1) Justin Verlander – I’m sure I don’t have to introduce Justin to everyone. He moved quickly through the Tiger minor league ranks pitching in high-A and double-A ball in 2005 with an impressive 0.90 WHIP. From there, Justin made the Tigers roster as the fifth starter out of Spring Training in 2006.

Signed for a bonus of $3.12M with a total possible payout of $5.6M, Detroit has already gotten an outstanding return.

2) Eric Beattie – A right-handed pitcher out of Tampa, Beattie was signed in the second round and handed a signing bonus of $800,000. Highly touted and carrying an arsenal of a low-90′s fastball and slider he struggled to find control and walked batters at an astounding rate. Beattie

Beattie never made it out of rookie ball for Detroit before being released in March 2007. He was subsequently signed as a minor league free agent by Boston and pitched low-A and A ball. Under Boston’s control, Beattie continued to walk batters allowing a total of 57 in just 29.2 innings pitched. He was released by Boston in October 2007.

3) Jeff Frazier - A right-handed outfielder, Frazier started in the outfield for West Michigan in 2005 before moving onto Lakeland in 2006. He walked very little and didn’t show power in either league and regressed quite a bit in the move to Lakeland. He was traded to Seattle in February 2007 for Yorman Bazardo, who is now with the big league club.

Jeff improved with Seattle playing in high-A and double-A ball and even showed a little bit of power when he was with the High Desert Mavericks. He is now back in the Detroit farm system after being acquired from Seattle for ‘future considerations’. He’s gotten off to a strong start with the Erie Seawolves so far this season.

Spanning back through 2006, Detroit has been horrible when playing in front of the entire nation, that is if you don’t take the playoffs into count. There isn’t a reason for this but tonight would have been a wonderful night for the teams bats to slug out a few runs. Buerhle was also a good pitcher for it as well but Detroit made him look like Cy Young.

There were a few take aways:

• Carlos Guillen continues to be a shining part of the lineup. He continues to work every single at-bat and hasn’t been giving up constant easy outs like say… Magglio.
• Guillen appears to still be uncomfortable at first base. It’s not only with the error in today’s game due to dropping an easy catch, he has played over too far and gone after balls that were really for the second baseman.
• Third-base Coach Gene Lamont, who is normally very conservative, should never have waved Santiago to third base. It was an obvious very bad call and ended in a ridiculously unnecessary out.
• Magglio has swung at the first pitch in nearly all of his at-bats and it feels like he is trying to make something happen.
• Yorman Bazardo was quite a disappointment. In some of the previous games I was hoping they would go with him instead of Miner or Jason Grilli. Oh well.

I don’t leave games early too often but I did tonight. It was cold and there just wasn’t a good game out on the field. Listening to the game on the ride home made me feel good about my decision.

Below are a few pictures from today’s matchup.

1. Magglio Ordonez giving some pre-game interviews to ESPN.

2. They put out a stand for the gold glove and silver slugger awards given to the Tiger players. Al Kaline and Willie Horton were in attendance as well.

3. Many of this vaunted lineup warming up before the game.

4. Verlander on the mound. He looked pretty good, other than the leadoff home run, to start the game. It went downhill very quickly.

5. Brandon Inge on third-base due to an errant throw to first by White Sox third-baseman Joe Crede. Brandon would eventually score.

6. Magglio got a hit, one of a few so far. This ended in one of the 5 double-plays on the night.

7. Can’t think of much bad with Bobby Seay’s performance, he was as advertised.