Highs and Lows from the Yankees series, including Clemens bid for 300
High: A Comerica Park record crowd of 44K+ showed up to watch the game. For the weekend the Tigers drew 97,000 fans. Regardless the reasons for the surge, it was fun to see people in Detroit care about baseball again.
Low: Shut out number 10 came on Friday night as the Tigers had 4 hits and 1 walk.
High: Carlos Pena’s pinch hit to bring the Tigers back within one. Also, Eric Munson picking up 3 hits on both Saturday and Sunday pushing his average to .217
Low: The Tigers walked 4 times in 139 plate appearances over the 3 games, including two in 69 PA’s on Sunday.
High: Detroit’s ability to battle back when they seemed doomed. Granted, the Yankees did everything in their power to make it easier on them. Nonetheless, the Tigers still managed to tie up the game, and even when they fell behind by two in the 17th, they got one of them back instead of rolling over.
Low: Jeremy Bonderman continued to struggle. He was having a tough time getting his offspeed pitches over for strikes, and was behind often. He ended up allowing 4 walks. What’s reassuring is that in his last few starts when he’s missing with the slider, he’s missing by inches instead of feet. To me, that means he’s getting closer. Also, not being an established pitcher, he’s not getting the calls on the pitch that is 1-2 inches off the plate.
High: The Tigers bullpen did an excellent job-especially loser Steve Sparks. In twelve and a third innings they allowed 3 runs. Sparks line looked like that of a starter in that he allowed two runs in 7 2/3 innings.
Low: Franklyn German threw 8 balls to the two batter he faced. When German is on, he is scary-good. However, there are too many times when he comes into games and can’t find the plate.
High: What’s better than listening to Ernie Harwell for 9 innings? Listening to Ernie Harwell for 17 innings. It seemed that it took Mario Impemba a couple innings to adjust to Ernie. Specifically, Ernie’s belief that you don’t always have to be talking during a game-that the sounds of a game are enough to the listener. That seemed to throw Impemba at first, but he adjusted as the game went on.

Notes
-Bobby Higginson is in a 2-23 slump.
-Alex Sanchez is 4 for 4 in stolen bases
-Ramon Santiago has 8 sacrifice bunts this season. That’s as many as the Texas Rangers, and more than the Yankees(5) and Blue Jays combined(2). The Tigers as a team have 30 successful sacrifice bunts on the season. This doesn’t even include the numerous failed attempts. The next closest team is Baltimore with 18. I know the argument that the Tigers are struggling to score runs, and need to manufacture as many as possible. However, combined with their caught stealing rate (21 times in 44 attempts) that is a ton of outs to give away.
-Is it me, or is Alex Sanchez playing way deep in centerfield. I couldn’t see his positioning on TV, but it seemed to take him a long time to get to ground balls through the middle. Also, Gene Kingsale coming from left beat him to a ball in short center.