Good One to Miss

As expected, I only got to see the first inning and part of the second on TV before we left. I did listen to the entire rest of the game on the radio with the exception of the bottom of the fifth. Yes, that means that it cut into the movie a bit, but as I had seen the movie before and it was difficult for me to see the screen anyways (minivans were not made for drive-ins). Still, I only get to go to the drive-in once every few years, so I wasn’t about to turn down the experience. But I digress. It’s hard for me to get a good read on this game since I had to rely on what Dan Dickerson and Jim Price told me, but I’ll try my best. I thought the bloggers would be all over Armando Galarraga giving up four runs (because, well, that’s what they do), but the consensus among them seems to be that he pitched better than the earned run totals would indicate (his other numbers for the night seem to concur: 6 hits, one walk, and five strikeouts are strong totals, and at one point he retired 12 batters in a row). Really, only three of the Texas Rangers had him figured out (Young, Blalock, and Andrus), and usually you can win if you only have to worry about three guys. But they were all able to bunch hits up in the sixth inning, and it was too much for him. Meanwhile, with the exception of Cabrera striking out with the bases loaded, it seemed that anytime the Tigers had an opportunity, they would either hit the ball right at somebody or one of the Rangers would make a spectacular play (Yeah, with the bases loaded, you don’t want your #3 hitter to hit a little dribbler down the first base line, but by all accounts, Tommy Hunter DID make a nice heads-up play to get the force at home, because he wasn’t going to get Clete at first, and if he hadn’t done that, we’d all be laughing at the “swinging bunt.”). But hey, we got off the one-run scoring that we seemed to be stuck on.

Well, I’ll miss the beginning of tonight’s game cuz I’ll be at work, but it’ll be Luke French against Vicente Padilla. It’s probably only a matter of time before the rest of the league adjusts to Luke French, but we might as well milk him for all he’s worth until that happens. So far, though, the Tigers haven’t really done that. Vicente Padilla is coming off of missing his last start due to swine flu. He’s someone that the Tigers have gotten to in recent years, but prior to that, had good numbers against Detroit. Your Mood Music for tonight: The Tigers are in serious need of some mojo on the road. And so, even though I haven’t seen a single movie of his (nor do I care to), I decided to try to conjure up the posterboy of mojo, Austin Powers. Enjoy!