Sunday, September 7, 2014

September 7 Happy Birthday to Former Tigers or Detroit Wolverines

Jarrod Patterson made his major league debut as a Tiger in 2001.  He was a 27 year old rookie third baseman.  He made it into 13 games and had 43 plate appearances.  He got 11 hits with a double a triple and two homers.  That gave him a .268 average.  His slugging was a .488 clip.  The problem was he was a worse fielder than starter Jose Macias who also hit .268 and he was a worse hitter than back up Shane Halter who fielded the same as Jarrod but hit .020 higher.  So Jarrod stayed a tiger until the end of the 2002 season (which he spent in Toledo) when he was granted free agency.  He then signed with the Royals.  He got in another 13 games with the Royals where he hit .182.  He never made it back to the bigs after that. 


Tom Matchick was a Tiger for three years but one was the great Tiger year of 1968.  He got in 80 games that year as a shortstop mainly, but also as a second baseman and even a game at first.  He hit .203 that year but that was better than starting shortstop Ray Oyler’s .135.  But Tom’s defense was not as good at Ray’s.  Tom did get into the World Series in 1968 and in three games he made three plate appearances without a hit.  By the end of the 1969 season it was clear that the Tigers could use Tom Tresh or Mickey Stanley or Dick Tracewski or even Cesar Gutierrez at short and Tom was not needed.  So at the end of the 1969 season the Tiges sent Tom to the Red Sox for Dalton Jones.  Tom played only two more years in the majors with the Royals, Brewers and Orioles.  

No comments:

Post a Comment