MVN: Most Valuable Network

Welcome back, Bondo! Er. Or not.

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein Well, I guess we know one creature who will be pleased with Bondo's return outing. I don't know what I expected. Fewer homeruns probably would have been a nice place to start. I'm not trying to put undue pressure on Bondo or anything, but, you know... three homers in four innings. Kind of a lot. I'm just saying. Bondo was coming off of eight days' rest, which probably wasn't such a hot idea. His velocity was down, which was at least expected; his fastball tonight was sitting in the high 80s/very low 90s, when it normally hovers in the low-to-mid 90s. Before the game even started he had talked about throwing more changeups, partly because everyone and their pot-bellied pig knew that his velocity still wasn't up to par. Great idea, I thought. He's always needed to diversify his pitch armament in the worst...

Tigers welcome back their reptilian friend

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein Unbelievable. The second I return my attention to the Tigers, look who decides to mosey on over. By now we all know that the Spazzosaurus is with us always, usually just out of sight, waiting for his moment, but come on. This is a bit much. Nate Robertson taking a relay throw off the thumb I could see, even though the team JUST told Zach Miner that he would no longer be competing for a starting spot. That brand of absurdity is typical for the Tigers these days. Adam Everett spraining his ankle I could see, even though he is still so new that I have not yet figured out a good way to render him in big-headed doodle form. But... both at once? SPAZZOSAURUS, YOU WILY BEAST, I SEE YOUR CLAWMARKS ALL OVER THIS ONE. Sigh. Our pitching situation is still so up...

The Tigers season is over. Let's cover it again... comic book style.

Why? More like WHY NOT! Click the pages to see them bigger/more readable. To be continued!...

the Spazzosaurus makes friends with Gary Sheffield, Gary Sheffield makes fights happen for the Spazzosaurus

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein He's baaaaaack! This game featured a(nother) excellent start from Armando (had some time to rest up, I guess), TWO two-run homers for Miguel Cabrera The Most Majestic of Pumas, and a triple (!) from Ramon Santiago (!!). There was also a brawl. The Tigers lost the game on a walk-off after having been up 5-2 at one point, so we're mostly going to talk about the hilarious fighting. A fight summary, as near as I could make out from the Cleveland broadcast: Sheffield got hit by a pitch. He stared on his way down to first. He stared and stared and stared. He also carried his bat aaaaallll the way from homeplate to first, where he eventually handed it off to the batboy. Apparently it's more threatening to carry your bat with you. Carmona kind of eyed him as he went, but he was...

a Tigerlicious present for you

Since we had the offday Thursday, and Friday's game doesn't start until 10 pm, here's a little something to tide you over: desktop images! All of these wee images will take you to a 1024x768-sized version when you click them. I know this isn't everyone's computer desktop size-- in fact it's not even MY desktop size-- but it's a standard one, and I am lazy. These images are for you, the reader. Feel free to download them, use them for your computer desktops, print them out and hang them on your walls, share them with your friends and/or enemies, whatever. I only ask that you not post them around elsewhere on the internet without attribution. Yay? Yay. That's all for now. There will probably be more at some undetermined future point in time. Remember, Bo(v/n)ine/Maddux at 10 tonight, for all your hilarious pitching mismatch needs! Go Tigers!...

From the Hastily and Sketchily Drawn Sketchbook: 6 possible reasons the Detroit Tigers are struggling

Oh my holy cats I don't want to talk about it. I have already talked about it. I talked about it in the previous post. I have nothing more to say. I have also found that the more the Tigs struggle and the more disgusted I get, the more I want to just write this entire blog in sarcastic LOLcat language. We're heading there, folks. It may only be a matter of time. I CAN HAS ACTUAL BASE BALL TEEM? So: sketchbook! 6 possible reasons the Detroit Tigers are struggling, rendered hastily and sketchily, for your viewing (dis)pleasure! Possible Reason #1: Baseball am too heavy 4 Kenny. Possible Reason #2: The second-hand smoke generated by Jim Leyland's stress-smoking is choking the rest of the team to death. Possible Reason #3: Somehow, unbeknownst to the rest of us, Ugie has come back. And this time he means BUSINESS. Possible Reason #4:...

Jordan Tata breaks his hand the stupid way

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein Oh man, you know who I did NOT want to see in Spring Training? Huh? Can you guess? I'll give you a hint: he's orange, he makes his nests out of energy drink cans and discarded slinkies, and I don't even have the patience for hinting right now so HE'S THE SPAZZOSAURUS. But no, we have to meet up with the Spazzosaurus before it's even FREAKING APRIL because Jordan Tata is a gigantic pile of IDIOCY and pathetically raging male hormones and went and BROKE HIS HAND PUNCHING A DOOR. WAY TO BE THE NEW KYLE FARNSWORTH, TATA. The Spazzosaurus is having a frelling FEAST on this one, because Tata's injury is 100% spazz-out. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't an in-game injury. It wasn't even like he got in a fight with someone else. He got pissed off because he's been having a...

Verlander meets a dreaded but familiar enemy

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein So we can't afford to drop anything against the Indians with the race as tight as it is and yadda yadda holy cats I think I'm typing this same line over and over again every game. I should just have some buttons down at the bottom of the screen when I log in to MVN. One for "we can't afford to lose games right now", one for "the division race is too close for comfort", and one for "asdflkjadsflkjlk Indians". OK. Let's look at this one seriously. Verlander just did not have his usual stuff. That wild pitch wasn't exactly a sign of good location, nor were the 10 hits in 4 innings. It's asking a lot of the bullpen to come in and shut down the Indians, a good hitting team despite their recent relative struggles, for 5 innings. The bullpen is a...

Bonderman latest victim of the Spazzosaurus

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein We are going to have the best-fed Spazzosaurus in all of baseball at this rate. Other teams may allow their Spazzosauri to feed every so often, but we are handing pitchers over to the Spazzosaurus one after the other. No wonder they've all been spazzing out lately, and no wonder the scores have accordingly reflected that. The first inning, with Bondo, is always the Danger Zone. We all know this. If you remember this thread, you'll remember that someone had done some fancy chartwork for us all, and had noted that Bondo threw mostly fastballs in the first inning, not mixing in his offspeed stuff until later. In this game, I kept track of what he threw for the first few batters, and it was almost exclusively fastballs. In fact, I think the first NONfastball I saw him throw was a changeup to Garrett...

the Spazzosaurus feasts upon Zach Miner

photo illustration by Samara Pearlstein I know that this will sound kind of crazy, but the worst part of this game, for me, was not when Zach Miner threw away the ball that lost us the series. That was pretty bad. Some might even call it "horrific". But the worst part of the game for me was immediately after that, as Scott Podsednik blasted around the bases, and the Wrong Sox announcers realized what was happening. I think it was the Hawk who said this, 'though it could very well have been the other one. As Tigers fans stared in horror, this announcer said, in tones of deep satisfaction, "It's amazing sometimes what a simple bunt will do." The both of them then went on in this vein for a while, but I didn't get any more quotes about how awesome bunts are and how perfectly the Wrong Sox...