It seems that whenever a player reaches some sort of milestone, the Tigers lose the game. They lost when Magglio hit his 300th double, they lost when Craig Monroe hit his 100th home run, and they lost in Pudge’s 2000th game as catcher. So what happens last night? Gary Sheffield got his 2500th hit and Polanco set a new record for most chances without an error by a second baseman. I started to get the bad feeling when Sheffield got the hit. At any rate, Justin Verlander really wasn’t that sharp. He never had an easy inning, he walked way too many, he got his pitch count up really quickly, and he was pitching out of jams all night. It was only a matter of time before it caught up to him, and in the end, the go-ahead run belonged to Verlander, and that’s what goes into the box score. That said, Macay McBride is starting to become a little bit of a question mark. He’s been fairly effective on lefties, and he’s got good stuff, but the walks are a little bit up. I’m not worried right now per se, but if this continues, especially with the upcoming return of Zach Miner and Fernando Rodney, they may want to entertain the notion of sending him down to Toledo for a while to work on his control. He is only 25, after all, though he looks all of twelve (and yes, I realize that I’m creating a double-standard here, cuz I’m 23, which is even younger, but I don’t play professional baseball). Jason Grilli gave up two runs (neither of them were earned, though), but had a lot of tough luck due to an error by Brandon Inge and an instance of “good hitting” as opposed to “bad pitch.” Tim Byrdak walked the leadoff man in the eighth, but got everyone else, perhaps not as efficiently as he’d like, but that doesn’t really matter. On the Oakland side of things, Kurt Suzuki seems to really like Tigers pitching. It doesn’t seem to matter who’s on the mound, cuz Suzuki’s already gotten himself 5 RBIs in this series. The Tigers have been able to handle the big bats (Mike Piazza, Nick Swisher, etc) for the most part. It’s actually the bottom of the order that’s done the damage. I’m not sure if there’s anything significant to conclude from that, but I’ll throw out the observation nonetheless. Meanwhile, Polanco was stellar at second base, and Grilli proved to the world that Tigers pitchers CAN field their positions, but the rest of the defense wasn’t particularly sharp. Guillen and Inge both had errors, and I’m not sure what the deal with Rabelo was. He and Verlander couldn’t seem to get on the same page, and twice he had “strike ‘em out/throw ‘em out” opportunities (although that first one was more of a “guarantee” than an “opportunity”), but he didn’t even throw the ball. In the case of the first inning, that run never scored, but it would have been out #3, and so it kind of ended up elevating Verlander’s pitch count even more. It probably didn’t make that much of a difference in the long run, cuz Verlander didn’t really have good control anyways, but still. However, with as many breaking balls as Verlander bounced into the dirt, he only had one wild pitch, so you gotta give Rabelo a lot of credit for blocking the rest of them (Verlander’s kept both catchers busy with that this season).
After taking advantage of an error to score the first run of the game and adding a couple more in the second inning, the offense became absolutely abysmal, at least in clutch situations. They had several chances to score more runs, but unlike Oakland, they never made good on those chances (I think they went something like 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position). Magglio went hitless, as did Granderson, although he reached on an error and later scored a run. Inge wasn’t very effective either, as he struck out twice. After having quite a nice road trip so far, I expected more from Rabelo, but he did get an RBI and a sacrifice. Jim Leyland put the suicide squeeze on with Casey at third (of all people), and Rabelo got the bunt down perfectly (he’s been doing that a lot recently). As I mentioned before, Gary Sheffield officially got into the 2500 Hit Club (He’ll likely be joined by Pudge sometime later this year, unless Pudge gets injured or goes into a major slump, and I’m hoping neither of those happen). Sean Casey kept the extra-base hit streak alive with a double.
Interestingly enough, the guys hosting the post-game show seemed to blame the whole thing on the fact that Pudge had to serve his suspension and wasn’t playing. As attracted as I am to that line of thought (Pudge does have good career numbers against the A’s, and as I mentioned before, Rabelo and Verlander seemed to have communication issues all night), I really doubt he would’ve made THAT much of a difference, but you never know. To my surprise, we did get a very brief glimpse of Pudge, who was watching the game from the press box (you know, for a guy I don’t consider to be attractive, he actually cleans up pretty well). It looked like he was talking on a cell phone or something, but I couldn’t tell for sure, cuz his hand was in front of his face. Also, last night was billed as “Milestone Night,” and ironically, the only milestones that happened were the ones by Sheffield and Polanco, and those were milestones that absolutely no one outside of the Detroit market paid any attention to. Barry Bonds did not hit number 755, A-Rod did not hit number 500 (and funny enough, in a game in which the Yankees hit eight home runs, A-Rod was 0-for-5), and Tom Glavine did not get his 300th career win.
Today is the rubber match in Oakland, and the final game on this road trip. Nate Robertson will start for the Tigers. He had a very Jekyll-and-Hyde performance in Anaheim, and the “Hyde” portion of it was very, very ugly. He looked a lot better after the first three innings, so hopefully that’s a good sign. He’ll be opposed by left-handed rookie Dallas Braden, who hasn’t won since April 24th, and he has a slightly elevated ERA (then again, so does Nate). Actually, these two pitchers have very similar lines. Both have had kind of up-and-down seasons, both have losing records, and both tend to not get a whole lot of run support. Something’s gonna have to give. Pudge is scheduled to be back in the lineup, but Guillen will be getting the day off as a precautionary measure (he left last night’s game with sore knees). Leyland also wanted to give Polanco the day off, but I don’t know if he would do that with Guillen out. Ryan Raburn is expected to start, either at center field or second base.
One Year Ago: On August 1, 2006, the Tigers defeated the Tampa Rays 10-4. Justin Verlander pitched about as well as he did last night, although he didn’t walk as many. He was pitching into and out of jams all night, and in the end only lasted five innings. However, this time he got plenty of run support to back him up. The offense was led by Carlos Guillen, who hit for the cycle, the first Tiger to do so since 2001. In his first game as a Tiger, Sean Casey homered, and recent call-up Brett Clevlen hit his first Major League home run (and he followed that up with another one in the ninth inning).
2006 record: 71-35
2007 record: 61-45
UPDATE: Lineups are posted, and Polanco is playing. Omar Infante will be at short, and with a lefty on the mound for Oakland, Mike Hessman will play first and Ryan Raburn will be in center field. Other than that, it's your usual cast of characters. By the way, I have to be at work at four o'clock, so I will see absolutely none of this game.
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