Tiger Geist

Its only the Royals, but thankfully Jarrod Washburn showed up to pitch for the Tigers last night.  Brandon Inge’s ninth inning heroics was exciting and welcome.  Not much else to say — Washburn out-dueled KC’s ace, now its time for Detroit to keep their feet on the Royal’s neck for the rest of the season.  Brandon Lyon got the win, and I’m getting more and more comfortable with his role on the team.

Lots of talk about the ‘justness’ (or lack thereof) in terms of penalties for last week’s brawl in Boston — both Rick Porcello and Kevin Youkilis got five games, both took their penalty without ‘official’ protest.  To me, it doesn’t matter — Porcello didn’t lose a start, he just got pushed back two days.  The damage was done once Youkilis ran at Porcello, and the umpires followed up by tossing both players.  That was Detroit’s best chance to win that night — with Porcello on the mound, not Chris Lambert.  So the suspensions may not have been fair, but I don’t see how it matters once Porcello was out of the game Tuesday night.

I’m a few days behind posting this, but the latest episode of This Week In Detroit Tigers Baseball is live.  Joe Dexter had myself and J Ellet Lambie as guest panelists on the show, which we recorded during the first game of the Boston series.  Among other areas, we discuss a few topics of interest related to the Boston series.  I was hoping for at least one victory, preferribly a split.  I wanted to see some close games that showed Detroit’s bullpen hold a lead.  Well… not exactly, but I’ll take Justin Verlander’s gem Thursday, including Fernando Rodney’s perfect ninth.  Could have been worse.