PREGAME: That’s just the kind of season it’s been for the Tigers. They face the Blue Jays 6 times all season, and Roy Halladay starts half of those games.

Halladay was masterful in his last start against the Tigers when he went 10 innings in an extra inning duel against Jeremy Bonderman. In typical Halladay fashion he’s continued his excellence going 8 or more innings in his last 6 starts.

The Tigers will hope that Kenny Rogers can repeat his performance from last week against an offense that looks to be a little more of a challenge. And hopefully the Tigers can get at least 6 innings out of Rogers, because with Bonderman going out early yesterday and a double header slated to be started by a swing man and a guy returning from the DL on Tuesday, the pen might get taxed.

Game Time 7:05
TOR @ DET, Monday, September 10, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Something funny happened in the 9th inning tonight. I was wrapping up this post game section, and I’d actually prepared some analysis. You see, I was frustrated with the Tigers for being so impatient with runners on base. Like did you know that Detroit had 19 plate appearances with runners on base, and 17 with the bases empty. Yet with runners on base they saw all of 50 pitches, and they swung at 29 of them which resulted in a lot of quick innings and enabled Halladay to start the 9th.

But then the Tigers get a gift of a hit on a blown call, but then the baserunner was eliminated by a tremendous double play so karma evened out. And a 2 out ground ball single seemed harmless enough, but then Brandon Inge laced a single to center to bring up the tying run in the form of Curtis Granderson. As good as Granderson has been this year, he hasn’t been especially clutch, and it seemed that a left handed reliever would take care of him one way or another. But Toronto went to a right handed reliever and Granderson fisted one up the middle, just out of the reach of those pesky infielders scoring 2 runs.

A line drive single by Polanco put a very speedy tying run in scoring position who was then advanced to third base by a patient Gary Sheffield. Polanco got himself a 2-0 count before singling on 2-1 and Sheffield walked after getting ahead 3-1. I was all set to sing the virtues of patience when Magglio Ordonez comes up and punches the first pitch he sees through the right side to plate Granderson and Polanco. And Ordodnez did his best to stay in the MVP race, even as A-Rod homers every other at-bat.

It was a tremendous comeback and any win against a pitcher the caliber of Halladay feels that much sweeter.

Kenny Rogers was very good, and he went deeper than I would have expected. He threw quite a few pitches early, but got through the 5thand 6th on 15 pitches combined.

And the Tigers won despite losing 2 players to injury as Joel Zumaya went out when he peeled back the fingernail on his index finger and Pudge Rodriguez left with dizziness early on. In the post game presser Jim Leyland said that if Pudge can’t go in the night game tomorrow, Dane Sardhina would be activated, and a 40 man roster move would have to be made.

PREGAME: With a win today the Tigers will a)knock the Mariners out of contention and b)will have sustained a winning streak an entire turn through the rotation. The second is the bigger accomplishment in this blogger’s opinion.

But it won’t be easy with King Felix Hernandez on the rubber for the Mariners. The Tigers got to him for 10 hits in 6 1/3 inning the last time they met, but he limited the damage to 2 runs and picked up a win. Hernandez has allowed double digit hits in every other start dating back to the beginning of August. Following the pattern would be beneficial for the Tigers.

And then there is Bonderman who slogged through 5 1/3 innings his last time out and allowed only 3 runs, but none of it was easy – except for a 1-2-3 first inning. When he departed it appeared his elbow was hurting him. So control will be the thing to watch today. Can he command the fastball and does the slider have it’s normal bite?

Game Time 1:05
SEA @ DET, Sunday, September 9, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

PREGAME: Is it too much to hope for a 4 game win streak and a UM win for mine and Sam’s birthdays today?

As for today’s matchup, it will be Nate Robertson taking on Jeff Weaver.

Weaver was really bad at the beginning of the year and had amassed a 14.32 ERA before hitting the DL. Whe he came back he was much more effective going 4 straight starts allowing 1 or fewer runs. But then he’s been kind of not good again since then. In his last 2 starts he hasn’t made it out of the 5 th inning and surrendered 5 runs on 8 hits in each. He’s also allowed 2 homers in 6 of his last 8 starts.

For Robertson, he appears to be turning a corner with very strong outings against Cleveland and Oakland, with a clunker against the Royals in between. He hasn’t won since August 12th though because the universe hates him – or at least the bullpen and offense take turns hating him.

Game Time 7:05

POSTGAME: Well, half of that birthday wish came true. While I witnessed the most embarrassing effort by the University of Michigan football team that I can remember (Mike Hart really does deserve better), the Tigers also put a hurting on the Mariners. So that is good. Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone. Being that we took a family trip to Disney World last week there would be no presents this year, but I did get a box of chocolate donuts this morning for breakfast and a baseball shaped cake tonight for dessert so it was all good.

As for the game, Nate Robertson didn’t pick up a win, once again. But this time it was all Nate’s fault. He was handed a 3-1 lead, a 4-3 lead, and a 5-4 lead, but he held none of them and was lifted in the fifth. I won’t get on him for the Beltre homer, because that was all Beltre hitting out a pitch at the letters. That’s a pitch you want him to swing at. But the rest was pretty bad.

Fortunately the offense kept getting those add-on runs that Jim Leyland talks about. The resurgence of the offense can largely be traced to Pudge Rodriguez and Brandon Inge coming to life. And of course his Timo-ness getting 3 more hits. And his Timo-ness added 2 diving catches which helped Robertson escape the 4th also.

Curtis Granderson added another triple, that really looked like it could have been an inside the park homer as the throw in went to no-man’s land but Gene Lamont had already held him up.

Gary Sheffield was hitless again, but it wasn’t because he doesn’t have his swing back. He smoked 2 balls, but one was caught at the wall by Suzuki and the other was a sinking liner to left.

The Rod and Mario exchange of the night took place after Pudge’s 3rd hit:
Mario: That’s 3 hits for the Pudge-meister
Rod: Did you just call him the Pudge-meister?
Mario: Don’t you call him the little Pudgy one?
Rod: [giggling] yeah, I do [more giggling]

PREGAME: Is this where the team finally builds momentum? They have walk off wins under their belt and their ace on the mound tonight. They also have a chance this weekend to to essentially take one team out of contention with a sweep. Of course the Mariners have that exact same opportunity.

Justin Verlander is coming off a 10 K, 1 run performance in which he threw 129 pitches. Velocity will be something to keep an eye on early tonight.

Miguel Batista takes the bump for the Mariners tonight and he’s also coming off a strong start where he went 7 innings and allowed just 1 run on 5 hits while fanning 7 Blue Jays. He picked up a win in his only other outing against the Tigers this year when he went 6 innings with the only run coming on a Curtis Granderson lead off homer.

Lefties have a 299/376/473 line off of Batista, so plan on seeing his Timo-ness in the lineup tonight.

Game Time 7:05
SEA @ DET, Friday, September 7, 2007 Game Preview – Baseball-Reference.com

POSTGAME: Woo hoo, 3 in a row. And this one wasn’t even really in doubt, except for the rain delay. And really, you call that a rain delay? (as i wistfully think back to the last Friday home game…)

Justin Verlander breezed through the lineup. The Mariners swung early and often and were kind enough to hit the ball gently to Detroit defenders. Even the one inning where the Mariners loaded the bases, they weren’t really ripping the ball. At only 92 pitches after 8 I’m surprised that Leyland didn’t let Verlander finish the game.

I thought going to Zumaya was a bit of overkill, but then when he threw 7 straight balls visions of Oakland started dancing through my head.

The offense got hits in bunches, and once again the struggling players Pudge and Inge were in the middle of the action. And of course there was Timo again with 2 hits.

But among the various hits and rallies was Curtis Granderson lining a 3-1 pitch into the right field tunnel for his 20th homer. That makes him one stolen base short of the quad-20 with 20 steals, 20 dingers, 20 triples, and 20 doubles. With his next stolen base he’d join Willie Mays and Frank Schulte as the only players to accomplish the feat. As it is he’s one of only 5 players with 30 doubles, 20 homers, and 20 triples. But that’s kind of arbitrary since he’s one of only 5 players with 30 doubles, 20 triples, and 19 dingers – so other than achieving a round number his peer group doesn’t change.

Then again, I just checked and the same is true of the quad-20, or tri-20+19. He’s still with only Mays and Schulte, so the same round number argument will apply when he gets his next steal.

PREGAME: Afternoon tilt today as Chad Durbin takes on Mark Buehrle. The pitching match-up certainly favors the White Sox, but I just have no idea what to expect from this team anymore. For every “the Tigers make a struggling pitcher look like Cy Young” game there seems to be a “this is the shortest outing” or “this is the most runs allowed” against a good pitcher.

Plus Gary Sheffield is back, so 3-hole roulette should be done for the time being.

Game Time 1:05

POSTGAME: As it’s been said time and time again on this site, if you need offense turn to Timo, Casey, and Inge. Yeah, yeah, we know Polanco is great with runners in scoring position, and he got the walk off, but it was really Sean Casey with the bacon saver yet again. And it was Timo Perez’s ghost runner that plated the tying run.

Now granted, the Tigers didn’t exactly rip the ball in that 9th inning, and once again the offense struggled to plate runners, but it’s still a win and I’m not going to complain. For all the times in the last week or so that the team need a duck or a bleeder only to strand 2 runners, I’ll gladly take a couple of weak ground balls hit exactly in the right spot. After all, aside from the Konerko hit the Sox didn’t really kill the ball in the 8th inning anyways.

And even if the Tigers did barely squeak out 2 wins against a last place team, they still count the same in the standings. So let’s go take care of the Mariners so we can just focus our scoreboard watching on one team.

• Very nice effort by Chad Durbin as there was little solid contact all day off of him. He didn’t go longer because of the multiple roles this season, and he’s not fully stretched out.
• But realted to that we see the dangers of having Kenny and Chad back to back in the rotation. It will tax the bullpen because it’s going to be rare that either goes more than 5 or 6 innings.
• Maybe Brandon Inge has regained some confidence after picking up that walk against Bobby Jenks on Tuesday. He had 3 solid hits today, one of which was that nice homer. Brandon doesn’t have to get really hot to help the team, but at least hitting something close to the line he’s posted over the past 3 years for the next 3 weeks will be a boost to the offense.
• Jason Grilli has now made 7 straight appearances without allowing a run, and in the last 4 those were outings of 2 innings or more. In that time he’s shaved a full point off of his ERA. This isn’t about Grilli love, just recognizing him for a real nice stretch.
• Jim Leyland was managing pretty aggressive in this one. You didn’t see Zumaya because he pitched 2 innings last night. But look at all the pinch hitters and pinch runners used today. In all he used 14 position players.