7:09pm We are off to a good start here at Comerica. Max Scherzer got the Twins 1-2-3 in the first on 11 pitches. The temp has dipped below 90, our game time temperature at 7:05 was 89. We are monitoring the Indians at Blue Jays game (just underway) as well as the White Sox at Red Sox. We will check in on other games as needed. I keep hearing people say you can’t count the Twins out, but even if that remains a valid statement right now, I think we are fast approaching the time when it will not be. Do you know what happens if the Twins go 64-46 (.582) the rest of the way? They win 81 games, that’s what. Now maybe .500 will be good enough to win this division, but I think it probably will not be. For the Twins to win 90 this season, they will have to play at a .664 clip the rest of the way–that’s a 108-win pace when carried over the course of a full season. 90 wins is, in my view at least, a more realistic prediction of what it is going to take to win the AL Central. But we shall see. Brian Duensing is the starter for the Twins tonight. He’s 2-5. He though, just like Scherzer, gets ‘em out in order in the first, fanning both Austin Jackson and Brennan Boesch. So…on to the second here in Detroit.
7:21p: Scherzer getst the first two men in the second then gives up hits on consecutive pitches: a double by Danny Valencia and an RBI single by Delmon Young, and the Twins grab a 1-0 lead. Austin Jackson sent a strong throw to the plate and there was a bit of a collision between Valencia and Detroit catcher Alex Avila who was unable to corral the throw and that was that. The top of the second ends.
MID-2ND: DETROIT 0, MINNESOTA 1. 7:29p Just like the Twins, the Tigers first hit of the night is a 2-out second inning double. Jhonny Peralta gets it, and that brings us to an interesting part of the Detroit lineup tonight. Get a load of these numbers: The 7 hitter Brandon Inge is hitting .206. He’s the best hitter of the bottom third of the order. Ryan Rayburn, in the 8-hole, is hitting .196. The #9 hitter, Danny Worth, has no batting average (.000).
7:32p We’ve got the windows closed up here in the press box tonight with the scoreboard showing that temperature of 89 degrees. That means no foul balls for me. I had one glance off the window sill Sunday night in the back end of the day-night doubleheader and I’m not going to lie to you, I wanted no part of it. I didn’t get a good read off the bat and I could see it was going to come close to hitting the ledge in front of me and who knows off what part of my face it might have caromed after that. I caught one last year on the fly so I didn’t feel bad about bailing on this one. If I think I can make a clean catch I’ll go for it. The window sill in front of me–solid thick aluminum–is covered with dents from the foul balls that have come screaming up here in the past few years. I wish Boston had played here in Detroit the way they are playing tonight at Fenway Park. Chicago leads 4-0 in the second, There was a big error at short and that Mexican pitcher who shut the Tigers down in that 14-1 game is getting knocked about. Rayburn had a couple of line smashes towards left but he went foul and he would up popping weakly to first, stranding 2. END OF 2: DETROIT, 0, MINNESOTA 1.
MID-2ND: DETROIT 0, MINNESOTA 1. 7:29p Just like the Twins, the Tigers first hit of the night is a 2-out second inning double. Jhonny Peralta gets it, and that brings us to an interesting part of the Detroit lineup tonight. Get a load of these numbers: The 7 hitter Brandon Inge is hitting .206. He’s the best hitter of the bottom third of the order. Ryan Rayburn, in the 8-hole, is hitting .196. The #9 hitter, Danny Worth, has no batting average (.000).
7:32p We’ve got the windows closed up here in the press box tonight with the scoreboard showing that temperature of 89 degrees. That means no foul balls for me. I had one glance off the window sill Sunday night in the back end of the day-night doubleheader and I’m not going to lie to you, I wanted no part of it. I didn’t get a good read off the bat and I could see it was going to come close to hitting the ledge in front of me and who knows off what part of my face it might have caromed after that. I caught one last year on the fly so I didn’t feel bad about bailing on this one. If I think I can make a clean catch I’ll go for it. The window sill in front of me–solid thick aluminum–is covered with dents from the foul balls that have come screaming up here in the past few years. I wish Boston had played here in Detroit the way they are playing tonight at Fenway Park. Chicago leads 4-0 in the second, There was a big error at short and that Mexican pitcher who shut the Tigers down in that 14-1 game is getting knocked about. Rayburn had a couple of line smashes towards left but he went foul and he would up popping weakly to first, stranding 2. END OF 2: DETROIT, 0, MINNESOTA 1.
8:05p: Sorry. They turned on the ice cream machine so I was out of touch there for a few minutes. The Twins scored a couple more while I was noshing. Raburn took what we in the business call “a bad angle to the ball” on a liner off the bat of the Twins #9 hitter Matt Tolbert and by the time he squared up and got himself into the position to make the catch, he was four or five feet to short to make the play and the ball rolled to the wall in left for a double. A wild pitch and a sac fly cost the Tigers the run. Then Justin Morneau hit his 3rd homer of the year, to right. I’d say it was a bomb, but any ball that gets out of this place is a bomb. You can say what you want about Comerica Park (and I do) but there has never been a cheap home run hit in this place. BOTTOM OF THE 5TH: DETROIT 0, MINNESOTA 3.
8:23p: The news out of town is all bad. Cleveland–trying to let Detroit back in the race (even if the Tigers don’t seem to want to take advantage) with losses in 5 of their last 6 and with a sub-.500 record in their last 23 (11-12)–are off to an early 3-0 lead in Toronto in the bottom of the 4th. The White Sox are clubbing the Red Sox 6-1 in the 5th. The Tigers–who just scored–began the night in second place in the AL Central, 5 games back of Cleveland, 3 and a half ahead of Chicago. Here in the 5th, Austin Jackson singled in a run and Caspar Wells doubled in another. Wells’ ball was of the ground-rule variety which cost Detroit a run as Jackson, who could have walked home from third, had to stay there as the ball one-hopped the wall. Now the Tigers get a huge break. A routine grounder to short is thrown away by Tolbert who was trying to get the lead runner at third. He lobbed it into the Detroit dugout to permit Wells to trot home. Jackson scored on the original fielders choice so Detroit gets 2 on the play, and have four home in the inning. Miguel Cabrera is walked on purpose so Detroit has runners on first and second with one out and Martinez up. 5TH INNING: DETROIT 4, MINNESOTA 3.
8:38p: It’s tough to complain about Cabrera even when he makes a mistake,which he just did. He ran through a stop sign and was out by 15 feet at home trying to score the second run on a Victor Martinez double. Jhonny Peralta then doubled home Martinez and that is it for Duensing. The Tigers have six in with a man on and two men out here in the 5th. BOTTOM 5: DETROIT 6, MINNESOTA 3.
8:43p The Tigers settle for the 6-spot (might have been more if Cabrera hadn’t tried to score from first but, hey, at least he made an out enthusiastically) and lead this one 6-3 after 5, and they have gotten to the Twins bullpen. No change out of town. Cleveland and Chicago both have large mid-game leads. TOP 6: DETROIT 6, MINNESOTA 3.
9:17p What a turn of events. The Twins got a run back in the 6th to make it a 6-4 game and have scored 3 here in the 7th to retake the lead 7-6. One run scored on a Scherzer wild pitch, the other 2 on Morneau’s second homer of the night, a blast to right that looked pretty much identical to his first. Scherzer hit the next batter, for payback, and now he’s gone. Charlie Furbush is in. This is his 3rd career appearance and he has yet to allow an earned run in 8.2 innings. I blame myself for the sudden and sad turn of events. It turns out that this would have been the Tigers biggest comeback of the year–they had not won a game this season in which they trailed by more than 2 runs and they had trailed in this one by 3 before rallying with that 6-run 5th. Also, a win tonight would have set the Tigers up for a good homestand (a win tonight and a win in the finale tomorrow night would have given them a 6-3 record) and I was picturing myself asking the irascible Jim Leyland about that in the postgame scrum. Oh, well. The Tigers still have 9 offensive outs left, a third of a ballgame still to turn this around. BOTTOM 7: DETROIT 6, MINNESOTA 7.
9:31p: Everybody up here in the pressbox is second-guessing Leyland for leaving Scherzer in too long, long enough that is to allow the go-ahead homer to Morneau. I will bet you $50 right now that not a one of them has the guts to ask him about it. I don’t know if I will, because I don’t know that he did leave him in there too long. I might want to know what his thinking was and I do think it a fair question, so perhaps I will take the hit. We’ll see. The Tigers have the corners filled with one down and they tie the score on a sac fly by Peralta. Boesch comes in to score. BOTTOM 7: DETROIT 7, MINNESOTA 7.
9:40 Score tied and the Twins change pitchers. Mijares out, Dumatrait in. Two on, two out. Raburn up. Boston trying to come back at Fenway but they will fall short. They trail 10-5 in the top of the 9th. Same story in Toronto where the Jays comeback will likely be too little too late too. They trail the Indians 6-2 in the 8th. Rayburn fouls to right and leaves the two men on. Too bad. A hit there would have raised his average over .200 as he was at .199 when he came to the plate. Al Alburquerque coming on to start the 8th. TOP 8: DETROIT 7, MINNESOTA 7.
9:53p: Alburquerque is perfect. 1-2-3 with 2 punch-outs. Furbush meanwhile, coming on to get the last out in the 7th, has now worked 9 innings in his ML career and has not allowed a run. He has, in other words, begun his career with what amounts to a comlete-game shutout. We are going to the bottom of the 8th and we are still all tied up. BOTTOM 8: DETROIT 7, MMINNESOTA 7.
9:59p The Tigers threaten in the bottom of the 8th. A single, the pitcher tried and failed to get the lead runner on a sac bunt, and then a sac bunt that worked (nice job there by Wells–it was a perfect lay-down) and Detroit has ‘em at 2nd and 3rd with one out and the game tied. It’s over in Boston. The Red Sox threatened in the 9th but fell short 10-7 as the White Sox take the first 2 games of the series there. Boesch plates Worth–he’d started it all with that lead-off single–with a sac fly to right and Detroit leads 8-7. They walk Miggy and the crowd roars in disapproval. Don’t they know it just means they have to pitch to Martinez? Meanwhile, who closes? Valverde has been in 3 games in the last 2 days. The inning ends on a fly out by Martinez and it looks like Joaquin Benoit is coming in to close it out. I might’ve left Alburguerque in there…TOP 9: DETROIT 8, MINNESOTA 7.
10:13p: We may have to leave you to go to the locker room. One on and one out here in the 9th after a flyout and a bloop single by Span. Now Alexi Casilla walks so make it 2 on with 1 out. We will, as they say in the business, keep it right here. Oh, no. It’s Morneau. Left-handed hitter v right-handed pitcher and Justin’s hit two out tonight already. Benoit gets ahead 0-2. Got him! He fouled a couple off before Benoit fooled him with a breaking ball. Two on, two out. One run game. Michael Cuddyer is the hitter. Nothing is easy. Benoit goes 3-0 on Cuddyer. Cuddyer bounces into a forceout at second. Ballgame. Off to the room….FINAL DETROIT 8, MINNESOTA 7.
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