First of all, I’d like to thank John Parent of Motor City Bengals for his supportive comments regarding my last post. He and I disagree as far as the issue of Armando Galarraga is concerned, but he is a really good blogger and if you’re not reading him, you should be. Last time I wrote about emotional attachments. While I have no particularly strong emotional attachment to Max Scherzer (who I still like, don’t get me wrong), I do enjoy it when he pitches well. And boy, did he pitch well last night. The Royals had put so many hits on the board in the first two games that they tied the Twins and Rangers for the league lead in team batting average. They are a bunch of singles hitters, but they showed in the first two games what they can do when they string a bunch of singles together. Scherzer overpowered them and nipped that in the bud. The only hitter to figure him out was Gregor Blanco, who got two hits off him while his teammates got none (Blanco later singled off Phil Coke and Billy Butler later homered). Now, Scherzer was not immune to the sudden rash of throwing errors that have plagued the Tiger pitchers recently, but he got himself out of it.
As good as Max Scherzer was, Kyle Davies was not bad himself. He was perfect until the fifth inning, when Miguel Cabrera laced a single to right field. That inning was really the only time Davies wobbled. He proceeded to give up a one-out single to Raburn and then a very nice-looking double to Brennan Boesch. He was later singled in by Brandon Inge. Davies then shut the Tigers down again until he gave up an RBI double to Johnny Damon in the eighth.
Sadly, the Tigers are now down to their final home series of the season and it’s against the Minnesota Twins. The Twins have already clinched the division (which is just as well, because I didn’t want any champagne parties in the Comerica Park visitor’s clubhouse). However, the Twins have a shot at the best record in the American League (which wasn’t “supposed” to happen) and so the Tigers still have the responsibility of preventing that. Francisco Liriano starts for the Twins. The Tigers have had a couple of games where they scored a bunch of runs against him, but the last time he saw him, he was typical Liriano against them (he did not win, but the Twins won in extras). Meanwhile, Justin Verlander is coming off a beautiful complete-game win against the White Sox in which he only had one wobbly inning. He was fantastic otherwise. I am really looking forward to his start (since there’s only two left, and this’ll be his last in those lovely home whites before next April).
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