On a day when mother nature was serving up gusts in excess of 50mph, Tigers pitchers had Indians hitters adding some wind of their own. Of the 27 outs recorded by Detroit, 15 were via the strike out.
Justin Verlander had one of those in-between type days. He was perfect for the first 10 outs. Then he got a little erratic. Then he couldn’t put away hitters quickly. It ended up being a quality start and he ended up with 9 strike outs in 6 innings. A good outing to be sure, but it didn’t seem to be quite as good as it should have been.
He handed the ball off to Joel Zumaya who bordered between hitable and unhitable. He had 5 K’s in 2 innings, but also allowed 3 straight hits in the 8th leading to a run. Again, not complaining here.
The big potato picked up the 1-2-3 save and added the last strike out.
Offensively the Tigers managed to claw out a number of two out runs. Scott Sizemore and Miguel Cabrera had bases loaded knocks to drive in 5 of the Tigers 6 runs.
- Mike “corn flakes” Reilly (a named bestowed by Ernie Harwell due to Reilly’s Battle Creeek hometown) had a HUGE zone at the beginning of the game. The outside corner was spacious to say the least, but he pulled that in about the 4th innings. Pitches that were strikes earlier ceased to be so, and that’s when Verlander started walking some folks.
- The Tigers added 11 strikeouts of their own. Two by Johnny Damon who didn’t put a ball in play in 5 plate appearances, he walked 3 times.
Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians – May 8, 2010 – MLB.com Wrap
Mike’s my man. Did you see him “blowing” his nose between pitches?
I didn’t realize Mike Reilly was still an active ump. That name has been around for so long, I just thought he’d have retired by now.
Several months ago I linked an article about him from my local newspaper. He’s getting close to retirement, but still loves the work.