Bringin' the Heat

Photo: Duane Burleson (AP)

This may be a shorter post than I intended, but I should’ve prepped this last night, and I didn’t and I just got back from church, so I gotta hurry. At any rate, yesterday’s game was certainly a nail-biter, but it turned out in favor of the Tigers, and that’s the important part. I still felt like Verlander was battling it a little bit (He did have four walks, after all), but he was throwing hard enough that he had the Rangers swinging at all those elevated fastballs. And I swear I saw 99 show up on the screen at one point. It’s a shame about the two errors from Inge and Everett, cuz Verlander probably could’ve gone one more inning had they not happened, but Nate Robertson and the rest of the bullpen stepped up big time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Rodney get that pumped up after getting the final out. It was rather reminiscent of Zumaya.

On a day when Miguel Cabrera finally went hitless, we got a lot of production out of the bottom of the order. And it was nice to see Polanco start to perk up. Gerald Laird continues his good series against his old team, and he added a nice defensive play late in the game (VERY reminiscent of a play that Pudge made last year, and I know this cuz I’ve still got the picture of him holding the ball and smiling after making the catch). Granderson also provided some highlight-quality defense in the first inning (reminiscent of, well, himself).

Well, I don’t know where things are going to go from here, but considering that the Tigers didn’t get to .500 until late June last year and they’re at that mark right now, it’s a start (not to mention the fact that Cleveland is kind of going through the same thing the Tigers went through last year, although the Indians have still got a couple more losses to go). Today will be the first time I get to actually see Edwin Jackson pitching for the Tigers (although, oddly enough, I HAVE seen him in person; I went to a game against the Rays two years ago and Jackson was the starting pitcher for Tampa that night). He’ll be up against Kevin Millwood, who is a decent pitcher and who had a really good outing on Opening Day. I thought I read that Ramon Santiago was going to start at short today, but according to Jason Beck’s blog, Everett is in the lineup. Larish is the DH. By the way, I’d like to wish Happy Easter to all those who celebrate it, and to those who don’t, well, enjoy your Sunday.