PREGAME: The Tigers return home and put to rest their worst month of the season. The offense will look to get going, but they’ll have to do it against a pitcher that destroyed them to the tune of 10 strike outs and no runs over 6 innings. Said pitcher is Ervin Santana.
The Tigers made a slight shuffle in the rotation with the off day Monday, and will be sending Kenny Roger out (it normally would be Justin Verlander’s turn). It just happened to be Rogers on the mound the last time the Tigers faced Santana and he held the Angels offense to 2 runs over 7 innings.
Game Time 7:05pm
I like our chances. Santana is a fly-ball pitcher and somewhat inconsistent…good game/bad game. My only worry is that his lack of control will mean strikeouts instead of walks.
Just about everyone in the lineup is a guess hitter. Way too many times I’ve seen guys take the strikes and swing at the balls. Jeeze, you think even guessing you would get it right more than they do.
2 run double for Infante! Please God, no more
Nothin’ Perez!
well i hope that the nefi perez experiment is over. Omar should fill in until Polonco returns. its just nice that we will have to pay Perez’s hefty contract through next year as well… as Leyland would say, “Google Goggle”. Nice to see the worthless Young hitting second. Thames has homered in the last three games he has played in.
where the hell is neifi??? is they keep playing infante its gonna make it a lot tougher on the sox and twins.
Isn’t the knock on Omar that he loses concentration at times? I wonder if they brought in Neifi just to put some pressure on him. Santiago certainly wasn’t going to push him, so maybe this was all just Leyland’s way of saying “you still have to earn it, kid.”
Hey guys… It looks like I have a number of extra tickets for tuesday night’s game, which happens to be “Blogger Night”. I’m not sitting near Billfer & Co., but I’m sure we could work something out. Let me know if you’re interested.
i wish that ump would call a strike before pudge threw the ball back to Rogers
Nice game so far…liking the hittage we’ve lacked the last few days.
Awesome start to September!
And what a game by Infante.
Let’s hope he gets a lot more pt this month.
Everyone hitting, Kenny pitching great, and Neifi nowhere in sight.
This is the game we needed.
You know when Dmitri goes the other way, things are going well.
a couple more like this and with the twins and sox losing…things could start to look a lot better. hopefully august was the exception…guess we’ll know soon enough.
So much for Kenny’s slide.
They said Neifi’s wrist is sore. There is a God.
I’m seriously considering Michael’s comment about Leyland playing the Nefi card just to pump up Infante..seriously, what else explains it? While I was screaming at the TV and pulling out my hair everytime I saw Nefi in the on deck circle in cruial at bats, I honestly for the life of me couldn’t figure out what the hell Leyland was doing. At least Michael poses some kind of explanation, as absurd as it it…to employ an A.C. Doylism “…when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth…” fits perfectly with Michael’s hypothesis. It’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense at all.
Question to mull over: with Leyland ejected in the Yankee finale, who made the call to pinch hit Casey for Perez in the ninth? Maybe the Ump was doing the Tigers a favor by tossing Jimmy. At least with Casey at the plate we had a chance to tie the game…I can’t honestly believe that Leyland wouldn’t have made the same call, probably with Casey, but hey…I’m through calling the obvious when it comes to Leylan’s decisions and his affair with Perez…
All August I was completely ridden with anxiety…I never really felt good going into any game. Somehow I feel we may be over the lull. September may just be our next roll. That said, the Yankees are beginning to display their usual Sept./October dominance. A-Rod now well out of his slump (2 hrs tonight against the Twins). Everybody’s talking about us going .500 here out to squeak out the division…but I’m thinking the way the Yankees and A’s are playing .500 ain’t gonna cut it. We need to have a Fall showing like we did this Spring to truly condend in the post season…
It’s the final run. Let’s raise our expectations a little, play the .600 plus ball that got us here, and grab this brass ring!
Go Tigers!
Woops…sorry Jeff Mo…I credited Michael in my post above for your posit about Leyland playing Nefi as part of a grand scheme…
TSmith – Jeff Mo : Makes me think that Leyland is getting advice from Marinelli and Millen on how to motivate people. However – I too think that is one thoery that seems to make sense.
Great win – I like the line up – it isn’t overpowering but the dead spots are limited…(Nefi out. Coincidence?) Here to hoping that Leyland won’t “jinx” them and go with a different line up.
BTW – Kudos to Leyland for the shuffle in the the pitching rotation.
I was in my car on the way to Detroit last night as I listened to the game. Beautiful, and it made for a nice drive from Chicago.
Kenny Rogers has been brilliant, and he has definitely defied my expectations.
I’ll be at the games on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I need one of them to be easy and stress-free like yesterday’s!
Where ya sittin tonight Dan? I might be willing to let you buy me a beer. 🙂