Box Score

Summary

For the second straight game the Tigers struggled to get hits this time against Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka. Nate Robertson was the Tiger starter who, while giving up a number of hits (11), kept Detroit in the ball game. Nate pitched pretty solidly but Boston’s powerful offense just wouldn’t roll over and stayed in for numerous long at-bats which drove Robertson from the mound after only 5 innings of work.

The Detroit bullpen, Bobby Seay, gave up 4 runs in the bottom of the eighth to put the game pretty much out of reach. This was disappointing as he’s the fifth bullpen pitcher to give up more than a run in their last outing over the last three-or-so games.

This game ultimately came down to the Tigers not able to score and not taking advantage of the few scoring opportunities that did present themselves. For those who were yelling for more national press when the Tigers were on a long winning streak, well we’ve gotten our share the last two days. Wednesday’s game will also be on national TV (ESPN) hopefully we can just look a bit better for that one.

Pitching

Nate Robertson pitched what looked to be a decent game. He continuously challenged the Red Sox batters throughout his outing, even when they were hitting him pretty hard. He had his control and walked no batters while striking out three but giving up 11 hits, including 3 doubles which shouldn’t count as doubles at Fenway, was too much to take.

Tim Byrdak, who was called up from Toledo before the game, pitched two innings allowing 0 hits and a single walk. He looked pretty good, I just hope this can hold as his history seems to suggest it won’t.

Bobby Seay finished the game giving up 4 disappointing runs. With the rest of the bullpen struggling the last week or more the last thing I wanted to see was Seay also struggle.

Hitting

Matsuzaka for the Red Sox pitched an excellent game against Detroit, however they had a number of opportunities to capitalize. Curtis Granderson started off the game appearing as though he had already figured Daisuke out getting 2 hits, including a home run, in his first two at-bats. Magglio Ordonez contributed a double followed by a hit by Carlos Guillen followed by the last out by Sean Casey. Ordonez stepped up to make sure he had his normal extra-base hit.

Tigers batted .182 against Matsuzaka, worked zero walks and struck out 5 times. Matsuzaka was able to keep the ball down and move it around which resulted in a 16-6 ground-fly out ratio.