PREGAME: It’s hard to believe that we’re at the 50th game of the season already. After the 4 game set with the Yankees we’ll offically be at the one-third mark of the season.

It is an interesting match-up today with Kenny Rogers taking on the man he replace in the rotation – Jason Johnson. Johnson pitched well against the Tigers two weeks ago, but lost due to a couple unearned runs. Ivan Rodriguez is 11 for 19 lifetime against Johnson, and with Vance Wilson starting last night Pudge will be in the lineup.

Kenny Rogers looks to rebound from his 4 homer outing against the Royals. It won’t be easy against the Indians offense. Throw in the fact that it will be almost 90 with humidity and a breeze today, and it becomes imperative that the ball stays down.

POSTGAME: It was another Sunday shut-out, but not for the good guys. There weren’t many balls hit hard off of Jason Johnson. The few that were, were swallowed up the the Cleveland defense.

Kenny Rogers had another rough, but not awful, outing. It turns out that a shutout wouldn’t have even been enough.

PREGAME: Justin Verlander will try to extend the Tigers win streak to 8. Now here’s the thing. The last time I went to a Tiger game where they were looking for their 8th straight they got beat handily by the Reds (amazingly that was only 8 days ago). And the last time I saw Verlander pitch in person he was shelled by the White Sox. I’m going to tonight’s game, so any bad mojo can be blamed on me.

The Tigers will face Paul Byrd who has seen his ERA improve in each of his last 5 starts. The last time the Tigers faced Paul Byrd it resulted in the famous Leyland tirade. They have since gone 27-8.

POSTGAME So it is a very delayed post-game synopsis, but you guys picked me up with the comments. It was a fantastic atmosphere in and around Comerica Park last night. Two hours before the game there were long waits at area restaurants and people were buzzing. Inside a nearly capacity crowd was hanging on most every pitch. The roar that went up in the crowd when Justin Verlander fanned Travis Hafner was incredible.

Justin Verlander continues to exceed expectations, and doesn’t seem phased by any team or hitter. His stuff is incredible, and he has command of it as well.

I’ve got to say, this whole Tiger winning thing is fun.

PREGAME: The Indians are looking to exact some revenge after being swept by the Tigers two weeks ago at home. Nate Robertson, who has been stingy with runs despite walking 13 in his last 3 starts, starts for the Tigers. They’ll face Jake Westbrook.

POSTGAME: You kind of got the feeling things were going the Tigers way on the first play of the game when Grady Sizemore was cutdown stretching a double into a triple, after Curtis Granderson overthrew the cut-off man. But the throw was online and Santiago made a lighting quick turn on the relay. Things continued to go Granderson’s way as he knocked in 5 with a single and a triple. Nate Robertson was effective again, and really only encountered one jam.

PREGAME Mike Maroth takes the mound for Detroit as the Tigers try and complete their 7th sweep of the season. The Royals send out Denny Bautista, who has been decent since returning from the disabled list. In his last outing agains the Cardinals he allowed one run on 5 hits as St. Louis pounded the ball into the ground (GB/FB – 16/2).

POSTGAME: You guys have already hit on many of the salient points of the game, so I’ll keep my comments along the lines of HOLY FREAKIN’ CRAP. HFC that Mike Maroth allowed 6 runs and never got a second out. HFC that the Tigers score 13 runs without Magglio Ordonez and Chris Shelton in the lineup. HFC that the Tigers scored 3 runs on one hit in the 2nd inning. HFC that the best pitching performance the Tigers faced in the series came from Bobby Keppel who completely shut the Tigers down for 3 1/3 innings. HFC that Pudge Rodriguez, who was supposed to get the day off until Vance Wilson rolled his ankle stepping on a ball, hit both a triple and a homer after the 7th inning.
Continue reading Game 47: Royals at Tigers →

PREGAME: The Tigers look to continue their 4 game winning streak in Kansas City. Jeremy Bonderman looks to rebound from a performance that was, well, awful. After only throwing 66 pitches, he should be fresh. Bonderman has been significantly better on the road this year. This will be his 6th road start, and he’s only allowed 11 runs.

Jimmy Gobble will make an emergency start for the Royals. The Tigers don’t have a lot of experience against Gobble, but outside of a 5 for 6 effort for Polanco the results haven’t been impressive.

PREGAME: It will be Kenny Rogers taking on Runelvys Hernandez. Rogers will look to repeat his Kaufman Stadium Opening Day performance. Rogers will also try to prolong the scoreless streak. It stretches back to the Griffey slam in the 7th inning on Saturday.

POSTGAME Nice jinx on that scoreless streak huh? That said, it was a very nice come from behind win. More clutch hitting for everyone, with Curtis Granderson once again delivering the big blow. Rogers clearly struggled – 4 homers – to the Royals? But the bullpen completely shut the door.

As for the Royals, that game looked painfully familiar. Your offense actually hits the ball pretty well, and has a weeks worth of homers in 7 innings. Your starter is pitching a very solid game and you find yourself with a lead. Your defense has made several nice plays and not thrown the ball around. And yet you just kind of had the feeling that it wouldn’t last. That those last 9 outs wouldn’t come quick enough. Once again, all I can say is I sympathize with the plight of Royals fans.

PREGAME The Tigers head out on the road again for a 4 game set against the Royals. The game isn’t on TV which means Justin Verlander is pitching for Detroit. It is his first appearance against the Royals. Jeremy Affeldt takes the ball for the beleagured Royals.

They have lost 9 in a row, and found themselves visitors in their own stadium when St. Louis came to town. Royals fans – at least those that remain – are imploring owner David Glass to do something, or anything for that matter. It’s only been a couple years since the Tigers were in the same position, and I think all Tiger fans can empathize.

While a sweep is certainly possible, it probably isn’t likely. For one thing, it’s tough to beat a team 4 times in a row (and 8 on the season). For another, its hard for a team to drop 13 in a row.

POSTGAME: Justin Verlander throws a complete game, 5 hit shut out. Nobody has scored on Verlander since May 10th. I believe that only 7 balls reached the outfield the entire game. I know that Jon Papelbon is the early favorite for ROY, but Verlander has to be a very close second right now.

The oddity of the game had to be contact expert Placido Polanco recording 3 strike outs. What made it stranger is that the rest of the strike out prone team only managed one.

PREGAME The Tigers look to repeat last night’s drama, and hopefully there will be a repeat of a full house as well. I’m off to the game…

POSTGAME: I typically appreciate a fast moving pitchers duel. That goes double when I take a 3 year old and a 5 year old. I love spending an afternoon or evening as much as anyone, and I usually don’t care to rush the event. However, a fast moving game with the little ones (especially the littler one) is a beautiful thing.

Nate Robertson continues to walk people, but he did everything else right today. Amazingly, despite the 5 walks he protected the shut out without the benefit of the double play.

Once again the Tigers put on a good show for a pretty full house. The crowd of 31,000+ was very engaged and enthusiastic. It’s fun being a Tiger fan again.

PREGAME: Milton versus Maroth. That’s all I have time for tonight.

POSTGAME: Well that was a pretty good show in front of the 4th largest crowd in Comerica history. I’m having a hard time organizing my thoughts on this game so I’m going bullet form:

• As important as anything is Mike Maroth continues to impress without overwhelming. I’ve always pulled for Maroth, but part of me is still expecting a collapse, or at least a derailment. This time he did it against a pretty good offense. Maybe Dave Dombrowski knew what he was doing when he inked Maroth for a second year.
• To Joel Zumaya – stuff happens. You got beat by a Hall of Famer. Your team still won. Shake it off. And did anybody else see the radar gun show 104 on the first pitch to Griffey?
• As far as extra-inning rallies go, I really think the Reds deserve pretty much all the credit. Carlos Guillen gets hit by a pitch. He should have been out stealing second if Brandon Phillips catches the ball. A walk to Shelton (Big Red gets credit for this part). The Reds fail to double up Dmitri Young of all people when Phillips doesn’t field the ball clean. And then Felipe Lopez chokes on Monroe’s inning ending ground ball. Not that I’m complaining.
• I’ve really wanted Dmitri Young to succeed. But he’s lost at the plate. He’s being arraigned on Monday. He probably won’t stay healthy this year. I’d just assume Thames get the majority of his at-bats. He’s become Bobby Higginson. Without some serious production pretty soon, his career will end ugly.
• I’d be remiss without mentioning Curtis. But I’d also be remiss throwing it into a game thread. So I gave it its own post.

PREGAME: So prior to the season, this matchup looked like a dog. Two perennial 4th place teams duking it out. Instead the Tigers are leading all of baseball, and the Reds 24-16 record is good enough for second in the division. I’m excited enough to take in two games, including tonight.

Typically when I look at the pitching match-ups, I look to see how the opposing team has done. In this case there isn’t a lot to talk about. The Tigers as a team have 4 at-bats against Brandon Claussen (Polanco has 3, Wilson 1). It isn’t much better going the other way with only Scott Hatteberg having more than 10 at-bats against Jeremy Bonderman.

What I do know about Claussen is he has been brutal on lefties. He’s allowing a .484 OPS to hitters on the left side, but .912 to righties.

I will point you to a couple of excellent Reds blogs, Red Reporter and Redleg Nation, for more info on this weekend’s opponent.

Let the quest for the Sparky Cup begin.

POSTGAME Uh yeah. At least the Pistons won.

PREGAME: Ah, that magical game 40 when it is suddenly safe to make judgements about teams. Today’s game will feature Kenny Rogers taking on Brad Radke.

A couple weeks ago the Tigers beat the stuffing out of Radke. Hopefully they can repeat the effort. Working in the Tigers favor is that they have 4 players hitting over .400 against Radke for their careers (min of 25 ABs) – Monore, Rodriguez, Ordonez, and Guillen.

I very rarely make predictions, but I think Pudge goes yard to day. He’s been sitting on two home runs for a long time, and he has 8 career dingers off Radke.

POSTGAME: You know things are going good when your pitcher is sick but doesn’t allow any earned runs, and you make two fielding errors, and a couple baserunning errors, your closer has a rocky outing, and you still pick up the win.

I was wrong about Pudge’s homer, but Placido Polanco managed to pop his first of the season.

And aside from the win, and resulting 2nd consecutive sweep, there were actually 26,000 there to see it. With the Reds coming to town this weekend, I’ll be disappointed if they don’t break 100,000 for the series.