2009 Season, Game Post

Game 2009.145: Royals at Tigers

54 Comments

PREGAME: Tonight it will be Eddie Bonine and Lenny Dinardo doing that pitching thing. I think the Tigers will hit DiNardo pretty hard and I am certain they won’t hit into 5 double plays tonight. I can’t make guarantees about the Bonine/Royals interaction.

Yes, the game should be the focus tonight. But there is something else really big going on and that is Ernie Harwell returning to Comerica Park to say thank you to the fans. I will most certainly applaud until my hands hurt. I will most likely cry. But I feel compelled to be there tonight to say thank you.

Harwell will address the crowd in the 3rd inning and Fox Sports Detroit will carry it live. I’m sure it isn’t in his wishes to be disruptive in any way. The game at hand always comes first with Harwell. I just don’t know that is possible when the living embodiment of the game shows up to say Thank You.

Kansas City vs. Detroit – September 16, 2009 | MLB.com: Gameday

POSTGAME: I’ve heard this game described as an ugly win. I had some of those same thoughts as first, but I quickly pushed those away. First, all wins are beautiful at this point. Second, while the Tigers did have to rely on the Royals ineptitude to pull this out it wasn’t like the Tigers were making a bunch of mistakes. Detroit played a pretty crisp game with two outfield assists, a caught stealing, and some nifty defense by both Adam Everett and Placido Polanco. They also got the hits when they needed them to capitalize on the Royals mistakes. I see nothing ugly about that at all.

Eddie Bonine did a fine job. He is a spot starter and he gave the team 5 innings and held Kansas City to  3 runs. The numbers weren’t outstanding, but they certainly were acceptable given the situation. That the game was close was more about the Tigers inability to pound Lenny DiNardo. He was followed by Zach Miner who had an easy inning thanks to a nice throw by Ordonez. Seay followed and benefited from a caught stealing in the 7th, and then some magic from Brandon Lyon.

Lyon once again came up big. With runners at the corners, nobody out, and Billy Butler at the plate I was sure that David DeJesus would score from 3rd to tie the game. I didn’t know if it would be a sacrifice fly, a hit, a ground ball double play that scored the run, I was just sure that Butler would get the job done. Yet Lyon induced a come backer, followed by a strike out and suddenly there were 2 outs and thoughts of extra innings didn’t seem so imminent.

  • Granderson had a good game picking up 2 singles against the lefty and then driving a ball to the wall in left center.
  • Adam Everett doesn’t hit a lot, but he certainly makes the most of the hits.
  • There was much rejoicing in the comments about the BOOBs (bottom of the order boys) and it was well deserved.
  • The comment of the night was delivered by Coleman:

    A weird coincidence, Billy Butler shares the same middle name as Carl Pavano, Joe Crede, and Luke Scott, “F’ing”

54 thoughts on “Game 2009.145: Royals at Tigers”

  1. We need a win in the worst way. I am not panicking, but I’m concerned. We get Grienke tomorrow, so with a loss tonight we’re on the verge of another sweep at the hands of the Royals, and we’re headed to that awful dome in Minny for the weekend. Not a good time for a losing streak.

    1. “We need a win in the worst way”

      Well, we’ve been playing in the worst way…so far it hasn’t worked for some reason.

  11. At least they showed it…but the second Ernie left the field did MLB.com really have to immediately cut to the @-!?! Geico commercial?

  20. Stat you won’t find on baseball-reference.com:

    2009 earned runs given up by Miner after 6 “Zach Miner looks like a rabbit” posts: 0

  21. One more lucky Miner post and I’m going to ask for consideration if there are any open National Anthem slots…

    1. It’s hard to know sometimes who belongs, although Laird and Everett, obviously, are the main pair of BOOBs.

      Curtis is thriving as a BOOB tonight though…

  25. I hope we get hot, because we will need to look a lot better against the Yankees that we have looked that last few. Maybe having this late cold streak will benefit us later as we have already had it.

    That being said its been a pretty decent year being in first since May. I bet Ozzie and Hawk would trade with us. And you can put That on the board

    1. I am a little more worried about these 2 games with the Royals and the up coming 9 game road trip than even thinking about the Yankees. We have got a lot of baseball to go before we might even play them.

  27. A weird coincidence, Billy Butler shares the same middle name as Carl Pavano, Joe Crede, and Luke Scott, “F’ing”

  30. Whew! We beat the Royals.

    Seriously though, I can live with splitting the first two games when our starters are Washburn and Bonine.

  32. Well it wasn’t pretty but a win is a win glad we got it. The starting the game with runners 1st and 2nd and no one out and not scoring has got to stop though. We need to take better advantage of putting up big innings earlier in the game.

    1. MLB.com has the commercial in its entirety. The Tigers get about 3 or 4 looks. Inge is in one of them, too.

  37. Great pitching tonight! I could barely watch when Ernie came out in the 3rd. A whole lifetime of listening to Ernie. He just looked terrific. His voice and demeanor was so strong.

  42. Gutsy performance of the year goes to Lyon. Runner on 3rd with no outs scores, what, 88% of the time? Way to go B! Let’s also give props to Polanco for his love-tap single to give us the lead. Way to go PP!

  43. Elimination number is now at 13. We might clinch at home against the Twins, against the Twins. How many times has that happened excluding 1 game playoffs? (where you beat the team that night to clinch the playoffs against that team)

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