That Didn't Take Long

Short post today because I have an exam in two hours that I still have to study for. I am amazed at the speed at which this game tanked. Shortly before I left work, I checked in on my mini-radio. The game was tied 1-1, Boesch had just been robbed of a home run and Guillen had just singled. I then helped close up shop and headed out to my car. That took no longer than five minutes. By the time I got to my car, the score was 7-1. Seriously, how do you give up that many runs in less than five minutes? Generally, if you’re going to give up six runs, it takes twenty minutes at least. And there’s usually walks involved. But this time there weren’t. And Rick Porcello’s balls-to-strike ratio was excellent. So anyways, all I got of his outing was the Gordon Beckham double that chased him, but all signs were good for the first three innings. I wonder if something changed in his delivery that caused the fourth inning to be disastrous. A lot of people have called for him to be sent down, although with the off-day next Monday, the Tigers could conceivably skip his next start and have him work through a couple of extended bullpen sessions like they did with Galarraga (Hey, the guy threw a perfect game after those extended bullpen sessions, so don’t knock ‘em). And call me crazy, but I actually thought they had a shot at overcoming the deficit up until the bullpen implosion of the eighth inning. It think it might have been the Miguel Cabrera home run that gave me that outlook, since he rarely ever homers in a blowout loss (I don’t know why; it just seems that way, so I’ll have to look that up later).

Today the Tigers wrap up the road trip, and they’re facing John Danks, who has been the best starter for the White Sox, although he has struggled in his last two starts. The Tigers usually don’t do much against him, though they have beat him in a couple of pitching duels before. There are a few Tigers with good numbers against Danks, particularly Magglio, who is back in the lineup today (14-for-23 with four doubles and 2 home runs). Guillen and Laird have also hit him well (though they don’t have nearly the number of at-bats that Maggs does). Max Scherzer will be making his first start ever against the White Sox. He did really well against the Athletics, and then not so well against the Royals. The only two White Sox batters he’s faced before are Juan Pierre and Mark Kotsay, and they didn’t see him that much. One other note from last night is that Ryan Perry has been placed on the DL and the Tigers have called up Enrique Gonzalez, who is a starter in Toledo. The only reason I would think they’d call up a starter and not a reliever like Jay Sborz is that Eddie Bonine is not going to be available for several days and they used Brad Thomas on Tuesday, so they may be in need of a long man. Meanwhile, I will be taking an exam when this game starts, so I will be baseball-deprived again.