The Tigers may have succumbed to absolute carnage on Saturday, but they bounced right back yesterday and avoided the sweep. Brandon Inge, who has been struggling all season, had a VERY good outing with two singles, a walk, and a walk-off home run. Kudos also go to Marcus Thames and Magglio Ordoñez for their home runs as well.

It was nice to see Pudge back in the game. He had a bad day offensively, but he made a couple of nice defensive moves, including a pickoff at second base and blocking what would’ve been a disastrous wild pitch by Joel Zumaya (who was otherwise pretty solid, considering his last two outings). Apparently it was a very impressive block, because the commentators couldn’t figure out how he did it. I was able to catch the sports reports on all three of our local stations, and I thought it was interesting that each station picked different heroes of the game. Channel 11 (CBS affiliate) decided that Brandon Inge and Pudge were the heroes of the game; Brandon for his home-run, and Pudge for blocking Zumaya’s errant breaking ball (The sports guy out-and-out said that because Pudge blocked that ball, Brandon Inge was able to hit a walk-off home run. Even I fail to see the logic in that, but I won’t argue against it too much). Channel 13 (ABC) picked Marcus Thames and Brandon Inge, while Channel 24 (NBC) decided it was just Brandon Inge. All of ‘em seemed more concerned with the Detroit Lions’ #1 draft pick throwing out the first pitch anyways.

Tonight the Baltimore Orioles come to town, and the still decision-less Jeremy Bonderman’ll be starting for Detroit. The online previews really don’t seem to take one side or another, which may be bad news for the Tigers, cuz they seem to do better when the online previews hand the game to the other team, but I won’t tell them that. Let’s hope that Brandon, Craig Monroe, and Gary Sheffield continue their recent success and that Maggs can add to his hot streak (and that Pudge, Polanco, and Guillen continue to shine as well). The weather looks good, so we should have baseball tonight.

This’ll be a short one, as I have to get ready to go to work in a little bit.

One of the more frustrating things about the Tigers’ recent losses is that we had the lead at one point only to lose it. Of couse, the media has decided this is because “the bullpen is struggling.” From a Total Amateur standpoint, I wouldn’t say it’s the bullpen so much as Joel Zumaya having control issues. Bobby Seay did a nice job last nice. From what I could tell from Wednesday’s game, Jonesy seems to have recovered from the Angels game on Tuesday, and even Rodney was pretty impressive his last time out (Come to think of it, we haven’t seen Ledezma in a really long time). It seems more like we have the bad luck of calling out the relief pitcher who’s having a bad night. Zumaya looked like he was about to burst into tears after he was taken out of the game. On the offense side, the boys sure were double-happy last night. Maggs’s bat has cooled off a bit, but it was really nice to see Craig Monroe get some hits.

Today it’s Verlander against Silva. I’ll be at work during the game but I’ll try to catch the FSN replay later tonight. Let’s hope that Pudge’s foot is good enough for him to play this game (Apparently that foul ball in Wednesday’s game was worse than I thought, although the good news is that his foot is not broken). Rabelo is a fairly decent catcher, and he made one really nice defensive play last night, but until he can start hitting the ball, he’s not going to be that much of an asset to the team. Plus, having Neifi Perez as the emergency catcher is a scary thought indeed.

Just as I suspected, last night’s game got rained out, so Nate Robertson’ll get the start tonight against Minnesota (I don’t have the preview in front of me, and I don’t remember the Twins’ starting pitcher’s name). Detroit had a pretty good record against Minnesota last year (until Polanco was injured and out for most of August), and the Twins have been struggling of late, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing. Torii (why are there two “I”s?) Hunter got hit in the mouth by a pitch from Zach Greinke (the same KC pitcher that Pudge hit a Grand Slam against), but he’s apparently gonna be playing tonight (though I have no idea how you could focus with stitches in your mouth). From the sounds of things, that Twins game against KC nearly got ugly after that happened. As for tonight, the weather here is not extremely wonderful, but there should be a game tonight.

As a lot of you frequent readers know, I am often bemoaning the fact that the Tigers seem to always have the bad luck to fall victim to a normally so-so pitcher who suddenly has the game of his life. It’s about time that it happened to the other team. Durbin was outstanding last night. Let’s hope THAT’S not an aberration. Wow. You may say it’s an unfair comparison cuz the White Sox were without Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye, but it’s not like the rest of the White Sox lineup are complete slouches. Even I never thought I’d ever be impressed by Chad Durbin. In hindsight, he probably should’ve pitched the ninth inning. Don’t let those two Chicago runs fool you. That had nothing to do with the White Sox offense. That had more to do with Joel Zumaya being unable to find the strike zone (For those of you who didn’t see the game, the first batter in the bottom of the ninth got a base hit, then the next guy grounded into a double play, which turned out to be crucial later on. The third guy was hit by the pitch, then Zumaya proceeded to walk four in a row). Let’s hope that that IS an aberration (most seem to think it is). At any rate, this was a major win, in my mind, because it gives us at least a tiny cushion away from .500, plus beating the White Sox is always a morale booster, since the Tigers have had trouble with them in the past.

Of course, you also have to credit the Tigers offense, which came alive for the third day in a row. Magglio Ordoñez is on fire right now. There are a few guys still struggling, but not as many as before. Ordoñez was definitely the star offensively, but Pudge, Polanco, Sheffield, and Inge also had nice nights. Pudge had a really good night both offensively and defensively (well, other than bouncing a foul ball off the inside of his foot, but he seemed to recover from that, though he was clearly in pain for the rest of that at-bat). He hit two doubles and a single, and both Durbin and Leyland gave him a lot of credit for the win from a defensive standpoint as well, saying he called the right strategy. Brandon Inge might be coming out of his slump a little bit, which is good news.

Now for a few random notes and observations. During the pregame show last night (which was awful; the host couldn’t talk clearly to save his life), Todd Jones let us in on a rather immature architectural feature of U.S. Cellular Field. Apparently, they put a bar in right next to the visiting team’s bullpen. All the drunk people are able to watch and heckle the visiting pitchers through a pane of glass. Also, I had lunch with Laura yesterday, and we ended up talking about baseball, and in particular, Pudge Rodriguez. She had never heard of him before. She started out thinking his nickname was mean, but an hour later she thought it was cute. She wanted to see what he looked like. For some reason, I told her to come here and look at my profile picture, but I’ve realized that’s not gonna work, cuz you can’t really see his face. Maybe one of these days the AP’ll get a decent picture of him. Finally, I would like to say that I’m really sick of bizarre Jimmy John’s commercials and the Simpsons movie trailer.

Tonight, the Tigers send Nate Robertson against Jose Contreras in a rematch of last Saturday’s game. Robertson doesn’t have the greatest numbers against Chicago, but he did relatively well last time. Carlos Guillen should be back in the lineup tonight after having the night off last night with a sore shoulder (now that I know about that, his two errors in Tuesday’s game are forgiveable). It’s a good thing, because Guillen has the best average of all the Tigers against Contreras, and I get the feeling we’re gonna need him, cuz Contreras sure ain’t Danks. With the offense off and running, I guess the focus will shift to making sure the offense stays alive for the entire game. Here’s some good news: After this game, we don’t see the White Sox again until July. However, it’s once again rainy and cold here in the Midwest, with a forecast for a lot of rain right around the time the game starts. If there is a rainout, it’ll make for a boring night for me, but the boys could probably use a night of rest after the crazy schedule this week.

I’ll let you pick which error was the “One Error Too Many.” You certainly have your choice. You’ve got either of Carlos Guillen’s back-to-back fielding errors on sure double-play balls, Todd Jones’s wild pitch in the ninth, or Jonesy’s throwing error in the tenth. All of them came back to haunt the team. As a total non-expert when it comes to baseball, I try to give my boys the benefit of the doubt whenever I can (since genuine, innocent belief in them has paid dividends for me in the past), but I can’t mince words this time. The Angels didn’t win that game; the Tigers lost it. The offense is starting to emerge, but now the defense is slipping. Guillen in particular seems to have left his defensive ability back in Detroit. Hopefully Chad Durbin and Nate Robertson were kind enough to bring it with them when they flew to Chicago yesterday, cuz he’s gonna need it. The Tigers now have to win at least one game in Chicago to remain above .500 (and we’re facing the Twins next, so that’s no help either; the scheduling gods were really cruel to my boys this year).

 However, despite the extremely frustrating loss, some good things did come out of that game for the Tigers. First of all, the offense actually remained fairly consistent for two days in a row. Second of all, the timing of the offense could even be considered a good sign. Up until yesterday’s game, the talk among the analysts was switching from “the Tigers’ offense is struggling” to “the Tigers’ offense seems to do pretty well at the beginning of a game, but they can’t seem to find the knockout punch.” If you looked at the numbers, this appeared to be true. The Tigers’ offense has been doing pretty well from innings 1-5, but falls off considerably from the sixth inning onwards (the difference in runs scored and batting average is astounding). However, during yesterday’s game, they scored the vast majority of their runs after the sixth inning. Perhaps that’s a good sign (you know, I really oughta stop saying that, cuz it seems to jinx ‘em). Gary Sheffield didn’t do quite as well yesterday as he did on Monday, but still better than he was at the beginning of the season. And here’s the best news: We now have three guys batting above .300 (Polanco, Ordoñez, and Guillen) and two who are very close to that mark (Granderson and Pudge). The last bit of good news is that Fernando Rodney pitched a couple of really strong innings yesterday, so maybe he’ll be back in form soon.

Tonight’s game is in Chicago against the White Sox. I’ve read two previews, as I always do, and Yahoo Sports seems to be already handing this one to Chicago, while the preview on the Tigers official website can be summed up as “Man, this schedule sucks.” It’ll be a rematch between Durbin and Danks. Durbin actually was pretty good last time up until the sixth inning, but Chicago’s offense seems to have come out of their slump, so he’ll definitely have his work cut out for him. Meanwhile, the rest of the Tigers defense had better shape up. If there is a game, that is. The weather around here is currently rainy, cold, and downright miserable. I know Toledo isn’t THAT close to Chicago, but we still have fairly similar weather, and it’s supposed to rain a lot tonight. I’m wondering when the game’ll be if it’s postponed. We will see.

Geez, that had to have been the most nerve-wracking wide-open victory ever. I suppose that when you play good teams, you have to keep on your toes even when you’re leading by a big margin, but judging by the way everyone was acting, you’d have thought the Tigers were only up by one for the entire game. The offense was back, and did exactly the same thing to Jered Weaver that they did to Zach Greinke back in the first KC game of the homestand (“The One Where Pudge Hit a Grand Slam”). Curtis Granderson was deemed hero of this game as he started off with a home run and was solid all evening (he nearly hit the cycle, missing only a triple), but several Tigers were able to add to their RBI counts. Even Gary Sheffield broke out of his slump a little bit (though oddly enough, Polanco went hitless last night).

As I said before, it was a very strange game. I had a feeling it was gonna be as soon as there was the fan interference on Polanco’s foul ball (though I think it’s hardly fair that Polanco had to suffer because of an Angels fan) that brought Jim Leyland nose-to-nose with the umpire for a few minutes. The boys were definitely focused offensively, but oddly enough, the ADD seems to have spread to the defense. Granderson and Inge were on top of their game, and made some amazing plays. Guillen and Pudge? Uh…not so much (and I smile as I say this, cuz I still love ‘em; everyone’s entitled to a bad day every once in a while). However, both of them knocked in a couple of runs offensively, so it’s not like they were completely useless. Guillen was the only one who had an error charged against him, but there were a few balls that Pudge really should have caught that bounced off his glove instead (though he did make a spectacular catch on what would have been a disastrous wild pitch from Jason Grilli). Mike Maroth’s pitching was only so-so tonight, as evidenced by the fact that he had to settle for a no decision cuz he couldn’t get the final out in the fifth inning (a lot was made about the number of walks he gave, but you have to take into account that at least two of those walks were semi-intentional ones to Vladimir Guerrero). Jason Grilli struggled at first, but then settled in nicely. Bobby Seay had a nice eighth inning. Zumaya was a little rocky at first, but then calmed down and had a fairly solid ninth inning (including getting Guerrero to groundout instead of walking him).

I have a few other random observations. First of all, Angel Stadium seems really tiny. I know I haven’t seen it since the 2002 World Series (and at the time I really wasn’t looking at the stadium, if you know what I mean), but it just seems really small. Of course, I just finished watching six games at Comerica Park, which has a massive outfield, so maybe that explains things. Speaking of tiny, I’ve been trying to figure out why Placido Polanco just seems really, really short. He’s not even the shortest guy on the team (that “honor” belongs to Pudge), but when you look at him, it’s like he’s Tom Cruise-height. I don’t get it. Pudge doesn’t look that short (though he’s only an inch taller than me), but Polanco does. Oh, well. Finally, during the pregame show, they had some footage of Magglio Ordoñez hitting well against the Angels last season. Apparently it was from early last season, cuz his hair was nowhere near as long as it was in the ALCS (or as long as it is now), and I gotta say that he looks really weird in that old footage.

I already touched on the fact that the Tigers defense seemed to be suffering from a bit of ADD, but the production crew appeared to have massive amounts of it. At one point, the cameramen seemed to be more interested in following one of the cotton candy guys around the stadium than in showing you the game, and then the commentators went into a deep discussion about cotton candy. Meanwhile, guys, there’s a game going on? Hello? Then they had something called the Kiss Cam, which featured one commentator kissing the other on the forehead. Maybe it would have been less creepy if I had heard the setup?

Today’s game pits Jeremy Bonderman against Kelvim Escobar, who is 8-0 against the Tigers but who has just come off the Disabled List. We’ll see what happens. And, since positive thinking seemed to work yesterday, I’ll do it again and say that I believe in the Tigers’ offense (and defense, which should be well-rested and ready to play after having the night off last night) and what they can do. That said, it will be interesting to see how Bonderman deals with Vladimir Guerrero.

Judging by the crowd’s reaction to the game yesterday, you’d have thought it was Game 7 of the World Series or something (of course, I’m finding out that I kind of treat every game like Game 7 of the World Series, which probably isn’t the healthiest thing to do). I suppose it was a relief to the frustration of the last three games (where we had the lead and lost it due to an uncharacteristically rocky bullpen). I was at work during yesterday’s game, but I managed to catch the re-airing of it and it can pretty much be summed up as bottom-of-the-ninth heroics followed by a complete meltdown of the Chicago bullpen in the twelfth. For some reason I just can’t get as excited about yesterday’s win as I should be. I see two explanations. The first is completely unrelated to baseball. A few days ago I did something I probably shouldn’t have, lied about it, and then got away with it for the time being, at least (it wasn’t anything illegal or something like that, but I still feel kinda guilty). The second explanation is that Pudge did not play for most of the game, and Rabelo has yet to impress me (He’s made three starts and still hasn’t gotten a hit). I’m hoping it’s the first explanation and not the second, because otherwise I’m pinning my enthusiasm for the Tigers on one particular player, and I don’t wanna do that regardless of who it is (though pinning it on a player whose contract will be up soon is even more unwise), because eventually they’ll all be gone in one way or another (granted, for some this won’t be for several more years, but it’ll happen). One of the great things about the Tigers is that they can really share the wealth as far as being the heroes of a particular game. So far this year, Granderson, Pudge, Polanco, Guillen, Ordoñez, Monroe, Inge, and Marcus Thames have all had big games. I think that speaks well for the team, because it shows that they DON’T have to rely on just one or two players, even though right now the offense isn’t quite where it should be. On that note, however, I was looking at the box scores for yesterday’s game, and I did notice that Detroit and Chicago actually have similar batting averages, and each team currently has only one player batting above .300 (Placido Polanco & Jim Thome), though there are a few who are flirting with that number. Obviously the heroes of yesterday’s game were Polanco and Thames (and to a lesser extent Guillen for getting the base hit before Thames hit the home run, and you could even give Pudge a tiny bit of credit since he’s technically the one whose run won the game, though he originally reached first base on his first walk of the season). At any rate, despite my lack of enthusiasm that even I can’t explain, it is an important win. We avoided the sweep, we’ve avoided dropping down to .500, and we’ve leapfrogged ahead of Chicago in the Central Division standings, for now, at least.

I have a few more notes and observations about this weekend’s series. First is that Jose Mesa is now on the disabled list, and he’s been replaced by Aquilino Lopez (who was playing for Toledo before he was called up). While I feel bad that Mesa was injured, his pitching has been definitely less-than-stellar. Lopez had an impressively solid outing on Friday. He did give up that home run yesterday, but I’m still excited to see what else he can do. Meanwhile, Ledezma and Zumaya continue to be on top of their game, and Todd Jones seems to have recovered from the last KC game. Rodney’s still kind of in a slump, though. He was really good last year, so I don’t want Leyland giving up on him yet. However, maybe he shouldn’t be pitching in high-pressure situations for a while. Durbin (who bears a slight resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio) was actually pretty decent in Friday’s game, but they apparently left him in for one inning too many. My next observation is that during yesterday’s game, as Polanco was coming to the plate (right before he won the game for the Tigers), the public address system at Comerica was playing what sounded like a mariachi band performing “Hava Nagila.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this. They played it during the KC game last week (the one where Pudge hit the Grand Slam) as Ordoñez was coming to the plate. It was strange enough that my dad (who was in the room but not watching the game) turned around and asked me if there were any Jewish players there. My third observation is that with his brief appearance behind the plate yesterday, Pudge has now caught in 1,951 games, the fourth-highest total ever for any MLB player (he’ll probably reach the 2,000 mark and claim the “third-highest” slot before the end of the season, provided he doesn’t get injured). And no, I did not have that factoid memorized prior to last weekend. I got the information from TV and from the newspaper. My fourth observation is actually an observation on myself, and the way I refer back to previous games, and that is that they’re starting to sound like titles for episodes of Friends (“The One Where Pudge Hit a Grand Slam,” “The One Where Marcus Thames Homered to Keep the Tigers Alive,” “The One Where the Wind Had Fun Toying with Maggs,” etc). Using dates would probably be more efficient, but even I’m not hardcore enough to come up with the specific dates of games off the top of my head (plus, I would probably have to accompany the dates with some description anyways). My fifth observation is that Gary Sheffield was the only non-pitcher on the roster to not show up in yesterday’s game at some point. My final observation is that the Tigers have hit four Grand Slams already this season (though the last one was to no avail, as the Tigers ended up losing later). According to the Esurance factoid that FSN provided during the game yesterday, the last time the Tigers hit four Grand Slams in a single month was June of 1968. You know what else the Tigers did in 1968, don’t you?

The Tigers begin a very short and very strange away trip today. They play the Angels in a night game and a day game, then head to Chicago for two games (Geez, they won’t even be in California for 48 hours; if Chicago beats them, am I allowed to blame jet lag?). One minor amusing note that I have is that it’s currently warmer here in Toledo than it is in Anaheim. Tonight’s game is very late indeed for us Eastern Time Zoners: 10:05 PM. Luckily, my 9:30 AM Psychology class is cancelled tomorrow, so I CAN watch the game with a minimum of sleep deprivation (and I’m not lying this time). Mike Maroth will be pitching for the Tigers against Jered Weaver of the Angels, who is considered to be a good pitcher (from what I can tell) but has never faced the Tigers (I’ve also just found out that the Angels are at .500, which ties them for first place in the West Division; either the teams on the west coast are really beating each other up or the West Division is really anemic). Once again, online game previews seem to be handing this one to the Angels, mostly on the basis that Angel Stadium was the only west coast venue that the Tigers did not have a winning record in last year (and they think that Weaver is a better pitcher than Maroth). I’d like to point out that the Tigers currently have a better record than the Angels, and I’m going to stick to my belief that the Tigers’ll eventually make the offense more consistent (personally, I’m starting to think the boys are currently trying too hard and they need to relax a little). Maybe the day off for Sheffield’ll help him (hey, even though Sheff’s struggling, I think we still got the better end of the deal, cuz the guy we traded to the Yankees had to have Tommy John surgery and is out for the season). The good vibes from yesterday’s game (I may not have ‘em, but I’m pretty sure the Tigers do) should help as well. And hopefully I’ll be more excited this time.

I found out today that the UT Campus Police needs to take some English classes. There are signs all over campus today that say “WANTED: VANDALIZERS.” According to the fine print, someone stole two flags from a display case in the Student Union. First of all, that’s theft, not vandalism. Second of all, someone who commits an act of vandalism is referred to as a “vandal,” not a “vandalizer,” which is not even a word.

I know I’ve talked about nothing but baseball and the Tigers for the past two weeks. Part of this is because I love ‘em, but another part is because there is NOTHING ELSE going on in my life that’s worth mentioning. Case in point: The only semi-profound thing that’s happened over the last couple days is that UT is in the process of pouring asphalt on the roof of one of the buildings, so it smells REALLY bad outside right now (it was worse yesterday, since I had to walk right past that building to get to my class). But you’re probably not interested in the fact that the UT campus smells really bad (there was also a mini-abortion fight yesterday featuring people with supposed pictures of aborted fetuses, but it never turned into a full-scale war, likely because any would-be protesters on either side didn’t want to risk asphyxiation by asphalt fumes). They’ve also got the fountain in front of the Student Union (man, it’s weird going to a school where the Student Union has no name other than “Student Union”) operating for the first time since last fall.

Now, to segue from my boring life back to baseball (which, despite my mom’s claims, isn’t really that boring), I have a rather interesting assignment for my Spanish class. I have to plan an imaginary trip to a Spanish-speaking country, except I’m not allowed to choose Spain or Mexico (because they’re too obvious). That eliminated pretty much the only Spanish-speaking country I actually do want to go to someday (Spain), so I figured that since I’m definitely in a baseball state of mind, and my favorite player is from Puerto Rico, I’ll go with that (even though I don’t particularly want to go to Puerto Rico). My problem now is to figure out a BS answer as to why I picked Puerto Rico, cuz it seems kind of shallow/juvenile to say “I picked Puerto Rico because that’s where my favorite baseball player is from,” true as it may be, although I tried out my reasoning on the pharmacist last night at work, and he didn’t seem to have a problem with it (he also seemed to think that I picked a really talented player to have as my favorite). I’ve also gotta go to Expedia or Travelocity to figure out airfare, and I have to find out about some attractions I’d be interested in. I think it’ll be fun, even though it’s for a country I don’t really care much about.

I have a question for all of you out there. No doubt most of you have seen the commercials featuring Erin Esurance. That's right, I now share my first name with an advertising mascot:

By the way, while doing a Google search for an image of her, I discovered that she's obtained a cult following of the horny type (some of the fan art is...well...strange). Anyways, she started out doing a bunch of "Kim Possible"-type spy stuff, but lately she's been playing a lot of sports, which leads to my question. During March Madness, they had a commercial with her playing basketball against a bunch of evil robots, and (at least in the commercials I've seen), she's wearing a Detroit Pistons jersey. Now there's a commercial where she's at a baseball game with Male-Sidekick-Whose-Name-I-Don't-Know, and they're both wearing Detroit Tigers shirts and hats. Now, is all the Detroit stuff because I live in Toledo (the Detroit sports market) and is she wearing another team's shirts in your area, or what? I would think changing the team logo for each city's market would get pretty expensive. Help me out if you can.

The Tigers are back on tonight, this time against the White Sox. I’ve read the Yahoo preview and the preview on the Tigers’ official website, and both of them seem to be pretty much handing the game to Chicago. I know the Tigers went 7 and 12 on them last season, so it’s not like it’s in their favor anyways, but they’ve been underestimated numerous times before. Then again, the Tigers have Durbin as the starting pitcher, and he has yet to impress even me, so it’s little wonder why so many websites already have Chicago down as the winner. My boys’ll really have to get the offense going to back up Durbin’s so-so pitching. The good news is that Pudge and Maggs should be back in the lineup, unless something happened that I don’t know about. Luckily, the Tigers will probably not have to face the White Sox pitcher who got a no-hitter a few days ago (at least, not according to the websites). Tomorrow’s game features Nate Robertson against Jose Contreras, and I’m glad that Durbin’s not pitching THAT game, cuz I don’t know much about Contreras, but I’ve heard his name before, which usually indicates a good player. Sunday pits Justin Verlander against Jon Garland, who I’ve never heard of before, but that doesn’t indicate anything. Like I said, though, Chicago is one of the Tigers’ rivals for the Central Division title, so we’ve gotta keep the offense going. It’ll be warmer this weekend, so that should help.

Sigh. Well, you can’t win ‘em all, I guess (Of course, I totally lied yesterday when I said class was cancelled, so maybe this was my punishment?). Even the fan bloggers can’t seem to get too critical against any one thing, and even from an amateur standpoint, I pretty much agree with them. There were just little things all over the board that by themselves probably wouldn’t have made a whole lot of difference, but the problem was they all happened on the same day. First off, you knew Todd Jones (who was 7 for 7 in saves coming into this game) was gonna have a bad day eventually, because every pitcher does. It’s unavoidable. Rodney was also struggling yesterday. Bonderman and Zumaya were on top of their game, at least. Second, Jonesy’s bad day unfortunately coincided with a good day for KC pitchers Meche and Soria. The Tigers just weren’t able to get the offense going against him. Maybe it’s because it was a little colder yesterday than it has been. Maybe it was the wrong time to give Pudge and Ordoñez (both of whom have been on hot streaks recently, having had multiple hits in the last two games) the day off. Granted, they brought Pudge in as a pinch hitter in the ninth to no avail, but that’s really no indication as to how he would have fared had he played the entire game (and maybe it’s just me, but I get the feeling that had Guillen not struck out to end the game, Leyland may have stuck Ordoñez in for Casey, but that’s just speculation, and a very amateur speculation at that, since I was listening to the end of the game on the radio at the time and couldn’t see what was going on). Third, apparently that flu bug is still going around, and right now it’s got Granderson, among others (though it really didn’t show in his defense, cuz he made some amazing catches). Of course, there are things that many people (myself included) are going to question, like bringing Zumaya in for only one inning (which made him unavailable for the tenth), or having Infante pinch-bunt (which totally backfired on them, cuz KC got Monroe out at second instead of Infante at first). But in the end, I think the title says it all.

There was something off about that game the entire time, even before the Tigers “officially” blew it. First off, the ADD seems to have shifted from Pudge to Marcus Thames, who caught a fly ball and started heading in thinking that was the side had been retired. Unfortunately, that was the SECOND out, not the third, so Marcus ended up looking silly (at least they had a good laugh about it). Second, it seemed for a while that Bonderman and Rabelo were having communication issues, but they eventually got it straightened out. At one point, Rabelo got hit in the head with a bat, but stayed in the game (that’s why catchers wear helmets, folks). Also, the commentators were just a little off today, especially at the start of the game. They referred to Rabelo as “Pudge” a couple times and then, while there was a shot of Pudge in the dugout, one commentator said, “There’s Esteban German.” Maybe they have ADD, too.

The Tigers are off today, which is just as well, cuz I have to go to work tonight. On Friday, they face the White Sox, our first “threat-at-Division-title” team, so let’s hope that giving Pudge and Ordoñez an extra day of rest pays off. Durbin’s pitching for the Tigers, unfortunately, but he is up against a rookie (not that that has any significance, and Justin Verlander is proof of that). The White Sox are struggling right now, but the Tigers offense’ll still have to shine, especially with Durbin pitching (Please get healthy soon, Kenny Rogers!). Luckily, we have Robertson and Verlander pitching the other two games in the series. It’ll be the first time I’ve seen Durbin start (since I was at school/work during his other games). The preview that the Tigers official website has up doesn’t really instill me with a lot of confidence. Leyland may have to go into the bullpen early on this one (which doesn’t present as much of a problem as it did for KC, cuz the Tigers’ bullpen is usually pretty solid). At least it’s supposed to be warmer this weekend, which might make the offense a little more consistent. I will be able to watch Friday’s game, and I’ll be able to catch most, if not all, of Saturday’s game before I go to work, but I’ll likely miss all of Sunday’s game due to being at work.

Since there’s no game today, I’m not sure I’ll post tomorrow. If I do, I’ll probably just make a few random observations about the recent games and maybe talk about something besides the Tigers (now there’s something new).

Yeah, I know that I said Pudge wasn’t playing last night’s game, so I was a little surprised when I saw him in the batting lineup in the pregame show. At first I thought the commentator had been wrong, but during the game he said that Pudge had been scheduled to have yesterday off, but didn’t provide an explanation. My guess is it’s because Brandon Inge was out with the flu (and so was replaced by Neifi Perez on short notice), Curtis Granderson was also not feeling great (and was replaced by Omar Infante for most of the game, though Granderson did play center field during the ninth), and they had Marcus Thames starting at first base instead of Sean Casey, so I’m guessing that because there were already several “second string” (for lack of a better term, not that the Tigers’ “second string” is bad, mind you) players out there, Leyland had Pudge play. Supposedly he IS going to be off for today’s game (although at this point, why bother, since the whole team is off tomorrow). I’ll still watch it, though (my 3:00 class got cancelled, so I made it home in time).

Last night’s game was a little close for my taste, but the Tigers pulled it off in the end, which is the important part. Mike Maroth is an okay pitcher, but he allowed WAY too many base hits, and even Ledezma seemed to be having an off night (though he did bounce back later). The offense made up for it, though. Pudge, Thames, and Ordoñez all had a good game, but the star of the game was definitely Polanco, who hit his first home run of the season (and, while he is one of the Tigers’ best hitters, he rarely hits home runs). Of course, this made for a bad headline on our newspaper’s sports page: “Prepared Polanco Produces” (that’s about as bad as “Hot Pudge”). Pudge had kind of an ADD moment at one point when he was on second, Polanco was on first, and Ordoñez hit a double (I wish I could find a picture of this, but I can’t). I guess Pudge forgot to run or something, cuz Polanco nearly lapped him. It was actually kind of funny. Marcus Thames also hit his first home run of the season. Today’s game features Jeremy Bonderman, who is definitely the least attractive of the Tigers pitchers but his skill makes up for it (but, dude, take the gum out of your mouth when you do interviews).

I was at the mall yesterday and I decided to look at the Tigers shirts at Dick’s Sporting Goods and at JC Penney. I was really discouraged, though, cuz everything I found was either too expensive, didn’t fit, or looked bad. I really want to get a jersey, but those are the most expensive, especially if you get one with a player’s name on it. Even if I could afford one of those, the only one with Pudge’s number was too small. JC Penney had a ton of Verlander jerseys, while Dick’s had a ton of Ordoñez, so they’re either the most popular or least popular Tigers in the area. Meh, spending that kind of money on a Pudge jersey would probably be the most effective way of Murphy’s Law-ing him right outta Detroit. I suppose I could get a jersey with no one’s name on it. I just don’t know yet. Not that I can afford either, mind you.