The Dallas Stars avoided being swept by the Detroit Red Wings Wednesday night as they beat the Wings 3-1 thanks to some biased “new era” NHL refereeing (Yes, I’m still trying to get over it). But an unbiased read into the statistics says that the Wings will finish up the Stars on Saturday at the Joe.
I’ll start with something that seems to be on everybody’s list already; Marty Turco. His career numbers against the Red Wings are far less than good, 3-13-5. To make things worse, the majority of his problems have been at Joe Louis Arena, where he is 0-9-2 with a goals against average well over 3.
Then comes Playoff history. The Dallas Stars have gone 0-3 in their franchises’ attempts to come back from a 3-0 playoff deficit, however, after game four, they are 3-1 in their attempts to avoid being swept, which they did Wednesday night.
When leading a playoff series 3-1, the Detroit Red Wings have a 14-2 series record and an 8-8 Game 5 record. The Stars, when trailing a series 3-1, are 0-8 in their comeback attempts and 4-4 Game 5 record.
The Stars and Wings may both be .500 in this situation going into the game Saturday, but if you factor in Turco’s struggles, it’s going to be tough for the Stars to even keep this close.
They just don’t seem to care any more. The moves by Jim Leyland Monday were supposed to give the Tigers some sort of new energy, but the Tigers batters will have none of it. The Tigers, who scored three runs last night, and were shut out 5-0 tonight, are now averaging 2.2 runs in the past 5 games, and 4.7 runs per game over the first 34 games.
Let me take you to the bottom of the 8th inning, two outs, “All-Star” Ivan ‘Pudge’ Rodriguez at the plate. Pudge lines it down the right field line into the corner. Now most players, not making the money Rodriguez is, would be running hard out of the box, putting some pressure on the opposing team and maybe trying to spark a rally. But Ivan Rodriguez, since he knows he’s just an amazing player, trots around the base paths like he just hit a grand slam. This is just one of the many things I’ve seen over the last month+ that tell me this team doesn’t want to win a World Series.
Why? They have no reason to. Most of these players have guaranteed money for many years to come. And good money too. Just as one example, Miguel Cabrera is locked up for 8 years, and if he never hits the ball again in his career, he will be set for life with $153.3 million. That comes out to $120,000 every game in the next 8 years. What incentive does Miguel have to win?
Gary Sheffield, who will make around 13 million this year, and around $80,000 per game, is currently hitting .176 with 2 home runs. The Tigers have him locked up through next year. That sounds promising doesn’t it?
Until now, I’ve been preaching “We’re only a few games back, we’ll be OK.” All I can say now is that Tigers fans have reason to be scared.
Tigers bullpen scapegoat in 2007 and 2008 will not see the Tigers again till June 08′. He was traded today for 22-year-old Class A reliever Zach Simons of the Colorado Rockies.
It’s doubtful that Simons will ever be a Major League pitcher, which begs the question, why trade Major-League Junk for Single-A Junk? I know they needed to make room for Cruceta, but is this really all the Tigers could get for Jason? Do other teams really think he’s as bad as Tigers fans think he is? Grilli was actually pitching moderately well in recent games.
I guess I don’t really know what to think about this one.
We’ve seen it in the last two games especially, the Colorado Avalanche are taking stupid penalties, and the Red Wings aren’t letting them get away with it. But it isn’t just the PIM’s that have handed the Avalanche a 3-0 deficit in Round 2, they may actually be trying too hard. I noticed this especially in last nights 4-3 Wings win, the Av’s are overplaying the body, sending two or even three men to hit a Red Wing player, leaving goal scorers like Johan Franzen, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg wide open in front of the Av’s goal.
Jose Theodore isn’t doing much to help them out either. Last night’s game was the first against the Red Wings when he played the whole 60 minutes, and he still gave up four goals in the loss.
The Wings will go into game four Thursday night confident and aiming for the sweep. The Wings come in with a 4.3 Goals Per Game Average in this series alone.
More than one site (FoxSports.com, kffl.com) has claimed Brandon Inge is very upset with Jim Leyland’s move of Carlos Guillen from first base to third recently (Though I have failed to find a quote from Brandon).
But despite upsetting a 19 million-dollar .200 hitter with no reasons to complain, the move appears to be paying off. The infield has noticeably improved with Cabrera at first base. The pathetic errors have abruptly ended, and the Tigers are now beginning to look like a Major League Baseball Team.
The Tigers are currently @ the Yankees for a three game set, Detroit took the first game behind a quality start from Kenny Rogers.
Saturday was great day for the city of Detroit. The Red Wings squared off with the Avs in Game 2 of the 2nd Round, and dominated from the first whistle to the final horn, winning handily by a score of 5-1. Johan Franzen scored his first career hat trick, and Chris Osgood was spectacular once again, leading the way for the Wings to a 2-0 series lead going into Denver Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, 1.34 miles away, the Tigers and Armando Galarraga took a no-hitter to the 6th inning, only to have it erased by a triple with two outs. Galarraga finished going 6 2/3, with 2 earned runs on just a single hit. After a Los Angeles comeback late, the Tigers got back on top and finished the game 6-4, leaving Tigers fans happy and eager to find the Wings’ score.
It couldn’t all be good though, as all this happened, the Detroit Lions made barely a ripple in the NFL draft with the 17th pick (why did they have to win so much last year?). They selected Gosder Cherilus
. Has anybody heard of him before? All I can say is, at least it wasn’t a wide receiver.
Below is a video I made Wednesday in response to the NHL’s new rule concerning a $10,000 fine for Octapi swinging.
It was recently featured in a Yahoo sports article which is awesome! It already has over 20,000 (Apr. 26) views.
I have been all over advertising this petition in an effort along with avid Wings fan and season ticket holder Ryan Morin to reverse this illogical NHL ruling.