PREGAME: I’m sorry, I’m still frustrated by last night’s collapse. Zach Miner against Ted Lilly. Curtis Granderson is my pick. 4:00pm.

POSTGAME: What an excellent start by Zach Miner against a very good offensive team. I saw more of this game than his last start, but in both it appeared that his pitches have excellent movement. Fortunately the first two Tiger hits were very well timed, and very will hit. If not for Magglio Ordonez’s double in the 8th, the Tigers wouldn’t have stranded a single runner.

And most fortunately the bullpen was able to preserve the win.

Also, I was kind of wrong about Granderson. That may have been his worst game at the plate.

And Tim, I know I should relax. I usually preach perspective and big picture and all that other stuff. Friday night’s game though is still ticking me off.

PREGAME: The Tigers move into their final series of the so-called gauntlet. They are looking for their first back-to-back wins since the first two games of the Cleveland series – two weeks ago. Tonight’s pitching matchup is probably the most favorable of the series. Gustavo Chacin has struggled this season, and the Tigers are 11-3 against soutpaw starters. Jeremy Bonderman will pitch for Detroit, and while Toronto hits everybody well, there 838 OPS against righties sounds preferable to their 913 OPS against lefties.

And if you’re looking for something to flilp to between innings, Tigers first round pick Andrew Miller will be pitching for UNC on ESPN.

POSTGAME: Well that blew. I would be very surprised if Todd Jones is the closer tomorrow morning. Tonight he served up 4 line drives. This wasn’t a matter of luck of one bad pitch – this was awful. Leyland’s frustration with Rodney was also apparent when he was removed mid batter. I understand about not making reactionary moves, but if Leyland wants to send a message his new bullpen is Rodney in the 7th, Walker in the 8th, Zumaya in the 9th.

Yes it is important for Todd Jones to get his confidence back, but should it come at the expense of the other 24 guys?

PREGAME: Remember when I said not to make too much out of any one game? Well, if I were tempted to make too much out of a game, this would be it. The Tigers are looking to avoid a sweep against the White Sox. If they lose it would be their 6th straight to the Sox, and would also slide them out of first place.

At least in this series, the gap between the White Sox and Tigers doesn’t seem insumountable. Two 4-3 losses are tough to take, but they aren’t devastating. The pitching has been solid against a good offensive team in a good offensive park. The offense continues to sputter, but they are having better at-bats. They are working deeper into counts and typically restricting their swings to pitches near the strike zone. I’m also not particularly concerned about the 0-12 with runners in scoring position. It isn’t good, but I don’t think there is anything fundamentally different than two weeks ago when the Tigers were performing well in those situations.

All that being said, I would love to see the Tigers pile on Jon Garland early and keep this game from even being interesting.

I’ve done okay picking Tiger stars the last two nights. Tonight I’m going with Magglio Ordonez.

POSTGAME: The Tigers didn’t pile on Garland early, but they put enough seperation to make the game uneventful. And Rodney and Jones did their part in keeping the late innings boring.

For those that wondered by Kenny Rogers, who pitched excellent, was removed it appeared to be that his back was stiffening up. He’s come out of several games around the 7th inning for the same reason. What I though was impressive, and odd, is that inthe 6th innings with a foul ball back behind first base Rogers sprinted over and was right alongside Shelton and Polanco.

As for the hitting in scoring position, the Tigers got hits tonight. They didn’t hit the ball hard, but the hits dropped in. Also, the bigger factor was that while the team was 0 for 12 the first two night, I believe they had 11 ABs with RISP last night alone. The previous games were a general offensive funk, not just a problem of clutch hitting.

In any case, that whole “they can’t beat the White Sox” thing is off their backs.

And yes – Hawk Harrelson is awful – but please no swearing in the comments. Thanks guys!

PREGAME: The Tigers will once again try and pick up their first win against their Central Division foes. It won’t be any easier tonight with Jose Contreras taking the mound. He shut down the Tigers earlier in the season.

Meanwhile Justin Verlander, who was rocked by the Sox in his second start, will try to play the role of stopper once again.

My big game pick tonight is Carlos Guillen.

PREGAME: The Tigers will look to avenge an early season sweep by the White Sox. While I’m trying not to place too much importance on any one game, it would be nice to get the series opener and get that first ChiSox win out of the way.

I know that Tiger fans are thinking, “The Sox are struggling, now is a great chance to get back at them and maybe build a little seperation.” Meanwhile, I’m sure White Sox fans are thinking, “The Tigers are stuggling, now is a great chance to keep piling on and close the gap.”

Nate Robertson will take the hill for Detroit and he will be opposed by Freddy Garcia who has been giving the Tigers fits for years.

Who’s your pick for Tiger hero tonight? I’m going to go with Chris Shelton and hope he breaks out of his slump.

POSTGAME: I’m late to the party on this. I saw it all last night, but I was up late and up early prepping for a presentation. The loss blew. There’s no getting around it. It seemed like the Tigers were cruising, but on closer inspection it wasn’t a complete game at all. They blew an easy double play – again. They made Freddy Garcia throw 100+ pitches in 5 innings, he didn’t have good stuff, but only managed 3 runs. Nate Robertson put men on in every inning, but worked his way out of numerous jams. The Tigers were teetering all night and it caught up with them.

Yes, it is frustrating to see Cintron hit his first homer of the year to give the team the lead. Much like it must have been frustrating for Twins fans to see Vance Wilson hit his first homer of the year for the only runs the Tigers scored off of Johan Santana.

Things happen. They just all seem to be happening at the same time and it doesn’t feel good.

PREGAME: The Tigers are looking for a series win, and a 5-5 record on the homestand. Going in I was hoping for .500 and anything else would be a bonus. So if they win I’m satisfied.

Today will feature the Major League debut of Zach Miner, who is filling in for the injured Mike Maroth. Surprisingly, I have a Zach Miner story. Well, its not much of a story, but a brief encounter. When I was at the game on Wednesday, I went down to the 3rd base line with the boy. Joel Zumaya and Miner were walking together out to the bullpen. Of course people called for Zumaya to come over. Joel broke off and started signing, leaving Miner standing there.

Now keep in mind that Miner had been with the club for all of 3 hours so he was a little unfamiliar to fans. I called “Zach” and he got a big smile and came walking over. I told him congratulations and while he was signing the boy’s ball I told the boy that this was Zach’s first day in the majors. He smiled and said, “it’s a good day.”

IN GAME: Memo to Jason Grilli: When your manager argues balls and strikes on your behalf and gets himself ejected, it’s not advisable to walk the next two batters.

POSTGAME: Well Miner can breathe now. His first start is complete. And while he wasn’t great, or even that good, he kept the Tigers in the game for 4 innings. Minimally he showed enough to warrant a 2nd start, which should come with not quite as many nerves.

PREGAME: In what is probably the oldest pitching match-up of the day, or maybe week, Kenny Rogers takes on Curt Schilling.

Rogers looks to rebound from a couple shaky games. After going 7 innings or more in 4 straight April starts, he failed to hit that mark in any of his 5 May starts. Among the Sox, the only starter to have significant experience and success against Rogers is Manny Ramirez with an 18 for 55 with 2 homers.

Curtis Granderson has reached base in each of his last 11 games and has seen is OBP rise from .351 to .371.

Jim Leyland has already announced that Pudge won’t be playing tonight or Sunday. I wonder if we’ll see Marcus Thames hitting in his place at the 3-hole?

And my favorite part of a Red Sox/Tigers series is watching Samela (and the alter-ego) be miserable and excited all at the same time.

POSTGAME As good as the Thursday’s win felt, this one hurts just as much. I’m not going to get into the whole closer debate right now. It deserves more space, and I’m just not emotionally prepared to do so. I think Tim’s comment summed up my feelings the best right now:

Some games leave you with a sick feeling. Jones can’t do this. He can’t get Manny and Varitek out and then let Kevin Youkilis beat him.

It ruined what was otherwise a pretty good effort. It was outstanding pitching by Kenny Rogers. The Tigers hitters battled against another very good pitcher in Schilling, and looked to have scratched out enough for a hard fought victory. Ergh.

PREGAME: The Tigers will try to avoid the sweep tonight as they close out their series with the Yankees. The Tigers have had two chances to be a Johnson this week but their bats weren’t up to the task. Maybe they’ll have better luck beating Wang.

Justin Verlander, the last Tiger pitcher to win, will try and stop the skid for Detroit.

The Tigers double play combination will be reminiscent of 2003 – only reversed – with Ramon Santiago at short and Omar Infante at second. Placido Polanco who has been hitting many routine grounders to short, and Chris Shelton who has been striking out on many pitches at the shoulders will be on the bench. Carlos Guillen will start at first base.

The Yankees to continue to not play at full strength. Derek Jeter will miss tonight’s game while Gary Sheffield will miss the next couple weeks after going on the DL.

POSTGAME: That was arguably the biggest win of the season so far for Detroit. The extra-inning Reds win was huge, but came during a pretty good hot streak for the Tigers. I think the only one this rivals is the Oakland A’s come from behind win which propelled them through the west coast swing.

The Tigers started off hacking, but by the 4th inning began taking much better approaches. Part of that may have been the pitching, but the plate appearances just seemed so much more competitive.

I also want to make sure to fully appreciate Curtis Granderson. As I write this, the game log isn’t available yet, but I believe Granderson saw 32 pitches in his 5 plate appearances and reached base 4 times. I also very much like Marcus Thames batting second. Yes, he is a double play candidate. But Thames has demonstrated a good eye, a willingness to work the count, and he’s hitting the ball hard. I don’t mean to be hating on Polanco and I think things will get better, but he’s looking an awful lot like Pudge 2005 right now.

It was an outstanding cumulative effort by Jamie Walker, Joel Zumaya, and Fernando Rodney. They picked up Justin Verlander who did his best to pitch through some sort of finger injury.

But the bottom line is that the Tigers got a much needed win. The fact that it was dramatic just makes it that much more fun.

PREGAME: The Tigers have one last chance at their first 20 win month since August 1979. They are also scrambling to set up a split of this series, and avoid only their second 4 game skid of the season. And it won’t be easy.

The Tigers will send out Nate Robertson to try and shut down the injured Yankees, and give the bullpen a reprieve. Meanwhile, the Yankees will counter with Mike Mussina who for years has owned the Tigers.

Now there have been several pitchers who owned the Tigers for years, but Detroit has fared better as of late with their new additions. However, even Pudge, Ordonez, and Guillen don’t have overly impressive numbers against Mussina.

This will also be the Tigers first tilt on national TV with ESPN2 picking up the game. I’ll be in attendance, as will the boy, who has brought the team luck in his two games so far this year.

POSTGAME Another frustrating performance by the Tigers. I know you need to “tip your cap” when the opponent outplays you. It’s just thats too much hat tipping in one week. And at some point the hitters have to take responsibility and not tip their hats. Case in point: In the sixth inning with the Yankees leading 2-0, the Tigers put runners on first and second with nobody out. Mussina was out of the inning 3 pitches later after a failed sacrifice and double play. The next inning was completed in 7 pitches. Late in the game with the Tigers in the game, Mussina recorded 6 outs on 10 pitches. Curtis Granderson seemed to be the only hitter who actually worked Mussina each at-bat totaling 17 pitches for the night.

And it wasn’t just the hitting, a lot of the fielding isn’t there either. Whether it’s missing cut off men, a bad route to a fly ball (Granderson mis-played Alex Rodriguez’s triple), or as we’ve seen this week the inability to turn a double play, things are getting sloppy.

It’s one thing to lose to the Yankees, and Mike Mussina. It’s another thing to lose to the Yankees sans Jeter/Damon/Matsui/Sheffield. Now they still have a lineup featuring Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, and Jason Giambi which just serves as a reminder of how freakishly talented the Yankees are. But if you are going to beat them, now is the time to do it.

The one bright spot for the Tigers of course was Nate Robertson. He pitched quite well and deserved a better fate. More importantly, he gave a tired bullpen the night off while keeping his team in the game.

PREGAME: The Tigers go in search of some suddenly elusive runs. As I’m sure you’ve heard they’ve been shut out by a pair of Johnson’s the last two games. Hopefully they’ll fare better against a Small, and perhaps a Wang on Thursday (there’s a joke in there somewhere).

Aaron Small will take the ball for the Yankees while Roman Colon will make his first start for the Tigers. Colon filled in admirably for Mike Maroth last Thursday. He allowed 2 runs in 5 1/3 innings. In his last two outings Colon threw 70 and 76 pitches so it will be interesting to see how long Leyland will let him go.

POSTGAME: I don’t know how to feel after this game.

Frustrated? Frustrated that out of two bases loaded, no out situations, the Tigers managed 1 run via a force out. (In all fairness, while Ordonez and Shelton had horrible at-bats in the first, Carlos Guillen had an 8 pitch at-bat that resulted in a line drive hit right at Jeter. It’s hard to be mad at Guillen for that).

Perplexed? Perplexed at the fact that the Tigers have now failed to turn 4 double plays in the last two games.

Relieved? Relieved that the offense finally did manage to put some runs on the board, even though many of those runs came off a booted double play and Kyle Farnsworth making 3-4 pitches that could have been called strikes but weren’t.

Satisfied? Satisfied that the Tigers did come back from 5 runs down to send the game to extra innings. Also, that it was the first time the Tigers were in a game since Saturday.

Frustrated? Back to frustrated after a 3 game losing streak.