PREGAME: The Tigers go in search of win 90. To do it they’ll send out Wil Ledezma who hasn’t pitched since he ate his hat (literally) last Saturday against Minnesota.

Ledezma will be opposed by Daniel Cabrera. Cabrera fans more that a batter an inning, but he combines that with a ridiculously high walk rate of 6.67 per 9 innings pitched. As you might expect he throws a ton of pitches. In his last 3 starts he eclipsed the 100 pitch mark without getting out of the 6th inning.

Game Time 1:05pm

POSTGAME: Given that the Tigers had won the previous 2 games, this loss was easier to take. The 2 much maligned acquisitions, Neifi Perez and Sean Casey, combined for 5 RBI’s. Newest Tiger Matt Stairs also had a homer taken away on a fine defensive play.

I’ve been in the camp to get Shelton more at-bats, but Casey did have a very good series.

What I liked is that the Tigers came back a couple times and showed that their bats do have some life. Granted, the first rally was heavily fueled by Daniel Cabrera’s inability to find the plate, but the Tigers took advantage. And it all started with a 2 out walk to Magglio Ordonez.

Unfortunately, the Tiger pitchers couldn’t do much to keep the O’s off the board. Ledezma was dazzling in the first inning becoming homer happy. Zach Miner was ineffective. Jamie Walker was good for 1/3 of an inning. Joel Zumaya looked pretty good until it appeared he fatigued in his 2nd inning. (Speaking of which, I’m not sure why Leyland left him in as long as he did. He’s coming off soreness, hasn’t pitched in a week, and you leave him out for 33 pitches?).

Jason Grilli didn’t pitch as poorly as his final line will indicate. Where he was hurt the most was on the wild pitch that allowed Brian Roberts to advance to 2nd with no outs, and then 3rd on a sacrifice. An intentional walk to set-up the double play brought up Miguel Tejada. He hit a smash that Inge made a diving stop on. The ball appeared to be hit hard enough to give the Tigers a shot at an inning ending double play. But Inge’s throw to 2nd was high and tipped off of Perez’s glove. Now the throw wasn’t right on the money, but Perez seemed to make the play look difficult. (Neifi rant: It very may have been, but that’s part of the problem with Perez. He doesn’t make any great plays. He’s merely adequate defensively. Given his offensive problems, he has to do more with the glove). And then there were more walks and hits and runs and the game ended.

I know that Perez had the bases clearing grounder up the middle earlier in the game, and he successfully sacrifice bunted as well, but Leyland simply cannot allow Perez to hit in the 8th. The go ahead run was in scoring position with Chris Shelton on the bench. He’ll pinch hit for Thames despite what else Thames has done in the game, but he won’t pinch hit for Perez?

As for Grilli pitching the 10th, it pretty much had to be that way. This was Jones 3rd day in a row pitching, and Zumaya won’t be available tomorrow night. Leyland had to limit Jones to 1 inning.

Fortunately Chicago lost, so while the Tigers division lead was trimmed they are one day closer to a playoff spot.

PREGAME: Jeremy Bonderman takes on Hayden Penn who has been shelled in 2 very brief appearances this season.

I’m basing this on nothing but my gut, but I think Bonderman bounces back big time tonight.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: Thank goodness for series openers. The Tigers won in a laugher tonight. Bonderman wasn’t dominant with 9 baserunners over 6 innings, but he certainly was more effective. Of course with 17 runs Bonderman could have been awful and the Tigers would have still won.

The Tigers came out patient tonight with the first 10 hitters taking the first pitch they saw. While it took until the 4th inning for the Tigers to really break through, they had good approaches and good at-bats throughout the night. In the end they hit 4 homers, 3 of which went to the opposite field and that doesn’t count the one that Pudge had taken away. The one homer that was pulled was of course Brandon Inge’s which was complete with post-swing-cup-adjustment.

Now for Inge to hit that homer (and for Matt Stairs to get the bases loaded walk) it required the Tigers loading the bases. Going into tonight the Tigers only had 13 plate appearances with the bases loaded since August 8th.

The only downside to tonight is that Carlos Guillen seemed to be hobbling. Hopefully with an early night due to blow-out-ed-ness he’ll be back in tomorrow.

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.