PREGAME: The Tigers look to bounce back from a shellacking in the Metrodome by taking on the best team in the American League.

The Red Sox sport the best record, and the best run differential. Like the Tigers they are winners of 8 of their last 10 and 14 of their last 20.

The Red Sox will send out some rookie from Japan named Daisuke Matsuzaka. I hear he throws 14 different pitches for strikes at various speeds and arm angles. Basically, his pitches are like snow flakes, no two are alike. In all seriousness, he’s better than his 4.80 ERA and is striking out a batter an inning. He has struggled at home with two-thirds of his runs and only a quarter of his strikeouts coming at Fenway.

He’ll be opposed by Nate Robertson who has been quite good, except for his last outing where he was rocked by Seattle.

This series is always a treat. I really enjoy watching games at Fenway (on TV of course) and wish the Tigers traveled their more often.

Game time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: The Tigers have dropped two in a row since losing the first 2 games to Minnesota. Nate Robertson battled, but had a hard time putting hitters away. There wasn’t a lot of hard hit balls, but enough balls in play fell for hits to run up his pitch count and plate 3 runs.

Of course the Tigers couldn’t muster much offense either, save for Curtis Granderson. For the first time in a while they weren’t driving the ball. I don’t know if it was Dice-K, or the looming monster, but there seemed to be quite a few grounders to the left side. The right handers seemed to be looking to pull the outside pitch and there appeared to be a lot of “roll-overs.”

Bobby Seay was the latest member of the pen to blow-up. Turns out it didn’t matter much, except that with a high pitch count tonight, he probably isn’t available tomorrow. Tim Byrdak however did excellent in 2 innings of work.

Boston 7 Detroit 1

Virgil Vasquez – cr. Roger DeWitt

PREGAME: It’s the Tigers first appearance on Sunday Night Baseball this year, and the first appearance ever at the big league level for Virgil Vasquez. Vasquez is of course filling in for the blistering Jeremy Bonderman. The numbers speak for themselves, particularly the 5:1 K:BB ratio and Detroit Tiger Tales has a run down of his stuff.

The Tigers will hope to rough up Boof Bonser and make it a little easier on their rookie. Bonser shut down the Tigers the one time they met last season. This year Bonser is striking out a batter an inning, but can be prone to wildness with games of 7 and 4 walks. Of course those 2 games represent over half his walk total for the season, so it isn’t a consistent problem.

Finally Happy Mothers Day to all the Mom’s in the DTW readership (like you Anne). I hope you had a nice day with your families and that your husbands/sons did their part today.

Game Time 8:09 with pregame sprinkled throughout Baseball Tonight from 7-8pm

POSTGAME: Aquilino Lopez’s 3 innings on Saturday look pretty significant now, as Jason Grilli, Wil Ledezma, and Jose Mesa all were burnt through last night. None were able to come in and hold down the Twins. Instead, they took each took a beating.

The Tigers offense was okay tonight, save for a rare Carlos Guillen 3 K performance. They racked up some hits, some walks, and some warning track shots, but that just wasn’t going to be close to enough.

Vasquez at least has that first start out of the way, even if it didn’t go well.

PREGAME: The Tigers finally get some of that national exposure with an appearance on Fox Saturday Baseball. Of course Fox probably wasn’t looking for a Chad Durbin/Sidney Ponson match-up either so only 8% of the nation will get this game. And thanks to Fox’s exclusivity for Saturday afternoons, MLB.tv won’t be an option for you if you don’t live in Michigan, Minnesota, Northern Ohio, or Montana.

Once upon a time, Ponson was a good pitcher. That was 2003. This year he is 1 for 6 in quality starts.

With Chad Durbin you don’t really know what you’ll get. He was great in 2 of his last 3 starts, but walked 6 and didn’t make it out of the 4th inning in the other. (Half of Durbin’s walks for the season came in that one disaster, so at least it isn’t a habitual problem).

Game Time 3:45

PREGAME: Ahh, the Metrodome. Yeah.

Anyways, tonight we have ourselves a rematch of a couple of lefties. The first time Mike Maroth and Johan Santana hooked up the Tigers got the upper hand with some homers by Magglio Ordonez and Marcus Thames. Brandon Inge got the last big fly with a walk off homer off of Jesse Crain.

The Twins will be without Joe Mauer who is on the DL. And Luis Castillo has some sore legs and took the day off yesterday.

Game Time 8:10pm

POSTGAME: There’s just something about taking a game from Johan Santana. Not in the “I hate him” sort of way, but more in the “how are we going to win this game?” sort of way.

Much like the last time they hooked up, the Tigers made Santana throw a lot of pitches the first time through the lineup. Then the second time they started jumping on the first pitch fastballs. The damage was limited, thanks in part to a couple sweet plays by Jason Kubel, but it was enough as Mike Maroth managed to allow only 1 run in his best outing of the year.

It seemed like the Tigers were the beneficiary of the metrodome more than the Twins for a change. Both triples (Guillen and Granderson) were turf induced, and Guillen’s RBI single probably doesn’t make it through on grass either.

And not to be cynical or anything, but as it gets into the late innings does anyone else think of the term “insurance runs” and think they are really “Rodney runs.” Things continue to be a struggle for him.

PREGAME: I guess it’s just time to start another 8 game winning streak. The pitching match-up certainly looks favorable with Jeff Weaver taking on Justin Verlander.

Weaver has made 5 starts and only lasted 17 1/3 innings. But they’ve been productive innings (for the other team) with 29 runs allowed. Of course, the Tigers seem to struggle against Weaver. His ERA against the Tigers is 2.53 in 3 starts, and that doesn’t even include the post season last year.

On the other side is Justin Verlander, who for only the 4th time this year won’t be facing the Royals.

Game Time 1:05