Dare I say it, the Detroit Tigers are beginning to look like a team on a roll. Rick Porcello pitched like a Rick Porcello should, the Tigers, led by Delmon Young, piled on a bunch of runs, and Detroit cruised to an easy victory over Minnesota (so easy that the game elicited a scant 7 comments).

And now we come back with Mr. Verlander, who seems primed to become the first Tiger since Bill Gullickson (1991) to win 20 games, and the first this season in MLB.  Facing a decimated Twins team that has lost 6 straight, this one seems all but inevitable.  But this is baseball, so nothing can be taken for granted.

If ever there were an appropriate villain to play spoiler to Verlander’s bid for 20, it would be Carl Pavano, who takes the mound for the Twins.  Pavano is 6-10, 4.54, and is facing a milestone of hs own:  he has 99 career losses.  But Tiger fans will not easily forget what he did to Detroit in the nail-biting 2009 season.

Player of the Pre-Game: Brandon Inge

Yes, he is not playing today.  But with Santos sent back to Toledo,  Martinez still hurting, and Kelly on paternity leave, he is Detroit’s only backup catcher.  His job is to sit in the dugout, vote for himself for Top Web Gem (he is in the running against Ben Revere), and pray that nothing happens to Avila.

Today’s Make-Verlander-Proud Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson, CF
2. Ramon Santiago, 2B
3. Delmon Young, LF
4. Miguel Cabrera, 1B
5. Victor Martinez, DH
6. Alex Avila, C
7. Jhonny Peralta, SS
8. Wilson Betemit, 3B
9. Ryan Raburn, RF

Tonight the Tigers arrive at Target Field in Minneapolis faced with the daunting prospect of 10,000 Jim Thomes.

Fortunately, none of them will be in a Twins uniform.

(Unfortunately, Jim Thome is back in a Cleveland Indian uniform).

On Jim Thome Wind Up Walker Giveaway Night, the first 10,000 fans will receive a replica of the player the Twins just traded to Cleveland for Player-To-Be-Named-Later.  Thome will rejoin the team on which he began his career,  and began killing the Tigers.  The Indians are hoping he will be able to continue the Tiger-killing, or if not at least give the fans something to talk about other than the team’s August downslide.

If the Tigers continue winning, they won’t have to worry about Thome or anyone else:   Detroit now has a solid lead of 6 1/2 over Cleveland, and 7 over Chicago,  with a week of baseball against the struggling Twins and Royals on tap.

And the Tigers have been winning without even scoring–Detroit only scored a total of 11 runs in the 4-game series with Tampa Bay, but managed to win 3-of-4 anyway.

That approach may not work tonight, unless Rick Porcello has a much better showing than he did when he faced the Twins on Aug 16.  He gave up 6 runs in 6 innings, and followed that up with a 5-run, 3 2/3 inning appearance against Cleveland.  With a season ERA now at 5.17–and 9.15 in August–he has been doing a good impersonation of a 5th starter.

The Tigers will be facing dreaded Rookie Pitcher Guy, this one a lefty named Scott Diamond (0-1, 4.26), making his 2nd major league appearance.

Player of the Pre-Game: Alex Avila

I might as well just leave this name up here for a while.  He is now hitting .418 (1.336 OPS) for the month of August, with 6 HR and 16 RBI.  His 2010 season totals:  7 HR and 32 RBI.

Today’s Wind-Up Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson, CF
2. Magglio Ordonez, RF
3. Delmon Young, LF
4. Miguel Cabrera, 1B
5. Victor Martinez, DH
6. Alex Avila, C
7. Jhonny Peralta, SS
8. Ryan Raburn, 2B
9. Brandon Inge, 3B

2-for-2, and a series sweep is looking good with Justin Verlander taking the mound–wait, what?  An extra day’s rest?  Oh, nevermind…

Well, the Inge call-up is looking like a bit of genius, isn’t it?  I would have predicted that (although he was Player of the Pre-Game).  And sure it was all in a blowout victory, but it was only 2-0 when he hit his HR, and 4-1 when he hit his double.   If Inge can do this even a handful of times the rest of the season, it could make the Tigers pretty tough to take down in the Central.

Rick Porcello will man the broom and try to pretend it’s July, or even September.  After a 5-0, 3.06 July, Porcello has gone 0-2, 8.44 for August.

Ubaldo Jimenez looks to win the re-match with Porcello (he gave up no earned runs in 8 innings for the victory), and to keep Cleveland from dropping to 4 1/2 games back.

In unrelated news, ESPN has a nice article about Kirk Gibson and Alan Trammell in Arizona.

Player of the Pre-game:  Alex Avila

He has caught 14 straight games, and is hitting .429 with a 1.269 OPS over the last 2 weeks, and .442 for the month of August.  Last year Tiger catchers combined for a .223 BA and .624 OPS.  Avila is making a huge difference this season.

Today’s New Standard RHP Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Brennan Boesch RF
3. Delmon Young LF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Alex Avila C
7. Jhonny Peralta SS
8. Betemit 3B
9. Ramon Santiago 2B

Tigers beat Indians, then call up Brandon Inge.

That sentence itself is enough to generate enough commentary to last all night.  We’ll push it a step further, with this tidbit:  “Brandon Inge will be back in Detroit tonight and will start at third base against Cleveland left-handed pitcher David Huff and all left-handers thereafter.”

In the ESPN game preview they referred to Inge as “former Tigers All-Star Brandon Inge,”  which is sort of cute, isn’t it?

To make room for Inge, the Tigers sent Andy Dirks to the land of muddy hens.  So, in the outfield right now we have Boesch, Jackson, and Young, with Ordonez as a backup (Raburn is now the starting 2nd Baseman, and Kelly is 3rd string 3B, 3rd string 2B, backup catcher, and 5th outfielder).

So there you go.  Discuss amongst yourselves.

But the Tigers are up by 2 1/2 now, after a stellar performance by Max Scherzer.  Tonight Doug Fister tries to un-Washburn himself against David Huff, who has a season ERA of .051–but not to worry, he has had 2 starts against Detroit, and come away with a 6.00 ERA.

Player of the Pre-game:  Brandon Inge

Yes, the call of Avila as player of the pre-game yesterday was pretty spot on, as they say.  But I will resist the temptation to repeat, and instead play the Ingetangibles angle.

Today’s Ingeteresting Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Magglio Ordonez RF
3. Delmon Young LF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Alex Avila C
7. Jhonny Peralta SS
8. Brandon Inge 3B
9. Ramon Santiago 2B

Tonight the Tigers begin the first of three remaining 3-game series against the Cleveland Indians, and by Sunday evening the standings in the Central division could look very different. With the Indians only 1 1/2 games back and the White Sox only 4, by the end of the weekend Cleveland could be in first–or in third.

Even Baseball Tonight’s video feature today is a Tigers-Indians series preview. The short version: why isn’t Justin pitching?

Series matchups:

• Game 1 Fri 7:05  Josh Tomlin (12-5, 3.97)  vs Max Scherzer (12-7, 4.37)
• Game 2 Sat 7:05 David Huff (1-1, 0.51) vs Doug Fister (1-1, 6.14 with DET)
• Game 3 Sun 1:05 Ubaldo Jimenez (1-0, 4.58 with CLE) vs Rick Porcello (11-8, 4.98)
• Not pitching:  Justin Masterson (10-7, 2.71) vs Justin Verlander (18-5, 2.31)

While we clearly win the matchup of the not-pitching guys, the Indians look to have a bit of an edge overall in the series.

In tonight’s battle of the 2nd-bests, Max Scherzer will try to avoid having an inning like the 2nd inning of his last start, where he gave up 5 runs, but then settled down and pulled out a 6-5 victory, reaching Verlander-like fastball velocity in his last inning.

Tomlin has put together better numbers than Scherzer, and is coming off of a 3-1 victory over Minnesota in his last start.

The AccuScore Projections say Cleveland should take this one (although it’s a close 52-48% margin).  The ESPN fan poll currently has the Tigers with a 77.5% favoritism.  Are you with the computer simulation or with the fans?

Player of the Pre-game:  Alex Avila

Alex’s bat is still hot–over the last two weeks he leads the Tigers in BA, OBP, and OPS (.405/.542/1.082), keeps the 6th spot in the lineup, and the backstop warrior finally had a day off.

Today’s Central-Leading Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Brennan Boesch RF
3. Delmon Young LF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Alex Avila C
7. Jhonny Peralta SS
8. Wilson Betemit 3B
9. Ryan Raburn 2B

Well, this series didn’t exactly start well last night, although it did have its interesting moments.  Delmon Young swapped jerseys, and began his Tiger career with a HR off of his previous team (the last time someone did that was Dave Martinez in 2000.  Aren’t we lucky there are people who look these kind of things up?).  In related news, Lester Oliveros was already named as the player-to-be-named-later today.  Hardly qualifies as later.  The circumstances of Young’s team-switching were actually a bit humorous.

Jim Thome hit HR #599, then #600 off of Dan Schlereth, and got a nice ovation from the classy Comerica crowd. It figures he would reach the milestone against the Tigers. As Chris said, congratulations–now retire already.

And Raburn was…well Raburn.  He hit a home run, but also made an error that led to 2 unearned runs, and had another clownish play where he ended up sitting on 2B instead of turning a DP.

At any rate, no use dwelling on that, it’s Verlander night.  The Tiger rotation has again begun to devolve into Verlander and a bunch of Other Guys;  despite his great season, the Tigers are only 11th in the AL in team ERA.  In fact, I decided to take a look at how the Tigers compare to other teams with their 2nd best starter:

• LAA 2.96 Dan Haren
• NYY 3.16 Freddy Garcia
• TBR 3.22 Jeremy Hellickson
• TEX 3.28 CJ Wilson
• BOS 3.32 John Lester
• SEA 3.45 Erick Bedard
• OAK 3.62 Brandon McCarthy
• CHW 3.67 Phll Humber
• CLE 3.97 Josh Tomlin
• TOR 4.11 Jesse Litch
• KCR 4.15 Bruce Chen
• MIN 4.36 Nick Blackburn
• DET 4.37 Max Scherzer
• BAL 4.66 Zach Britton

So after Verlander, the Tiger rotation starts off in the realm of Baltimore and Minnesota, and goes down from there (the Tigers can’t compete with the worst 4 and 5 guys though–there are a few truly awful ones out there).

Verlander draws Minnesota’s 2nd best starter Nick Blackburn (7-9, 4.36).

Player of the Pre-game:  Justin Verlander

Watching last night’s infield play from the dugout, Verlander says, “Really?”

Tonight Raburn and Betemit are out, Santiago and Kelly in.

Today’s Boesch-is-Baeck Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Brennan Boesch RF
3. Delmon Young LF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Alex Avila C
7. Jhonny Peralta SS
8. Don Kelly 3B
9. Ramon Santiago 2B

Detroit failed to get the series sweep last night in Baltimore, but the Tigers are still 8 games over .500 (64-56)–even though they have only scored 533 runs while giving up 547.  Their Pythagorean win loss record (which uses runs scored and given up to calculate expected record) is 59-61, which means the Tigers should be in 3rd place, a game behind the White Sox.  (Although, actually, somehow every team in the Central should have a worse record than it does).

One way to look at those numbers is to say the Tigers have just plain been lucky–and consequently, can’t be expected to continue winning at the same rate all season.

On the other hand, Detroit has been doing two things that winning teams do–they have been defeating their division opponents, and they have been winning the close games:  the Tigers are 19-13 in 1-run games, and 26-16 against Central Division opponents.

Tonight Detroit comes home to start a 3-game series against Minnesota, who has lately been a favorite Central opponent:  Detroit has won 12 of the last 13 games between the two rivals, and has averaged 6.3 runs per game against them this season.

Tonight’s starter, Francisco Liriano, has seen his share of the damage, managing less than 6 total innings for his two starts, while giving up 8 runs.

Tiger starter Rick Porcello looks to get back on track after getting knocked for 8 runs by Cleveland his last start.

**breaking news, Delmon Young will be darting across the field to exchange jerseys: The Tigers have acquired Young from the Twins for Cole Nelson and a player to be named later. And he steps right into the starting lineup!

Player of the Pre-game:  Victor Martinez

V-Mart has been one of the hotter Tiger bats over the last 2 weeks (.366), and his career average against Liriano is a nice fat .476.

Today’s Look Who’s 3rd Lineup:

Austin Jackson CF
Ryan Raburn 2B
Delmon Young LF
Miguel Cabrera 1B
Victor Martinez DH
Jhonny Peralta SS
Magglio Ordonez RF
Alex Avila C
Wilson Betamit 3B

Last July 16 the Tigers, in a virtual tie for first with Minnesota, came out of the all-star break on a 3-day trip to Cleveland, were swept, and never came near first again.  And Detroit hasn’t won at Cleveland since.

During this Cleveland trip Detroit has seen its Central lead slip from 4 to 2, with one more game left at Progressive field.  Could this be a deja-vu sweep, and if so can the Tigers recover?

One doesn’t have to go far for a bit of optimism.  Because…Justin Verlander.  (Of course last year’s series featured a Verlander start also–he gave up 3 in the 1st inning and lost.  But that wasn’t 2011 Verlander).  Feeling pessimistic? Verlander’s career record in Cleveland:  4-8, 6.31.  An interesting matchup will be Verlander vs rookie 2B Jason Kipnis, who has never faced him.  Kipnis went 5-5 last night and is hitting .364 over his last 10 games.  Tiger fans gaze out to 2nd with a sigh of envy…

Facing Verlander will be Fausto Carmona, perhaps best known to Detroit fans as the guy who played a knuckle tune on Gary Sheffield’s head.  Carmona is having a lackluster 5-11, 5.19 season.

Boesch will sit out the game with a sore thumb (no indication how much more time he will miss if any), which means we get to play Raburn Roulette in LF.

ESPN covers the Tigers today in its daily look at playoff contenders. Terry Foster says the Tigers will win the division–if Leyland changes the batting order. (Still, he can’t resist leaving Jackson in the leadoff spot).

Player of the Pre-game:  Austin Jackson

He has already struck out 39 times this season leading off, nobody else comes close (27 is next highest).  Add to that an OBP of a meager .267, and it may be time to try moving him elsewhere in the lineup.

Today’s Special K Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Ryan Raburn LF
3. Magglio Ordonez RF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Jhonny Peralta SS
7. Carlos Guillen 2B
8. Alex Avila C
9. Wilson Betemit 3B

What a game, and what a way to lose a game, with a walk-off HBP.

Although losing tough ones at Progressive field has become something of a habit:  the Tigers have lost 12 straight there, and all 4 this season–and all of them Cleveland has won it its final at bat.

I blame the rain.  For the 2nd time in a row, the Tiger bats went dead following a rain delay.  In fact the Tigers have only scored 1 run in their last 14 post-rain-delay innings.

As frustrating as the loss was, there were some things to cheer about:  the Tigers played good defense almost the whole game, with standout plays by Brennan Boesch and Miguel Cabrera (the 14th inning play by Guillen, not so much).  But mostly, it was the much-maligned bullpen, which came up huge.  For 11 innings, from the 2nd to the 13th, Below, Schlereth, Coke, Alburquerque, and Benoit combined for 11 innings, giving up only 2 hits, with 3 walks and 12 strikeouts.

That’s the 2nd sparkling appearance in a row for Below.  If he turns out to be a revelation the same way that Alburquerque has, the Tigers could end up with an impressive bullpen.

The bad news is that there isn’t much relief left for tonight, so Rick Porcello will take the mound and attempt to bring it all the way to Valverde.  Porcello is on a hot streak right now: he is 5-0, 3.26 over his last 6 starts, and has the confidence of the team behind him. “Every time he goes out there now, we really feel we’re going to win,” says Brennan Boesch.  Perhaps most impressive lately has been his control–he has only walked 2 in his last 26 innings pitched.  This should help him work late into the game.

We didn’t get to see much of our trade-deadline catch Doug Fister last night.  Tonight Cleveland brings out its deadline darling, Ubaldo Jimenez.  He had a rough go of it in his first outing for Cleveland, giving up 5 runs to Texas, and more importantly, only lasting 5 innings (Cleveland’s bullpen is in as bad a shape as ours tonight).

In other news:  He’ll be back…Brandon Inge says the Tigers assured him he would be back with the team on Sept 1.

Player of the Pre-game:  Alex Avila

Avila caught all 14 innings last night.  With Martinez still having a sore knee, He’ll strap on the gear again tonight.

Today’s Iron-man-Avila Lineup:

1. Andy Dirks CF
2. Brennan Boesch LF
3. Magglio Ordonez RF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Ryan Raburn 2B
7. Alex Avila C
8. Wilson Betemit 3B
9. Ramon Santiago SS

The manager has been extended, the GM has been extended,  and with a 3-game series against Cleveland beginning tonight,  there is an opportunity for the division lead to be extended.

The Tigers took advantage of their last off-day of the month to announce that the contract of manager Jim Leyland has been extended through 2012, and President/CEO/GM Dave Dombrowski through 2015.  Dombrowski said that more than a 1-year deal for Leyland was never discussed, and was never requested by Leyland.

Dombrowski also stressed that the rest of the front office was extended–Al Avila (asst GM), Scott Reid (top scout), John Westhoff (attorney, contract negotiations), and David Chadd (amateur scout), and said getting the deal done now was important because this is the time of year other teams start asking around about personnel, and you risk someone jumping to another organization.

Reaction to the extensions in the media has been mixed–Drew Sharp likes the idea, Terry Foster doesn’t–as I’m sure it will be here.

As if on cue, the newly-extended Tigers front office followed up today by announcing they have signed their first 2011 draft pick, catcher James McCann from Arkansas.

In tonight’s first of three (and first of 12 remaining this season) against the Indians, Detroit’s trade-deadline catch Doug Fister takes the mound for the 2nd time as a Tiger. His first outing was a solid 3-runs in 7 innings against the tough Texas offense, which means he’s already done more for the team than the 2009 deadline darling, Jarrod Washburn.  Fister draws a tough match-up in Justin Masterson (9-7, 2.63), who faced Fister in Seattle April 9 and came out on top 2-1.

Player of the Pre-game: Carlos Guillen and Alex Avila (tie).

Right now the hottest bat on the team belongs to Alex Avila, who has on On-Base Percentage of .441 over the last 2 weeks.  The coldest bat belongs to Carlos Guillen (.154 OBP).  Guillen bats in front of Avila.  Whether or not Guillen manages to get on base could have a big effect on the outcome of the game.

Today’s Return-of-V-Mart Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Brennan Boesch LF
3. Andy Dirks RF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Jhonny Peralta SS
7. Carlos Guillen 2B
8. Alex Avila C
9. Don Kelly 3B

The Tigers look to sweep their three-game series this afternoon in hot Kansas City (temperature 92 and climbing).

Mad Max Scherzer will man the broom against the Royals.  He has been in good form lately, with a 2.14 ERA over his last 5 starts.  Bruce Chen has a 7.48 ERA over his last 4 starts, but always seem to give Detroit trouble.

V-Mart will not be in the lineup:  he suffered a knee sprain on an ill-advised attempt to score. Word to come on how serious it is.  Victor says “I felt a sharp pain in my knee, on the way up (to the clubhouse), I felt the pain go away. I just iced it, and we’ll see how it feels. Everything looks pretty good so we’ll see how it looks (Sunday).”

The lack of Martinez for any length of time would cause serious problems for the Tigers, so let’s hope it isn’t bad.

Today’s Player of the Pre-Game: Gene Lamont

Today Gene sleeps standing up and nobody gets hurt.

Today’s Sweepy Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Brennan Boesch LF
3. Ryan Raburn 3B
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Magglio Ordonez DH
6. Carlos Guillen 2B
7. Jhonny Peralta SS
8. Alex Avila C
9. Andy Dirks RF

It’s Justin time!

Tonight Justin Verlander looks to follow up his near-no-hit bid against the Angels with a win against KC (and possibly tie CC Sabathia with the AL lead at 16).

In fact Verlander still has an outside shot at the pitching triple crown:  He is 2nd in wins at 15, has a solid league lead in strikeouts at 178, and has only Jered Weaver (1.78) and Josh Beckett (2.20) with ERAs better than his 2.24.

Kansas City would seem to be a good opponent in his pursuit of win 16:  he has won 3 straight vs the Royals, with a 1.19 ERA.

Billy Butler is most likely to be a Royal pain:  he is hitting .389 against Verlander.

Also Detroit is planning to pitch Verlander against Cleveland Thursday on 4 days rest, so, for a change, his pitch count may be an issue tonight.

KC sends out rookie starter Danny Duffy (3-4, 5.05).  As always with Detroit, beware Rookie Pitcher Guy (I would love to see the Tigers’ cumulative stats against rookie pitchers).

Today’s Player of the Pre-Game:  Ryan Raburn

Raburn will make the occasional brilliant play in the outfield, or nice play at 2B. Not so much at 3rd.  Over the last 3 seasons he has 4 errors at 3rd (and only 7 assists) in 44 innings, so it’s been almost an error per game with him.  With Verlander on the mound, the Royals are likely to try to bunt their way on.  Take a deep breath.

Today’s Raburn Roulette Lineup:

1. Austin Jackson CF
2. Brennan Boesch LF
3. Magglio Ordonez RF
4. Miguel Cabrera 1B
5. Victor Martinez DH
6. Jhonny Peralta SS
7. Carlos Guillen 2B
8. Ryan Raburn 3B
9. Alex Avila C