Tiger Geist

Yeah, a little over board there.  Big win for Detroit, who got a gutsy performance from Nate Robertson, great pitching by Rodney and Seay, Todd Jones almost suffers the loss.  Sheffield homers to tie the game, after popping up with the bases loaded earlier.

Big numbers:  4 / 5 / 4… number of men left on by Ordonez / Cabrera / Sheffield.  Detroit left 18 runners on, while STL left a whopping 23.

Interesting move to leave Clete Thomas in the game in both bases loaded situations, with Thames on the bench (assuming he was available to hit).  I imagine Jim Leyland liked the defense he could get over Thames by leaving Thomas in the game, especially with Polanco getting ejected earlier in the inning (and having to bring in either Renteria or Raburn).  Leyland got it right this time.  Big big Kudos to the rookie, with two RBI’s, both on walks.

Question:  Doesn’t detroit seem to be thrown out at the plate a lot this year?  I’ve counted at least three times in the last 7 days (two in this series) that we’ve had guys thrown out at the plate.

Hollimon gets his first big league hit;  Sardinha doesn’t give much at the plate, but seems to have caught a great game.

Go Tigers:  Two games under .500; 4.5 games out of the division race.

Sounds like a decent number of people went to the game last night, and some even stayed until the end.  Everyone was talking about Todd Jones’ Magglio impersonation, so i found it this morning on youtube:

After being told that Rodney, Zumaya, Sheffield, and Clete Thomas would all return a week apart, who would have guessed that Thomas and Sheffield would help lead Detroit to victory last night, and Zumaya and Rodney would struggle?

Not too worried.  I think its a great sign that they were able to gut out the win.  Zumaya should come around.  I wonder if Leyland is a little concerned that neither Rodney, Zumaya, nor Dolsi have looked good this week.  Early game today;  big series victory on the line.  Continue the crawl back to respectability.  Please.

Update:

I’d love a series win, and then the Cardinals just activated Pujols.  As I’m watching mlb live gameday (with their snazzy new 3d display), here are the Tiger’s batting averages for the batting order:  .269, .316, .305, .304, .277, .296, .234, .000, .000.  I know Sheffield’s swinging a hot bat, but the bottom of the order is slightly scary.