Successful April for Tigers

For Sheff, there wasn't much to smile about at the beginning.

I started exactly a week ago, and have already finished the month of April with the 2007 Detroit Tigers ahead of pace record-wise; we finished the opening month 16-9 (in real-life they were 14-11), no to mention the two games I feel we totally blown as well, meaning we could have been 18-7 at the end of the month... but no crying over spilled milk -- like Tom Hanks says "There is no crying in Baseball!"

The cool news, I still have tonight on my two-day break to get half of May done! Pretty awesome, since I wasn't going to start until October 1st to kick this one-month break from the Crazy 48's. I even played three games of that league as well. So 28 games in a week, and I usually can bust up to 16-20 games overnight, only played 6 last night. So I feel like I'm on a roll... while still being able to do my wonderful husband duties as well.

The Tigers splits look good with 8 wins at home & on the road, and have won 3 of their 4 extra-innings games -- they lost 5 of 7 extra-innings games in real-life for the opening month.

The Opening Day Lineup was like this:
1. Curtis Granderson -CF
2. Placido Polanco -2B
3. Magglio Ordonez - RF
4. Gary Sheffield - DH
5. Carlos Guillen - SS
6. Sean Casey -1B
7. Ivan Rodriguez - C
8. Marcus Thames - LF
9. Brandon Inge - 3B

Sean Casey & Ivan Rodriguez every-other game was flip-flopping their slots, I have stuck with Pudge in the 6th spot (his natural spot that season) since coming back from his 5-game stint on the disabled list. Magglio Ordonez has always been an idea #3 slot batter for me, especially with that 2007 APBA Card of his, he consistently hits for his .363 batting average & also showed that in my Heritage League, being a force, batting 3rd for the Bay Area Athletics. In real-life, Jim Leyland had Gary Sheffield batting 3rd (who batted .260 that season), I never liked hitting a low-average guy in the 3rd slot, so Mags has hit in the 3rd slot all season for me. Craig Monroe has played the majority at LF.

SHIFTING SHEFF
Gary Sheffield, the newly acquired Detroit Tiger in 2007 was struggling for me through 15 games, batting only .156 (10-for-64) with a HR & 6 RBI -- it turns out in real-life (and I do remember this) he struggled as well, batting an even-lower .125!

For two games, I shifted him & Ordonez to their normal slots... and Sheff did better, but I didn't like putting Ordonez out of the desired #3 slot. While looking over the stats after 15 games, I did notice Carlos Guillen was batting in the .320's and was doing well.

Starting Game #17, I moved Sheffield to the fifth slot, and had Carlos Guillen batting cleanup, which is interesting because Leyland has used Guillen plenty of times in the cleanup spot as well. Since Game #15, Gary Sheffield has been on a tear, batting .471 (16-for-34), 3 HR's & 16 RBI in the 10-game span, his average moved up to .265, and now leads the team with 22 RBI.

LINEUP CLICKING
Curtis Granderson hitting .400 for most of the month has cooled off (4-for-17), having his batting average drop to .373, while Magglo Ordonez is 2nd on the team (.360). Ivan Rodriguez (.337), Placido Polanco (.333) & Carlos Guillen (.330) all follow; that's five regular starters over .330! Granderson leads the team with 6 long-balls & an extraordinary 29 runs (on pace for 188 runs), while Polanco has been benefiting by hitting in Granderson for 20 RBI -- that is almost one-third of his real-life RBI total of 67.

A MAN THEY CALL GRUDZ
I mentioned above that we had two games escape us, one of them was a game we led 7-2 after three innings (7-3 after 7 innings), in which Mark Grudzielanek sparked a four-run 8th on the Tigers. That series he killed us, batting .429 (6-for-14) with 2 HR, 3 2B's & 6 RBI! The other game may not look like much on paper, but the tone of the game was ours, we were up 2-0 in the ninth, and only allowed three hits to the White Sox (two of them by Pierzynski) when A.J. Pierzynski with two men on base smacked a three-run HR in the ninth. Bobby Jenks would come in to close the door.

KEEPING IT REAL
Just like in most cases with APBA and with Replays, it's very difficult to try to exactly duplicate things. I try to be respectful in trying to play it out as real as possible, by trying to respect the innings-pitched & at-bats counts -- but you can only do so much. All my relievers are well on their way to going over their innings and appearances, hitters in APBA usually have their offensive power a bit inflated (Albert Belle has 16 HR's in 23 games for my Crazy 48's already), which means lineups go further, more at-bats, games go longer (more extra-inning fun), which means in the long run you are not going to succeed in trying to keep the relievers in the neighborhood of their actual maxed innings. I try to keep it real by mixing it up, and keep them all around each other, and not have one guy go two-to-three innings every time he goes out there. Bobby Seay is my best relief grade at A-XZ, but I stay true and make Todd Jones my closer at a flat Grade C.

I once read a APBA fan's 1968 Tigers replay in which Al Kaline hit something like 40 HR's! Say What?! To me, that's not trying to be true to the Replay; in real-life Kaline only had 10 HR & 53 RBI in 327 at-bats, he was an injury rating J-3 for APBA. Sure I can say, hey I'm making Seay my closer, but to me that wouldn't feel right, because that would be a decision made on hindsight of the actual result -- I would be more behind a guy who was doing a 2006 Tigers Season Replay, in which the guy made Joel Zumaya the closer, because in a lot of ways, he was the closer-in-waiting -- it's unfortunate how the rest of his career has turned out, last I checked the Twins had him in the farm system somewhere.

I try to do the same with the bench, sure there is a part of me that would love to play Ryan Raburn a bit more, or Omar Infante, but to keep it real they will be bench guys for me in 2007.