First Place – Still?

What a wild freaking week that was.

The Metrodome was every bit the house of horrors that we feared it would be. At least the Tigers were in position to win that series, it’s just that the Tigers bullpen decided to take a few minutes to be the Tigers bullpen. D-Train made his less-than-triumphant return, but it wasn’t as awful as we feared it would be. The Train threw strikes, got hit a good bit, didn’t make it five, but will live to fight another day. So, just as quickly as the Tigers dispatched the Indians via a road sweep, they were, in turn, swept by the Twins. And then the Tigers went home…

And proceeded to break out the beating sticks and teed off on Athletics pitching. Sweep – Get Swept – Sweep again. It’s a recipe for .500, and we’ve gotta do better than that folks. Thankfully, the rest of the AL Central is playing meh-level ball as well and our heroes find themselves in first place on this glorious Monday off. Best of all – The Big Tilde is heating up.  TBT went 8/25 last week with 5 RBI and got his average back up to .256.

Unfortunately, our titular hero is going to be taking some time off this week to be with the Lady Tilde while she has surgery. Best wishes to the Ordonez family this week.

The Rangers are in town starting tomorrow night – D-Train makes his home debut, y’all!

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State of The Tilde – Oh, Hi There. It’s Been A Little While

So, things are generally going well right now, no?

When we last spoke, right before the Yankees series, things were looking up as well. Then a couple of unspeakable seventh innings occured and things looked meh once again. However, over the last ten games, the Tigers are 6-4 and are currently sitting in first place at 17-13.  For twenty-six innings against the Indians, the Tigers allowed only ONE solitary run to score. And only three altogether after Fernando’s rough ninth inning.  Also, Friday night, this happened:

Curtis Makes Me Need To Change My Pants - Chuck Crow/AP

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ENEMIES OF THE BIG TILDE – The New York Yankees

After Bud Selig sent them to wander the West Coast and the Heartland for 10 days, the Tigers are returning home at long last today. And, for the next three days, the newest entrant in the Remove The Tigers From First So ESPN Can Make Stupid Trade Rumors Regarding Big And Mig Sweepstakes is….THE NEW YORK YANKEES.

That’s right. The greatest team ever. The Yankees. Now, I haven’t watched much baseball outside of the Tigers thus far, but I believe the Yankees and Red Sox have combined to start 35-5 and that tonight’s opposing pitcher, CC Sabathia is 4-0 with a 0.25 ERA and a WHIP of 0.30. Let’s all be very, very afraid and just accept the inevitable sweep.

Oh wait, the Yankees have pretty much the same record as the Tigers and Sabathia has pitched about the same as Verlander at this point in the season. Ok, so CC has a better ERA and has actually won a game, but Verlander has fallen victim to horrendous defense and a ridiculous strand rate in ’09 to date. He’s gotta catch a break at some point, right?

Your match-ups for this series are:

• Verlander vs. Sabathia
• Jackson vs. Hughes
• Porcello vs. Chamberlin

Wednesday night’s game will be broadcast on ESPN, btw. For the first time this year, I’ll get to watch on a screen bigger than that of a MacBook. HUZZAH!

After this series, it’s thirteen straight games against division opponents, including eight of them on the road. These are the good times, people.

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TILDE WATCH: Alone Again (In First), Naturally

How ya feeling about these guys right about now?

Pretty good, right? The Tigers just went 5-4 on a 9 game road trip and played well enough to win at least a couple more of them as well. Best of all, the Fightin’ Tildes are now in possession of a one game lead in the AL Central. Thats the AL Central – FIRST TO 85 WINS IT!

As for the Big Tilde himself, well he’s had some issues at the plate thus far. Not so much with the hitting overall, although the average has taken quite a tumble over the past few days, but for the absolute lack of pop the in bat of TBT. It took until game number 17 for his first extra base hit to occur. Now, we know his slugging percentage took a healthy drop last year, but that had to be expected coming off of his insane 2007 season. Thankfully, as an exclamation point on Saturday’s win, Maggs finally got past first base with the single swing of his bat. We’ve got the first one out of the way, so we’ve got about 35 doubles and 20 more homers that need to start happening know.

YOUR BIG TILDE STAT LINE 2009 – .257/.350/.300 with 7 RBI and a solitary HR.

YOUR BIG INGY STAT LINE 2009 – .323/.432/.694 with 17 RBI and 7 HR.

That last bit was posted just because its really unreal how good of a start BInge is off too.

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Rumors Of Our Own Death Are Wildly Exaggerated

The inevitable fire sale has been going on for quite some time, and the centerpiece of all that has been His Tildeness. He was supposed to be traded, like, eight times to seven different teams in the last year, if you believe everything you hear. And if you’re that gullible, when are you going to pay me back that ten bucks?

Anyways, if the Tigers are flat out of the race, you’re going to be haring a lot of teams wanting to claim ownership to our bloggable inspiration. Take it away, James Schmehl! Schmimazehl! Hassenpfeffer Incorporated!

Ordonez is guaranteed $18 million this year and has vesting options for 2010 and 2011. A strong selling point is that he has limited no-trade protection. But unless the Tigers are willing to work with teams to take on part of his contract, I don’t see much trade value.

First of all, MLive, if you’re on a Mac, it’s option+n and then another “n.” Use the tilde and use it well. Secondly, of course teams want him. Who wouldn’t love to trade for a God among men? Rarely can you find a divine force teams are willing to part with.

When all is said and done and baseball is extinct and replaced with a version featuring robots and large-breasted blonde women, there will still be Magglio Ordoñez on the Detroit Tigers, a team that no longer exists. By then his average will be slightly less than it is today, in his prime. I’m going with .326.

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Motown Tilde’s Back Again

Doin’ a little West Coast swing…

Sorry to disappear on you for a few days, but real life has been kinda busy. Anyway, while I was out, the Tigers up and decided to take 2 out of 3 in Seattle to improve to 7-5 and remain in a tie for first place in the AL Central. Dreamboat Rick got his very first win and a shaving cream pie to the face, Verlander looked awesome for 6/7ths of his appearance, and E-Jax (Made in Germany, So You Know He’s Good) was dominant yet again. Folks, the pitching staff is starting to look like it might just be alright. In fact, when you look at the next three matchups against the Los Angeles California Angels of Anaheim Stadium DisneyWorld Land of the Lost -San Luis Obispo, you have to like the odds.

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He Don’t Need No Stinkin’ BP

Unlike Allen Q. “Chuckles” Iverson, Magglio Ordoñez is above such mortal feats of redundancy. But he humors the populous by partaking in it anyway. Jason Beck, the prophet to His Tildeness, is there with a stylus of pure ivory. (And a skosh of ink.)

“It’s very interesting, from an untrained eye, to look at him and go, ‘That’s the worst BP I’ve ever seen in my life,’ ‘” Brandon Inge said.

HOW DARE ONE QUESTION THE UNQUESTIONABLE QUESTIONS OF …

“But I’m telling you, it’s very calculated. He just gets his bat down on a plane, keeps his hands through, and he hits foul balls over there.”

If Tilde wants to hit foul balls, he will. If Tilde wants to strike out, to make fans feel bad about not paying convenience fees for their tickets, he will.

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Tilde Watch 2009: Meditations On A Non-Emergency

I was at Nationals Park for Opening Day with a couple of fellow Tigers fans on Monday and we spent a good portion of the first three innings paying attention to the Tigers/White Sox box score rather than the ballgame in front of us. It didn’t help that it was the Nationals playing before our eyes, I suppose. (Poor Nats – we know 0-7 all too well) I will never understand the stranglehold that Ozzie Guillen’s crew seems to have over our boys. Every single one of them turn into All-Stars when they play the Tigers. Zach Miner, as is he is wont to do, pitched a million times worse at home than he did on the road. But, hey! At least the boys are still .500! And we all know that .500 will be good enough to hang around in the Central for a very long time this season. (ASSUME this is true at least)

So, today, there I was at my desk all ready for Dreamboat Rick Porcello to guide me through my afternoon. And then came the rain. It was raining here in DC all day too. I curse the rain for taking away the Dreamboats certain no-hitter this afternoon. I curse the rain for taking away the 4-5 day the Big Tilde had in store – including his first homer of the season! Big things were afoot at the Copa K today, friends. Alas, they must await til Wendesday afternoon. The Little Cat will bring joy back to a muddy Tigerville and the D will return to first place. AND NEVER LET IT GO.

Your Tilde Watch 2009 as of Tuesday, April 13th:

.276/.276/.417 0 HR 3 RBI.

It’s a slow start, but you know what’s coming….

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Nobody Can Take First Place Away

Unless, of course, they beat the Tigers in subsequent baseball games.

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Game Four – Major Label Debut

The Good News:
Dreamboat Rick Porcello generally looked pretty good in his major league debut. 5 plus innings. 9 hits. 4 earned runs. 4 strikeouts. Not overwhelming numbers to be sure, but the kid looked really good for four innings. He’s got a future in this town, I tells ya.

The Son of Grander continued his solid start with another homer in a 2/5 performance.

Adam Everett got his first hit – and for extra bases at that!

The Bad News:
Blue Jays Rookie Dreamboat Ricky Romero looked even better. 6 innings. 7 hits. 2 earned runs. 5 strikeouts. If this were the old AL East, I’d say we’d have a burgeoning rivalry here.

Aaron Freaking Hill went yard again.

The Blue Jays supposedly worsening offense (looking at you, Iracane) looked good once again vs. Tigers pitching. But we’ve got a lot to look forward to with the home opener:

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