The Pressbox

Former Tiger pitching coach Rick Adair is doing quite a job in Seattle.

Adair, who served as Detroit’s pitching coach from late 1996 to 1999 under Buddy Bell and Larry Parrish, was hired by the Mariners before this season and has developed one of the best pitching staffs in baseball.

Seattle leads the American League in team ERA at 3.65. The Mariner starters, led by Felix Hernandez, have been outstanding and Adair has transformed a bunch of journeyman relievers (Sean White, Mark Lowe, David Aardsma) into a major strength.

Much like Rick Knapp has done with the Tigers, Adair has helped transform his team from also-ran to contender.

The Detroit Tigers seemed to find their offense with three home runs (free Arby’s!) during a 9-7 win over Seattle Tuesday, but the bats slipped back into hibernation Wednesday.

That could have been because Felix Hernandez – one of the best pitchers in baseball – was on the mound for the Mariners, but still it is frustrating to see another great pitching performance wasted. Armando Galarraga was masterful in shutting out Seattle on one hit over seven-plus innings.

But as happened to Justin Verlander and Edwin Jackson last weekend in New York, he could only watch helplessly has his team suffered a 2-1 setback.

The Tigers don’t have a lot of chips to use as trade bait, but they need to do something before the July 31 deadline to show their players and fans that they are serious about making a run at the division title.

Here’s another example of why baseball is such a quirky and wonderful game.

Ramon Santiago hit two home runs Thursday against the Tampa Bay Rays. That gave him nine career homers and four of them have come in two games.

He had a two-homer game in 2002.

And Santiago likes to pile up the homers against good pitchers. Both of his shots Thursday came off Tampa Bay ace Scott Kazmir. He victimized Pedro Martinez and Tim Wakefield in 2002.

Did you notice who picked up the save for Tampa Bay against the Detroit Tigers Friday night?

It was Troy Percival.

You might remember that Percival briefly played for the Tigers. The Tigers signed him as a free agent before the 2005 season and paid him $6 million.

What did they get for their investment? A total of 25 innings and 8 saves before he got hurt. The Tigers paid Percival another $6 million in 2006 even though he never threw a pitch.

You can’t fault a guy for getting hurt.

But what I do fault Percival for is a lack of loyalty. When he felt healthy enough to pitch again in 2007, he chose to return with the St. Louis Cardinals instead of the Tigers. He moved on to Tampa Bay this year and has 24 saves.

All of you Todd Jones bashers will enjoy the final irony of the story. It was largely because of Percival’s injury that the Tigers signed Jones to take over as closer before the 2006 season.

It is Percival who led to all of those roller coaster rides that Jones has given us over the past three seasons.

I should have posted some comments on the Tigers’ trade of Pudge Rodriguez here, but I was busy writing my column about it for Thursday’s Evening News and I never got around to it. So, in case anyone missed it, here is the link to my column:

http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080731/KRUGERSPTSCOL/519096041/-1/COLUMNISTS

The abuse has been piled on Todd Jones for giving up a two-run homer in the ninth inning that pinned a crushing loss on the Detroit Tigers Friday night.

Yes, Jones screwed up. He nearly had a 1-2-3 ninth, but a seeing-eye single by Carlos Quinten somehow found its way into right field. Then Dye blasted his homer.

But I thought the game was lost earlier than that.

The White Sox looked dead until the seventh inning when Joel Zumaya struggled and Pudge Rodriguez threw a ball into left field allowing the tying run to score.

Jones deserves his share of the blame, but he simply made the last mistake.

This interesting item came across the Associated Press wire a little while ago:

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Cleveland Indians signed free agent pitcher Jeff Weaver to a minor league contract on Saturday, giving the veteran a shot at making his sixth big-league team.

Weaver will report to Triple-A Buffalo of the International League.

The 31-year-old Weaver is 93-114 with an ERA of 4.72 in 284 appearances over nine seasons from 1999-2007. He’s pitched for Detroit, the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis and Seattle. He had a career-best 14 wins for the Dodgers in 2005 and won three games for the World Series champion Cardinals in the 2006 postseason.

Weaver was 7-13 with a 6.20 ERA in 27 starts for the Mariners last year and pitched this season for Triple-A Nashville from May 1 to June 11 when he was released by the Milwaukee Brewers.

With the problems the Detroit Tigers have been having with their starting rotation this season, I wonder if they had any interest in Weaver.

It might have been worth giving him a look at Toledo, but perhaps he burned too many bridges in his first stint in Detroit.

Marcus Thames of the Detroit Tigers got ejected from a game the other day.

That’s not all that newsworthy. It happens all the time in the big leagues.

But how Thames handled his ejection was noteworthy. Thames made a point of apologizing later to the umpire who ejected him and then made a public apology through the media. “Too many kids were watching,” Thames said. “I don’t like that kind of stuff.”

Kudos, Marcus, for being man enough to admit your mistake. Your apology taught a lot to those kids who were watching.

Clete Thomas became a hero for the Detroit Tigers today without swinging the bat.

Thomas drove in two of the Tigers’ three runs by drawing bases-loaded walks. It was great discipline by a young player, especially after he fell behind in the count 1-2 in the bottom of the 10th inning.

It was a questionable move by St. Louis manager Tony LaRussa to intentionally walk Miguel Cabrera to load the bases in the 10th. Sure, Cabrera has earned far more respect as a hitter than Thomas probably ever will, but he put a ton of pressure on his pitcher by doing that.

But the Tigers are not complaining. Now they are just two games under .500 and have won five straight series.