PREGAME: First off, here’s hoping that the Tigers break that trend of winning the series opener and then losing all the rest.
Tonight the Tigers will send out Nate “will somebody chew some gum when I’m pitching so I can get some freakin runs” Robertson. He’ll be opposed by Kris Benson, husband of Anna Benson.
Game Time 7:05pm
And in other news, the Mud Hens will play game 5 of the Governors Cup Championship. That game is at 7pm and can be followed via minorleaguebaseball.com.
POSTGAME: The Tigers won tonight making for their first winning streak of any length since taking the first 2 of a 4 game set against the White Sox. It also makes for their first series win since the Tigers took 2 of 3 in Fenway.
Nate Robertson apparently tired of losing due to a lack of run support through 8 shut out innings backed by some strong defense.
And the Rod Allen moment of the night had to be when Pudge Rodriguez took a foul tip (emphasis on tip). Rod used the injury delay to extoll the virtues of wearing a cup. It was the most amusing and uncomfortable public service announcement ever.
And a short juant down I-75 saw the Mud Hens win their second consecutive International League Championship in a 10-1 rout of Rochester. Similar to their win the night before, the did it on the strength of 4 homers (David Espinosa, Dustin Mohr, Mike Hessman, Josh Phelps). The Hens will now take on the PCL winner Tuscon on Tuesday in the inaugural Bricktown Showdown. The game can be seen on ESPN 2.
WHEW Anna Benson
Oh yeah………baseball. Go Tigers!
Maybe our new trend could be to score 17 runs every night. Couldn’t hurt.
Do it again, Brandon!
Bases loaded, nobody out. Let’s put this one away!
P.S. I don’t appreciate how nobody comments on the weekends. It’s like you guys think you have better things to do on Friday and Saturday nights than correspond with strangers over the internet.
Unacceptable.
Argh.
Nice! Nate pitches his &^$# off !!!
Great win tonight. Five game lead on the Sox. If EITHER we win or they lose tomorrow, I’ll feel good heading into the Sox series. Thank you, Nate Robertson.
we finally got Nate enough runs to win – even though 2 isn’t that many. An excellent pitching performance by both Nate and Jones, who cleaned up nicely. But some of the baserunning was stupid, and that bunt back to the mound ridiculous. Instead of scoring 2, we probably should’ve had 5 or 6. But “Nater the Dominator” came thru, and the Sox lost. Now, if the Twins can do the same…… 🙂
Nice win. Even though they only scored two runs, I feel like it was a competent offensive performance. With the big strikezone Benson was working with, it was going to be tough to score many runs. Not a lot of hitters can do much when they get down 0-2 on two breaking balls 3 inches off the plate.
Two in a row! All this talk about no clear MVP on the Tiger team…. How about Nate? His was brilliant tonight.
If Robertson had any kinda run support he could easily have 18 wins… and everybody would be talking about him like they do Santana… I say, Let’s show some gratitute and make him MVP
Hello,
First off, Pete I went to my mothers 76th birthday party, I hope you can let me slide.
Second god win >> However twice tonight we blew chances. I do not understand having Omar bunt. They guy is a decent hitter, should have be allowed to swing away. Then the bases were loaded and we are swinging on the first oitch two batters ina row, Inge and then Infante. Guess thats an item for next years spring training.
Ledezma is going Sunday on at least a weeks rest, lets hope we can out this one away and go to CHi Town for 3. We have Baltimore, Toronto and K/C after that. Twinkies have Boston Baltimore K/C ans the Who Sox. Shoud be interesting.
Have a great night.
Steve
Hey Kyle, talk about big stirke zone… how about that strikeout on Monroe? If that ball was any lower, it would have had a scuff mark on it. Horrible call.
If only the Indian’s bullpen could hold them where they are in a game.
Doesn’t look like a three game lead for us tonight.
Steve,
I think the bunt call was the right one, even though, if I recall right, it didn’t work out…it was obviously a “pitcher’s game” today. And, save for our 17 run explosion yesterday, the Tiger’s aren’t exactly getting runners in scoring position alot. Nate was lights out, we just needed some insurance run(s), and the bunt was the best chance (percentage-wise) to execute…
Very nice…
Sorry, Pete. I was at the game. Just a heads-up… I’ll be there tomorrow too. Try not to miss me.
I’m glad to see Nate finally figured out what it takes to win a game. 🙂
let me correct what i said yesterday. matt stairs clearly one of the tigers’ top THREE offensive threats.
TSmith,I’m as big a fan of Robertson as anyone I know-I think he’s found himself as a major league pitcher and will be a very good 2 or 3 starter for a long time.If Tiger hitters had been doing their jobs he’d have 3 or 4 more wins.But Johan Santana is 27 years old with 140 wins.We’re watching a Hall of Fame caliber pitcher in his prime.Instead of comparing Robertson to Santana,you should be comparing Santana to Pedro Martinez or Roger Clemons.
Yeah,I’m redfaced-that’s 140 starts and 77 wins-but I still maintain Santana is as dominant at this point in his career as many of the great pitchers in baseball history.
other fun fact: matt stairs oba with runners in scoring position
2006: .391
2004-2005 .392
That’s in a statistically significant 400 ab’s.
he’s not ruth, but he’s a valuable offensive cog unlike thames etc..
thames has some valuable but look at his numbers. when you have a lot of hr’s and not many rbi’s coupled with a bad oba and an anemic average with r.i.s.p. it means one thing: you can hit a fastball by a pitcher challenging hitters in low pressure situations. granted, i can’t do that, but it’s a level of one dimensionality that rob deer proved has no home on a playoff team.
Steve, I can forgive the first pitch swinging tonight. Benson was consistently throwing first pitch strikes (or at least having them called strikes). If the Tigers didn’t swing when they saw something they thought was decent, they were going to fall behind in the count and the results probably wouldn’t have been any better.
Billfer–or anyone else–what inning did that Rod comment about wearing a cup go down?
I missed the game, and I just hate missing out on Rod Allen highlights.
Nate throws a gem, Neifi’s not playin, Placido’s about to come back, and we just came from an off day. Times are lookin good, we gotta win tomorrow, and then if we could take two out of three against the white sox, that would be immense for the tigers confidence.
lol that’s great. Does anyone have a copy of it?
Great job Mud Hens! It was put away in short order and the rest of a game was a big party for the home team. It was great to see the players so happy and hopefully this continued winning will give some of these players confidence if/when they make it to the big leagues. Hannahan really impressed me these past two games.