger63

“The Knee Jerks” Are LIVE Tonight!! (This time I mean it!)

Hey, all you sports night owls!

Join Big Al of The Wayne Fontes Experience, and yours truly for another LIVE episode of “The Knee Jerks” on Blog Talk Radio.

No, really.

Last night we had major technical issues with BTR, and after ten minutes of on-the-air, off-the-air, we called it a night and deleted the debacle from the server.

It happens at 11:00 p.m. ET, and Al and I will be joined, in “Take two!” fashion, by Bleacher Report’s premier Red Wings writer, Keith Shelton, to talk Wings-Blackhawks.

Hope to have you tune in tonight!

Remember, if you miss the live broadcast — an expanded, 90-minute version, by the way — then you can always download the show at your convenience!

We’ll also hit on the Tigers, Lions, and do our usual, wildly popular regulars: Word Association and Jerk of the Week.

Don’t miss it!

The Knee Jerks: LIVE Tonight On Blog Talk Radio!!

Programming note: “The Knee Jerks”, my weekly radio broadcast (soon to be a former blog chat) with Big Al of The Wayne Fontes Experience, will go LIVE at 11 p.m. ET tonight.

Click here for more details, including download info and how to call in live.

Hope to have you along!

“The Knee Jerks” On Blog Talk Radio: One Down, ?? To Go!!

We don’t have theme music. Yet.

Al needs a less squeaky chair. And a new microphone.

But the first episode of “The Knee Jerks”, online radio version, is in the books.

We had a blast, Big Al and I, taking our weekly text chat to the next level, i.e. Blog Talk Radio.

Our next show will be next Monday, May 11, at 11:00 p.m. ET.

This will likely become a weekly thing, phasing out the Thursday text chat altogether.

You can listen live next Monday night (don’t worry, we’ll remind you) and even call in to talk to us, or you can download the episodes and listen to them at your leisure.

Either way, you can check out our BTR page here.

Hope you can join us, live or via download!

Ripping Apart These Pistons Can’t Happen Soon Enough

“LeBron James needn’t have had his jersey laundered after any of the matches. Why waste the water and the soap, when he didn’t even break a sweat?”

 

 

So how do you eulogize a team that’s been on life support for most of the season?

What can you say about the Detroit Pistons and their feeble effort against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round of the playoffs?

I had the Pistons six feet under two months ago, so I’ve already said my piece about their demise. Though I had no idea it would come with the resistance of balsa wood.

Right now, the Pistons’ death as Eastern Conference elitists should be treated like the death of a despised relative: with courtesy but not much else.

President Joe Dumars’ bunch annoyed me all season, and I confess that I didn’t watch but a few minutes of the four games. I refuse to call it a series anymore because it really wasn’t. That gives the term “playoff series” a bad name.

No, I didn’t watch the Cavs’ dismantling of their once rivals, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how gruesome it was.

I wasn’t a witness to the Manson Murders, but I have a pretty good idea how that went down, too.

So the end of the Pistons’ “era”, as we like to put it, came with nary a whimper. Rasheed Wallace didn’t get kicked out of the game. The fans were too apathetic to boo or even jeer.

The kings are dead; long live the King

 

This was about as much of a non-playoff set of games as you’ll ever see in the NBA.

Even the dregs of the league usually win at least one game in these No. 1 vs. No. 8 seed set-ups.

But a series never broke out. The teams played 192 minutes, and I’m guessing–by the scores and by the reports from those who drew the short straws and had to cover the games–that the Pistons were competitive for maybe 25 percent of those minutes.

LeBron James needn’t have had his jersey laundered after any of the matches. Why waste the water and the soap, when he didn’t even break a sweat?

The Pistons’ last “big” playoff effort came in last year’s Game 2 of the Final Four, when they put forth a gutsy performance in beating the Celtics in Boston. The series looked like it might go their way; the Celtics, remember, were 0-6 on the road in the playoffs.

But instead of taking control and keeping that seed of doubt firmly planted in the Celtics’ heads–the one that said, “You’ll never win on the road…NEVER!”"–the Pistons let them off the hook with a curiously uninspired day’s work in Game 3 in Detroit.

It’s only gotten worse since then.

Dumars was disgusted with the way his team capitulated in the fourth quarter of Game 6 of the Celtics series. He vowed changes. He spoke of how there were no sacred cows.

I can’t even imagine what he thinks today.

Dumars’s “Bad Boys” of 1991 showed some fire–albeit in a very unsportsmanlike way–when their reign of terror ended in the East. They sauntered off the floor, before time expired, walking right past the Chicago Bulls on their way to the locker room.

Dumars stayed behind, uncomfortable in participating in such a display.

Let’s see how uncomfortable he is in tearing Bad Boys Lite apart. He ought to feel very comfy and cozy about it, if you ask me.

The sooner you crack this nucleus and give it a makeover, the better.

Hard To Believe, But 25 Years Since Detroit’s Boys Blessed

“But 1984? Sparky was tormented, he wrote. How could the Tigers NOT win the whole thing after such a start? All season he gnashed his teeth and looked at the flagpole in center field, harboring ghoulish thoughts, apparently.”

It was the summer of 1984, and Tigers manager Sparky Anderson was musing, as usual. This time he had one of Detroit’s ink-stained wretches beside him.

“See that flagpole out there?” Sparky said, pointing to the famous, in-play pole deep in Tiger Stadium’s center field. “That’s where they’ll be hanging me, if we don’t win this thing.”

The 1984 baseball season was, in ESPN terms, an “instant classic” to the folks around Motown. It was fun. It was magical. It was a feel-good summer, capped off by a World’s Championship.

Fun for everyone, it was later revealed, except for Sparky.

He wrote it in his book, They Call Me Sparky. The Tigers zoomed out of the gate at a record-breaking pace – their won-lost soared to an almost unbelievable 35-5 after 40 games – and for ole Sparky, there was only one way to go. Down. Which meant that HE would go up – up on the flagpole, hanged. The feared hanging made it into the book.

The ’84 season, Sparky wrote, was among his least favorites. For the record, one of his most favorites came three years later, when the Tigers rose from the ashes of an 11-19 start and captured the AL East flag thanks to a wild, wonderful final week in which they overtook the Toronto Blue Jays – who held a 3-1/2 game lead on the Tigers with eight games to play.

But 1984? Sparky was tormented, he wrote. How could the Tigers NOT win the whole thing after such a start? All season he gnashed his teeth and looked at the flagpole in center field, harboring ghoulish thoughts, apparently.

It’s 25 years later, and what is it about us as a people that we fawn over the nice, round anniversary number? Last year was 24 years. Next year will be 26. Heaven forbid we recall the 1984 season at any other time than now – a quarter century later. The Silver Anniversary of the Tigers’ most recent World Series title.

Some random thoughts….

The Tigers gave it a good shot in 1983, but the Baltimore Orioles were too tough. The ’83 Tigers won 90 games and had the makings of being a contender for several years. But one smarmy, acerbic TV broadcaster was having none of it.

Acid Al Ackerman loved to smirk. He loved to sneer. And that was to the camera. You should have seen the looks he gave his interview subjects as he jabbed a microphone in their faces.

So the Tigers are trying to make a race of it in ’83, but during one treacherous streak, Acid Al gets sarcastic. He loved to do that, too. The Tigers finally won a game to break the losing spell, and Acid Al sneers, “Bless You, Boys!” in a manner that was hardly meant to be encouraging. He kept dragging the sarcastic expression out, whenever the Tigers would win one during the losing spells.

Bless You, Boys!

And Acid Al kept doing it, into the 1984 season. But by this time, the good folks in Detroit had taken Ackerman’s sarcasm and turned it around on him. People were saying “Bless You, Boys!” in the most supportive, fervent way possible: calling it from their car windows, yelling it to their neighbors across the street. Lance Parrish would hit a three-run home run, and you could almost hear a city’s baseball fans cry, in unison: “Bless You, Boys!” It ended up on bumper stickers. Hell, it practically became the team’s official slogan: Bless You, Boys!

Take THAT, Acid Al!

In this book, Sparky says he feared he’d be hanged if the Tigers didn’t win the 1984 World Series

More random thoughts…

It’s near the end of spring training, and the Tigers have a dilemma: too many position players, not enough beef in their bullpen. They have righty Aurelio Lopez, but his arm had gone kaput in 1983. There were other incidents of arm trouble for Senor Smoke in the past, too. The Tigers were a little nervous about who would close their games.

So GM Bill Lajoie pulls off a stunner of a trade in late-March. He deals outfielder Glenn Wilson, never a favorite of Sparky’s, and catcher/first baseman/DH Johnny Wockenfuss, a fan favorite, to the Philadelphia Phillies. In return, the Tigers get first baseman Dave Bergman, who had a slick glove, and left-handed reliever Willie Hernandez.

With that move, Bill Lajoie simply wins the 1984 World Series for the Tigers.

Hernandez goes bananas as the Tigers’ closer, winning both the AL MVP and Cy Young Awards. Bergman plays stellar defense – he saved Jack Morris’s no-hitter in Chicago with his glove work – and contributes some key hits along the way.

More random thoughts…

It’s before a game against the California Angels at Tiger Stadium, and I, as a fill-in, cub reporter for the Michigan Daily, am on the field. I can’t help but notice that Reggie Jackson has broadcaster Joe Garagiola in stitches. I mean, Garagiola can’t stop laughing at whatever the heck Jackson is saying to him. I inch closer, trying to eavesdrop. Garagiola is laughing so hard his face is red and he’s practically convulsing. I edge closer. Then, Jackson catches me and glares me back to my original location. I still don’t know what he said to Garagiola to elicit such an uproarious reaction.

Some more…

The Tigers are playing the Indians at Tiger Stadium in late-April, and I’m downtown, too – watching the Pistons take on the New York Knicks in the decisive Game 5 of their first round playoff series, inside warm, humid Joe Louis Arena. It’s the series where the Knicks’ Bernard King goes bonkers, averaging over 40 points per game. And it’s the game where Isiah Thomas scores 16 points in the final minute-and-a-half, erasing an eight-point Knick lead and sending the game into overtime. The Pistons lose, and we go out for some pops afterward to drown our sorrows. I stumble into the house – it’s past 1:00 a.m. by now – and the Tigers are still on the radio. They’re engaged in a 19-inning affair with the Indians. The Tigers lose, too.

Oh, and I was in attendance for the World Series-clinching Game 5. And no, I’ll never forget what Kirk Gibson’s moon shot into the right field upper deck looked like from my spot in the center field bleachers. Nor will I forget the swatches of turf being tossed into the bleachers after the game, appearing over the rail like magic, from nowhere.

But it wasn’t until 14 years later, when Sparky’s book came out, that I learned how terrible the ’84 season was for him. Would they really have hanged Sparky from the flagpole if the Tigers didn’t win it?

Best not to ever know, I suppose.

Once-Blind Cardinals Finally Find Their Nut

“The Lions are now, officially, by fact, numbers and irrefutable evidence, the most dysfunctional team in the NFL.”

My, my — look who they’re letting into the Super Bowl nowadays. Have they lowered their standards in the NFL?

Another one of the league’s ugly ducklings finally made its transformation to swan. It only took them six decades, but they did it.

The Lions, by that measure, have ten years still to go. But there IS hope.

The Arizona Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl. In uniform and everything; I don’t mean as guests of the league in a private suite. They’re one of the last anomalies of nature: somehow, their metabolism slowed and came to a halt.

There is now one less member of the Never Been To The Super Bowl Club.

Sitting at the table now are the Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints, Jacksonville Jaguars, Houston Texans. Oh, and the Lions. In fact, the Lions are at the head of the table. They’re the chairmen of this board.

The Lions supplant the Cardinals now at the head — of the table, that is.

The Cardinals captured the NFC Championship yesterday, their first title of any kind since 1947. They did it with their third straight playoff win, all achieved against conventional thinking. The surprising Atlanta Falcons were supposed to run around, over, and through them. The Carolina Panthers, at home, were supposed to make mincemeat of the desert team who weren’t supposed to be able to win games played in the Eastern time zone. And the Philadelphia Eagles, battle-tested and used to these sort of situations, were supposed to put an end to this Cardinal Mania, for goodness sake.

None of that happened. The Lions are now, officially, by fact, numbers and irrefutable evidence, the most dysfunctional team in the NFL.

The Cardinals used to be that team. Their drought since 1947 was liberally sprinkled with slapstick and foolishness. The owners are the Bidwill family, and that was once as knee-slapping as the Ford ownership in Detroit. The Cardinals tried Chicago, then St. Louis, then Arizona. They tried calling themselves the Phoenix Cardinals for a while, before deciding to indict the entire state.

Their players used to race to the bank, to cash their paychecks, before they bounced. This was the 1950s days of the Chicago Cardinals. They once hired Bud Wilkinson as coach, some 15 years after he coached his last game — in college. Their once-promising quarterback, Neil Lomax, broke his leg and was never the same. They had a player die in training camp of heat exhaustion (JV Cain). They would wear white jerseys at home against the Dallas Cowboys, forcing the ‘Boys to wear blue — thinking that the dark tops would function as the Cowboys’ Kryptonite. Their leading pass receiver was regularly a running back (Larry Centers). They tried Buddy Ryan as coach. Now THERE was some Kryptonite. They lined up against Barry Sanders, who was playing his first game in nine months, without any practice, and gave up a 17-yard run on his first carry.

They have been the league’s vagabonds, nudged out of two cities and a few time zones along the way.

But, the Bidwills have been a constant — the common denominator. Just like the Fords in Detroit.

So what did the Cardinals do right?

Well, they caught lightning in a bottle, which happens from time to time in the NFL. But beyond that, they made some shrewd personnel moves, and had some draft success.

I know, I know — that’s like saying Charlie Brown has a chance, too, if only he’d pick a different holder for his placekicks. And Bill Ford is the Lions’ Lucy Van Pelt.

But that’s what happened: acquisitions of Kurt Warner, Edgerrin James. The drafting of Larry Fitzgerald. And others. And that all-important intangible: getting hot at the right time.

The Cardinals, to be fair and square, were not a great football team all season long. In fact, they were downright awful at times. They might even have had trouble beating the Lions on some weeks. They went into the playoffs as arguably the least attractive girl at the dance.

Now they’ll be boogeying with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

There was a time when the Steelers were ragtag and the Keystone Kops of the NFL. Many of the youngens can’t fathom that; to them, the Steelers have always been good — strong championship contenders. But throughout much of their existence — from the late-1920s to the early-1970s — the Steelers were almost as comical as the Cardinals. Owner Art Rooney, thank goodness, lived long enough to see his team finally win the Big One in 1975.

The Cardinals and the Steelers, for the whole enchilada. Likely not a popular choice in Las Vegas back in September.

Then again, despite as bad as the Lions have been, how many thought they’d pull off the imperfection of 0-16?

It’s tempting and maybe even comforting to say that, if the Bidwills can make it to the Super Bowl, just about anyone can.

That’s pretty much what we’re down to in Detroit: living vicariously through other franchises.

Schwartz Has More To Offer Than Just A Non-M Last Name

“He expected to be a head coach someday, and now it’s here. 0-16 doesn’t faze him. We see a gooey, hideous mess. He simply sees a challenge.”

They put another coach in front of the firing squad today in Allen Park.

Jim Schwartz is the latest one to sign his own walking papers. That’s what you do, you know, when you sign on to be a head coach in pro sports. The clock starts ticking toward your eventual ziggy before the ink dries on your signature.

But that’s just so cynical of me, isn’t it?

First impressions of Schwartz, introduced today as the Lions’ new head coach: not bad. He sounded confident and relaxed. Like this wasn’t his first head coaching job. Like he wasn’t stepping into the doo-doo of 0-16 and a dysfunctional front office. Like he’s done this sort of thing before.

I didn’t get that impression with Schwartz’s predecessor, the beleaguered Rod Marinelli. From the get go, although I liked Marinelli’s military-like persona, Marinelli spoke like he was, well, doing this for the first time. His speech seemed too contrived, too prepared. I didn’t draw the comparison until I heard Schwartz talk, and he was very relaxed and “oh, by the way.”

Of course, Schwartz has been a defensive coordinator for some eight years. You’d expect him to be more polished, frankly. And he sure seems to be.

He even got off a crack.

“If I had known it was going to be this cold here, I would have asked for more money,” he said as the media types laughed.

Hey, if he knew what he was getting himself into, truly knew, he’d ask for a Brinks Truck.

The Lions must have listened to me, for a change.

I implored them to find someone who comes from a winning pedigree, and at the very least from a coordinator’s role. Well, Schwartz would seem to qualify; he learned from Bill Belichick early on, and Jeff Fisher later. He coordinated the Tennessee Titans defense, and did alright. The Titans’ defense was consistently among the best in the NFL. So that’s good.

It remains to be seen, of course, how Schwartz will react once it sinks in: that he doesn’t appear to have as much say-so in personnel matters as many NFL head coaches possess. Also, once it sinks in that tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, aka Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand, are really the ones in charge. Hopefully, Schwartz won’t become mystified. Check back come draft time.

The Lions’ new head coach, Jim Schwartz, in happier days

But for now, it’s all about Schwartz hiring a staff and beginning to evaluate what he has in Detroit. It’s not much, and he said as much on Monday, when he was propped up before the media as part of his interviewing process. He politely said there were “some holes” in the roster, but was quick to add that many teams have such holes. That wasn’t an easy thing to buy.

When the Lions hired Steve Mariucci, some six years ago already, they created a humongous stage on Ford Field’s turf and Mooch made the long walk from the tunnel, flanked by Matt Millen and Bill Ford Jr. Even Mariucci himself, once he saw what the Lions had created, spectacle-wise, said simply, “Wow.”

Too bad Mooch never lived up to that stage.

This time, Jim Schwartz held a simple, rather brief gathering — in the same spot where Lions coaches speak to the media every week. His demeanor was casual, belying the gravity of the moment. He talked of his growing up as one of nine kids in Baltimore. Not exactly a hard-scrabble life, but certainly not with a silver spoon in his mouth, either. He said his dad would have been disappointed in him if he didn’t take this challenge, because the Schwartzes never shrink from challenges. He talked a little about making his defense all-purpose: able to quell the run and the pass, if need be, based on the opponent. He spoke of becoming big and strong on the football field.

Then, just like that, he was pulled away, after a few innocent questions.

But that’s OK. All intro press conferences of coaches are alike, mostly. But I was still taken by Schwartz’s casualness, and his lack of awe. He expected to be a head coach someday, and now it’s here. 0-16 doesn’t faze him. We see a gooey, hideous mess. He simply sees a challenge.

The grass on the Lions’ side of the fence never looks as brown and as full of manure as we see it from the inside.

So good luck to Mr. Schwartz. For the record, I’m OK with this.

His last name doesn’t begin with M, for one.

It’s a start.