PREGAME: The Tigers come into the rubber game of the series looking to avoid something that hasn’t happened since the first week of July. The Tigers haven’t dropped a series since a 3 game set in Oakland on July 3rd, 4th, and 5th.
Standing between the Tigers and another series win is Johan Santana. The Tigers have had some success (relatively speaking) against Santana. The last time they met in Comerica Park Vance Wilson’s homer proved the difference in a 2-0 victory. Wilson finds himself in the lineup again tonight spelling Pudge Rodriguez who’s back is acting up.
Johan Sanatana isn’t the only pitcher who figures to have a say in the outcome as Jeremy Bonderman will take the ball for Detroit. Bonderman outpitched Santana in their last meeting but took the hard luck loss as everything imploded around Jeremy in the 8th inning.
Sean Casey will be the only lefty in the lineup as Curtis Granderson gets the night off in favor of Brent Clevlen who made his Major League debut against Santana with a double and a walk.
Game Time 7:05pm
POSTGAME It was all set up so nicely. The pitching match up was everything we had hoped for. Brandon Inge was the late inning hero putting Jeremy Bonderman in line for the win. The Tigers had 2 of their most reliable bullpen arms up to pitch the 8th. But Jamie Walker issued just his 2nd non-intentional walk of the year and Jusitn Morneau hit a no doubter to hand the Tigers their first home series loss since the beginning of June.
Losing sucks, but I’ll just try and take solace in the fact that over the last 6 meetings the Twins and Tigers have played some very entertaining baseball.
Inge has zero career hits against Santana?
Why is he in the lineup?
He’s got multi-K game written all over him.
Watch him hit a game winning ding-dong now.
Now we’re talking~! Clevlen rocks!
Guillen’s fielding has been atrocious this year. They scored ridiculous little thing Castillo a hit, which is fair, but he’s got to make some sort of play on that ball.
The Twins get a lot of cheap hits. They’ve lived and died on cheap hits for the last 5 years.
HAHA!!!
FREAKING HILARIOUS!!!
WAY TO GO BRANDON!
Damn it! That just sucked…
I know. Joel looked sharp as can be too. One bad pitch.
Painful, just painful…
Wonderful article on Elden Auker (a name I didn’t previously know)–the last living member of the 1935 championship Tigers team.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=thompson_wright&id=2543513&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab3pos2
So far in August:
Tigers 6-3
Twins 6-3
Sox 4-4 (assuming a loss tonight)
Looks like the Twins have the easier schedule this month.
Guillen has certainly regressed, but that was a legitimate hit. He never would have thrown out Castillo if he tried to glove it, so his only chance was to risk barehanding a bouncing ball. Even then, he would have needed a perfect offbalance throw to get him.
Jeff, I agree. It was scored fairly. But Guillen needs to field that ball and get it over to first.
Which one of you wrote this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Allen
It’s only fitting that Morneau reached HR number 30
against the Tigs for the win. They have been cold
whoooping our butts since the AL Championship of 1987, the last year a Twin reached the 30 homer plateau.
From Wikipedia:
lol, that’s just classic.
Love the Rod Allen Wikipedia quote. 🙂
Tough series with the Twins as was expected. Time to take a break and rest up today before shifting our focus to the weekend series with the Sox.
Looks like the White Sox took their lumps against the Evil Empire. Hopefully they don’t take it out on us. I would prefer to see the Tigers take it to ’em this weekend. 2 of 3 would be great.
Too many games left to officially shut the door on the other contenders in the Central so we shouldn’t take any losses too hard. I like Leyland’s quote from earlier in the week – “a 9 game lead only means something when you have 8 games left in the season.”
I go away for two days and look what happens. I’ve cancelled all travel plans for the rest of the season. From whan I can tell the Tigers didn’t play that bad, they got decent pitching but the Twins just played better.
The one thing that does concern me, is the Strike Outs. I don’t mind a swinging third strike, but we seem to watch the 3rd strike go by way too often.
Tonight will be a good night to rest for everyone. I believe in these guys. Look out Chi-Sox here we come
We appreciate your sacrifice. It will not go unnoticed.
You’re right. We played well; we were just bound to lose a series eventually.
Ok that Rod Allen debate on wiki is hillarious!
The Rod Allen Drinking game? I just went back and read that–absolutely losing it.
Who wrote these entries? Pure brilliance!