The Force is With You, Brandon Inge

Photo: AP

I completely forgot it was 80s Night at Comerica Park, otherwise I would have played something 80s for the Mood Music last night for you. At any rate, I got home during the sixth inning, and by then both starters had departed, so I was able to sidestep that little bit of awkwardness (Unfortunately, I apparently also missed something funny that involved Rod Allen and Chewbacca). Shame about Galarraga, though. Obviously, I did not see him, but Leyland says he was too tentative with the lefties (and there were a lot of them). Galarraga says the heat sapped him of his energy (I’m inclined to believe him, because it looks as though he started out okay). I don’t see why both explanations can’t be true, and that he was tentative because he was too tired to make his pitches. Heat sure has been a big problem for the Tigers. In fact, at some point or another it has gotten the better of three out of the four Venezuelans on the team (You’d think they’d be used to hot weather). And for most of the game last night we thought all four were included in that, but it turns out Miguel Cabrera’s dizziness was due to a different problem. But Eddie Bonine, Phil Coke, and Jose Valverde did a terrific job out of the bullpen.

As I said, I did not see Dontrelle Willis, so I can’t comment on the Tigers’ approach against him, although considering they got five runs off him, I’d say it was a good one. I know Magglio hit a two-run homer off him, and that was the first time he’d ever faced Dontrelle as an opponent. But once it became a battle of the bullpens, the numbers clearly favored the Tigers. And with two out in the bottom of the eighth, Arizona’s bullpen finally got that memo. Brandon Inge has been hot recently, and last night he finished a home run shy of the cycle. And of course, the big blow was the RBI triple. Others who had good games included Danny Worth and Alex Avila, who wasn’t even supposed to be in the lineup in the first place (so much for all my ponderings on how Armando Galarraga and Gerald Laird would work together).

The series of awkwardness continues tonight, and we get to see another former Tiger on the mound in the person of Edwin Jackson. Jackson has not really delivered for the Diamondbacks, although he has been better recently (I know that simply because at one point his earned run average was over eight and now it’s 5.18). However, every Tigers fan knows what he is capable of, and there have been a couple starts this year where he’s shown that brilliance, one being a complete-game, three-hit shutout against the Dodgers, another being a very strong game against the Marlins where he eclipsed his career high in strikeouts (the previous career high was actually set against the Tigers). It’s been quite a while since any of the Tigers have faced him, but Maggs is 5-8 with a home run. Cabrera (who is back in the lineup tonight) is only 1-6. The Tiger who has faced Jackson the most times is Johnny Damon, but he’s only 3-22. For the Tigers, Rick Porcello will get his first start in a while. He had his last start skipped so that they could work on some things in the bullpen, and now they’ll see if that paid off. He needs to get his sinker sinking again, basically. He’s never faced the Diamondbacks before, and the only Diamondback who has seen him is Adam LaRoche, who saw him last year when he was with the Pirates and he went 1-2 off him.