PREGAME: After a decisive victory last night, the Tigers look to put another nail in the coffin of the White Sox and stave off the Twins. To do it they’ll send out a stacked lineup with Sean Casey batting 3rd and another night of Neifi Perez. If I could type that confused sound that Scooby Doo makes I would.

Omar Infante has once again been relegated to the bench as Perez makes his 3rd start in a row.

Now I know that Jim Leyland likes to look at batter-pitcher history when making his lineup. Somehow Neifi’s 2 for 13 is more impressive than Infante’s 5 for 25 with 2 homers. And Chris Shelton’s 7 for 19 with 2 homers doesn’t warrant a start either. Harrumph.

Hopefully Justin Verlander will be in Rookie of the Year form instead of Rookie form and it all becomes a moot point.

POSTGAME: As the Tigers did to the White Sox Monday, the reverse took place last night. The White Sox homered the Tigers to submission while Freddy Garcia was simply awesome. After the first 2 batters reached base for the Tigers, Garcia only allowed a walk for the remaining 8 innings. Essentially it didn’t matter how good Verlander was, the Tigers weren’t scoring.

And as for Verlander, he was erratic with his control. This was exemplified when a hit batter and a walk (followed by a tweener single) led to the Pierzynski grand slam. In Verlander’s defense, that pitch that AJ hit out was really a pretty good pitch. It was a curve ball down in the zone. As much as I hate to compliment Pierzynski, because, well, he’s Pierzynski, that was a great piece of hitting.

The Twins won, as you’ve probably heard. The Tigers lead is down to a half game, and Thursday morning we could be looking at a new division leader.

PREGAME: While the Tigers had success in the friendly confines of Wrigley, their trips to US Cellular have benn anything but friendly. The Tigers have only won once in Chicago this year spanning 6 attempts. However, heading into this series the bulk of the pressure is on the White Sox. If the Tigers can manage to get 1 game in this series, they’ll have a 4 game lead for the wild card with only 10 games to go.

Of course getting that one game out of the way tonight would certainly be satisfactory.

Tonight it will be the battle of crafty lefties Mark Buerhle and Kenny Rogers.

Game Time 8:05

POSTGAME: The trend of taking the series opener in convincing fashion continued in Chicago. This game looked like it might be over before the first inning was done with the Tigers first 4 hitters picking up 4 hits. They did it by basically swinging at anything that was over the plate, which is what they have been maligned for during the slump. When they actually hit line drives it doesn’t seem as problematic.

Unfortunately the rally was short circuited on a triple play. I was going to call it an improbably triple play, but really that just seems redundant. Carlos Guillen was jammed and hit a soft liner to 3rd that made Marcus Thames and Magglio Ordonez easy outs. Ironically, they were running on the pitch to avoid the double play. Personally I’ve never understood the strategy of sending runners on a full count with less than 2 outs just to avoid the double play, especially runners with the speed of Thames and Ordonez in an inning where the pitcher is getting hammered. I’m not just saying this because of the triple play, because there is really no way to anticipate that. I just hate the strategy in general.

But the Tigers made it through and really only threatened with a couple 2 out runners in the first. The rest was Kenny Rogers doing what he does. Allowing the occasional baserunner but minimizing the damage by inducing a ton of ground balls.

After a couple homers by Magglio Ordonez, the game was put out of reach with a 3 run shot in the 9th from Brandon Inge. The homer was big not only from a comfort standpoint, but it kept Todd Jones in the bullpen. Jones had pitched the last 3 games, and was set to come in for the 9th. Inge turned it into a laugher and the result is Jones being available and rested for Tuesday’s game.

And in all fairness, Neifi Perez played a good game last night. He hit well with 2 singles and a sacrifice bunt while doing a nice job on the Thome/Pierzynski shift. He gets ripped a ton here, but he was good last night.

PREGAME: The Tigers go in search of win 90. To do it they’ll send out Wil Ledezma who hasn’t pitched since he ate his hat (literally) last Saturday against Minnesota.

Ledezma will be opposed by Daniel Cabrera. Cabrera fans more that a batter an inning, but he combines that with a ridiculously high walk rate of 6.67 per 9 innings pitched. As you might expect he throws a ton of pitches. In his last 3 starts he eclipsed the 100 pitch mark without getting out of the 6th inning.

Game Time 1:05pm

POSTGAME: Given that the Tigers had won the previous 2 games, this loss was easier to take. The 2 much maligned acquisitions, Neifi Perez and Sean Casey, combined for 5 RBI’s. Newest Tiger Matt Stairs also had a homer taken away on a fine defensive play.

I’ve been in the camp to get Shelton more at-bats, but Casey did have a very good series.

What I liked is that the Tigers came back a couple times and showed that their bats do have some life. Granted, the first rally was heavily fueled by Daniel Cabrera’s inability to find the plate, but the Tigers took advantage. And it all started with a 2 out walk to Magglio Ordonez.

Unfortunately, the Tiger pitchers couldn’t do much to keep the O’s off the board. Ledezma was dazzling in the first inning becoming homer happy. Zach Miner was ineffective. Jamie Walker was good for 1/3 of an inning. Joel Zumaya looked pretty good until it appeared he fatigued in his 2nd inning. (Speaking of which, I’m not sure why Leyland left him in as long as he did. He’s coming off soreness, hasn’t pitched in a week, and you leave him out for 33 pitches?).

Jason Grilli didn’t pitch as poorly as his final line will indicate. Where he was hurt the most was on the wild pitch that allowed Brian Roberts to advance to 2nd with no outs, and then 3rd on a sacrifice. An intentional walk to set-up the double play brought up Miguel Tejada. He hit a smash that Inge made a diving stop on. The ball appeared to be hit hard enough to give the Tigers a shot at an inning ending double play. But Inge’s throw to 2nd was high and tipped off of Perez’s glove. Now the throw wasn’t right on the money, but Perez seemed to make the play look difficult. (Neifi rant: It very may have been, but that’s part of the problem with Perez. He doesn’t make any great plays. He’s merely adequate defensively. Given his offensive problems, he has to do more with the glove). And then there were more walks and hits and runs and the game ended.

I know that Perez had the bases clearing grounder up the middle earlier in the game, and he successfully sacrifice bunted as well, but Leyland simply cannot allow Perez to hit in the 8th. The go ahead run was in scoring position with Chris Shelton on the bench. He’ll pinch hit for Thames despite what else Thames has done in the game, but he won’t pinch hit for Perez?

As for Grilli pitching the 10th, it pretty much had to be that way. This was Jones 3rd day in a row pitching, and Zumaya won’t be available tomorrow night. Leyland had to limit Jones to 1 inning.

Fortunately Chicago lost, so while the Tigers division lead was trimmed they are one day closer to a playoff spot.

PREGAME: Jeremy Bonderman takes on Hayden Penn who has been shelled in 2 very brief appearances this season.

I’m basing this on nothing but my gut, but I think Bonderman bounces back big time tonight.

Game Time 7:05pm

POSTGAME: Thank goodness for series openers. The Tigers won in a laugher tonight. Bonderman wasn’t dominant with 9 baserunners over 6 innings, but he certainly was more effective. Of course with 17 runs Bonderman could have been awful and the Tigers would have still won.

The Tigers came out patient tonight with the first 10 hitters taking the first pitch they saw. While it took until the 4th inning for the Tigers to really break through, they had good approaches and good at-bats throughout the night. In the end they hit 4 homers, 3 of which went to the opposite field and that doesn’t count the one that Pudge had taken away. The one homer that was pulled was of course Brandon Inge’s which was complete with post-swing-cup-adjustment.

Now for Inge to hit that homer (and for Matt Stairs to get the bases loaded walk) it required the Tigers loading the bases. Going into tonight the Tigers only had 13 plate appearances with the bases loaded since August 8th.

The only downside to tonight is that Carlos Guillen seemed to be hobbling. Hopefully with an early night due to blow-out-ed-ness he’ll be back in tomorrow.