You Had To Figure We Were Due For That

After the thrill of actually being at Saturday night’s game, Sunday had somewhat of an anticlimactic feel. The Tigers stranded runners left and right, and yet it didn’t really feel like they did. At the same time, it DID feel like they should’ve scored more runs. And you can’t really say that Kansas City took advantage of their scoring opportunities, not that they had many. And I know Brandon Inge needs a break, what with his knees and all, but three errors from Ryan Raburn sure does make you miss him. Still, if there’s a bright spot to be had, I think it’s that the loss did not get tagged on Armando Galarraga. He had kind of a shaky first inning, but after that, he gave the Tigers all he could, and it was pretty damn good for someone who wasn’t 100%. Rod Allen said Armando had lost fifteen pounds while he was sick. Based on how baggy his jersey was, I’m inclined to believe him.

For it being an off-day yesterday, it sure was busy. There were, of course, draft picks to sign, which I won’t comment on further because that’s an area I don’t know a whole lot about. The other big news of the day is that it appears as if we FINALLY got the big left-handed bat we’ve been looking for for so long. Aubrey Huff is on his way to Detroit. You wonder if this has something to do with the White Sox getting Alex Rios. Regardless, I would’ve preferred Luke Scott, but Huff provides plenty of left-handed power himself. His average is down from years past, but he’s hitting over .300 with runners in scoring position and he’s been hammering the AL Central. The only snag may be in finding a position for him to play. From the little bit I know about him, he’s best suited as a DH, though he has been playing first base for Baltimore most of the year, and he’s played third and the corner outfield spots in the past. Guillen’s still stuck in the DH spot. Obviously, Huff won’t be playing much first base, so I have no idea what they’re gonna do. For some reason, the Tigers’ news page have a picture of a guy in a Braves uniform accompanying this story. I don’t know who that is, cuz Huff never played for the Braves. The other question is who gets the heave-ho. I’d prefer sending someone down versus DFA’ing someone, because then you can just call them back up in two weeks. If we go that route, then it would either be Ryan Raburn or Clete Thomas. But Dave Dombrowski never seems to do what you speculate, so I’m probably wrong.

Tonight, the homestand continues with the Mariners coming to town. Rick Porcello’s suspension has ended and hopefully his outing against Seattle looks more like the one he had at the beginning of the year and less like the one he had last month (or, even better, have it look like his last outing against Cleveland). He’ll have to be on top of his game, because the Mariners are starting Felix Hernandez. He was, for all intents and purposes, outdueled by Armando Galarraga last time he faced the Tigers, but vultured a win because the bullpen couldn’t hold the lead. The Tigers will NOT see Adrian Beltre, who is back on the DL with a rather painful-sounding injury for men: A contused right testicle. Couldn’t they be less embarrassing about it and just say he had a groin injury? At any rate, let that be a lesson to all you guys out there: Always wear protection. I’ll be at work tonight, so it’ll be the late innings for me.