PREGAME: That’s it. I’m convinced that the Sox are in the Tigers collective heads. There is no way the Tigers can compete. This whole winning thing was nice while it lasted because even if the Tigers make the playoffs it is impossible for them to get by the Sox.
The preceding paragraph was all sarcasm. I felt the need to clarify because I’ve heard those sentiments all day today and there is a large contingent that is convinced of this. Of course I would feel better if the Tigers reciprocated last night’s pounding, but I’m not concerned – at least not 5:00 today.
Jeremy Bonderman will take the mound tonight. For the last 6 weeks Bonderman has been awesome with out run support – except for last week’s start against the Royals where he wasn’t awesome and got lots of run support. He’ll face a much more formidable task tonight and the key will be Bonderman’s ability to keep the ball in the park. He’s been quite proficient at the task with only 8 long balls allowed – but 2 of those came in his last start.
POSTGAME: Jeremy Bonderman was everything that Tiger fans could have hoped for last night. There were only 2 hard hit balls all night. Unfortunately both found the seats, but because Bondo was so dominant they were both solo shots. Most importantly after the Craig Monroe slam, Bonderman came in and retired the White Sox in order the following inning. Fernando Rodney, Jamie Walker, and Todd Jones kept things from being interesting in the late innings.
As for the offense, in the early going it seemed they were poised to jump all over Vazquez. In the first inning Pudge Rodriguez hit the double which was followed by an Ordonez line drive to right field that again found Jermaine Dye. The Tigers managed to get baserunners in subsequent innings, and unlike the night before against Garland, they worked themselves into hitters counts. Yet they had nothing to show for it until the 6th inning when a couple singles were followed by a seeing eye grounder (redemption for Maggs from the first inning liner) and a bloop shot to no-man’s land. The Tigers were finally on the board and after the force out at home on the Marcus Thames grounder Craig Monroe battled from a 2 strike count to hit the granny.
And a good time was had by all.
Meanwhile Javier Vazquez who was rumored to be dealt to the Tigers for Curtis Granderson and Joel Zumaya this offseason (PHEW) will be starting for the White Sox.
Joe Crede is EVIL!!
The Sox pitchers are willing to risk walks to avoid home runs. They can take comfort in the fact that more than half of the Tiger hitters think that taking a walk is morally wrong. That makes it far easier to work the corners and avoid putting anything in the wheelhouse, because instead of walking 6 guys under those circumstances, they’ll walk 1-2.
Grand slam!
Anyone else notice Pierzynski bump Monroe and looked like he had some words for him too? Couldn’t tell exactly what went down.
Monroe might have just made up for all the negative things I’ve thought about him earlier in the season.
Biggest Tigers’ plate appearance since Brandon’s 80-pitch walk.
Wow Craig. That’s the best argument yet that a trade is unnecessary.
Bondo pitched a great game tonight. Was it just me, or when Crede hit his HR, it looked like a high liner to left? Surprised me it carried out. Uribe, now I knew his was gone. The Sox were shut down, except for those 2 pitches. And FINALLY somebody came thru in the clutch; was getting really tired of men being left on base. Lead’s back to 4.5; no matter what happens, it can’t be worse than 3.5 when they leave town. I like 5.5 alot better, though. And this is for all the Sox fans out there:
YOU CAN PUT IT ON THE BOARD…….YESSSSS!!!!! 🙂
Anyone else notice Pierzynski bump Monroe and looked like he had some words for him too? Couldn’t tell exactly what went down.I saw this as well, but it doesn’t surprise me. Pierzynski probably said something to Michael Barrett before Mike clocked him in the face in that Cubs-Sox brawl. Good restraint from the Tigers, and a great inning to say the least (and followed up by a huge inning by Bonderman). Oh, and I voted for Michael Barrett to start at NL catcher in the All Star game because he was the one who punched AJ in the first place. 😉
I had it Tivoed and reviewed. Monroe bumped AJ. They did exchange words, but it was Monroe who accidentially backed into AJ.
-Sam
Wow. I’ve never seen one swing effect such a radical change in momentum. Well done, Craig Monroe!
Bonderman pitched like a man tonight. He set the tone by striking out the side in the first inning. He opened some eyes with his performance. Forcing three straight infield groundouts from Konerko is no easy task.
On a lesser note, Shelton and Inge, batting eighth and ninth, went 0-for-8 and looked bad doing it.
*PS – Monroe – purely by accident – backed into A.J. after he touched home plate. At that time, A.J. and Craig exchanged words. When Craig came to bat in the eighth inning, the umpire gestured for Monroe to step aside and talked briefly with him.
I keep hearing all of these trade rumors and almost everytime i hear Craig Monroe being included (which makes sense when you are talking about trading for LF) but to me i would hate to see him go because he has had many clutch hits (the game against the Astros when clemens pitched, the KC game where they came back from that 6-0 deficit, and obviously tonight).
But another thing about him is he is one of the very few people on this tiger team that has any attitude (others in my opinion include Bonderman, Robertson, Zumaya, and sometimes Pudge). And that kind of attitude is something that really goes unnoticed. Just think about spring training when Leyland was talking about creating a swagger when Detroit came to town. Monroe brings that kind of swagger.
All and all tonight was a great win on national television to show that the Tigers can compete with these kinds of teams. However the negativity about the tigers not being able to beat the sox is going to return immediately if Rogers once again has a crappy start and they lose. that would bring their record to a whopping 2-7 against the team they have been leading for some time now.
Does anyone remember the Tigers telecasts back in the 80’s. I used to watch with my grandpa on Channel 3 (WWMT out of Kalamazoo). If the Tigers won, there was an animated Tiger that would appear after the credits and would be holding a bat in his teeth. As he swung the bat in his mouth he would let out a huge ROAR!
If the Tigers lost, the Tiger would look all beaten up and have bandages. He would let out a meager ‘meow’ as he meekly swung the bat.
The first game against the White Snots this week definitely deserved the meek ‘meow’ treatment. However, last night’s game was definitely a powerful ROAR!
Great game. Bonderman is clearly becoming the ace for the Tigers. Monroe tells everyone to sit down and quit mentioning his name in the trade rumor mill by walloping that grand slam.
That tiger with the bat. Well its on Wikipidia. I used to love that thing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Tigers
Excellent call on the bat-swinging/meek Tiger logos — that brings back a lot of good memories! If the growling, swinging guy comes back today that’ll put us at 3-3 against the Sox in the last two series, which I will take (especially given Jones’ blown save on the Cintron HR). Admittedly, ignoring that first Sox sweep has an element of “other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” to it, but I think it’s fair to say the Tigers are a different team now than they were at that point in the season and splitting 2 home & home series against a high-quality opponent is solid.
I was at the game last night. My throat actually felt like it was bleeding from yelling and cheering so much. There were quite a few Sox fans around us, and I have to give them credit for being very polite, even when their team was up 2-0. My husband, nice guy that he is, chatted with a lot of them and they had lots of nice things to say about the Tigs. Of course, being outnumbered about 100-1 may have had something to do with that, but still. They were cool.
Hey Andrew and Dave, thanks for the blast from the past. I loved that growling/meowing Tiger too! Remember how the meek one would give a little growl too, like “Just wait ’til next time!” They had a similar thing in the 70’s, when I used to watch with my dad. Seeing that roaring tiger on TV after an Al Kaline homer was what first got me interested in baseball.
Dave,
Thanks for the link! That is too cool that the animation is there. I actually did a search for it yesterday, but came up empty. Brings back some good memories.