PREGAME: The Tigers look to stave off the sweep and they’ll have their hands full with Johan Santana.

He’ll be opposed by Mike Maroth. Maroth has struggled with consistency this year, and couldn’t make it the 5 innings to qualify for the win last week in LA.

Maroth told Mario Impemba that he’s been struggling with his release point this year. Fortunately we can take a look at this. Maroth has 2 starts in enhanced GameDay parks.

He seems to have a almost a foot of variability laterally, and it seemed to be more pronounced in the Angels game.

Game Time 1:05pm

POSTGAME: Today was pretty much the antithesis of yesterday’s effort. Win or lose, the Tigers played a much more complete game today. While Johan wasn’t Freakin’ Johan today, the Tigers played a part in that. They forced 114 pitches in only 6 innings, drawing 3 walks. And it’s not that Santana was wild (80 strikes vs. 34 balls), but the Tigers managed to hang around in at-bats long enough for something to happen. While they didn’t break through for many runs, they had Santana pitching from the stretch the whole game.

Individually, Magglio Ordonez is as locked in as it gets. And Brandon Inge at least got a one day reprieve from his slump reaching base every time and of course knocking the walk-off homer. Hopefully it’s the beginning of something rather than a blip. It’s always nice to see a struggling player be the hero.

Mike Maroth pitched his best game of the year, and with only 1 walk, seemed to regain some of his control.

The bullpen did their job, although Joel Zumaya did allow 2 walks and a deep fly. At least no runs crossed the plate, and Zumaya retired some tough hitters. I still think there is something more than a confidence problem, but I’ll take the positive results.

And as a final note, Placido Polanco was 6 for 6 in making contact on swings today pushing the streak to 105. (ed waffle note: My numbers are 3 pitches off of the numbers at Baseball Reference for the pitches Polanco has seen. One of those pitches was a strike. So this isn’t “official” but I’m working to clarify.)

PREGAME: The Tigers take on the Twins in an afternoon tilt today. The pitching match-up is Justin Verlander taking on Carlos Silva.

Last year the Tigers rocked Silva, as did many teams. The torched him for 9 runs on 3 homers in 3 2/3 innings. Of course Silva has been much better this year not allowing more than 3 runs in any of his 4 starts.

Verlander made 3 starts against the Twins last year, and allowed 2 run in 20 innings.

And continuing the streak, Placido Polanco swung 7 times and made contact each time last night. By my count that is 95 straight swings with contact.

Game Time 1:05

POSTGAME: I was out and about for most of this one, so I heard parts of the misery on the radio. I went back and watched parts of the game later at night, and it was still pretty brutal. Yuck.

PREGAME: The Tigers return home from their 2 city, 3 game road trip to take on the Twins. The Tigers found some offense on the road while the Twins went into a funk. Over the last 5 games Minnesota has only managed 12 runs.

It is a battle of sub 3.00 ERAs tonight on the mound with Nate Robertson taking on Ramon Ortiz.

Ortiz has allowed only 8 extra base hits this season. He’s also only given up 2 walks in 29 innings. Combined with a low K-rate of 3.72/9IP means that there are lots of balls in play, and some pretty quick at-bats.

And here is your interesting stat for the night:
Placido Polanco has only swung and missed 3 times this season That’s right, 3 times. Out of the 139 times he’s taken a hack, he’s missed the ball only 3 times. His last whiff was April 11th against the Orioles meaning he is riding a “contact streak” of 88 swings.

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: It’s a frustrating feeling when no lead feels safe. The starters do their job, only to have the pen undo it. Jim Leyland is sending out his best guys, but no matter who he turns to, the job isn’t getting done.

I put less of the emphasis on the game winning hit. Zumaya followed up the strikeout of Hunter by getting 2 quick ones on Joe Mauer. He then forced a jam shot to center, which is just unfortunate. The bigger problem was the doubles off the wall. Those were the products of 98mph fastball left up. We saw in Chicago that Zumaya couldn’t get the ball down and didn’t have the same velocity. It could be mechanics, it could be injury, but something ain’t right.

Bobby Seay did turn in a nice performance.

By and large the offense did okay. They didn’t strike out, they worked some walks, made the Twins throw some pitches. But Brandon Inge continued to struggle, and as several have mentioned, enough with the check swing K’s. Inge did make an outstanding play on a pop-up early in the game.

PREGAME: I’ll be home from traveling later tonight, so these game posts should have more robust information soon. In the meantime you guys have been awesome with the comments in the game threads.

Tonight it is Chad Durbin and John Danks.

Game Time 8:11pm

POSTGAME:
So I actually got to see all of this game. I got back from Chicago (and yes the weather was freakin’ miserable) just in time for the first inning. With nearly 200 comments I think everyone has covered everything, but just a few comments:

• Chad Durbin was quite awesome tonight. Some will point to a lineup and say he benefited from not facing Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye, to which I say “Duh.” Next I say “so what?”
• Durbin has now made 4 starts, and I’d contend he’s done his job in 2 of them. Of course last night we got way more than we hoped for. But in his prior start against the White Sox he only allowed 2 runs in 5 innings. That is more than serviceable from a 5th starter. Now the 6th inning in that last start was of course dicey, but he’d already done his job keeping the team in the game.
• As for leaving in Durbin to finish the job, he was really right in that gray area of pitch count. I certainly understand both camps here. On one hand, how often do you even have a chance at a complete game shutout? And at 106 pitches, he probably could have gone another one. On the other hand, it was a crappy night, it’s early in the season, he’s done his job.
• As for why Joel Zumaya in a blowout? I’d guess it’s because Zumaya had been warming up in the 7th inning when it was a 4 run game. If Leyland gets a pitcher up, he tends to use them. It wasn’t Leyland’s fault that Zumaya couldn’t find the plate to save his life and is now unavailable for tomorrow.
• With 13 hits, the offense is definitely coming around. Sure there are still 4 regulars struggling, but that number was at 6 a week and a half ago.
• And just because it came up in the comments, clutch hitting. There are definitely things such as clutch hits, but I’m still not sure there are clutch hitters. The basic contention being that if you can will yourself to a hit with runners on, why can’t you do it the rest of the time. That said, I’d be inclined to believe that there are “unclutch” hitters who to suffer under pressure but that the perception is overblown. For one thing defining clutch situations is difficult. For another, sample size becomes an issue. Third, athletes playing in the major leagues have faced pressure situations all through out their careers to get to that point in the first place. I think that would be a significant weeding out process for those who were “unclutch.”

Tigers 6, White Sox 2

PREGAME: Jeremy Bonderman and the Tigers will take Kelvim Escobar and the Angels on get-away day.

Game Time 3:35pm