Well, if I wasn’t agitated before, that sure got me there. Simply put, there wasn't a whole lot to like about this game. It’s a testament to how crappy this game was when the highlight for me was Pudge throwing out a baserunner on a pitchout. Justin Verlander’s final line actually looks pretty decent. It didn’t really look like it during the game, cuz it seemed he ended up with a full count on just about everyone. He only gave up the 2-run homer to Jim Thome (who has now hit five home runs in his career against Verlander, and Justin’s only in his second season; I think Thome’s got him figured out pretty well). Unfortunately, I guess he should’ve pitched a shutout. Zach Miner and Bobby Seay did well out of the ‘pen. Rodney started out well, but then he had the leadoff walk in the ninth and then Umpires On Crack took over from there. The second base umpire had already made one bad call earlier in the game when Jermaine Dye ran into him before being tagged out by Polanco. This time, Scott Podsednik bunted the ball right in front of home plate, which gave Pudge the opportunity to get the out at second. His throw was a tad high, but the replays show that Infante clearly, CLEARLY managed to keep his foot on the bag (and I know that claim probably doesn’t have a whole lot of credibility coming from me, but watch the slo-mo yourself and you’ll see that I’m right). And yet he was called safe. I have no idea how Infante wasn’t ejected when Leyland was. I’ve never seen Infante that worked up (and I suppose I ought to give props to Pudge for keeping his cool). And that runner came home to score the winning run. Sigh. However, Infante’s quote in the recap on the official website made me laugh.

As if Umpires On Crack wasn’t enough, the Reyes Effect paid a visit as well. Once again, Gavin Floyd ain’t so great against most teams, but for whatever reason, he’s just dominated the Tigers for the most part, and that proved to be true again last night. Guillen was the only one to FINALLY get an RBI off him, and it’s a shame that after being in the .320 range for most of the season, he won’t be able to finish over .300. Granderson’s got a chance, though. Polanco now needs just one more hit to get to 200. I missed Marcus Thames’s home run (though I was in the room), and for some reason, I failed to realize that the game was tied for an insanely long amount of time. Another thing I failed to realize (likely due to the sheer amount of nitpicking, criticizing, complaining, and downright whining I’ve been doing recently) is that Pudge now has a six-game hitting streak. Not that it really matters at this point, but I did want him to finish strong. By the way, Jason Beck seems to think that they’ll pick up the option, but Sports Illustrated disagrees, so I don’t know what to think (a bit of a lift for me was that I found out Ross thinks they should pick up the option as well). I’m still gonna operate under the assumption that they will not. That way I’ll spare myself any additional disappointment should that happen. By the way, I was certainly glad once Gavin Floyd finally departed, and not just for the obvious reasons. Throughout most of the game, he had one pantleg up higher than the other, and that was really annoying me. He’d get them evened out, and then one would fall down again. And now for your cheap shot of the day: With the exception of Floyd (for reasons I have just stated), every guy on the White Sox team looked better than Pudge. Like I said yesterday, I don’t get it. [I originally had another Spanish phrase here to blow off a little steam, but it turned out to be a bit more vulgar than I wanted].

Anticlimactic as it may be, it all ends today. Nate Robertson takes the hill for the final game of the season, looking to end on a high note. He’ll be facing Jose Contreras, who appears to have been pitching a lot better recently. I have no idea what Leyland plans to do with his lineup. I mean, I know he’ll start Magglio and Polanco, but I don’t get this whole resting the regulars bit. It’s not like you need to save them for anything (of course, whenever I say this, Leyland ends up starting a whole slew of the reserve players, so there seems to be some reverse psychology involved here). I also know he was considering not starting Granderson, but Curtis went 1-for-4 last night to bring his average down to .299, and I know he wants to end at .300, so that may factor into the decision. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Guillen start, if only to give him the opportunity to maybe get the two RBIs he needs for 100. Pudge is probably the biggest question mark. My instincts are telling me that he will not play, but I really hope he does. One last dance, so to speak. The same could be said for Sean Casey. Either way, I will not be able to see it. I work today 10-5, though Ross is the pharmacist so I will definitely be able to follow the game.

This’ll have to be a short one. I should’ve started preparing this last night, but I didn’t. I planned on doing it this morning, but as it turns out, they switched my shift for today and never bothered to tell me, so you can imagine I was a bit rushed. And tonight’s game starts in less than an hour. Anyways, last night’s game left me rather perplexed, in more ways than one. I don’t have time to go into just how many ways, but suffice it to say that I am still perplexed. Kenny Rogers had an insanely high amount of walks and gave up too many runs, but he says that he was trying to break himself and since he didn’t, he feels good that he can pitch effectively next season. Whether or not he’s still with the Tigers remains to be seen, but there you go.

As far as the offense goes, Magglio and Polanco seem to have become the only players that count now, and both had good nights at the plate. Ichiro would have to go on an absolute tear to catch Maggs (which isn’t out of the question, but it’s unlikely), and Polanco only needs two more hits to get to 200. Pudge (who really is the one who started me on this road of being perplexed) also had a decent night with a single and a double. And though I’ve spent a great deal of this past week’s posts complaining my head off, I DO want him to finish strong no matter what. Meanwhile, Carlos Guillen seems to be stuck on 97 RBIs. By the way, as you may have guessed, I was pressed into Fashion Police duty yet again (“drafted” may be a more accurate term). I’ve already pretty much beaten Pudge into the ground in this category, so I’ll let him off this time with a simple summation in his native language: No me gusta nada. In a feeble attempt at not looking so lopsided in my criticisms, I’ll pick on Polanco. Seriously, a white shin guard just does not look good against gray pants.

Tonight marks Justin Verlander’s final start of the season. He has struggled in his career against the White Sox. Meanwhile, Gavin Floyd seems to struggle against every other team EXCEPT Detroit, so go figure. Hopefully Verlander can put his past struggles behind him. As far as the lineup goes, Maggs gets the night off, and we’ve indeed seen the last of Gary Sheffield for this season. Therefore, things are a little different tonight. Guillen’s the DH and batting cleanup, while Sean Casey will occupy the five-slot. Ryan Raburn will be in right field, and Santiago will play short. Other than that, it’s your usual guys, which I’m happy about, because that means I’ve got one last look at the Verlander/Pudge battery (and even though I’ve just about given up on Pudge ever coming to his senses, it’s better than not having him at all, though one more night of this might shift me from "perplexed" to "grudgingly resigned").

Apparently NOBODY could resist the obvious clichés about the fact that on the night the Tigers were eliminated, their game was shortened by rain. I shall attempt to show more restraint. Anyways, the first rain delay was still in progress when I got home, which means that I got to see most of the “good” part. It looks like Jair Jurrjens got beat up a little bit in the first inning, but settled down after that. The rain knocked him out of the game, so it’s still hard to tell about his “bounce back” ability, and now we’re not gonna find out until Spring Training. Still, he has impressed in most of his starts. Tim Byrdak and Jason Grilli really weren’t all that spectacular, but they pitched scoreless innings, and I guess that’s the important part. All the pitchers were helped out from some terrific defense, most prominently from Raburn and Polanco.

It seems the Tigers have discovered the best way of beating Johan Santana: get a rain delay that lasts over an hour so that he gets knocked out of the game. This is the third time I’ve complained about the lineup being anemic, only to have them score a bunch of runs. Along that same line, it seems that I’ve finally complained enough about Rabelo’s recent lack of offensive production, cuz he came through in the second (though in the replay, it looked more like Cuddyer was gonna catch that ball), although the guys in the post-game show seemed to want to take Rabelo’s RBIs and give them to Raburn (I still find it ironic that they did a piece on how fans keep mixing up Rabelo and Raburn, and yet they have failed to realize that they do a lot of that themselves). Raburn, of course, had his own RBIs in the game courtesy of a triple. Every Tiger reached base last night, and everyone scored a run except for Brandon Inge. Magglio, meanwhile, is on the verge on running away with this batting title. I heard somewhere that if Maggs gets one hit in each of the remaining games, Ichiro would have to bat, like, .576 in order to catch him. Also, I ended up with a night off from being the Fashion Police, for the most part. They did provide the usual gratuitous shot of Pudge (although perhaps you can’t really call it THAT gratuitous this time, cuz he was the answer to the Aflac question), and for some reason, he just looked really unhappy. Not sure what was up with that, although the FSN guys speculated that perhaps it’s a good sign that Rabelo caught last night (in the sense that if this was indeed the last home game for Pudge, he probably would’ve started). I’m still gonna remain skeptical, although if talk like that continues, I may upgrade myself to “cautiously optimistic.”

Before the game last night, Pudge, Polanco, Granderson, and Todd Jones were given awards for their accomplishments this season (Pudge for moving up to third on the all-time games caught list, Polanco for setting a new record for errorless games by a second baseman, Granderson for the 20-20-20-20, and Jonesy for his 300^th save). Congratulations are in order for all four of them. I’d like to congratulate Craig Monroe as well for hitting his first home run as a member of the Chicago Cubs a couple nights ago. Hey, with the National League races being as tight as they are right now, it’s no guarantee, but Craig may end up better off with the Cubs than he would have with the Tigers. Wouldn’t that be ironic? And now for the latest insight into why I call this the Total Amateur Analysis: Up until a couple days ago, I was completely oblivious to the hazing ritual of making the rookies wear dumb outfits near the end of the season. I mean, I saw the headline a couple weeks ago about the Red Sox dressing Daisuke Matsusaka as a Teletubbie, but I had no idea why (I suppose I could have found out had I actually READ the article, but that’s too easy). At any rate, the Tigers have yet to do this to their rookies, and according to Curtis Granderson, it’s going to be tricky this year because today is an off-day. I can’t really think of that many rookies on the team right now anyways. I know Rabelo is a rookie, and a lot of people keep referring to Raburn as a rookie even though he did play a few games in 2004. I’m not sure if Andrew Miller counts, cuz he’s technically not on the active roster right now. Jair Jurrjens probably does count, though, and I’m not sure about Yorman Bazardo or Virgil Vasquez. On a completely unrelated note, I saw that the umpire in that Milton Bradley incident a couple days ago got suspended for baiting Bradley. I recognized the umpire's name. He's the same guy that ejected Pudge in Seattle after really getting in his face. I know there were a couple of us who thought he was baiting Pudge then, and well, now that doesn't seem so far-fetched. By the way, in case you missed my update yesterday, you may have noticed that I FINALLY got that profile pic up. It’s a shame that it won’t be there that long, but there’s a distinct possibility that I may not get the chance to use it in the future, so it’s up.

As I just said, the Tigers are off today. They’re on their way to Chicago for the final three games of the season, and really, as it turns out, out of 162 games, only three are meaningless, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of (Hey, remember how we felt back in 2003? We’d be thrilled at a season like this). I haven’t been paying a whole lot of attention to Chicago, which is just fighting to stay out of last place, but from what I can tell, they have been pitching better recently. At any rate, Kenny Rogers will be taking on Javier Vazquez, who hasn’t given up a whole lot to the Tigers, or to most teams, if his ERA is any indication. And I know with these games being officially labeled as “meaningless,” it’d be all too easy to just play the prospects, but I’d like to see as much of my regulars as possible. Even if I just end up complaining. And yes, sometime in the next couple years I'll be looking over these last few posts I've made, and I'll say to myself (with a somewhat sick feeling in my stomach), "What the hell was I thinking?"

EDIT: I want this.

ANOTHER EDIT: I want this too.

Hey, it may be only a matter of time before the Tigers get officially eliminated, but they might as well make the Yankees earn their playoff spot, and last night was a good start. I was pleasantly surprised with Yorman Bazardo. He went from lasting only 4 2/3 innings to pitching seven scoreless ones, and he was quite adept at pitching himself out of jams, which is even more impressive when you consider that he had to protect a fragile 1-0 lead for most of his outing. The defensive gem of the night belonged to Polanco, who started a spectacular double play.

With the exception of the early run in the second, it looked like the Tigers were headed for more of the same against Matt Garza. I got so tired of watching them hit into double plays that I called Laura while the game was still on. It was while I was on the phone with her that the offense finally woke up. Magglio led the way with a double and a sweet-looking home run. Several Tigers had a multiple-hit game, including Guillen, who’s been battling it a bit down the stretch and seems to be stuck on 97 RBIs. Meanwhile, once again, Pudge is driving me crazy. To tell you the truth, I don’t particularly care for being the Fashion Police and frankly, I’m getting a little tired of it after two nights in a row (And when I wrote my post yesterday, I failed to realize just how much space I was devoting to the subject. I certainly didn’t mean to do that. I have a dangerous tendency to write out ALL my thoughts on a particular idea when I don’t really need to. It must be the lingering college student in me. At any rate, the damage has been done, and if I didn’t look like an idiot already, I certainly do now, and for that, I apologize. Not that it’s gonna stop me from doing it again). If it is a superstition thing, I feel I should point out that Pudge was 2-for-4 in each of the first two games of the homestand, but he’s only been 1-for-4 in his last two games. Just something to think about (hey, I may not be superstitious, but I’m not above manipulating them in order to achieve a desirable effect). He seems to be determined to change a bunch of things up, because last night he also had this weird facial hair thing going on (I’m not even sure how he managed that, cuz Monday night all he had was the standard run-of-the-mill five o’clock shadow). It doesn’t look bad, per se, but it sure makes him look strangely different, and I’m not sure what to make of that. Despite the second night in a row of wardrobe miscues, though, I’m glad he got his one hit when he did. It was kind of funny, because I was on the phone with Laura at the time, and I looked up at the TV to see that they were intentionally walking Guillen. Now, I absolutely hate it when they do that, and I expressed my displeasure to Laura. I then had to explain the strategy of why you would want to walk someone intentionally (go for the double play, get the righty/righty matchup, etc). Laura wasn’t really sold on the idea (no surprise there, since it’s a move that I don’t particularly care for either), so I said, “Yeah, you are taking a gamble by doing it.” As soon as I said that, Pudge hit a line drive into left field, so I quickly added “And Pudge just made them pay for it.” He wasn’t able to get an RBI cuz he hit the ball too sharply, but he did keep the inning alive for Timo and Casey. Other than that, though, his at-bats weren’t that great-looking. And since I’ve already delved into the dreaded Fashion Police area, I’d like to bring up a couple other things. The first is that Ryan Raburn was also sporting the high socks last night. I wasn’t particularly enthralled with the look, but I only saw him for a grand total of about three seconds so I can’t make any informed opinion on it. The second thing is something I’ve been wanting to mention for quite a while, and it concerns Carlos Guillen while he’s batting. Between the pattern on his shoes, the way he wears his pants, and his shin guard, he looks like he’s wearing spats. I don’t particularly have an opinion on that. It’s just an observation.

The broadcasters must’ve had a real hot mike near home plate last night. During Pudge’s first at-bat, he would tap his shoes with his bat between pitches, and I realized I could hear it, but I didn’t think anything of it beyond that. He then struck out, and as he was walking back to the dugout (with the camera on him the entire time), he suddenly let out a brief but Tourettes-like outburst of shouting, and I could definitely hear him rather clearly. I couldn’t understand what he was saying (not to mention if he was shouting in English or Spanish), but I heard him. What’s weird is that he didn’t really sound like himself (and now I’m really starting to sound like a broken record with all these observations about how “different” he was last night). Later in the game, we got a shot of a fan with the best sign I’ve seen all week. It had a bunch of 7s all over it and in the middle it said “Pick up the option!” Hey, even though he’s been driving me nuts recently, I agree 100%, and there’s nothing I want more. Also, they interviewed Polanco during the post-game show, and he seems to have acquired a chair at his locker. Usually Pudge is the only one that I’ve seen in a chair when they have those locker-room interviews. Everyone else is interviewed standing up. But now Polanco has a chair (and it’s even got an Olde English “D” on it). And that is probably the dumbest observation I’ve made all season long. But with all my complaining over the past two days, it's all lovely compared to that bizarre Jeff Daniels music video that they had on the pre-game show. Even if we all can relate. By the way, Laura and I have agreed that “Magglio Ordoñez” is a really fun name to say.

Tonight is the final home game of the year. Sigh. Jair Jurrjens gets one chance to bounce back from his no-so-great outing against Kansas City. It’s gonna be a challenge for him. First, we haven’t seen how he responds to bad outings. Second, the Twins have already seen him (although this was seemingly not a problem for him when he made his second start against Cleveland). Third, he’s going up against Johan Santana. Yes, the Tigers just can’t avoid Santana. He has pitched in every series against Detroit this year, whether they’re at the Metrodome or at Comerica Park. Surprisingly, though, he’s only won one game against the Tigers, but it’s not like the Tigers have ever been able to really light him up. For the most part, he’s been outpitched. Hopefully Santana can be outpitched one more time. It’s a safe bet that Leyland will go with the all right-handed lineup, so we’ll likely see Ryan Raburn and Marcus Thames in this game, though I have no idea where Thames’ll be. I’m also not sure if Pudge will play or not, but I’m hoping he does, and I’m hoping he’s come to his senses (I’m not holding my breath, though). At any rate, I work tonight 6-9, so I’m only gonna see the latter part of the game (but with Santana on the mound, it could be a short game).

UPDATE: Xanga has FINALLY let me get this new profile pic up. I know it's very similar to the last one, but Pudge is smiling in this one so I thought it looked nicer.

I suppose it could’ve been worse, but last night’s game sure featured a whole lotta things that I didn’t like. Some of them are rather obvious things that any Tigers fan would be unhappy with and others are things that could only come from my warped mind and nitpicky nature (by the way, Xanga STILL won’t let me upload the new profile pic so that’s gonna have to wait for at least another day, which sucks, especially since another changed headline on the official website has given me reason to believe that I seriously don’t have much time left to get that picture up). And I was even able to watch the beginning of the game on the HDTV before my mom kicked me out of the room somewhere around the fourth inning. At any rate, I’ve mentioned before that the top three types of losses that I particularly hate are shutouts, blowouts, and being on the losing end of a pitching duel. Last night was especially bad cuz it combined two of those. Nate Robertson certainly deserved better. He’s gonna have to go into therapy or something once this season is over, and apparently the no-run-support thing has plagued him for most of his stint with the Tigers. It didn’t look like he was gonna be around for very long, but then he settled in and did a really nice job. Unfortunately, all he gave up was one run, and that turned out to be too much.  

Given Carlos Silva’s numbers coming into this game, I was considering labeling this one as a Reyes Effect performance, but then Jason Beck provided this little tidbit: Throughout this season, the Tigers have had problems with sinkerball pitchers who throw strikes and get ground balls. Silva is one of those pitchers. Others would include Fausto Carmona and Roy Halladay, both of whom have also given Detroit trouble this year. Jake Westbrook is also a sinkerball pitcher, but for whatever reason, the Tigers usually can figure him out and force him to get his sinkerball up. However, from what I can tell, Westbrook’s sinker usually falls out of the strike zone if you lay off it, but guys like Carmona and Silva throw theirs for strikes. If you lay off it, it’ll still catch the bottom of the strike zone, which means you have to swing at it, which’ll usually result in a ground ball. I could be totally wrong on that, but there you go. Anyways, Carlos Guillen was the only one who could consistently get the ball in the air, but it always landed in an outfielder’s glove. Most of the few hits that the Tigers got either came with two outs and nobody on or were followed very quickly by a double play. The only real threat came when Brandon Inge and Curtis Granderson led off with consecutive singles, and Leyland made what should have been the right move by starting the runners via the hit-and-run, but Polanco had the extremely bad luck of hitting the ball right at the second baseman and they were able to turn the double play anyways. Sean Casey was the only Tiger with more than one hit, but Magglio’s average hasn’t changed, and he’s still ahead of Ichiro. Pudge had a single and a stolen base (which generated a lot of surprised discussion about the fact that he only has two stolen bases this year; I don’t think it’s his fault, really; it always seems that when he does take off, it’s a hit-and-run and the ball gets either fouled off or put in play). I appreciated the hit and the stolen base, but other than that, Pudge wasn’t particularly in my good graces for this game, and for obvious reasons that only I would harp on (Actually, that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration. I can’t really come up with any realistic scenario that would truly put him out of my good graces, but I think you know what I mean). But it had been quite a while since I saw Pudge with the high socks, so in the back of my mind, I was half-expecting it. You know, I really need to find something about someone else to nitpick and get annoyed with, if only to offset the sheer amount of time I’ve spent on this particular subject, but the problem is that nothing’s coming to mind (well, I suppose I could force myself to critique or compliment Nate Robertson’s ever-changing facial hair or lack thereof, but the thing with Nate is that you know it’s gonna be different every time). At any rate, if I could just figure out the pattern and/or reason for Pudge’s occasional flirtation with the high socks I could at least switch to complaining about that and not the look itself (well, there WAS a definite pattern just after the All-Star Break, but that seems to have gone by the wayside), and seeing as how I’ve likely lost all credibility on the subject by over-harping, I may as well just keep on complaining (although I will say this: From the little bit I’ve seen of Chris Shelton, Shelton looks much, MUCH worse, but no one looks as bad as Johnny Estrada, the catcher for the Milwaukee Brewers). If this is some sort of superstitious thing, though, I’ll live with it for the time being, cuz he does need to get his numbers up in these last few games. And as a side note, they mentioned (via a close-up) that he had new shoes with his number on them, and I didn’t like those, either. And, to top off all the other things I didn’t like about this game, Pudge was the final out. With the tying runs on second and third. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not blaming him or anything. I just don’t like it when Pudge is the final out (in part because there are those that WILL blame him). And on a completely random and unrelated note, my mom thought Polanco was black. I don’t even understand that.

Throughout the game last night, there was this ongoing discussion about how bad a catcher Matthew LeCroy was. He couldn’t throw (apparently there was one game in which he gave up seven stolen bases before the manager pulled him), he was prone to making errors, and when he tried to set up inside or outside, he wasn’t very stealthy about it. This dissing of Matthew LeCroy ended once the FSN guys realized just which team had the lead and turned into giving him props for his game-calling (and I’ll take that a step further and give him props for making better decisions about his uniform than Pudge did). In other news, there were a whole slew of people wearing baseball t-shirts with players’ names on the back of them today around campus. There were three of us in my Japanese class alone. We had a “Matsusaka,” a “Rodriguez,” and a “Prior” (which meant that I was the only one who wasn’t wearing a pitcher’s shirt). There was a Travis Hafner fan in my Spanish class (and, surprisingly, the Indians fans on campus have been pretty subdued for the most part) and a Grady Sizemore fan in the Student Union. I didn’t see them today, but I know that there’s also at least one Brandon Inge fan, a Magglio fan, and another Pudge fan on campus as well. Actually, the Pudge fan is in the chemistry class that meets right before my Intro to Patient Care class.

Tonight, Yorman Bazardo takes on Matt Garza. Bazardo pitched fairly well at the Metrodome but didn’t last very long. Meanwhile, Garza’s got a terrible home record, but his road ERA is very good, so the Tigers may be in for a challenge once again (and with the magic number down to 1, a loss tonight means it’s all over). This’ll likely be the last game this season that I’ll be able to watch all the way through, cuz I work tomorrow and Friday, and I close on Saturday. I don’t know about Sunday yet, but odds are that I’ll be working then as well. That being the case, I’m gonna try to sneak in some HDTV (although with this Ken Burns thing on PBS, I’m likely gonna get kicked out at 8:00 again). It could also be the last time I see Pudge and Casey in the home whites as well. Now I'm getting depressed again.

This marks the second time in the past month where I’ve complained that the lineup was rather anemic only to have the Tigers do all right for themselves in the end. I suppose you could use that to point out team depth or something, but it’s not really that simple, and it’s not really something I’d like Jim Leyland to make a habit out of in these last few days, cuz I like my regulars. At any rate, I always enjoy watching Justin Verlander. He didn’t really have the velocity that he’s had in his recent starts, but he still pitched well, so no complaints there. And it’s also fun to see Joel Zumaya when he’s on. But here’s a little taste of bitter irony: With yesterday’s victory, the Tigers now have more wins in September this year than they did last year.

I didn’t mention this yesterday, but I noticed that Gil Meche was originally supposed to start for the Royals yesterday, and I’m really glad that he didn’t, cuz my boys were able to have a field day with Jorge De La Rosa. It was nice to see Marcus Thames get a couple of home runs, cuz he was struggling recently, and it had also been awhile since Raburn had homered. Polanco made up for his 0-for-5 performance Saturday night with a 2-hit game. The Tigers actually only had seven hits, so I guess they really did make good use of them (kind of the opposite of Saturday). Guillen had an RBI single to round out the hit totals. Meanwhile, Mike Rabelo seems intent on finishing the year the same way he started. I’ll leave it at that. He is gonna play winter ball to work on his hitting, which is probably a good thing (not that he’s completely ineffective at the plate or anything), since at the very minimum, he’ll likely remain the backup catcher for the beginning of next season, at least until Vance Wilson is ready to return. After that, I don’t know what’s gonna happen. It’ll probably depend on if Pudge is still there or not. And that’s all I gonna say about that because the subject depresses me, to be honest with you. By the way, I finally get a (new) really good picture of Pudge for my profile pic, and what does the AP do? They get an even better one the next day. I am planning on changing it to that picture, but for some reason, Xanga is being stupid and won’t upload it right now, so it’ll have to wait.  

Tonight, the Twins come to town for the final home series of the season (Sniff. Again). The Tigers’ll run out the same three pitchers that they did against Minnesota last week, starting with Nate Robertson, who has pitched well against the Twins all year. However, keep in mind that while the Tigers have played the Twins exceptionally well at the Metrodome, they haven’t fared nearly as well at Comerica Park. The Twins’ll be sending out Carlos Silva. The Tigers have seen him once this year. That was way back in April, in a game I didn’t see, but I do know that Verlander got hammered, and it was the first time the Tigers suffered a blowout loss. I also remember that that was the game in which Mike Rabelo got his first hit. I don’t remember how they fared against Silva, nor do I know his career stats against Detroit (I do know that the Indians have been pummeling him all season; then again, the Indians pummeled Johan Santana all season). The person who writes the online previews for the official website seems to have given up and gone home for the final week, because it looks as though all I’m gonna get as far as each game is concerned is a little mini-preview of each game featuring each starter, their season numbers against the opposing team, and the “Player to Watch,” which seems to be Magglio on most nights. Yes, apparently all our energy is now supposed to be focused on Maggs and that batting title. Go Maggs!

One Year Ago: It was a much different scenario last year, as on September 24, 2006, the Tigers clinched a playoff berth on the strength of an 11-4 win over Kansas City. Much of the offense came courtesy of a nine-run second inning. Craig Monroe, Brandon Inge, and Matt Stairs all homered in the game.

For whatever reason, Kenny Rogers has just had problems with Kansas City this year. This time it was kind of a cat-and-mouse thing that would’ve been quite intriguing had Kenny not given up so many runs. The Royals came out with a good game plan against him, so Kenny made an adjustment, and the Royals adjusted to that. Kenny made the final adjustment and dealt for the rest of his outing, but it was too late. The bullpen wasn’t particularly good, although both Jason Grilli and Zach Miner suffered from a bit of bad luck more than anything else. The lefties out of the ‘pen were pretty effective, and it was nice to see Clay Rapada get himself a clean inning.

The offense had the same problem that plagued them the last time they were in Kansas City: Lots of hits, and not much to show for it. Of course, with the playoff chances virtually gone, all the attention has been redirected to Magglio and the batting title chase, and he certainly is making his case for it, with four hits last night. The Tigers have also broken the team record for extra-base hits. Granderson and Casey both had three hits, and two of Casey’s came against left-handed pitchers (Casey’s batting .339 against left-handed pitching; with all the talk about his lack of production, perhaps he should’ve been in the lineup against lefties more often). Guillen had a double, but was also a big culprit when it came to stranding runners. Pudge went 2-for-4 once again, which is encouraging to see. On the flipside, Polanco went 0-for-5 with a strikeout. Ouch.

Today, it’s the final game of the season against the Royals, featuring Justin Verlander’s final home start of the year. Hopefully he can get that bad taste from Cleveland out of his mouth. Jorge De La Rosa will start for Kansas City, making just his second appearance since coming off the DL. He pitched well against the Tigers the first time they saw him way back in April, and not quite as well since. Still, it’s hard to tell what’ll happen. I’m not sure what’ll happen with the lineup. Leyland has said he’s gonna continue to run his regulars out there for these final games, although I’m not sure if that includes the day game after a night game. Personally, I’m really hoping to see Pudge in there, cuz Verlander’s starting, and that’s a battery that I highly enjoy. Plus, Verlander only has one more start after this one, and I may never get to see the Verlander/Pudge battery again after that (I hope I’m wrong about that, but I just get this feeling that I’m not).

One Year Ago: On September 23, 2006, the Tigers defeated the Royals 15-4. Kenny Rogers gave up just one earned run in eight innings of work, while he had plenty of run support from the very beginning. The Tigers put up a 10-spot in the first inning, which included a home run and a triple from Curtis Granderson. One odd thing to note is that Pudge, who (it is well-documented) doesn’t walk, had two walks in this game (he also had an RBI and a run scored, but no hits, although once the Tigers blew the game open and Leyland decided to give his regulars the rest of the game off, he got lifted for Vance Wilson). Another interesting note is that this game featured the Major-League debut of Mike Rabelo, who got one at-bat as the DH late in the game. He struck out.

UPDATE: I guess running out your regulars does NOT include day games after night games, because the only regulars in today's lineup are Polanco and Inge. Guillen's also in there, but he's the DH. Yeesh.

Yeah, I know I’m cutting things REAL close here. I was gonna post this morning, but as it turns out, I overslept (my alarm didn’t go off, and I don’t know why) and I was lucky enough to get to work on time, and I just got back. Anyways, it was the bottom of the seventh when I got home last night, so I did not get a chance to see a whole lot of this game, therefore, things are gonna be a little vague. I will state the obvious with my first observation: That was a short game. Of course, five double plays’ll certainly speed things along. Apparently, Jurrjens didn’t do too well, but I’m not especially worried about him. All pitchers are gonna have those outings at some point (My dad’s friend had a really good way of saying that, but I can’t come up with the exact numbers to quote him). Looking at the box score, though, Tim Byrdak really came through for the Tigers, as did Fernando Rodney.

From an offensive standpoint, this game featured a couple of things you don’t often get from Sean Casey: a home run and an infield single (and if he had managed to hit a triple as well, THAT would’ve been something). Like I said, the scoring was all done before I got home, so I didn’t see the big rally excitement or anything like that, but apparently, the other big hero was Brandon Inge, who put the Tigers ahead. Pudge had himself a nice night on his 2,056^th game caught with a double, a single (during which he was tagged out at second base trying to stretch it into a double, but hey, I thought it looked like a double too, so I can’t blame him), and two runs scored. And Magglio is once again in front of Ichiro-barely.

One thing that kinda pissed me off was the tone of the game wrap on the official website. Whoever wrote it seemed surprised that the Tigers put in the effort to rally and win the game. Um, first of all, they’re still in it, albeit an extreme longshot. Second, even if they weren’t, I doubt Jim Leyland would tolerate anything less than their best effort. Also, you may notice that even though there isn’t a whole lot of baseball left (which means that the site’ll be changing back before too long), I got myself a new profile pic. Normally, I wouldn’t do that this late in the year, but that’s a really good picture of Pudge, and really good pictures of Pudge are few and far between, and I may not get the chance to use it later on down the road, so there you go.

Tonight (very shortly, actually), Kenny Rogers takes the mound for the second game in this series. He was rather decent against the Indians last time out, but didn’t get a win to show for it (hopefully, he’s not developing Nate Robertson Syndrome). He’s already made one start against the Royals this year, and it was not pretty. Then again, that’s around the time his elbow started flaring up, so hopefully that won’t turn into a repeat performance. Kyle Davies will start for Kansas City. He doesn’t have a very good record or ERA, but there hasn’t been a visit from the Reyes Effect in quite a while. Plus, the Tigers have already seen him this year. He was with Atlanta at the time, and held the Tigers to only two runs, and this was when Detroit’s offense was absolutely on fire. The Tigers still won that game cuz Justin Verlander is awesome, but only managing two runs usually spells trouble. As far as the lineup goes, it’s the same as last night, which means that once the first pitch is delivered, Pudge’ll have third place on the games caught list all to himself.

This is gonna be short, cuz I’ve gotta head to Spanish in about ten minutes here. I just wanted to complain that for some reason, I can’t get any of the Tigers videos from the first half or older to load on my computer. It just says “Loading” forever. I tried to play a video from last week, and that worked, and I’ve tried to play an old video tied to the “One Year Ago” post on this computer (I’m at school right now), and that worked, so I have no clue what’s going on. In other news, whoever it is that works on the Tigers website seems to be bipolar. They have an article up got changed from “Tigers Hanging In Despite Adversity” to “Tigers Hung In Despite Adversity” yet at the same time there’s another article that says “Come to Comerica Park to watch Jair Jurrjens try to push Detroit back into the playoff picture.”

One Year Ago: On September 21, 2006, the Tigers lost their makeup game to the Baltimore Orioles 4-3 at Camden Yards. Nate Robertson, backed by home runs from Magglio and Granderson, limited the O’s to two runs in six innings, but Fernando Rodney gave up two runs in the eighth.

UPDATE: Yay, I got the videos working again. Apparently I had to restart my computer. Anyways, Jason Beck's posted the lineups for tonight, and unless something happens in the next hour, Pudge will tie Gary Carter for third on the all-time games caught list tonight. While this would be primo opportunity for the Milestone Curse, I've been anticipating this one for a while (actually, I've more been anticipating him passing Gary Carter, which I assume will happen tomorrow night). It'll be a couple more years before he can get to the top of the list (currently occupied by Carlton Fisk, who, interestingly enough, had the same nickname), but he could probably do it, barring injury. Of course, I would love nothing more than to see him do it in a Tigers uniform, but that's another story, and it's still a long ways off. At any rate, I'm gonna miss the beginning of this game. Tonight's my high school homecoming game, and I'll be playing in the Alumni Band, as I do every year, but I'm probably gonna head home after halftime.

Meh, it was worth a shot, I suppose, but it seems that Cleveland just has that Angels in the Outfield aura about them. Their balls down the line stay fair, while ours go foul. Their flyballs go into the seats, and ours die on the warning track. You know the drill. I’ve been noticing that about Cleveland for a while, and not just in games against the Tigers. Nate Robertson put in a valiant effort, but the fifth inning appeared to be his undoing. I can’t really go into detail because I “saw” most of this on Gameday, and I heard a tiny bit on the radio as I was moving my car (only to find out that 1470 wasn’t carrying the game and 1270 apparently has horrid reception on the UT campus). Meanwhile (and this has nothing to do with Nate, but I thought I’d pose the question), what the hell is happening to Boston? Their bullpen has downright imploded. Not that I mind that much, cuz I don’t particularly care for Boston (I felt so wrong rooting for them last weekend when they were playing the Yankees). In fact, if they were to give up their division lead and enter the wild card chase I might be more emotionally involved in hoping for a miraculous charge from the Tigers. Then again, I have no idea what Boston’s magic number is, so I probably just sound dumb speculating as such.

I’m telling you, though, had it been anyone but Nate pitching, the Tigers would’ve totally pounded C.C. Sabathia. Say what you will about missed opportunities, but I think Sabathia had more to do with that than bad at-bats. I mean, he struck Polanco out swinging when there were runners in scoring position. That should be enough evidence right there. The Tigers did load the bases in the eighth, but it was with two outs, and so Marcus Thames was their only shot. He fell just short, or so it appeared on Gameday. I guess the only real tragedy out of this is that Magglio went 0-for-4 and now Ichiro has a higher average. I can only pray that Ichiro goes hitless tonight. And that Magglio has one hell of a homestand.

I’m just gonna say that whatever happens from here on out, I’m not ashamed of anything. Hell, I was proudly wearing my Tigers shirt around campus today (not the Pudge shirt; this is a different one, and it’s white, and about twenty minutes ago I spilled Pepsi on it and every little bit of that is showing up). And despite the prospect of being in a more favorable position, I’m still glad I’m not an Indians fan. Rafael Betancourt may be an excellent eighth-inning guy, but he is so slow it’s excruciating to watch. I couldn’t imagine having to watch him every single night. It was bad enough when Jose Mesa was with the Tigers. On a completely unrelated note, my Intro to Patient Care class has officially invaded my subconscious. I dreamt about a talking dog last night, but it was a diabetic talking dog, and we had to come up with a patient care plan for it. Then I dreamt that someone was building a deck outside our house and got it completely screwed up. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

As bleak as things look right now, I’m certainly known for being stubborn and obstinate, which means I ain’t throwing in the towel until the numbers say I have to (and then I suppose I’ll go into “exhibition mode” or something). The Tigers begin their final homestand of the season tomorrow night (Sniff). The Royals come to town to start things off, and boy, have they been a pain in the ass recently. They are back in last place, though (apparently Chicago has been playing better of late), though keep in mind that I’m typing this BEFORE today’s game has started, so that may change by tomorrow. Jair Jurrjens will start for the Tigers, and he’s been very good in all of his starts. Sooner or later, you’d have to figure that he’s gonna get beat up by someone, but hopefully that won’t happen until sometime next year. And I’m hoping that his shoulder will hold up for as long as we need him. He’ll be opposed by Billy Buckner, who I’m guessing is a prospect of some sort, but he did beat the Indians in his last start, so there’s something to watch out for.

One Year Ago: On September 20, 2006, the Tigers defeated the White Sox 6-2. Inge, Granderson, and Pudge all hit RBI doubles, and Maggs and Pudge both homered to back a strong outing from Jeremy Bonderman, who only gave up two solo homers.