“Hey, guys. Remember how I’m really good at baseball? Yeah, me too.”

This edition of One Night Only (from a super-extra-special guest host!) contains:

1. Expanded previews for two games: a matchup of aces in Boston, and a West Coast rivalry game featuring two solid young pitchers.

2. Additionally, find enclosed brief previews for three other, only slightly less titillating tilts: Atlanta at Arizona, Chicago (AL) at Cleveland, and Milwaukee at San Diego.

3. Pitcher and Team NERD scores for every one of tonight’s games.

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Coming off of their 2-0 sweep (or non-sweep, depending on how you interpret Sunday’s rainout) of the Kansas City Royals, the Detroit Tigers are closing in on American League Central-leading Cleveland. The Tigers were one of the pre-season favorites to win the Central, so despite a rough start to the season (similar to the ones from which fellow projected contenders in Chicago and Minnesota are still recovering, if they do) this is no big surprise, especially given the overall weakness of the division. While the non-Justin Verlander contingent of Detroit’s starting pitching has been far from flawless, they’ve been pretty good overall (although it would help if Brad Penny could remember how to strike hitters out). The bullpen could probably use a bit of help, but that’s true of most teams, and the difference is usually marginal (and, to be honest, boring to write about). The Tigers might be good enough to take the division as they are now, but there also seems to be a couple of areas among their position players where they might be able to improve things.

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It happens every year. A manager gets an itchy trigger finger early in the season and buries a guy before he even gets a chance to earn the faith the manager put in him to start the season. This year is no different, and with an idea sparked from Eric Seidman’s piece yesterday on Brad Emaus — an article that the Mets completely ignored when they waived him today — I present the 2011 Brad Emaus All-Stars.
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One of the more bizarre plays I’ve seen by a pitcher occurred during Saturday’s tilt between the Oakland Athletics and the Detroit Tigers. With Daric Barton on first base and David DeJesus batting, Justin Verlander appeared to hit DeJesus with a pitch. However, a look at Verlander’s footwork revealed something very odd, and confusion ensued. Due to MLBAM’s arcane rules regarding video, I cannot embed the video here, but you can see it at this link. (And now in .gif form from Chad Moriyama of Memories of Kevin Malone!)

Although you can’t tell from the end of the video or the befuddled announcing crew, the result of that play was actually a balk, resulting in Barton moving over to second base and the at-bat resuming with a 2-1 count. Let’s dive into the video and examine just why the balk was called here, with the help of some screenshots.

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Whenever I watch Major League action, I typically watch the games with the same intent in which I watch games I’m scouting in person.  When evaluating a hitting prospect, I’m interested in finding out how the pitchers are attacking him.  Where are his holes?  How easily are pitchers exploiting those holes?  Is there one spot or type of pitch you can get him out with or does it take a variation of approaches to get him out?

Things like this can be seen in big league games as well, except the holes are smaller, the weaknesses are more difficult to exploit, and the pitchers are better.  Even baseball’s great hitters like Robinson Cano have holes that pitchers and advance scouting departments are constantly searching for ways to exploit.  One of the ways teams might try to get Cano out in 2011 showed up on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. 

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The Tigers may not have had the most efficient offseason, but then again, they sort of pigeon-holed themselves into that strategy.

Present Talent – 74.17 (T-22nd)

Tigers Season Preview

Future Talent – 70.00 (26th)

Tigers Top 10 Prospects

Financial Resources – 83.46 (6th)
Baseball Operations – 76.67 (T-22nd)

Overall Rating – 76.96 (16th)

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