PREGAME: I apologize about the continued site slowness/unreachableness. There will be scheduled downtime at 1 am to hopefully correct all the unscheduled downtime. In the meantime here is another brief game thread.

Justin Verlander and Kevin Millwood duel tonight. These 2 met the first week of the season, and things turned out in the Tigers favor. Of course Chris Shelton was still killing the ball at that point. Leyland likes to take advantage of individual match-ups, even in small sample sizes. However Shelton’s 5 for 6 against Millwood isn’t good enough to knock Casey out of the lineup.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: The nice thing about a 2 game series is that the next game is another series opener. Like we’ve seen so often (and as was pointed out during the in game comments) the Tigers can’t put 2 wins together. No matter how dominating or heroic a win the previous night is, the Tigers either frustrate or just plain diappointment the next night.

And one of these nights the Tigers will play a home game sans rain.

PREGAME: Sorry about the site today. My host is having problems, and it took me 45 minutes just to post this. Vincente Padilla against Kenny Rogers on a soggy night.

Joel Zumaya has a sprained wrist and will miss the next couple and Polanco could be back for Chicago according to reports on 1270.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: Great win. The bats still are struggling, but they got just enough. Kenny Rogers continued to deal followed by a strong outing from Fernando Rodney. Craig Monroe made throw after throw that were right online. Pudge did a great job blocking the plate preventing Kinsler from scoring (horrible slide by Kinsler, anything creative or to the side and he’s safe easy). And of course there were those late inning heroics. It was the kind of win we expected early in the season, and the kind of win we’ve been craving for the last month.

Now this certainly seems like a momentum building win, but we’ve seen several of those over the last couple weeks. Unfortunately they were followed by mini-losing streaks each time. But I’m not going to worry about that until tomorrow night. For now I’m just relishing the fact that today is one day when nobody gains on the Tigers. And who knows, maybe this is the start of something. Afterall, a winning streak has to start with 1 doesn’t it?

PREGAME: This is kind of a big game. And it’s Jeremy Bonderman against Johan Santana. And it’s not on TV if you live in Detroit.

Game Time 2:10

POSTGAME: After seeing so many frustrating games where either the offense was good and the pitching was bad or the more common situation where the pitching was good but the offense was bad, the Tigers put it all together and combined the bad pitching with the bad offense for a 12-1 thumping.

I was excited early in this game because MLB.TV neglected to blackout my feed. But then I kind of wish they would have.

Bonderman still continues to confuse me, but not opposing hitters. His fastball velocity is still there. His slider is still sharp. He manages to locate both pitches for the most part. He keeps getting strike outs, but it takes him a long time to do it. And the guys he doesn’t strike out seem to put the ball in play with some measure of authority. I’m not sure if it’s the lack of a change-up, or if his pattern has become predictable. But the stuff still seems to be there, but the results aren’t.

As for the offense, the approach was actually decent for the first 4 innings. Even when the Tigers would fall behind, they’d work the count back even or to a full count. Santana was averaging 20 pitches an inning before a 10-pitch-strike-out-the-side-5th inning. But despite the best intentions, the Tigers found themselves in one of those multi-multi-inning funks where they couldn’t get a baserunner near scoring position.

Thank goodness for an off day.

PREGAME: I really have no clever set up to this game, so let’s get to it.

Nate Robertson will take the mound for the Tigers and try to fare better against Mauer and Morneau than every Tiger left hander last night did.

The Tigers will be opposed by Boof Bonser who you may know as “the third guy” that the Twins got in the Pierzyinski for Nathan/Liriano deal.

Game Time 7:10

POSTGAME: It’s the same old story. The Tigers open up a series on fire, and then muddle through some frustrating losses. Invariably one of those frustrating losses will belong to Nate Robertson who was excellent. Of course you probably know that the runs came as the result of an Omar Infante error. What I still don’t understand is how Michael Cuddyer was able to run 270 feet in the time it took Ordonez to get the ball and throw home.

The Tigers had opportunities early, which was a pleasant change, but weren’t able to cash in. And then the offense was completely shut down for the 2nd half of the game.

And as for the umpiring, that blown call at 2nd base where Infante flipped to Guillen, Guillen caught the ball, took a step and touched 2nd base, and then went to transfer the ball to his throwing hand, was as bad a call as you will see.

PREGAME: Tonight the NFL kicks off it’s season, and for the first time in recent memory I could care less. The Tigers enter this series knowing that they could A)Effectively knock the Twins out of the divisional race B)Find themselves in a tie for 1st place or C)tread water for 4 more games. Looking at the pitching matchups, A would seem like a possibility, but given the way the Tigers have hit against everyone lately I’d be satisfied with C.

Scott Baker will be taking the hill sporting an ERA 3 runs higher than his Detroit counterpart Justin Verlander. But in his last start (and his only start since August 1st) Baker limited the Yankees to 1 runs on 2 hits over 5 innings.

Verlander is coming off a start in which he threw 126 pitches in just 7 innings. I’ll be watching Verlander’s velocity as well as seeing how quick Jim Leyland is with the hook.

Game Time 8:10

POSTGAME: There wasn’t much not to like about this game with the exception of Verlander throwing 15-20 more pitches than were necessary. But along the way he really staked a claim for the Rookie of the Year award with an excellent performance in a high profile game.

The Tigers had a balanced attack from the offense, and rendered two pitchers unavailable for the next couple nights.

As Pete pointed out in the comments, we’ve been here before with an impressive series opener only to struggle in the subsequent games. Even winning 1 in the next 3 and the Tigers have improved their chances of taking the division. But let’s not think like that yet.