PREGAME: In what is probably the oldest pitching match-up of the day, or maybe week, Kenny Rogers takes on Curt Schilling.

Rogers looks to rebound from a couple shaky games. After going 7 innings or more in 4 straight April starts, he failed to hit that mark in any of his 5 May starts. Among the Sox, the only starter to have significant experience and success against Rogers is Manny Ramirez with an 18 for 55 with 2 homers.

Curtis Granderson has reached base in each of his last 11 games and has seen is OBP rise from .351 to .371.

Jim Leyland has already announced that Pudge won’t be playing tonight or Sunday. I wonder if we’ll see Marcus Thames hitting in his place at the 3-hole?

And my favorite part of a Red Sox/Tigers series is watching Samela (and the alter-ego) be miserable and excited all at the same time.

POSTGAME As good as the Thursday’s win felt, this one hurts just as much. I’m not going to get into the whole closer debate right now. It deserves more space, and I’m just not emotionally prepared to do so. I think Tim’s comment summed up my feelings the best right now:

Some games leave you with a sick feeling. Jones can’t do this. He can’t get Manny and Varitek out and then let Kevin Youkilis beat him.

It ruined what was otherwise a pretty good effort. It was outstanding pitching by Kenny Rogers. The Tigers hitters battled against another very good pitcher in Schilling, and looked to have scratched out enough for a hard fought victory. Ergh.

PREGAME: The Tigers will try to avoid the sweep tonight as they close out their series with the Yankees. The Tigers have had two chances to be a Johnson this week but their bats weren’t up to the task. Maybe they’ll have better luck beating Wang.

Justin Verlander, the last Tiger pitcher to win, will try and stop the skid for Detroit.

The Tigers double play combination will be reminiscent of 2003 – only reversed – with Ramon Santiago at short and Omar Infante at second. Placido Polanco who has been hitting many routine grounders to short, and Chris Shelton who has been striking out on many pitches at the shoulders will be on the bench. Carlos Guillen will start at first base.

The Yankees to continue to not play at full strength. Derek Jeter will miss tonight’s game while Gary Sheffield will miss the next couple weeks after going on the DL.

POSTGAME: That was arguably the biggest win of the season so far for Detroit. The extra-inning Reds win was huge, but came during a pretty good hot streak for the Tigers. I think the only one this rivals is the Oakland A’s come from behind win which propelled them through the west coast swing.

The Tigers started off hacking, but by the 4th inning began taking much better approaches. Part of that may have been the pitching, but the plate appearances just seemed so much more competitive.

I also want to make sure to fully appreciate Curtis Granderson. As I write this, the game log isn’t available yet, but I believe Granderson saw 32 pitches in his 5 plate appearances and reached base 4 times. I also very much like Marcus Thames batting second. Yes, he is a double play candidate. But Thames has demonstrated a good eye, a willingness to work the count, and he’s hitting the ball hard. I don’t mean to be hating on Polanco and I think things will get better, but he’s looking an awful lot like Pudge 2005 right now.

It was an outstanding cumulative effort by Jamie Walker, Joel Zumaya, and Fernando Rodney. They picked up Justin Verlander who did his best to pitch through some sort of finger injury.

But the bottom line is that the Tigers got a much needed win. The fact that it was dramatic just makes it that much more fun.

PREGAME: The Tigers have one last chance at their first 20 win month since August 1979. They are also scrambling to set up a split of this series, and avoid only their second 4 game skid of the season. And it won’t be easy.

The Tigers will send out Nate Robertson to try and shut down the injured Yankees, and give the bullpen a reprieve. Meanwhile, the Yankees will counter with Mike Mussina who for years has owned the Tigers.

Now there have been several pitchers who owned the Tigers for years, but Detroit has fared better as of late with their new additions. However, even Pudge, Ordonez, and Guillen don’t have overly impressive numbers against Mussina.

This will also be the Tigers first tilt on national TV with ESPN2 picking up the game. I’ll be in attendance, as will the boy, who has brought the team luck in his two games so far this year.

POSTGAME Another frustrating performance by the Tigers. I know you need to “tip your cap” when the opponent outplays you. It’s just thats too much hat tipping in one week. And at some point the hitters have to take responsibility and not tip their hats. Case in point: In the sixth inning with the Yankees leading 2-0, the Tigers put runners on first and second with nobody out. Mussina was out of the inning 3 pitches later after a failed sacrifice and double play. The next inning was completed in 7 pitches. Late in the game with the Tigers in the game, Mussina recorded 6 outs on 10 pitches. Curtis Granderson seemed to be the only hitter who actually worked Mussina each at-bat totaling 17 pitches for the night.

And it wasn’t just the hitting, a lot of the fielding isn’t there either. Whether it’s missing cut off men, a bad route to a fly ball (Granderson mis-played Alex Rodriguez’s triple), or as we’ve seen this week the inability to turn a double play, things are getting sloppy.

It’s one thing to lose to the Yankees, and Mike Mussina. It’s another thing to lose to the Yankees sans Jeter/Damon/Matsui/Sheffield. Now they still have a lineup featuring Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, and Jason Giambi which just serves as a reminder of how freakishly talented the Yankees are. But if you are going to beat them, now is the time to do it.

The one bright spot for the Tigers of course was Nate Robertson. He pitched quite well and deserved a better fate. More importantly, he gave a tired bullpen the night off while keeping his team in the game.

PREGAME: The Tigers go in search of some suddenly elusive runs. As I’m sure you’ve heard they’ve been shut out by a pair of Johnson’s the last two games. Hopefully they’ll fare better against a Small, and perhaps a Wang on Thursday (there’s a joke in there somewhere).

Aaron Small will take the ball for the Yankees while Roman Colon will make his first start for the Tigers. Colon filled in admirably for Mike Maroth last Thursday. He allowed 2 runs in 5 1/3 innings. In his last two outings Colon threw 70 and 76 pitches so it will be interesting to see how long Leyland will let him go.

POSTGAME: I don’t know how to feel after this game.

Frustrated? Frustrated that out of two bases loaded, no out situations, the Tigers managed 1 run via a force out. (In all fairness, while Ordonez and Shelton had horrible at-bats in the first, Carlos Guillen had an 8 pitch at-bat that resulted in a line drive hit right at Jeter. It’s hard to be mad at Guillen for that).

Perplexed? Perplexed at the fact that the Tigers have now failed to turn 4 double plays in the last two games.

Relieved? Relieved that the offense finally did manage to put some runs on the board, even though many of those runs came off a booted double play and Kyle Farnsworth making 3-4 pitches that could have been called strikes but weren’t.

Satisfied? Satisfied that the Tigers did come back from 5 runs down to send the game to extra innings. Also, that it was the first time the Tigers were in a game since Saturday.

Frustrated? Back to frustrated after a 3 game losing streak.