Box Score

Summary

Well, I missed most of this game as I was at a wedding rehearsal for a member of the family but caught an inning here & there when I could get near a TV. This was certainly a close game and both teams had pitchers on the mound who were new to the rotation this year.

Ultimately the Tigers couldn’t bring their teammates home with 5 opportunities with runners in scoring position. This culminated with the 9th inning and Placido Polanco on third and Gary Sheffield striking out while looking at all three strikes. Detroit had a few rallies and it, what I saw at least, was a pretty exciting game to watch.

Pitching

Chad Durbin did his job as best as the Tigers can expect tonight and kept them in the game. He, as with all his starts so far, starts to falter as the innings go on and this is something that Leyland will need to keep an eye on. Yes, that means I do believe we’ll be seeing him on the mound a time or two more.

Bobby Seay has obviously gotten the job of the one-out situation guy. This is the third or fourth time he’s been brought in to get a single guy out and done pretty well at it to.

Hitting

Polanco has stayed strong as the team hit a collective .229. Gary Sheffield racked up 2 more K’s and the Tigers totaled 9 on the evening but they did rack up some extra base hits which lead to some of the runs.

Leyland made a number of substitutions, Casey in for Thames who wasn’t doing much at the time, Granderson in for Inge in the 9th, but nothing got the bats going. The Casey sub wasn’t really for offense and this is the second time he’s cut short Thames time at first. My guess is he’s simply getting Thames to the plate more this way.

Tigers got swept the first series in ‘06, they need to bring it together tomorrow and take the series. It’s already starting to cluster at the the top of the Central standings.