That is a lot of hits. I guess I’m just going to come out of hibernation occasionally because Miguel Cabrera has engaged in some kind of mighty feat. Last year he hit his 500th home run. Today he finally got his 3,000th hit. This puts him in rare company, one of fewer than 40 players with 3,000 or more hits. He’s only the 7th player to have 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. There are, what, something north of 18,000 players who have ever played Major League Baseball? And only s e v e n have done what Miggy has done. I don’t share this because I expect it will be news to any baseball nerds, and ev ..read more

The first Tiger to ever hit their 500th home run while wearing the Olde English D. Let me just first say: THANK CATS. Not that I object to watching baseball games with a bit of stress– it would be difficult to be a Tigers fan if so– but it was starting to get a bit agonizing, watching Miggy come up to bat with 499 home runs. He was so clearly ready to just be done with it. Opposing pitchers were desperate to not be the guy who would enter the record books for this one. Fans were wasting untold amounts of cell phone storage space since apparently 2/3rds of the people in any given ballpark felt ..read more

Paws approves of all grays, but Paws does not write the rule book. Wins, losses, struggles at the plate, struggles on the mound, even vomiting players were not enough to break through the sheer amount of work I’ve had to do lately and inspire me to post, but THIS?! A controversy about COLORS? I am here. Casey Mize, who started today’s game against the LAA Angels, was wearing Kyle Funkhouser’s glove. I had the game on but admittedly was only half paying attention; at one point I looked up and noticed the glove, with FUNKHOUSER prominently displayed down the side. I did the only obvious thing, w ..read more

Spencer Turnbull: 9 no-hit innings and many defeated bats. I really think the title and image probably say it all. Of course, I am thrilled that Spencer Turnbull threw a no-hitter. I am thrilled that anything positive has come out of a Tigers season that has the word REBUILDING scrawled all over it in neon orange letters (with the addition of Akil Baddoo, perhaps, but that’s a different cartoon). But did it have to be in Seattle?? I’m one of those people whose job has gotten busier and crazier since The Current Situation started happening, and I am but a poor exhausted person in the eastern ti ..read more

Miggy climbs the hit list. With 3 series wins in a row, and this weekend’s sweep of the Twins, it can truthfully be said that the Tigers are in the midst of a very respectable streak. They’ve even managed to claw their way back to .500. Can we trust this? Of course not. Literally anything could happen at any moment, as this entire season is just a fever dream that we are all collectively experiencing. But on the whole, the things that we collectively dreamed this weekend were… good?? On Saturday Miguel Cabrera climbed to #50 on the all-time hit list with his 2,840th hit, passing Charlie Gehr ..read more

kneecaps are not supposed to do that CJ Cron is out for the year. He was trying to field a ball last week and something happened: the ball seems to have hit him, but he also maybe planted his foot wrong, or his knee just gave way for no real reason because that’s a thing that knees do when you’re 30 or older. He has described the kneecap as “just floating around.” There’s ligament damage that will require surgery to fix, the recovery period is long, and Cron was on a one-year contract with the Tigers, so that might be that and I suppose it was fun while it (extremely briefly) lasted. this t ..read more

Tyler Alexander maximizes the Ks Two games, two losses. Much strangeness. So it goes for 2020. Record Number One: Tyler Alexander, who came on in relief after Rony García only made it through 2 innings in the first game, matched and set a Major League Baseball record. With 9 strikeouts in a row, he matched the AL record for all pitchers (shared with Doug Fister, so this is a very Detroit record), and set the new record in consecutive strikeouts for relievers. This feels weird and fluke-y, but it’s definitely a good thing, so congrats to Mr. Alexander. Thanks for doing a good baseball. Record ..read more

this groundhog has made a very beau burrow What a hot garbage pile of a home opener. There were a million home runs. The Tigers jumped out ahead early and then fell behind with horribly familiar speed. I dunno, it’s like a thousand degrees in my apartment right now so my ability to deal with any of this is… reduced. A thousand degrees, for the home opener? Yes. Sadly, tragically, yes. Remember when we used to have home openers threatened by snow? Those were the days. This whole thing may swiftly become a moot point anyway. The Marlins have had a third of their team test positive for COVID-19 ..read more

Paws sanitizes Matt Boyd. Hey everyone. It’s July 24! It’s a global pandemic! It’s the first day of real live 2020 baseball! And the Tigers got whomped by the Reds. BASE BALL IS BAK BABEE!! No need to worry. It’s very clear what happened. After all, we’ve got all these new pandemic-related rules and procedures in place, and folks are still getting used to them. Obviously Paws was just a little too overenthusiastic in his application of hand sanitizer to the players. Poor Matt Boyd must have gotten sprayed in the face with an extra-heavy mist of 70% ethyl alcohol. A faceful of scouring disinf ..read more

Al Kaline, drawing by Samara Pearlstein It’s April 2020. We’re in the midst of a global pandemic. Opening Day has come and gone without any baseball– in fact, there are no major sports of any kind being played right now. The Tigers were not very good last year, but it turns out that even not very good baseball is better than no baseball at all. And now we have to say goodbye to the man who confusingly introduced battery chemistry to so many young Detroit fans, the man who played his entire career in Detroit, who spent so many years after retirement dedicated to the team and its players, Mr ..read more