Tiger Geist

Last night’s victory is one to savor.  Why?  Because, I imagine that if the Yankees had the bases loaded with none out in the first, and A-Rod is in the lineup, New York gets different results.  However, with a depleted lineup, Bonderman escapes by only allowing two runs and shuts the Yankees (with help from Clay Rapida) for the rest of the game.  Again… when they’re down, kick them in the balls.

Kudos to Polanco for his two homers.  Best part was that neither were on home run type swings — Initially I was concerned about a Zach Miner type performance (Zach starting to strike guys out and it seemed to hurt his approach at the mound).  Also like what I’m seeing from Sheffield, but he’s not walking alot.  Granderson continues to impress with a hit and a walk in limited action.  I wonder if the Tigers really knew Curtis was going to further blossom into a super star when they traded Maybin away this winter.

Bonderman was impressive last night, but I’m concerned that his strikeouts are down.  It shouldn’t be too much to worry about, but he has an “out” pitch (slider i guess?) but as a power pitcher he doesn’t seem to have a strike-out pitch.  I wonder why he hasn’t looked into a split finger yet;  that seems to be the pitch of power pitchers (Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling… someone named Jack Morris).  Screw the change up.

Finally, the month is over, with detroit _just_ under .500 at 13-15.  Now i can feel comfortable evaluating the team.  At this point, to quote Dennis Green, “they were who we thought they were”.  But different.