Goonies Never Say Die

Photo: AP

This game was looking an awful lot like the first two games until the ninth inning. I don’t know what happened with Verlander. He was dominant until the sixth inning, and then the Blue Jays started hitting everything hard (I will tell you this: I was smelling Edwin Encarnacion home run for this entire series). How do you go seven innings with nine strikeouts and no walks, but give up ten hits and five earned runs? But the Tigers were able to bail him out, which they don’t often do, and the bullpen was very, very good. Marco Scutaro, who is a good defender at shortstop, made two costly errors for the Blue Jays, the latter of which allowed the winning run to score (Mario said he cursed him for breaking his headset on a foul ball in the seventh inning). The big blow came from Aubrey Huff’s pinch-hit three-run homer in the ninth. I have never seen anyone swing the bat THAT aggressively and make contact before. The reaction shot in the dugout brought its own amusement. Miguel Cabrera jumped onto the back of Armando Galarraga, who piggybacked him all the way to the stairs (Geez, the guy’s already dealing with a sore elbow; you don’t want to add back problems to that). And I love Inge’s expression in that photo. After the game, there were more antics with Armando, who tried to give Alex Avila the towel full of shaving cream while Alex was being interviewed (mostly he got the back of his head, but it was still funny, especially the fact that Armando managed to mug the camera as he was sneaking up on Avila).

Well, from now on, it’s all Central, all the time. First up, the Kansas City Royals come into town, and, as strange as it sounds, they’re hot right now. They swept the Tigers and then took two of three from the Indians. And the Tigers will be facing two pitchers they didn’t do a lot against last week, PLUS Zack Greinke. Jarrod Washburn takes the hill tonight for the Tigers. It was a battle for him back in KC, but he somehow managed to go five innings and only give up three runs. The Tigers will see Robinson Tejeda again, and he shut them out the last time they met. Tejeda’s on quite a scoreless streak right now, and he’s got really good stuff. Your Mood Music for tonight: Well, Patrick Swayze died yesterday. I thought I should post something Swayze-related, but “She’s Like the Wind” doesn’t really fit. So I settled on this, which kind of describes last night’s victory. And hopefully we can sing it again tonight.

And THIS Streak Ends At Five

Photo: AP

Rick Porcello was the one who started this mess, and he was the one to clean it up. Fitting enough, I suppose. It was all there yesterday: pitching, good defense, and timely hitting. In addition to some decent pitching for Porcello (who actually got an uncharacteristically high number of fly ball outs), Zach Miner, Brandon Lyon, and Fernando Rodney were pretty steady as well. Meanwhile, the Tigers did okay against Ricky Romero. It wasn’t a great offensive display, but the nice thing was the two two-out RBIs from Gerald Laird. And the add-on runs in the eighth courtesy of Aubrey Huff and Brandon Inge certainly helped. Meanwhile, Miguel Cabrera was seemingly feeling real good with his legs. He even stole a base. Now if we could just do something about the atrocious logos…

Boy, it sure feels like today’s an off-day, doesn’t it? But it’s not. It’s the last game in this series, and the last game against a non-Central opponent. This was originally scheduled to be a big Verlander-Halladay showdown, but Halladay has been pushed back a day, so instead the Blue Jays are starting David Purcey. The Tigers haven’t done much against Purcey in his career (except walk a lot), although Edwin Jackson outpitched him in the second game of the season (it was a game the Tigers eventually lost). Meanwhile, Verlander is coming off a loss to the Royals in which he only gave up one run in six innings, but it was a battle to do that. The Blue Jays are a better offense than the Royals. Justin has not fared well against the Blue Jays in his career, either, though that only encompasses two starts (last August and Opening Day this year). The Blue Jays can hit fastballs. One thing that we might be keeping an eye on is the bullpen. Rodney’s suspension was cut to two games, and he’ll start serving it tonight. Normally, you’d just stick Lyon in to get the save, but he’s pitched for three days straight and Leyland wanted to give him a rest as well, so I don’t know what they’re planning on doing.

Saved By the Bullpen

Photo: AP

I probably have a totally different perception of this game than anyone else does. By the time I got off work (bottom of the sixth, approximately), all the scoring was over and done with, so I felt like I was watching a low-scoring pitching duel. Well, more “listening to” than “watching,” as I ended up with the radio on for the most part (shower radio, if you must know; by the way, Dan and Jim seemed more interested in discussing the 1967 pennant race than the game in front of them). Anyways, I can’t give a whole lot of personal insight into the beginning of the game. I know that Edwin Jackson only lasted five innings and gave up four runs (and a ton of doubles). I don’t know if the same thing that happened to Verlander in Anaheim happened to Jackson last night. That’s certainly a possibility, although from what I hear, he didn’t exactly have an easy time of it in the innings leading up to the fifth. I also missed Zach Miner’s inning. However, Seay, Lyon, and Rodney were terrific (this is why it felt like a low-scoring pitching duel to me). It's worth mentioning that Rodney now has 30 saves this year. Who would've thought that in Spring Training? On the offensive end, Guillen remains hot, and it was nice to see contributions from Laird, Inge, and Huff (superstition and all, but luckily for Huff, judging by the two seconds worth of highlights that I saw, he can get away with the look; that is, however, only a preliminary assessment). And that is all I can give you for now.

The series continues tonight, when Rick Porcello takes on Aaron Laffey. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Porcello (He was out of the game by the time I got home in his last start). He was pretty good against the Rays, although he had a little bit of traffic on the bases. The last time he saw the Indians, he was absolutely stellar, going eight innings. Unfortunately, Rodney suffered his only blown save in that game (the funny thing is, Rodney didn’t pitch that badly either). The Tigers went on to win the game in extra innings. Meanwhile, the last time the Tigers saw Aaron Laffey, it was back in May and they beat him up pretty good (Adam Everett hit a grand slam off him). However, he’s done a good job for the Indians since rejoining their rotation. I’m at work again tonight.

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.