Tigers radio announcer Dan Dickerson has experienced the misery of this season up close. Probably to up close. What makes him a professional is that when the Tigers surrender a late inning homer to blow a lead, or a game, he doesn’t get to swear like the rest of us do. I bring this up because Dan passed along some research he did about the Tigers proclivity for allowing especially demoralizing homers late in the game. Ten time in fact. Since the All Star Break.
Tigers opponents have hit 10 HR in the 8th inning or later that either tied the game, broke a tie, or changed the lead (turned Tigers’ lead into opponent’s lead). Those HRs came in 8 games, and the Tigers are 1-7 in those 8 games. You might want to double-check to see if I missed any, but the 10 HR I found were: July 19th (2), July 25th, July 30th, August 3rd, 5th (2), 25th, September 14th and 19th.
Relievers have been equal opportunity givers: Farnsworth has given up 3 of the 10 HR, Zumaya 2, Seay, Dolsi, Jones, Glover and Fossum have all given up 1.
I was actually surprised it was only 10, but I came up with the same numbers as Dan. In that August 5th game Aquilino Lopez allowed a homer with 2 outs in the 7th that tied the game, so you can almost count that as 11.
What makes it a little more painful (like we need more pain) is that 6 of those 8 games were against the White Sox and Indians.