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Tigers lose another tough road game; Porcello earns his stripes
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Rick Porcello takes Kevin Youkilis to the ground during the bench clearing brawl in the Tigers/Red Sox game. (AP Photo)
The box score today will read much like most of the other road games the Tigers have played recently, a loss. Detroit lost 7-5 yesterday to the Boston Red Sox, making it two in a row and five overall to Boston this season.
The Tigers have not won a road series since winning three out of five in Chicago June 8-11. They are a completely different team away from Comerica Park than they are at it, and if they cannot figure out a way to win today, they have guaranteed themselves yet another road series defeat.
The Tigers are 40-13 at home this season, and incredible accomplishment making Comerica one of the great home field advantages in the American League. The flip side to that coin is their dreadful road record of 20-35. Ugh! I think it’s fair to say that if the Tigers are lucky enough to make it to the postseason, they’re ability to advance relies strictly on them getting home field advantage in each round.
So what do they need to do to achieve that? Win obviously. Win every game possible, which brings me to last night.
Leading 3-0 heading into the bottom of the second inning, rookie Rick Porcello (10-7) coming off two great outings looked sharp once again after his team staked him to an early lead. Tempers had been flaring since the first game of the series. Miguel Cabrera was hit, which led Edwin Jackson to plunk Kevin Youkilis in retaliation. Later on Brandon Inge was hit leaving both teams a little steamed heading into game 2.
It’s been the golden rule of baseball that if you hit one of our players, we hit one of yours. It’s been that way since the beginning of the time, and will continue to be as long as baseball is played. So when Cabrera was hit again in the first inning of last night’s game, it goes without saying at some point a Red Sox player was going to get hit in retaliation. Just a matter of when.
The Tigers need every win they can get, so it wouldn’t make much sense for the team to retaliate in the second inning of an important game with a 3-0 lead. Most likely they would wait until later on when a win was more of a sure thing and a pitcher who didn’t really matter could come in to do the dirty work. But for some reason Porcello decided to nail Youkilis in the back with his first pitch of the second inning.
Youkilis charged the mound and in one of the more bush league displays I’ve seen, threw his helmet at a retreating Porcello. It’s another unwritten rule that when a batter charges a pitcher he drops his bat and his helmet prior to getting to the mound as both can be used as weapons at that time. Youkilis missed with his helmet toss and then was wrestled to the ground by the much lankier and probably weaker Porcello. Benches cleared and after the dust cleared and the players returned to their respective dugouts both Youkilis and Porcello were ejected.
Advantage Red Sox.
Youkilis is a fine player, but a team can replace a corner infielder for one game a lot easier than they can a starting pitcher during the second inning of a crucial game, especially since the Tigers were already without Cabrera who left during his at-bat in the top of the second with a hand injury resulting from when he was hit. Cabrera’s x-rays came back negative and he’s listed as day-to-day.
Jim Leyland had to scramble and piece together the rest of the game using his bullpen. Chris Lambert came in cold out of the pen and was asked to give the team as many innings as he could to save the rest of the pen from being overworked with two games still to be played in this series. Lambert gave the team five innings, unfortunately he also gave up five runs and four walks, giving away the 3-0 lead as quickly as the Tigers built it.
There is no way Leyland would order a retaliation pitch at that point of the game. It was just too important and with Zach Miner unavailable and Armando Galarraga feeling ill and questionable for tonight’s start, Porcello was too valuable to be used in that situation.
Leyland knew the team needed to win that game and Porcello gave them the best chance to do it. And there is no way Porcello or rookie catcher Alex Avila came up with the notion to throw at Youkilis on their own. Rookie batteries don’t put the team in that kind of a position, not if they want to play again.
So if it wasn’t ordered the only logical explanation is the pitch was unintentional. If you watch Porcello’s reaction closely, you can see him look to the sky after hitting Youkilis, almost cursing himself for doing it and appeared shocked when he looked down and saw Youkilis running towards him. All he did was defend himself from a charging batter. He never threw a punch nor did he take any cheap shots once he was back on his feet and outside the pile of players to the right of the mound.
Yet Porcello was ejected from the game all the same. Both he and Leyland were rightfully upset and pleading their case. The funny thing is had Youkilis not charged the mound, just taken his base as Cabrera did after being plunked for the second time in two games nothing would have happened. The teams would have been warned, both men would have stayed in the game and Porcello would have continued to pitch with a 3-0 lead. Would it have resulted in a Tigers win? We can’t say that for sure, but it was clear the game changed completely when Detroit had to go to the bullpen.
That’s what bothers me about the rule of throwing out the pitcher as well as the batter. There is no way to prove the pitcher threw intentionally at the batter. It’s all about how the batter reacts. If he charges they both get thrown out, if he doesn’t they both stay in the game. Does that make sense to anyone?
The Red Sox pitchers had been hitting any Tiger they could get in the batters box for two straight games, yet Youkilis -- who I had much more respect for prior to this series -- who is viewed as a hard-nosed, old-time player can’t seem to handle the golden rules of baseball. In game 1 after he was hit by Jackson in retaliation for Cabrera being hit, he was visibly upset and was yelling at Jackson the entire time he walked to first base. So it was no surprise that Jackson was the most fired up Tiger during the bench clearing, having to be held back by first base coach Andy Van Slyke as he attempted to go after Youkilis, as if to say, if you wanted to charge someone you should have charged me last night instead of our 20-year-old rookie.
Youkilis knew exactly what he was doing. He is twice the size of Porcello. It was a man going after a kid. He knew he’d be ejected, but he also knew his team was trailing and Porcello was dealing and if he charged, they both would be tossed. But when he threw his helmet, that’s was really made me angry. That’s just as bad as taking the bat with you. But I give Porcello credit, he stood up to him and despite being outweighed by 20 pounds was able to avoid getting punched and threw Youkilis to the ground.
Porcello has had his ups and downs during his rookie year, which is to be expected. He seems to have found a groove over his past few starts and has showed more and more flashes of the brilliance he will soon display each and every start once he gets some more experience. But he has shown little emotion during the season. No smiles during the highs and no frustration during the lows. Last night was the first time he has looked distraught or upset all season, and I was glad to see it. He was barking at the umpires after the being ejected and had to be escorted back to the dugout. I guarantee he gained the respect of every single player on that roster last night.
He had a six-year veteran with two World Series rings, a member of the U.S.A. team at the World Baseball Classic and a two-time All-Star come at him with full force and stood in there and took him to the ground. Then let it be known exactly what he thought of it when he was ejected, showing the rest of the squad that he wanted to stay out there with them and win the game and stick to the Red Sox. He showed emotion. I think he became a big leaguer last night.
The Tigers are in a pennant race. The White Sox are two games back and coming on strong. Detroit is struggling on the road and filled with players who look the same when they win as they do when they lose. Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco, Carlos Guillen, Cabrera, Justin Verlander……all of the Tigers best players have one thing in common, they are emotionless.
The Tigers need to start showing some life if they want to win this division and make it to the playoffs. The bench clearing brawl didn’t result in a win last night, but I think it could go a long way to bringing this team together and getting them to display an “us against the world” mentality. Show some spirit and start taking no prisoners out on the field. It’s sad when a 20-year-old rookie needs to be the one to bring that to the forefront, but sometimes it’s the ones you least expect that surprise you the most.
It certainly got Jackson up on his feet. Cabrera came running out of the clubhouse where he was getting treatment on the trainer’s table.
Todd Jones used to say you never have a truly united team or a great rivalry with another team until you have a good old fashioned brawl!
I think the Tigers accomplished both last night, and while doing so Porcello earned his big league stripes. But it doesn’t mean anything unless the Tigers can put together a couple of wins and avoid another road series defeat.
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