Here are a couple of random items to round out the week:

The Detroit News‘ Lynn Henning hosted an online chat this afternoon and I was able to sneak in a question:

Me: Lynn, recent injuries notwithstanding, how did Jeff Larish’s star plummet so dramatically? He was viewed as a home-grown power bat until last year. Does [...]

CARLSBAD, Calif. — I think I survived LegoLand and, with any luck, will never need to return.
…A five-game lead? The 2009 Tigers continue to confound. How this team has managed to pad its lead in the Central is nothing short of baffling. But we shall take it.
Fact is, they could pile-up the Ws over [...]

Is this photo on the Tigers Web site this afternoon an old one? I swear that’s Matt Joyce on the right.

I’m down to my last box of Girl Scout Cookies — Thin Mints, don’t you know — but despite this unfortunate circumstance, I present the Wednesday Walewanders.

Rob Neyer yesterday linked to this list of The Worst Contracts in Baseball and, no, the entire Tigers roster does not appear. But there is some significant Detroit representation: [...]

Edwin Jackson #36

Height: 6′ 3″ | Weight: 210
2008 Stats: 14-11, 4.42 ERA

When the Tigers traded Matt Joyce to the Tampa Bay Rays for Jackson, Detroit fans scratched their heads – and not only because Joyce appeared to have a future in the Tigers outfield. Jackson is an unknown quantity outside of the A.L. East and [...]

When I began pulling together this list over the past month or so, it became clear that possibly the only positive story to come out of the Tigers season was the emergence of Matt Joyce. Joyce finished the 2008 season with a .252 average, 12 homers and 33 RBI in 92 games.
At long last, the [...]

Meet your new number-three starter: Edwin Jackson. Or maybe he’s number two. Who knows? All we do know is that the Tigers made the most curious trade since…since…Dickie Noles-for-Dickie Noles?
While the Mets, Mariners and Indians were swingin’ a 12-player trade (with J.J. Putz as the centerpiece) the Tigers were not zeroing in on a closer, [...]

I really want to give Dave Dombrowski the benefit of the doubt on this one. I really do. But I am not seeing it.
Matt Joyce is a lefthanded power bat, something the Tigers have needed for a while, who could take over at either of the corner OF spots once Sheffield was gone and either [...]

Every time I sat down to write about a bit of Tigers news in the past five days, another shoe would drop and I’d think “I’ll write about both of those items.” Then another and another, etc.
So, as I wait out this Tigers/White Sox rain delay from bright, sunny Phoenix, it’s time to weigh in [...]

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Here we are, approaching the third weekend of August, and the Tigers are mired in third place, nine-and-a-half games out of first place. And, as I’m always reminding myself, only five games out of last place. This was supposed to be like 1984, 1968 or even 1945. It [...]