Rick Porcello got tagged early and has shown some signs of his age and immaturity. He’ll be fine, but the Tigers needed a grand slam from Clete Thomas in the 8th inning to pull out a win.

Porcello’s shakiness has not been bad enough to knock him from the 3-spot, but with Bonderman coming back tomorrow, it’s a possibility. This is a good problem to have. Willis will never be right, and will probably have to be moved to the bullpen, with Gallarraga being the 5th starter. If we can go with Verlander, Jackson, Bonderman, Porcello and Gallarraga as our rotation, we should be fine.

Edwin Jackson just keeps getting better and better. He’s easily proved to be the most valuable off season pick-up for Detroit, and according to Baltimore’s Aubrey Huff after the game – Jackson and Verlander are the toughest 1-2 punch he’s ever seen in baseball.

Jackson pitched 8 innings of scoreless ball, with seven strikeouts allowing only 2 hits and one walk.

Detroit scattered 3 runs with a Granderson homer and RBI doubles by Larish and Clete Thomas.

I have to admit that seeing Zumaya try to get this save made me a little nervous. You never want to see runners on first and second, up one run, and Joe Mauer up to bat. Needless to say, it proved to be another nail biter. But he pulled it off recording 5 outs for his first save in over a year. I guess Todd Jones taught him something other than pitching – how to keep it interesting.

Polanco and Guillen came up big with RBI’s in the 7th and Granderson came through in the clutch leading the way in the two run 8th inning that pushed the Tigers ahead of the Twins. Grandy’s RBI double drove in Matt Joyce, who had just scored Sheffield with a nasty triple. Like clockwork, the Tigers came through with more late-inning heroics. What needs to be realized is just how good Minnesota’s bullpen has been. They hadn’t given up a single run in the last 24 1/3 innings going back almost 2 weeks. To come back in that manner was really impressive, but to do so against the Twins was downright special.

The only team in baseball that has been playing as good as Detroit lately, is the Twins – so every one of these wins should be appreciated. The Twins beat the piss out of the NL just like Detroit did, going 13-2. This win put the Tigers 2 ½ back of Minnesota and still 5 back of Chicago.

One note of possible concern: Armando Galarraga hasn’t looked all that good in his last 2 starts. This guy really stepped up when Detroit needed someone to step up, so he should certainly get the benefit of the doubt. Something to watch for…

Dane Sardinha redeemed himself big time after a rally killing double play, by hitting the game winning triple. Huh? Damn right – Dane Sardinha. It was his first major league hit and the triple scored Thames and Renteria to win the game. Way to go, kid.

Kenny Rogers looked so-so at first but got better, and Dolsi and Todd Jones came in and pitched lights-out, combining to retire the last 17 Rockies in a row. The Rockies did it to themselves though. Bases loaded in the 3rd with no outs, and they failed to score. Can’t win games like that.

Magglio Ordonez was placed on the DL with a pulled oblique from last night’s game. The Tigers called Matt Joyce back up to replace him. First Inge, now Maggs…I hope this team’s health can hold up through the second half.

More on my love for the National League in my next post – “Thank You National League! Please Come Again…”

What an amazing game. It’s rare to see a true pitchers duel, but it’s a wonderful thing when it happens. And to see Cabrera win it with a walk-off homer really felt good. So, should we start to believe again? Three straight pitching gems against the White Sox, leading to a sweep of the 1st place team has to count for something…

Not so fast. The Tigers are still 8 games under .500, and 8 games out of first. Granted, there are a lot of games left, and the Central doesn’t appear to be very strong this year. But what do we know about this team right now? Well, Bonderman is likely out for the season with a blood clot. It’s unfortunate, because he seemed to have turned things around. The only bright side to this – now Jim Leyland can’t steal anymore innings from the best pitcher on the staff – Armando Galarraga. However, Dontrelle Willis (21 walks in 11 inning pitched) is a bust, and has been sent down to A-Ball to see if he can regain his control (He can’t – he’s never had good control). So now we’re down 2 starters, and no – Rick Porcello is not ready for the Big Show. Technically, we’re only down 1 starter since Galarraga wasn’t factored into the rotation at the start of the season. But missing a starter is still a big deal. Who is going to pitch the 5th game of the rotation?

Second – Curtis Granderson has become very pitchable. Any pitcher worth his salt can strike Grandy out now, so there goes your spark plug.

Renteria has cooled off considerably, and is far from a defensive powerhouse. Cabrera has been hitting better, but nowhere near where we thought he would. Pudge is washed-up as a hitter and Vance Wilson’s career is over. Guilen’s defense is horrible. Inge’s offense is horrible. Gary Sheffield is on the DL – right where he belongs.

Now for the positive. Magglio Ordonez is hitting well, and Polanco has really heated up. The starting pitching had gotten better, but now we have to see what happens with Willis. Fernando Rodney should be back Monday, and Joel Zumaya in a week or two. But they aren’t going to help this team hit. And they may not be worth a damn pitching anymore, either.

The Tigers just won 3 in a row and that’s great, but how can we really expect the winning to continue? When you look at it unemotionally it becomes apparent that they are an overpaid, slow, terrible defensive team, and doesn’t score very many runs except in rare flashes.

Dombrowski is going to have to make some moves soon…

Justin Verlander finally got the monkey off his back. He looked almost unhittable through stretches of the game, giving up only 4 hits and no walks in a 101 pitch complete game. It was a truly masterful performance. To be fair – Justin looked great last time he pitched against the White Sox, but didn’t get the win. That all changed today, as he finally won a game in Chicago.

He was hammering the White Sox hitters with fastballs all night long. He mixed in a few change-ups here and there, but essentially dominated the Chicago line-up. It was his first complete game since the no hitter against the Brewers last year.

Thames, Guillen and Ordonez all came up big, but it was an at bat by Miguel Cabrera that impressed me the most. After falling behind 0-2, Miggy worked the count and got a lead off walk that took 14 pitches. Good things tend to happen when you make a pitcher waste 14 pitches on a walk.

Well, the win assures Detroit of actually winning the series, but a sweep would be so important right now. After losing Bonderman to the DL for who-knows how long, they need all the wins they can get. It will be interesting to see who takes Bonderman’s spot in the rotation.

It’s always good when you beat the first place team. The fact that Chicago was in the midst of a 7-game winning streak makes it even sweeter.

Nate Robertson actually looked pretty good, giving up three runs in 6 1/3 innings of work. He got a lot of big outs when the Tigers needed him to. Todd Jones finished up with the save.

Miguel Cabrera seems to be swinging the bat a little better, which could help this team go on a run. Two more games against the White Sox will certainly be a test though. If the Tigers win one of the next two games, they’ll have only gained a game on Chicago. Now if they could sweep…well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Clevlen came up big with an RBI, and showed off his cannon by throwing out a runner at the plate from left field.

In other news, the Tigers sent Dontrelle Willis all the way down to Single-A ball in Lakeland in hopes of him regaining some control. A day after giving up 8 earned runs and 5 walks in a little more than an inning against Cleveland, the Tigers finally decided they had enough. Thus far he has walked 21 batters in 11 1/3 innings. My 10-year old son has better control at this point.

For the 2nd time in a month The Tigers have put up 19 runs in a game. Of course, there weren’t a whole lot of victories between those two games…but when the bats are on, it’s exciting.

Magglio was pulled early out of respect for the MLB record books (and more likely, a need to have him fresh for tomorrow’s game) after going 3 for 3 with 2 home runs and 6 RBI. Since Leyland went bat-shit crazy, Detroit has gone 4-1 putting up 53 runs in 5 games. Here’s to your bat-shit craziness, Jim!

But the most impressive thing for me was the sell-out crowd. This was on a day where The Detroit Red Wings were playing in game 1 of The Stanley Cup Finals, and The Detroit Pistons were playing in game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals – all in Detroit! The fact that The Tigers could sell out a night game with all of these things going on in Detroit is a true testament to this city being the sports capital of the world! Of course – it’s also the murder capital, the city with the lowest graduation rate in a non-third world country, has the highest level of unemployment this side of Mogadishu, and the highest rate of foreclosures in the world…but how ’bout our sports teams! It’s….really something to be #1 in so many areas.

But back to the game. Boof Bonser got tagged for 9 runs, getting pulled in the 4th with bases loaded. His relief didn’t do much better. It was an offensive onslaught. all 19 runs came in the first 5 innings, and The Tigers looked like they lost interest after that – probably went to the clubhouse to watch the Wings beat Pittsburgh in game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals. It didn’t matter.

So let’s see where the batting averages are now

As a team, The Tigers are 7th in the MLB with a team batting average of .270 and 6th in the MLB in runs scored at 245. Individually, here’s how they stack up:

*Ramon Santiago .353 (*only 34 AB)
Magglio Ordonez .330
Placido Polanco .294 (amazing, after that horrendous start)
Carlos Guillen .288
Edgar Renteria .284
Miguel Cabrera .282
Ivan Rodriguez .275
Ryan Raburn .257
Matt Joyce .256
Marcus Thames .254
Curtis Granderson .245 (WTF!)
Brandon Inge .229
Gary Sheffield .208 (improving, but has a looong way to go)

But before we get excited, let’s look at the pitching. Team ERA is 2nd to last in the MLB at 4.90 and have served up the 2nd fewest strikeouts in all of baseball. The Pirates hold the distinction of being #1 in both of those categories. So although the hitting seems to be turning around, the pitching hasn’t. There is still a long way to go.

Try as he might, Todd Jones was not able to blow this save. Of course, it was a non-save opportunity, so maybe he just didn’t try hard enough. Going into the 9th inning up 6-2 was barely enough as the Tigers squeaked out a 6-5 win. He gave up four hits and one walk and has given up at least one run in 3 of his last 4 appearances. Not exactly awe-inspiring.

Earlier in the game, Kenny Rogers looked serviceable, and even managed to pick off his major league record 92nd runner, when he caught Wilson Betemit in the 2nd inning. He gave up only 2 earned runs, giving Detroit a chance to win.

The player of the game though, was Pudge. In an unorthodox move, Leyland batted Pudge at lead-off, and it paid off with Pudge going 3-4 with a walk, driving in 2 and scoring twice.

In other news, Sheffield got his 1,583 RBI, tying Detroit Tiger great Al Kaline for 35th place in major league history. The way he’s been hitting lately, it doesn’t look like he’ll climb too much further up that list.

How sweet it is! To think that Denny McClain was pitching the last time the Tigers went into the Bronx and swept The Yankees, helps to understand how historical this win was. The fact that it was their last trip to the soon-to-be-demolished Yankee Stadium, makes it that much sweeter.

At The Fort Street Brewery, we had the Pistons on as well, watching them eliminate the 76ers from the playoffs, and later – The Red Wings were on their way to sweeping The Colorado Avalanche out as well. But it was The Tigers that took center stage. That says something about the love of baseball in this town. We’re 5 months from baseball playoffs, and The Tigers took prominence over the playoff advances of both The Pistons and The Red Wings.

Congratulations Detroit.