2009 DETROIT TIGER SCHEDULE AND RESULTS

All-Star Jackson, Tigers stifle Indians
Righty tops Tribe's Lee with seven innings of one-run ball

By Mike Scott / Special to MLB.com

07/10/09 10:48 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Edwin Jackson proved that his inclusion on the American League All-Star roster was well deserved with another impressive performance Friday night.

Jackson (7-4) went seven innings, allowing just one run on four hits while striking out four, leading the Tigers to a 5-1 victory over the Indians at Comerica Park. Despite recording six quality starts in his past seven appearances heading into Friday's game, Jackson hadn't recorded a win since a complete-game four-hitter against the Angels on June 6.

In other words, a win felt good to the newly named All-Star.

"It's a bonus for me to get the win, but it's more important for the team to get a win," Jackson said. "As long as the team wins, I'll take a no-decision any day over a loss."

Jackson is used to getting little run support this year. Entering the game, he had received 3.53 runs per nine innings of run support this season, the second-lowest run support ratio in the AL.

The Tigers improved to 3-0 against reigning Cy Young Award winner Cliff Lee this season. They withstood a Cleveland rally in the ninth, when the Indians loaded the bases on an error and two walks before Fernando Rodney retired Grady Sizemore on a grounder to end the game.

The big hit early on for the Tigers was a one-out single by Josh Anderson in the second inning that drove home two. Anderson's hit followed an RBI double by Gerald Laird to give the Tigers a 3-0 lead. Laird's drive down the right-field line just eluded a diving Ryan Garko.

That was all the offense that Jackson needed. In his final start before his first All-Star appearance, the right-hander gave up four hits and one run in seven innings while striking out four.

"It was a great job by him because Cleveland has some tremendous left-handed hitters in their lineup," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "I think he was a little spent when [the seventh inning] ended, but what he gave us was a great chance to win the game."

The Indians threatened in the eighth after both Asdrubal Cabrera and Victor Martinez walked. They moved up a base with one out on a wild pitch from Bobby Seay, who had relived Joel Zumaya. Zumaya threw just two pitches before leaving with a cut on top of his right thumb.

But Seay then struck out Shin-Soo Choo looking and retired Cleveland designated hitter Travis Hafner on a routine fly ball to left to strand two runners.

Marcus Thames then gave the Tigers some added breathing room in the bottom of the eighth with a two-run homer to left off Joe Smith. That also plated Placido Polanco who led off the inning with a walk.

The Indians didn't record their first hit until a two-out single by Travis Hafner in the fourth moved Choo, who had walked, to second base. But Jackson got Jhonny Peralta to ground out to shortstop to end the threat.

Garko got the Indians on the board in the fifth with an estimated 391-foot blast to left-center field, his ninth home run of the year.

Lee had lost his two earlier appearances against the Tigers this season despite giving up just four earned runs in 15 combined innings. The games came within five days of each other when Justin Verlander beat Lee, 3-1, on May 3 at Comerica Park and then again by a 1-0 score May 8 at Jacobs Field.

"I felt like I made good pitches," Jackson said. "I feel like we're not scoring enough [runs]. But it's out of my control."

Jackson said he feels comfortable pitching to contact. He admitted starting out slow the first inning or two before getting into a groove.

"I just wanted to be aggressive and make them put the ball in play," Jackson said.

And the win against Lee felt extra special.

"You have to be stingy with the run when you face [Lee]," Jackson said. "That's what every player wants to do is go against the best."

Center fielder Curtis Granderson had a bird's eye view of Jackson's stuff having been in the dugout for the first four innings after getting the day off from Leyland. Granderson entered the game in the fifth after Anderson was hit by a pitch and suffered a contusion on his right tricep. Anderson is day-to-day.

"[Jackson] has great poise and velocity," Granderson said. "He has done a great job all year of giving our bullpen a breather."

Lee said he welcomed the challenge of facing a pitcher as hot as Jackson.

"I want to go up against the other team's number one guy," he said. "I'm not lacking confidence. That's not the reason why we're losing."

Mike Scott is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Galarraga's control eludes him in loss
Pair of two-out walks in third leads to two runs for Tribe

By Mike Scott / Special to MLB.com

07/11/09 11:10 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Armando Galarraga gave the Tigers a chance to win Saturday night, but trying too be fine on a few pitches in the third inning may have cost Detroit a victory.

The Tigers' six-game winning streak against the Indians came to an end with a 5-4 loss at Comerica Park before a sellout crowd in Detroit. Doubles by Shin-Soo Choo and Jhonny Peralta in the eight inning, the latter off Tigers reliever Freddy Dolsi, proved to be the difference.

Carl Pavano (8-7) picked up the win with eight strong innings, allowing two runs on seven hits. It was Pavano's second consecutive strong outing, following a win July 4 against Oakland. Pavano retired the last 10 hitters he faced and allowed just two extra-base hits, throwing 101 pitches.

Pavano was part of the story, but the other was Galarraga (5-8), who gave up a two-out triple to Grady Sizemore, then proceeded to walk both Victor Martinez and Choo in the third. That gave Travis Hafner a chance to drive in two with a single to left field just in front of a diving Ryan Raburn, giving the Indians a 3-2 lead.

Detroit manager Jim Leyland said Galarraga pitched well enough to win, but that sequence with two outs in the third was costly.

"He pitched the third inning there like a home run would win the ballgame," Leyland said. "If the guy hits a solo home run, who cares? [Galarraga] got afraid to give up a run rather than trying to get an out. When you get two quick outs, you have to go after whoever is up.

"He pitched to Sizemore like he was Babe Ruth. He pitched Martinez like Babe Ruth and Shoo like Babe Ruth. Then Hafner burned him. You can't do that," Leyland added.

With the loss, the Tigers' lead in the AL Central is 2 1/2 games over the White Sox, who beat the Twins, 8-7.

Miguel Cabrera made things interesting in the ninth with his 18th home run of the year, a two-run shot off closer Kerry Wood. But Wood retired Marcus Thames, Clete Thomas and Raburn to record his 12th save of the season.

Tigers catcher Gerald Laird said Pavano pitched extremely well, a line that included no walks.

"He's a professional. He's been around awhile and he knows that when he gets a lead it's important to throw strikes and keep us off balance," Laird said. "It was one of those nights when you have to tip your cap to him because he got some key double plays [one each in the first and third inning] and he made pitches when he had to."

Pavano "pounded the strike zone with strike one" all night, Leyland said. "He kept the ball away from us to his credit."

Pavano said the key to his win was having great command.

"I was able to locate my fastball and keep it down," he said. "I was aggressive and made my pitches. Any time you make one pitch and get two outs that's a pitchers' best friend."

Asdrubal Cabrera's seeing-eye single in the seventh gave Cleveland a 4-2 lead. The Indians also scored in the first when Cabrera and Sizemore led off with consecutive singles. Martinez then hit a sacrifice fly to center field which drove home Cabrera from third.

The Tigers answered in the second when Thomas singled and Raburn followed with a drive to deep left-center field that Sizemore couldn't come up with while running full speed into the fence. Raburn ended up on third with a triple. Brandon Inge drove Raburn in thee pitches later with a single to right to put Detroit up, 2-1.

Leyland said before the game that the move to platoon Thomas and Magglio Ordonez in right field, with Thomas starting against lefties, was a strategy that could continue depending on how successful Thomas was. He finished with two singles in the loss.

"We're hoping to catch lightning in a bottle a little bit with him," Leyland said about Thomas before the game. "He had a big hit [Wednesday] against Kansas City and can do some nice things for us."

The Tigers ran themselves out of a rally in the fourth with runners at the corners and one out. Raburn struck out with Thomas attempting to steal second. Thomas stopped a few feet from second base and Thames took off from third in an attempt to score. But the Indians tagged Thames out in a rundown to end the inning.

Mike Scott is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Heart of order backs Verlander big
Inge homers twice, Thomas finishes with five RBIs

By Mike Scott / Special to MLB.com

07/12/09 3:55 PM ET
updated: 07/12/09 5:35 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Before Sunday's game, Tigers manager Jim Leyland was reviewing his team's successful first half of the season, and the one area where he expressed some disappointment was the lineup's inconsistent offensive production.

Perhaps the walls in the Comerica Park clubhouse have ears. If the word did get out, Detroit's hitters sure responded, producing a 13-hit attack in a 10-1 victory over Cleveland.

The Tigers jumped all over Indians starter Tomo Ohka in the fourth inning and continued to pour it on thanks to the suddenly potent middle of their lineup. Marcus Thames, Clete Thomas and Brandon Inge batted fourth, fifth and sixth on Sunday, and the trio combined to go 9-for-12 with three home runs and nine RBIs. Inge hit a pair of home runs, Thames had a career-high four hits and Thomas came within a double of hitting for the cycle.

That was plenty of offense for starter Justin Verlander (10-4), who scattered five hits without allowing a run in seven innings. In fact, it was a total team effort that helped the Tigers to a series victory and their seventh win in the past eight games against the slumping Indians.

Verlander improved to 3-0 against the Tribe during a season in which he has allowed just one earned run in 23 innings against Cleveland.

"[Verlander] was tremendous," Leyland said. "He's just one of five guys, though. It'll take the total starting rotation for us to [stay in contention for the playoffs]."

Despite the offensive outburst, it was unusual that so much production came from just three hitters, Leyland said.

The majority of Detroit's runs came in the middle three innings. Thomas first drilled a three-run home run to left-center field with nobody out in the fourth inning. It was his fifth homer of the year and came after Miguel Cabrera had been hit by a pitch and Thames had singled.

Inge followed with his 20th home run of the year, to left field on a 1-1 pitch, giving Detroit a 5-0 lead.

The onslaught continued in the fifth inning, with three more runs, and the damage came from the same three hitters. Thames doubled down the third-base line and Thomas followed with an RBI single. Thomas came around to score on Inge's 21st home run, his fifth career multihomer game.

Thames added an RBI single in the sixth inning on an infield chopper. Ramon Santiago scored from second on the same play for Detroit's 10th run when Cleveland shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera muffed the bouncer just behind the pitcher's mound.

Thomas needed a double to hit for the cycle following his first three at-bats, something he did once before while playing in college for Auburn. He lined out sharply to the pitcher in the sixth and didn't come to the plate again.

Since being recalled from Triple-A Toledo last week, Thomas is 7-for-13. He finished Sunday with a career-high five RBIs.

"I'm seeing the ball pretty good," said Thomas, who admitted thinking about a possible cycle in the sixth inning. "I had to step out of the box there and go back to taking the same approach I had all game."

One of the biggest adjustments Thomas has made since being recalled is shortening his swing and staying on the ball, Leyland said.

Detroit jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the second when Thames singled and Thomas drove an Ohka fastball into the right-center gap for an RBI triple.

Cleveland briefly threatened in the third inning when Ben Francisco walked with one out. He went to second on an error by Verlander when the right-hander tried to pick Francisco off at first. But Verlander struck out Cabrera and induced a routine fly ball from Grady Sizemore to end the minature threat.

The Indians loaded the bases against Verlander in the seventh inning before the Detroit right-hander struck out pinch-hitter Jamey Carroll on his 116th and final pitch. Cleveland scored its lone run on a bases-loaded walk in the ninth.

As Leyland indicated before the game, Detroit's offense at times has struggled this year. The Tigers are batting under .260 as a team, while the league's offensive superpowers in the American League East are batting a combined .270. Carols Guillen hasn't played since early May. Magglio Ordonez has struggled and is now platooning in right field. Curtis Granderson and Placido Polanco are each hitting well below their respective career averages.

But Inge believes that some of the team's offensive struggles will be corrected in the second half. He is more concerned about something the players can't control: injuries -- especially to the pitching staff.

"The [offensive] production is there, it's just a matter of us getting timely hits," Inge said. "Sometimes we just need a little more focus ... those one or two times a game where we can drive in runs can make the difference."

Mike Scott is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Monday, July 13, 2009
Tigers 10, Indians 1
Tigers' Verlander rolls into break
Tim Twentyman / The Detroit News

Detroit -- The first half of Justin Verlander's season can be divided into separate parts.

Part one was the first four starts, in which he allowed 24 runs on his way to a 0-2 record.

Part two was his next 15 appearances, when he went 10-2 and allowed a total of 27 runs, including Sunday afternoon's 10-1 victory over the Indians.

Verlander has been on cruise control since those first four starts, continuing his All-Star-worthy play with his 10th victory of the season (10-4, 3.38), allowing no runs and five hits in seven innings against the Indians.

"My stuff was really good early but the numbers weren't showing it, so I just said, 'Let's change' and 'What can I change,' and my mentality was the only thing. For me personally, (an All-Star selection) is special because of what I went through last year," said Verlander, referring to last year's 11-17 record. "It's only the midway point and there's a long way to go, but it's nice to be there and say that the hard work paid off."

Verlander's turnaround from a year ago and even his own mini first-half turnaround has been a microcosm for to a much larger turnaround the Tigers have fashioned from last season. A year ago, the Tigers never spent a single day atop the American League Central standings and were a .500 club at the All-Star break. This year, they've spent 78 days in first place and are nine games over .500 at the break.

"I feel good up to this point. I feel good where we're at," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "But we're going to have to get better offensively in the second half if we want to sustain it. We have to maintain pretty solid pitching like we have the first half and the offense is going to have to be better."

The offense was a whole lot better Sunday.

Outfielder Clete Thomas had a career-high five RBIs, Brandon Inge hit home runs in the fourth and fifth innings, and Marcus Thames had a career-high four hits as the Tigers scored at least 10 runs for the sixth time in a nine-inning game this season.

Thomas was 3-for-4 with a three-run home run in the fourth, a triple and a single. He continues his hot hitting (.538) since being recalled from Triple-A Toledo on Wednesday.

Inge had his fifth career multi-homer game and finished with three RBIs.

Thames got into the fray with a 4-for-4 day, recording three singles, a double, an RBI and scoring three runs.

"We had a bunch of runs but only three guys that had hits, really," Leyland said. "That's kind of unique. Normally, when you get that many (runs) everybody is throwing in something, but that wasn't the case."

The Tigers finished with 13 hits and improved their record to 26-2 when collecting 10 or more hits.

"Those guys kind of make it easy on you when you put up 10 runs," Verlander said. "They allowed me to go out there and be aggressive, go at guys and pitch deep into the game."

Verlander is 3-0 with a 0.39 ERA and 30 strikeouts against the Indians this season. He earned 10 victories before the All-Star Game for the third time in his career (2006 and 2007).

ttwentyman@detnews.com

Friday, July 17, 2009
YANKEES 5, TIGERS 3
Yankees zoom past Tigers
Tom Gage / The Detroit News

New York -- His heat is still getting hit.

Joel Zumaya was entrusted with a one-run lead in the seventh inning Friday night at the new Yankee Stadium. Three batters later, the Yankees were on their way to a 5-3 victory -- courtesy of Mark Teixeira's three-run home run.

Zumaya is in a slump, no doubt about it. In his last nine appearances, he has four blown saves. He's also lost two of those four games. But it's deeper than that.

Pitching in 14 save situations this year, Zumaya has a 9.64 ERA. In his 15 non-save situation appearances, he has a 1.06 ERA.

The game turned around quickly with Zumaya on the mound. Derek Jeter singled, just out Placido Polanco's reach. Johnny Damon doubled off Clete Thomas' near the wall in right and Teixeira lofted a no-doubter on a 3-1 count to the seats in right.

Zumaya ran into bases-loaded trouble after Teixeira's home run, but got out of it on a grounder to second. The damage had been done, though -- and lately, since June 23 in fact, there's been a lot of damage.

The Tigers hadn't previously trailed in the game, but never were able to put it away.

Curtis Granderson's leadoff double in the first got them off to a good start -- because they turned it into a run with two groundouts.

The Yankees came right back to tie it, however, on a walk and two singles in their half of the first off starter Luke French. Trailing by two, they scored again in the fifth when the Tigers' defense got sloppy.

With one out, Damon singled and would have just taken third on Teixeira's single to left, but came all the way around when the ball went between Josh Anderson's legs for an error.

Brandon Inge followed with a throwing error at third, but the Tigers eluded additional damage by turning Hideki Matsui's soft liner to second into a double play.

Yankees starter A.J. Burnett was his own worst enemy.

For instance, he walked Anderson to start the second inning. After stealing second, Anderson took third on Burnett's throwing error and scored on Placido Polanco's two-out single up the middle.

Granderson's 19th home run increased the Tigers' lead to 3-1 in the fifth -- and they were still in front by a run when Anderson threw out Jorge Posada at the plate in the sixth.

Lead gets away from Tigers in Bronx
Zumaya struggles, will undergo MRI in Detroit on Saturday

By Kit Stier / Special to MLB.com

07/18/09 1:01 AM ET

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NEW YORK -- Joel Zumaya slowly walked off the mound after a sluggish seventh inning on Friday night looking like a man in distress. About two hours later, his right arm hanging from a painful shoulder, he was completely dejected.

The right-handed reliever, who took the loss in a 5-3 setback to New York at Yankee Stadium, will fly to Detroit on Saturday morning to undergo an MRI and have his shoulder examined by a Tigers team physician.

"It felt like I had a slice that went from the top of my shoulder down to my armpit, and usually when you feel something like that, it's not good," Zumaya said.

The Yankees had done their damage, hitting-wise, to Zumaya before the pain struck. With his team trailing by one run, New York shortstop Derek Jeter fought off a fastball and punched it into right field. Johnny Damon jumped on another fastball and drove it just out of reach of right fielder Clete Thomas for a double. Zumaya then fell behind Mark Teixeira, 3-0, threw the slugger a strike and then watched a low pitch soar deep into the stands for a three-run homer that created the final score.

But it was five batters later, when Zumaya threw ball four to Nick Swisher, that he felt a pop and then intense pain.

"I just came off an X-ray," Zumaya said. "There's a lot of pain in my shoulder. I got X-rays to try to figure out what's going on. The fourth pitch, it was a breaking ball. Then I just tried to throw the ball down the middle. I was in serious pain. I just tried not to show too much emotion."

But it wasn't hard to tell that Zumaya was troubled as he walked off the mound in the rain, in a thunderstorm that would later cause a 57-minute delay.

Manager Jim Leyland didn't let on that there was something wrong with the hard-throwing right-hander, who sustained a non-displaced fracture in his right shoulder last year and didn't pitch after Aug. 12.

"We couldn't get an extra big hit," Leyland lamented. "We thought we had it set up pretty good when you have a guy who throws like that [Zumaya]. But basically, what happened is he got the ball up to two guys who like it up, and he got the ball down to the one guy who likes the ball down. That pretty much sums it up."

Leyland acknowledged that Zumaya has been struggling lately.

"He looked a little bit different," Leyland said. "If it's confidence, I can't really answer that question. He looked a little bit different. When you have an arm like that and don't get an out before they get the lead, I'm sure that's all part of it."

Zumaya said the pain he felt on Friday night was situated below where he'd sustained the fracture.

"Disgusted, sad, I don't know what to think right now," he said when he first addressed reporters at his corner locker.

The Tigers had been hanging on for dear life before that fateful seventh. The Yankees had stranded seven runners, lined into one double play and had a runner thrown out at the plate.

Center fielder Curtis Granderson, who hadn't fared well against Yankees pitching this season and who has never solved the problem of New York right-hander A.J. Burnett, who previously pitched for Toronto, took big steps to solve both problems.

Granderson led off the game by lining a double into the right-field corner against Burnett and later scored. He then opened the fifth inning by launching a home run over the fence in right-center field to give the Tigers a two-run lead. The double and the homer, his 19th, left Granderson 3-for-13 lifetime against Burnett and 3-for-13 against Yankees pitching this season.

New York answered Detroit's run in the first by scoring on two hits and an error, then closed to within one run with an unearned run in the fifth off starter Luke French, who gave up just one run over five hard innings.

Detroit, which matched its season high by committing three errors, made two of those mistakes in the fifth, and was lucky to escape allowing just the one run after Hideki Matsui lined into a double play.

Kit Stier is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Verlander outdueled by Sabathia
Pair of runs in seventh spoils strong outing by Tigers righty

By Jared Diamond / MLB.com

07/18/09 5:35 PM ET

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NEW YORK -- Perhaps Gerald Laird has already grown spoiled by the cavernous dimensions of Comerica Park, where potential home runs routinely nestle quietly into outfielders' gloves. Playing in Detroit can sometimes lead to an unfortunate false sense of security.

So when Alex Rodriguez lifted a fly ball to right field to lead off the seventh inning on Saturday afternoon, Laird breathed a quick sigh of relief with a comfortable thought on his mind: "One out." But things at new Yankee Stadium don't quite work that way. That seemingly innocent popup plopped one row deep into the right-field stands for a home run, breaking a scoreless tie and serving as the key moment of the game.

Rodriguez's hit spoiled an otherwise fabulous outing by Tigers ace Justin Verlander and led the Yankees to a 2-1 win in front of 46,423. Verlander and New York starter CC Sabathia matched zeros for the first six innings of the game until Rodriguez broke the deadlock.

The Yankees plated an insurance run later in the frame, rendering Marcus Thames' eighth-inning homer off reliever Alfredo Aceves not enough. Detroit has now lost back-to-back games coming out of the All-Star break.

"He'll tell you the same thing -- he didn't hit that ball good at all," Laird said of Rodriguez's home run. "As soon as he hit it, I thought it was an out. At our place, that's not even at the warning track. I don't think at most parks that thing is out."

In a battle between two of the premier pitchers in the American League, Verlander appeared to have the edge. He came out dealing fastballs that consistently approached triple digits, and he looked almost unhittable at times, not allowing a baserunner past second for the first six frames.

Then came the seventh. Rodriguez homered on an inside fastball that appeared to jam him, but he used his strength to muscle it out anyway. Right fielder Magglio Ordonez stood at the wall projecting body language that suggested confusion. Afterward, he said there were "not many" stadiums that Rodriguez's ball would have left.

As Rodriguez rounded the bases, television replays showed Verlander with a baffled smile on his face, almost chuckling in disbelief. He had learned what so many other pitchers have discovered this season: at Yankee Stadium, nearly every ball in the air toward right field has a chance to go out.

"A lot of times, it probably doesn't matter -- those home runs -- but today especially, it was huge," Verlander said. "If it went out by 10 rows, all right, but it scraped the back of the wall, which was really, really frustrating. I'd rather somebody hit the ball 10 miles than that."

The ballpark had nothing to do with the Yankees' second run, though. With two outs and nobody on, Robinson Cano singled and Nick Swisher doubled. That put runners on second and third for Melky Cabrera, who hit a slow roller in the hole between third and short and beat Adam Everett's throw to first base by a step to plate the insurance run.

While running from second, Swisher appeared to stop in front of Everett and try to distract him from fielding the ball, but manager Jim Leyland said that had nothing to do with Cabrera beating the play.

Verlander exited after seven innings, allowing just the two runs on seven hits, and was ultimately the hard-luck loser.

"I was really proud of Verlander," Leyland said. "I thought he came into a real New York environment, a Yankee environment, and I thought he was tremendous. I thought he showed a lot of poise; [he was] aggressive. I thought he was tremendous today."

Though Sabathia did not have the same lights-out stuff that Verlander demonstrated, he was the star pitcher who came out on top. Sabathia struggled early with his command, and the Tigers had opportunities to break through. They had runners in scoring position in four different frames against Sabathia.

Detroit had its best opportunity in the sixth, when it had runners on second and third with one out. But Ryan Raburn flied out to shallow left and Brandon Inge popped out to second, allowing Sabathia to escape the jam. Sabathia worked seven shutout innings, scattering five hits, three walks and a hit-batsman.

Thames' homer in the eighth was similar to the one Rodriguez hit, barely getting over the left-field fence. Leyland said he knew Rodriguez's was going out, but he was unsure about Thames' shot.

It was a bit ironic, considering the circumstances. The Tigers had seemingly endless chances, but couldn't get the big hit. The Yankees benefited from the cozy confines of their new home. On Saturday, the breaks went all New York's way.

Said Leyland: "If we get one of those [homers] with a couple of those guys on base -- somebody, anybody -- it makes a big difference."

Jared Diamond is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Jackson saddled with tough loss
Tigers unable to muster enough offense vs. Bombers

By Jared Diamond / MLB.com

07/19/09 6:55 PM ET

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NEW YORK -- Tigers manager Jim Leyland has a basic formula for what it takes to drive in runs: relax and concentrate. Sounds simple enough, especially when the message comes from the cozy confines of the skipper's office. Leyland isn't the one standing in the box facing a stream of 95-mph fastballs, always knowing in the back of his mind that the Tigers simply are not hitting right now.

Detroit again demonstrated the inability to hit in clutch spots on Sunday, going 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position in a 2-1 loss to the Yankees in front of 46,937 at Yankee Stadium. They were swept in the series, losing the three games by a combined four runs.

Edwin Jackson was the hard-luck loser on Sunday, allowing just two runs on five hits in seven innings. The Tigers went a dismal 1-for-26 (.038) with runners in scoring position over the course of the series and squandered a group of strong pitching performances by their starters.

In fact, this weekend it seemed the whole lineup had plenty of chances when a bloop single would have changed the fortune of an entire game. It isn't that Clete Thomas and his teammates suddenly forget Leyland's mantra when the pressure's on -- finding a way to execute it is a whole lot easier said than done.

"Sometimes guys see runners in scoring position and start to change their swings to knock them in when a single will do," said Thomas, whose solo home run in the fourth served as the Tigers' lone offensive bright spot.

For the third consecutive day, the Tigers had the Yankees' starter on the ropes, but were unable to deliver the knockout blow. They put at least one runner in scoring position in four separate innings off Joba Chamberlain, and stranded all of them.

The best opportunity came in the fifth, when Curtis Granderson tripled with one out on ball misplayed in right by Nick Swisher and Placido Polanco was hit by a pitch. It left runners on the corners for the Tigers' two best hitters. At the time, the game was tied at 1, after Alex Rodriguez launched a solo homer in the fourth to match Thomas' blow.

Miguel Cabrera lifted a harmless popup to second, not nearly deep enough to plate the go-ahead run, and Marcus Thames struck out to end the threat. Chamberlain emphatically pumped his fist and screamed into the air before walking off the mound.

"You see [your pitchers] out there throwing up strikes and getting quick outs, and we come in and have a quick inning ourselves, I feel like I'm letting them down," Thames said.

The Tigers' starters were impressive all weekend, and Sunday was no exception. Though Jackson at times struggled with his command, allowing five walks, he managed to wiggle out of jams and keep the powerful Yankees lineup relatively quiet. Mark Teixeira hit a solo home run in the sixth to break the tie and score the eventual winning run.

"Tremendous," Leyland said of Jackson's performance. "Against that lineup in this park? Hot day? Absolutely tremendous."

Chamberlain was just as effective. The right-hander worked 6 2/3 innings, giving up just one run on three hits while striking out eight. Relievers Phil Coke and Phil Hughes breezed through four outs to bridge the gap to closer Mariano Rivera, who pitched around a two-out walk to convert his third save in three days.

"When you come in here and see Mariano Rivera three straight days, that's not good," Leyland said.

Jackson's successful outing came one day after ace Justin Verlander also stifled the Yankees' bats, matching zeroes with CC Sabathia. Verlander pitched six scoreless frames before allowing two in the seventh, ultimately succumbing, 2-1.

In the first game of the series on Friday, rookie Luke French gave up just one earned run in five frames, but the Tigers lost, 5-3.

After the game Sunday, Leyland had nothing [but] praise for his pitching staff and criticized his slumping hitters. All told, Detroit gave up just nine runs to one of the best offensive teams in baseball in a stadium already known as a hitters' paradise.

On paper, those sound like perfect numbers for a successful weekend. But, just like Leyland's formula for driving in runs, it's a lot easier said than done.

"If you would have told me we would have held them to nine runs in three games, I would have told you we might have had a sweep," Leyland said. "Two out of three for sure. Our pitchers did a tremendous job the entire series."

Jared Diamond is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

DETROIT 9, SEATTLE 7
Ordonez grand slam helps Tigers beat Mariners

FREE PRESS NEWS SERVICES • July 21, 2009

Magglio Ordonez hit a grand slam in a five-run first inning and the Detroit Tigers held on for a 9-7 win over the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday night.

Detroit scored just five runs while being swept in a three-game series at Yankee Stadium last weekend, but matched that total before making their first out against Seattle.

Rookie Rick Porcello (9-6) got the win despite allowing five runs on nine hits and a walk in five innings.

Tigers closer Fernando Rodney allowed the first two batters to reach in the ninth before retiring the next three for his 20th save in 20 tries.

Seattle’s Jack Hannahan hit two of the seven home runs in the game. Miguel Cabrera, Placido Polanco also homered for Detroit. Wladimir Balentien and Ryan Langerhans connected for Seattle.

Seattle starter Garrett Olson (3-4) allowed seven runs in 1 1-3 innings.

The Mariners went up 1-0 in the first on Jose Lopez’s RBI single, but the Tigers quickly took command with five in the bottom half and three in the second.

Curtis Granderson led off with a single and scored on Polanco’s double. Olson walked Cabrera and Marcus Thames to load the bases, and Ordonez gave the Tigers a 5-1 lead with his first grand slam in seven years.

Polanco homered in he second and Ryan Raburn added a two-run triple later in the inning when Seattle center fielder Franklin Gutierrez injured his left elbow and knee while crashing into the right-centerfield scoreboard.

Seattle got a run in the third on Balentien’s RBI single and another on Hannahan’s solo homer in the fourth.

The Mariners continued their rally, pulling to 8-5 on Langerhans’ two-run homer in the fifth and making it a one-run game on Hannahan’s second of the game in the sixth. Cabrera, though, restored Detroit’s three-run lead with a homer in the bottom of the sixth.

Balentien hit the game’s seventh homer to make it 9-7 in the seventh, but Detroit’s bullpen was able to hold Seattle scoreless in the final two innings to clinch the win.

NOTES: OF Carlos Guillen is scheduled to move from Single-A Lakeland to Triple-A Toledo on Wednesday as he continues his rehab from a shoulder injury. ... Ordonez’s last grand slam had been against the Tigers on July 2, 2002, in Chicago. ... Hannahan’s homers, his first at Comerica Park, came eight years after he was drafted by Detroit. ... Gutierrez left the game after colliding in the scoreboard, but x-rays on his elbow were negative and he is being listed as day-to-day.

Ordonez's slam boosts Tigers in slugfest
Three homers pave the way to first second-half win

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

07/21/09 10:05 PM ET
updated: 07/22/09 12:10 AM ET

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DETROIT -- The Tigers scored as many runs before their first out of Tuesday's series opener against the Mariners as they did in their entire three-game sweep to the Yankees over the weekend. They had eight runs through two innings, the kind of outburst that they would've loved to have in the Bronx.

By the time Fernando Rodney finished off the 9-7 win over the M's with a Ryan Langerhans fly ball just shy of the right-field warning track, the Tigers needed just about every one of those tallies.

"Those are the toughest kind of games to manage," Jim Leyland said, "and it happened tonight. This one looked like it had disaster written all over it."

Leyland had watched the Twins' 10-run lead evaporate against the A's on Monday night. The way his team had been struggling to hit, he couldn't have figured he'd be in a similar bind.

Two of the American League's three stingiest pitching staffs combined to give up two dozen hits and seven home runs, albeit on a night Rick Porcello made his first start in 16 days against the M's fifth starter Garrett Olson. The damage included two from former Tigers prospect turned Mariners reserve Jack Hannahan, and Magglio Ordonez's first grand slam in seven years.

Ordonez's blast put the Tigers in command early, but they never quite put the Mariners away. In the end, Miguel Cabrera's sixth-inning solo shot turned out to be a huge insurance run as Fernando Rodney tried to finish off his 20th save in as many chances.

Yet it wasn't simply the run totals that had Leyland raving about his offense for the first time since the All-Star break. It was the approach.

"You always talk about being aggressive, but don't swing at bad pitches," Leyland said. "And we did that tonight. I was very impressed with our offense tonight."

Not until sixth hitter Ryan Raburn grounded out to third on Olson's 32nd pitch had a Tigers player finally been retired. Curtis Granderson and Placido Polanco hit back-to-back gap liners early in the count to plate the first run, then Cabrera and Marcus Thames let Olson struggle his way into loading the bases with back-to-back walks.

Olson (3-4) put Ordonez into a 1-2 with back-to-back breaking balls -- one Ordonez took, the other fouled off. Once he went back to the curveball for his 2-2 pitch, Ordonez pounced, lofting it well towards the Detroit sky and into the left-field seats. His fifth home run of the season was his first grand slam since July 2, 2002, when the former White Sox slugger took Detroit reliever Jose Paniagua deep in Chicago.

"Magglio had a big night," Leyland said.

True, it was a big night against a pitcher who was struggling. Still, the way Detroit's offense had been going, even taking advantage of those performances hasn't been easy for them.

"I wasn't making pitches or getting the ball down," said Olson, who left after Placido Polanco's second-inning solo shot and another Cabrera walk. "Against any lineup, that doesn't cut it."

Chris Jakubauskas gave up an Ordonez walk and a Raburn liner that hit off center fielder Franklin Gutierrez's glove as he crashed into the out-of-town scoreboard in right-center field. That two-run triple extended Detroit's lead to 8-2 and seemingly gave the Tigers an easy night.

One shot after another, however, it became a little harder.

Considering Porcello hadn't started since the Fourth of July weekend at Minnesota, he was expected to have some rust. His workload the last couple weeks consisted of a simulated game last week and two side sessions.

In that sense, the offensive outburst gave him some room to be aggressive and live with the results, from Jose Lopez's first-inning RBI single on a 3-0 pitch to Hannahan's fourth-inning solo homer to Langerhans' two-run drive in the fifth. He never quite settled down, though.

"I think it was a matter of being more consistent," Porcello said. "Certain guys, I felt fine [against] and everything was coming out of my hand good, and certain guys I'd fall behind and have to lay one over."

Once Porcello left, Hannahan's second homer leading off the sixth off Fu-Te Ni and Ronny Cedeno's ensuing single somehow brought the potential tying run to the plate. And that comfortable night turned into yet another close game after a weekend full of them in New York.

The way the Mariners hit was just as flustering for Leyland as the way his team hit proved encouraging.

"As a manager, you're helpless," he said. "Five of their catchup runs were home runs. You can't plan for that as a manager, and that's what's frustrating."

He could plan out his bullpen, mixing Ni with Zach Miner for the seventh before using setup men Bobby Seay and Brandon Lyon for the eighth. Then Rodney hit Russell Branyan with a 1-2 fastball leading off the ninth before Lopez's grounder up the middle skipped off Polanco.

"I didn't feel too good," Leyland admitted. "I didn't feel too good at all."

He felt better after Rodney retired the next three batters in order, including a strikeout of Wladimir Balentien with runners at second and third. And the Tigers, now up two games on the second-place White Sox, could finally relax.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Lack of offense spoils Galarraga's start
Right-hander gives up one run on one hit in 7 1/3 innings

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

07/23/09 12:35 AM ET

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DETROIT -- Armando Galarraga got to know Felix Hernandez during their time on the Venezuelan team in the World Baseball Classic. They had a hug and wished each other a good game, Galarraga said, when the Mariners arrived for this three-game series.

They probably couldn't have wished for this good of a matchup on Wednesday night. The ending, though, had to feel familiar for the Tigers.

Galarraga arguably outpitched Hernandez with 7 1/3 innings of one-hit ball, but it took one more hit to make it all for naught. Russell Branyan's two-run homer off Bobby Seay with two outs in the eighth inning provided the Mariners all the offense they needed, sending the Tigers to another 2-1 defeat. It marked Detroit's third loss by that score in its last four games.

After spending much of the season's first half trying to recapture his form as a front-line starter, Galarraga pitched his best outing of the year, only to fall to the same fate that Justin Verlander and Edwin Jackson did in their solid outings against the Yankees over the weekend.

In Wednesday's case, the two hits allowed tied for the lowest hit total allowed by the Tigers in defeat since 1954, according to research on baseball-reference.com. Detroit had suffered the same fate nine other times, but just four when pitching the full nine innings.

"I'm doing good things," Galarraga said. "Just keep it more consistent, try to keep going the same next start. That's when my numbers will change."

That's the consolation for the Tigers, who seem to have the makings of a deeper rotation as Galarraga gets further out of his early-season funk. With two rookie starters, the onus falls more on the second-year right-hander to provide innings, rest the bullpen and give the Tigers a chance to win on a consistent basis.

This was a golden opportunity against one of baseball's best pitchers. In the end, it wasn't so much the leadoff walk Galarraga allowed in the eighth, but all the baserunners the Tigers left stranded in the first.

The Tigers needed just three pitches from Hernandez to create their opportunity in the opening inning. Curtis Granderson and Placido Polanco hit back-to-back singles to put runners at the corners with nobody out.

"Really, in the first inning, we got exactly what we wanted," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "We got first and third with the 3-4-5 [hitters] up. That's pretty good."

That's when Hernandez began to work. Cabrera, 3-for-5 lifetime off his fellow countryman entering the night, fouled off back-to-back fastballs and a changeup on the outside corner, before swingly meekly at a slider off the plate. Clete Thomas, starting in the cleanup spot to give the Tigers another left-handed bat, fouled off two pitches out of the zone before taking a slider for a called third strike.

Marcus Thames battled his way to a walk, loading the bases, but Hernandez put Josh Anderson in an 0-2 hole before getting him to fly out to left.

"Sometimes it's frustrating," Leyland said, "and other times you kind of have to tip your hat, because you know that guy's capable of getting out of a jam like that. In this particular situation, it's probably a little frustrating, but that guy's really good."

Polanco's single and stolen base his next time up set up Thomas with another shot. This time he delivered, sending a ground ball through the middle for a two-out, third-inning single and a 1-0 lead.Thames' broken-bat infield single extended the inning before Hernandez overpowered Anderson with a fastball down and in.

"I don't know if he's got a 90 mph slider," Anderson said, "but he did tonight."

With those chances squandered, Hernandez (11-3) settled down to retire 12 of the final 14 batters he faced, one runner coming on a strikeout and wild pitch. Galarraga matched him by retiring 13 of the first 14 batters he faced with a heavy arsenal of sliders and sinkers.

"I felt good, really good," said Galarraga, whose ERA dropped a quarter run to 4.82. "Sliders, two-seamers, and my location's getting better."

He didn't give up a hit until Ryan Langerhans slapped a ground-ball single through the right side, just beyond the reach of Polanco, with one out in the fifth. The other four baserunners Galarraga allowed all reached on walks, and the first three didn't advance.

The fourth was former Tiger Jack Hannahan, who worked Galarraga full to lead off the eighth inning as Detroit nursed a 1-0 lead. After Ronny Cedeno moved Hannahan into scoring position, Leyland brought in Bobby Seay, a lefty specialist, to face Ichiro Suzuki. Shortstop Ramon Santiago caught Hannahan breaking for third on Ichiro's ground ball, easily throwing him out at third.

Branyan made that irrelevant, pouncing on a hanging slider by Seay (1-2) and sending it over the out-of-town scoreboard in right-center field for his 24th homer of the season. It was the second homer Seay allowed in as many nights after holding opponents scoreless in his previous 21 outings.

"Slider, caught the middle," Branyan said. "That's about it."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Offense struggles in loss to Mariners
Defeat marks fifth in the Tigers' past six games

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

07/23/09 4:01 PM ET

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DETROIT -- The Tigers' Christmas in July celebration Thursday afternoon did nothing to give their stingy offense a spark. Jarrod Washburn sent down Detroit's sputtering offense quietly over seven scoreless innings for his first win over the Tigers in five years, sending them to their fifth loss in six games with a 2-1 defeat to the Mariners at Comerica Park.

With the White Sox in front of the Rays Thursday afternoon, Detroit's loss could leave them tied with Chicago in the American League Central heading into their four-game, three-day series this weekend at Comerica Park.

Four of Detroit's five losses since the All-Star break have been by the same score. Washburn (8-6), who had his share of low-scoring defeats over a seven-game losing streak to the Tigers since 2005, held them to a pair of singles and two walks Thursday, half of that damage coming in the opening inning, before Detroit plated a run off Seattle's bullpen in the eighth.

Again, the Tigers had a first-inning scoring chance thwarted, this time after Placido Polanco singled and Miguel Cabrera walked. Marcus Thames' ensuing flyout and Magglio Ordonez's liner to right began Washburn on a stretch of 11 outs in 12 batters before Brandon Inge singled in the fifth. Washburn recovered from that with a Dusty Ryan double-play grounder to retire his final eight batters.

Though Tigers starter Luke French (1-1) turned in another strong outing, retiring seven straight Mariners through the early innings, Mike Sweeney's first-inning double to score Ichiro Suzuki left the young left-hander pitching from behind all afternoon. Sweeney's sixth-inning single set up Seattle's other run, advancing Jose Lopez to third to score on Wladimir Balentien's fielder's choice groundout.

Once Washburn left, having thrown 93 pitches over his seven innings, Mark Lowe's leadoff walk to Inge set up Detroit's lone run in the eighth. Lowe retired pinch-hitters Clete Thomas and Ramon Santiago on called third strikes, but Curtis Granderson tripled in Inge with a drive to the out-of-town scoreboard in right-center field.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Verlander, Tigers back alone in first
Ace works out of ninth-inning jam to finish off complete game

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

07/24/09 5:56 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Justin Verlander kept looking into the Tigers' dugout as one White Sox batter after another reached base in the ninth inning Friday afternoon, until the bases were loaded with nobody out and the potential tying run at the plate. He hoped he wasn't coming out of the game, but he knew it was possible when he saw manager Jim Leyland on the phone.

Aside from getting outs, there wasn't much Verlander could do about it, except glare. Mind you, it's a pretty powerful glare. In the end, his complete-game 5-1 Tigers win over the White Sox was a pretty powerful performance.

"I'm really competitive," Verlander said. "I want the ball in that situation. I'm looking into the dugout, and I'm not going to tell you what I'm thinking. It's along the lines of, 'Don't come out here.'

"I saw him get off the phone, I saw him give a couple claps, and that was it. Then it's, 'All right. Game on. Let's go.'"

It was on. Two batters and three outs later, it was over, and the Tigers were back in first place by themselves.

Verlander had a similar thought in his head in the third inning when pitching coach Rick Knapp came to the mound. He had given up a leadoff double to Dewayne Wise, walked Jermaine Dye with one out, and fallen behind on a 2-0 count to his nemesis, Jim Thome.

Knapp came out to get Verlander to slow down and make his pitches. The ace knew that already.

"I wasn't very happy with him being out there in the middle of a big situation," Verlander said with a sheepish grin. "I'm kind of fired up. In so many words, I was like, 'All right, let's go.' But he said what he needed to say, and it got through. I'm a little stubborn sometimes. It still got through my thick skull. I made the adjustment."

He had to. By then, Verlander had already thrown 45 pitches. Getting from that point to the ninth was a feat in itself. Finishing it off was a rollercoaster ride, with quite a finish.

It's the latest example of how Verlander commands a game whenever he pitches, no matter the situation. While much of the afternoon was a duel between Verlander and Jose Contreras, or Verlander and the White Sox sluggers who used to pummel him in earlier seasons, the game swung on how Verlander handled himself.

After an eight-pitch opening inning, the young right-hander had fallen out of sync, and he was struggling to get himself back in.

"Right off the bat, he was cruising pretty good," Leyland said. "And then, for a couple hitters, it looked like all of a sudden he wanted to throw it 110 mph."

Verlander walked three batters and gave up a single and a double in a seven-batter span of the second and third innings, including loading the bases with two outs in the second, yet he didn't give up a run from it. He followed Knapp's mound meeting by firing three straight fastballs past Thome before Paul Konerko grounded out to end the inning.

The only run he allowed all day was unearned. A.J. Pieryznski led off the fourth with a ground ball to first base that Miguel Cabrera threw away. Carlos Quentin doubled Pierzynski over to third for Gordon Beckham's sacrifice fly.

At that point, Verlander had 73 pitches through four innings. No matter how many swings and misses he could get, he needed quick outs if he was going to last in the game.

"I knew if I wanted a chance to go seven or eight, which was my game plan, I would have to get some quick outs," Verlander said, "make some quality pitches with my fastball and get some guys to put the ball in play early. It couldn't have worked out any better than it did."

Though Beckham's sac fly put Chicago on the scoreboard, it also got Verlander on a roll. Starting with Chris Getz's popout a batter earlier, Verlander retired 14 of 15 batters, including 10 in a row after Thome's fifth-inning walk. The righty sent down the side in the seventh on just eight pitches, and the eighth inning in just seven.

"That's the difference between this year and last year," Leyland said. "He's figured it out. He calmed down a little bit. What you saw today was pretty impressive, because that's a very deep and impressive lineup."

The crowd of 27,844 gave Verlander a standing ovation as he left the field in the eighth, but Leyland left him in. Once the manager decided that, he was pretty much all-in, win or lose, because he probably wasn't going to put in closer Fernando Rodney in a bases-loaded jam.

"Even though I knew Verlander should stay out, and I believe it in my heart, I can't say it didn't cross my mind that maybe I should go to Rodney now," Leyland said.

Leyland didn't, so it was up to Verlander to get out of the jam. Once three straight singles loaded the bases, Verlander got out of it in Rodney-like fashion, getting a comebacker from Beckham to start a 1-2-3 double play before Wise grounded out.

"We had a great opportunity to score a couple of times," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said, "and we didn't. He threw the ball real well."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Bonine, Guillen help Tigers take twin bill
Thomas' eighth-inning RBI walk clips Sox in nightcap

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

07/24/09 11:55 PM ET

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DETROIT -- What a difference a day makes, or a day-night doubleheader in this case.

For that matter, what a difference a run-producing bat makes, even when the winning run comes in with the bat on the shoulder.

While Carlos Guillen's home run in his first day back sent fans at Comerica Park into a frenzy Friday night, it was Clete Thomas' bases-loaded walk that sent them home happy with a 4-3 win over the White Sox. Combined with Justin Verlander's complete-game victory for a 5-1 win in the opener, it was a doubleheader sweep that changed the outlook of the American League Central.

Barely 24 hours after the Tigers fell back into a first-place tie with the White Sox, with Chicago surging off Mark Buehrle's perfect game and Detroit sputtering, the Tigers are back to a two-game lead. Just as important, their offense looks a little more potent for the stretch run with Guillen in the middle.

"He makes the whole offense different," shortstop Ramon Santiago said.

Can one hitter really make a difference like that in a lineup?

"Absolutely," Brandon Inge said. "He's huge. Huge."

Time will tell. But after four 2-1 losses over Detroit's previous five games, at least Guillen helped make a difference on the scoreboard.

When the Tigers activated Guillen from the disabled list Friday morning, manager Jim Leyland said he would play both ends of the doubleheader. Guillen's limited to batting left-handed and playing as the designated hitter for now until his shoulder strengthens to better allow him to bat right-handed and throw, but that was good enough.

Guillen went 1-for-4 with a single in the afternoon game, but Leyland and others noted how much better his swing looked compared to April, just before his bad right shoulder finally forced him onto the DL.

Once Guillen connected with Bartolo Colon's fastball in the second inning of the nightcap, his swing looked really good. The flight of the ball appeared fine enough that as it sailed into the right-field seats, Guillen took a moment to watch it leave, then flipped the bat.

For his first home run since Aug. 16, 2008, he could be excused for a little flair.

"You have to do it when you hit a ball like that," Guillen said. "It's been a while since I hit a ball like that."

It was a solo shot that opened the Tigers' scoring and briefly tied the game after Jim Thome led off the inning by taking Eddie Bonine's first-pitch fastball deep to left for his fourth home run of the year off Tigers pitching and the 60th of his career against Detroit. An inning later, Jermaine Dye's two-run homer put the White Sox ahead.

The combination shots could've sent Bonine reeling in his spot-start assignment and set up a long night for a Tigers bullpen that was a man short with Freddy Dolsi optioned out. Instead, Bonine rebounded to hold down the White Sox from there, pitch a quality start and hand a close game over to Detroit's late-inning trio of Bobby Seay, Brandon Lyon and Fernando Rodney.

Hours earlier, Leyland entrusted Justin Verlander to go the distance and nearly regretted it once Verlander loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth. This time, Leyland admitted he thought about bringing in Zach Miner in the sixth with Dye and Thome coming back up. He decided against it and let Bonine take them on. Bonine struck out Dye on a nasty dropping slider, walked Thome, then retired Paul Konerko on the next pitch to end his night.

"Bonine, to me, really was the story," Leyland said. "What a tremendous job. That's not easy. The poor kid drove up here today. He knows he's going back. To do what he did with the crowd and everything, it was great."

Given how trying his year has been, this trip felt like nothing. When Bonine made the Tigers bullpen out of Spring Training, he brought his mother from their Arizona home to Seattle to watch the Tigers in April. She lost a lengthy battle with breast cancer last month, and Bonine has spent the last month learning how to pitch without his biggest fan.

Once Bonine found out he was making this start, he reserved two seats for family members to watch him pitch. His stepfather took a red-eye flight Friday evening, made it to the game, and brought two Bonine jerseys. He wore one and put the other on the second seat, saved for Bonine's mom.

"In person, she would've been just as excited," Bonine said. "She was obviously excited up there. It was one of those things, driving up, I knew it was going to be a good night."

Once Dusty Ryan's RBI single and Placido Polanco's RBI fielder's choice tied the game in the fifth, it was set up for a good night all around. Magglio Ordonez followed Polanco's one-out single in the eighth by turning on a 94-mph fastball and pulling it down the left-field line for a double, the kind of pulled hit he had struggled to find most of the season.

After Linebrink intentionally walked Miguel Cabrera, Matt Thornton entered and erased the sacrifice fly opportunity by striking out pinch-hitter Ryan Raburn. However, Thornton couldn't finish off Thomas, who fouled off one 3-2 fastball high and inside before taking another high for his second game-winning walk in as many seasons.

If Guillen could switch-hit, Leyland likely would've saved Raburn to hit for Thomas. As it was, it didn't matter.

"It was a big day," Leyland said, "a good day for us."


Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers extend lead with clutch win in 10th
Guillen delivers winner after Granderson ties it in ninth

By Jason Beck / MLB.com
07/25/09 9:45 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Two months ago, Carlos Guillen could barely pick up a toothbrush and brush his teeth. That's how bad he said his right shoulder felt. It's a much better feeling to be picking up the Tigers and putting them on his shoulders.

Actually, in the case of Saturday's game-winning single in a 4-3 comeback victory over the White Sox, it was the feeling of having half the Tigers roster seemingly try to jump on his shoulders in a mob scene in front of second base.

"It's fun," Guillen said. "I've been through a long rehab. It's been almost three months. I've worked hard on my shoulder to get better and get back on the field."

When Guillen came back from the disabled list Friday, he cautioned that it was about all 25 players acting as a team, not one player leading it. To that point, Guillen doesn't get a chance to drive in the winning run in the 10th inning if Curtis Granderson doesn't pull a Bobby Jenks fastball just inside first base for the game-tying RBI single with two outs and two strikes in the ninth.

Still, there's a different feeling in clutch situations with Guillen at the plate. On a Detroit team that has used the contributions of several youngsters to get to first place, from Rick Porcello's surprise rookie season to Clete Thomas' emergence as a Major League player, Guillen has been there before.

"Carlos' bat back in the lineup makes a difference," manager Jim Leyland said. "We're a different looking club. We're not a great club by any means, but there's a difference with the presence of a veteran like that that's been in those situations before. He's not going to panic."

After Tigers closer Fernando Rodney (1-2) retired the White Sox in the top of the 10th, Thomas started the rally when he lined the first pitch from D.J. Carrasco (3-1) into left-center field for a leadoff single. When Miguel Cabrera's single advanced Thomas to second, up came Guillen, 0-for-4 with two strikeouts in his career off Carrasco.

"I was looking for a good pitch to hit early in the count, trying to drive the ball," Guillen said. "And with two strikes, I was trying to make good contact. ... I'm not trying to do too much. I'm just trying to put the ball in play with two strikes, trying to put it in the right spot and let good things happen."

Very little was good to hit, with Carrasco trying bury him with pitches down and in. Guillen fouled off a tough slider on the corner to stay alive before Carrasco tried to sneak a fastball by him on the outside corner.

Guillen didn't do a lot with it, but his bouncer through the middle was just right -- hard enough to get past shortstop Alexei Ramirez, soft enough that Thomas had time to round third as center fielder Dewayne Wise charged the ball and slide in safely as the throw came home.

Thomas got a welcome reception at the plate. But the bulk of the traffic went to Guillen around second.

"Every year, Carlos has been one of our key guys," Thames said. "He's been eager to get back, and him coming back just to hit left-handed, that lets you know that he really wants to play. He really wants to help us out, even though he can't bat right-handed right now. He's just that type of teammate. He wanted to come back and help out as much as he can.

"I'm happy he's back. He gives us a boost."

For someone who nearly had season-ending shoulder surgery, it's a boost for Guillen, too. His low point came during the Tigers' road trip to Baltimore at the end of May, his shoulder clearly not getting better after nagging soreness forced him onto the DL in early May. If it hadn't improved by the All-Star break, surgery would've become an option.

Guillen spent long days rehabbing at a facility in Miami, and he still does a heavy dose of shoulder work before he does his pregame routine. His shoulder isn't all the way back yet, but it's good enough.

That left-handed bat is 5-for-12 since his return.

"Huge," Gerald Laird said to describe Guillen's impact. "He's a huge threat."

Guillen's hit was the last of several clutch hits the Tigers produced late for just their third win this year when trailing after eight innings. After Brandon Inge started the ninth-inning rally with a one-out single, Thames shattered his bat on a Jenks fastball that landed in short right field for a single that sent pinch-runner Adam Everett to third.

Jenks overpowered Ramon Santiago on a popup to deep short for the second out, then got ahead on Granderson, who took back-to-back fastballs on the inside corner as late-afternoon shadows crept over the field.

"A lot of guys couldn't see very well," Granderson said. "Sure enough, you have Bobby Jenks throwing 97 mph with a great split and a great slider. It was very difficult to see, so it was a matter of hopefully getting something around the zone and not chase something too far out of the zone. I got a pitch I was able to at least get the bat on."

It was virtually the same inside fastball, and Granderson turned on it, sending it just inside the bag to continue the game. It was the third 0-2 count of the game in which Granderson produced, digging out walks in the other two. This one handed Jenks just his third career blown save against Detroit.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Saturday, July 25, 2009
Tigers 4, White Sox 3
Carlos Guillen drives in Tigers' winner in 10th inning
Lynn Henning / The Detroit News

Detroit -- Sometimes, a crowd seems almost to will a team to victory.

That seemed to be the lesson from Saturday's 4-3 Tigers victory over the Chicago White Sox at a sold-out Comerica Park.

Down 3-2 heading into the bottom of the ninth, the Tigers used one-out bloop singles by Brandon Inge and Marcus Thames, and a two-out double from Curtis Granderson to tie the game, 3-3, as a Comerica crowd of 41,378 rocked downtown Detroit.

They won it in the ninth on consecutive singles by Clete Thomas, Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Guillen, the just-returned left-hand hitter who had two RBIs Saturday.

The ninth-inning rally prevented Edwin Jackson from losing yet another heartbreaker after he held the White Sox to three runs in seven innings.

Fernando Rodney got the victory after mowing down the White Sox in the ninth, retiring Jim Thome on a strikeout, then getting A.J. Pierzynski to hit into a double play after he carefully walked Paul Konerko.

The Tigers moved to three games in front of the White Sox ahead of Sunday night's series finale at 8:05 p.m., which will be televised on ESPN.

Porcello struggles early as Tigers fall
Detroit held at bay as White Sox get within two games

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

07/27/09 12:55 AM ET

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DETROIT -- Gerald Laird pulled aside Rick Porcello as the Tigers catcher and rookie pitcher entered the dugout after a four-run first inning from the White Sox on Sunday. It wasn't a confrontation, but more motivation.

"I just told him the first inning's over," Laird said. "I said, 'It's over. They got to you in the first inning. They got four runs off you. Now you have to take me as far as you can.' I told him, 'Six innings, four runs, I'll take it.'"

Porcello didn't quite get that far, but to Laird, he made strides. In that sense, Detroit manager Jim Leyland didn't have an issue with his 20-year-old starter's performance in Sunday's 5-1 loss to Chicago at Comerica Park. It was the strides Porcello didn't make quickly enough to cover first base on a first-inning grounder that bothered Leyland.

"You live with some of those things," Leyland said. "But you don't live with not covering first base."

In the end, the Tigers will have to live with taking three out of four from the White Sox and hitting the road with a two-game lead in the American League Central.

"It's something people don't look at," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said, "but I have to look at it."

Porcello didn't look like a pitcher tiring down the stretch. If anything, with a near-sellout crowd of 38,255 at Comerica Park, a national television audience watching on ESPN and a chance to pitch his team into command in a pennant race, he looked like a kid with too much energy, though he said it felt like another start. Porcello fell into the trap of falling behind on hitters, and he let the one situation where he worked ahead early go for naught.

That was Alexei Ramirez, who came up after Scott Podsednik beat out a bouncer to shortstop to lead off the game. Porcello worked his fastball inside and out to put Ramirez in a 1-2 count before the Chicago shortstop pounced on a bad pitch and laced a single to left.

"I really felt good about getting Ramirez out," Porcello said. "Then I just kind of hung a breaking ball to him, and he hit that one. Those two guys right there, they started it off."

A nine-pitch battle with Jermaine Dye that included three straight foul balls ended in a walk, leaving the bases loaded for Porcello to face the dangerous Jim Thome. After struggling to get his pitches down, Porcello made the pitch he wanted, a sinker that Thome hit to first for Miguel Cabrera to try to start a double play.

Adam Everett's throw went wide of first and back towards the tarp in foul territory, but Porcello was still getting to first base as Everett fired. Had Porcello broke earlier, Leyland said, he could've had a play to at least stop the ball, if not stretch for the out.

"No question," said Leyland, who has seen it from Porcello a couple other times this year. "He's got to be there. It doesn't matter where the throw goes. If the throw goes bad, that's part of the game. But there's no excuse for not being there."

Porcello didn't make any excuses.

"To be able to get Thome to roll over on that grounder and not getting over, it's inexcusable," Porcello said. "I have to get over and get to the bag. [If we get] two outs there, it might've turned out differently."

Podsednik would've scored from the third on the play regardless. The error, charged to Everett, allowed Ramirez to come around. Thome scored when Porcello fell behind on Paul Konerko, who pounced on Porcello's 3-1 fastball and sent it deep to left for his 19th home run of the year.

It was Porcello's worst opening inning of the season, but after Laird's challenge came Porcello's best stretch of pitching in a while. Those pitches he left up dropped back down, and the outs piled up. Porcello retired 12 of 14 batters after Gordon Beckham's second-inning solo homer before Ryan Raburn's double error on Porcello's 98th pitch sent Leyland to his bullpen with one out in the sixth.

It marked the sixth consecutive outing that Porcello didn't last six innings. To the Tigers, though, it could've been a lot worse.

"The kid really made strides today," Laird said. "Like I told him, 'You could've really put a damper on our bullpen if you didn't put it together. For a 20-year-old to compose himself, he found his rhythm, and he went 5 1/3. That allowed us to only use two guys out of the bullpen, and that was huge."

Said Leyland: "The hanging breaking ball, giving up the home run, that's part of the game. This guy isn't Bob Feller."

Nor was he Chicago starter Clayton Richard, who stole the spotlight not far from where he once battled Chad Henne for the quarterback job at the University of Michigan. Magglio Ordonez's single and run in the fourth inning was Detroit's only scoring against the big left-hander, who scattered five singles over eight innings.

"It looks like he took a page out of Mark Buehrle's book," Leyland said. "He worked fast, got the ball and threw it. He doesn't fool around."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers continue road funk in Arlington
Galarraga unable to hold down former teammates

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

07/28/09 12:36 AM ET

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ARLINGTON -- Armando Galarraga is starting to wonder if he's under a hex. Jim Leyland is wondering again if his offense will ever get out of its inconsistent funk.

For some reason, the key hits, clutch outs that seem to identify the Tigers at Comerica Park elude them on the road. Monday's 5-2 loss to the Rangers was far from a debacle, considering how much worse the Tigers have played away from Detroit. But it sure didn't look like a team rolling off of a clutch series victory, either.

The homegrown momentum melted deep in the heart of Texas, and the Tigers were left again trying to figure out why.

"I don't know. Go ask those guys," manager Jim Leyland said, referring to the players portion of the visiting clubhouse at Rangers Ballpark at Arlington. "I do the same thing on the road that I do at home."

Carlos Guillen hasn't been on the road with the Tigers for a while. But even he could notice the difference.

"We need to start playing better on the road," Guillen said, unsolicited. "Maybe we're trying to do too much on the road. We've got to play the same way we play at home, with the same confidence. I think that's the most important thing as a player, confidence. You have to make adjustments where you play. Maybe we give at-bats away. We have to stay maybe more aggressive."

Guillen might've had a point.

The Tigers' lone run off Rangers rookie starter Tommy Hunter came on his second pitch of the game, when Curtis Granderson took him deep for his 19th career leadoff home run. Detroit's best scoring chance came in the fifth inning, when a Michael Young leadoff error, Granderson's one-out single and a Placido Polanco walk loaded the bases for the heart of the order.

Clete Thomas swung at a first-pitch fastball and hit a squibber less than halfway down the first-base line. Hunter (3-1) charged off the mound and made a shovel pass out of his glove that catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia lunged to grab for the forceout at the plate.

That left it to Miguel Cabrera, who was nearly able to walk in a run. With a 3-0 pitch, however, Leyland gave Cabrera the green light to swing, figuring Hunter would have to give him a pitch to hit.

Cabrera took a fastball around his belt for strike one, then a slider to run the count full. Hunter got Cabrera to swing at a high fastball that might've been ball four, but Cabrera fouled it off. The next fastball was higher, and Cabrera swung and missed to end the threat.

Though Leyland didn't want to single out Cabrera, he couldn't hide his general frustration.

"In the history of my career, I've never given the green light more to hitters than I have since I've come to Detroit," Leyland said. "And I can count on my hand the times that guys have swung [on] 3-0. I'm not talking about Cabrera, I'm talking about in general. Guys just can't seem to discipline themselves. It's like they get tensed up."

At that point, the Tigers still had not only a 1-0 lead, but a dominant pitching performance. Galarraga worked a sharp-moving slider and a good changeup to retire 13 of his first 14 batters, including 12 Rangers in a row.

After Hank Blalock flew out on the first pitch of the bottom half of the fifth, up came Nelson Cruz, who pounced on a 1-0 fastball and put the kind of swing on it that resembled his Home Run Derby performance.

Galarraga quickly rebounded to end the inning, but Elvis Andrus' leadoff double began a Rangers onslaught in the sixth. After Ian Kinsler popped out on a sacrifice bunt attempt, Michael Young's single to right-center led to a pair of costly errors.

Andrus held up at third base as Granderson fired the ball back in, but nobody fielded the throw. Galarraga was left to run down the ball as it rolled into foul territory between third and home. Andrus alertly took off for home; Young advanced to second when Galarraga couldn't field it cleanly.

After David Murphy walked, Galarraga retired Marlon Byrd for the second out before Blalock turned on an offspeed pitch inside and ripped it into the right-field corner for a double to clear the bases.

"I just left the changeup right there," Galarraga (5-9) said. "It was down, but it was more in the middle. It's the pitch to Blalock."

Galarraga lasted seven innings, as he did in two of his other three July outings. But neither he nor the Tigers have won any of them, despite Galarraga's 3.29 ERA for the month.

"I feel good," Galarraga said. "I feel like I had a good game. And then everything happened. Four runs. I don't know. I wish I had better luck, but I don't know."

Leyland can relate.

"There's just no excuse that a team -- as good of a hitting team as we have -- doesn't come up with more than one run," Leyland said. "I tip my hat to the pitcher, obviously. He pitched very well. But particularly in this ballpark, you have to come up with more than one run. There have been too many times where a fly ball, a base hit could break the game open."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers' bats again stifled in Arlington
French unable to hold off hot Rangers offense

By Jason Beck / MLB.com


07/29/09 12:34 AM ET
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ARLINGTON -- To the Tigers, the pitch behind Clete Thomas might or might not have been a pitch to the head. The loss that followed it was definitely a punch to the gut.

The Tigers haven't had to talk about the shutdown inning often this year, the way their offense has been going. But after Tuesday's 7-3 defeat to the Rangers, Detroit starter Luke French did.

"I'm big on shutdown innings," French said.

The lack of one was big for him and his team. The lack of offense after that sounded all too familiar.

All too briefly Tuesday, the Tigers seemed in control on the road for the first time in a long while. Ramon Santiago's RBI double and Dusty Ryan's two-run single gave Detroit a 3-0 lead midway through the second inning against Texas spot starter Doug Mathis, who got the nod in place of Vicente Padilla, who was still sidelined after a bout with swine flu.

French wasn't commanding, but he was in command. And after the three-run second, he wanted the shutdown inning -- the quick, scoreless inning to follow the rally and send the Tigers back to the plate with a sense of control and a chance to add on.

Though Andruw Jones doubled with one out in the second, the ensuing popout from Josh Hamilton should've put French back in control. He had two outs, eighth hitter Jarrod Saltalamacchia coming up, and young ninth hitter Elvis Andrus on deck.

Once he got a 1-2 count on Saltamacchia, he was set to finish it. Then came three pitches that missed for a two-out walk.

"That was a killer, that walk there," said manager Jim Leyland, who believes in shutdown innings, too. "That did him in for that inning."

Then came an RBI single from Andrus.

Then came a drive to the fence in right-center field by Ian Kinsler on the next pitch for a game-tying triple.

Michael Young's go-ahead RBI double followed.

Before the Tigers could bat again, they were behind. Whether or not they were waiting for something bad to happen, they got it.

"That's probably one of the worst things to do," French said. "You just score three runs, and then I got out there and give up a four-spot, it kind of kills what was going on."

The Tigers put together one more rally in the fourth inning with back-to-back singles from Magglio Ordonez and Brandon Inge to start off the frame. They would not get another baserunner until Carlos Guillen singled to lead off the ninth. They hit just three balls out of the infield in the stretch of 15 straight outs in between.

"We didn't really do a lot," Leyland said.

One of the balls that got to the outfield in that stretch was a fly out by Thomas, one of six straight outs from former Tigers reliever Jason Grilli (1-1) to earn his first win as a Ranger. But it was the 92-mph fastball two pitches earlier that went behind Thomas, head-high, that concerned the Tigers more. By the time the night was over, it was the catalyst for the tit-for-tat that left both dugouts with a warning from home-plate umpire Andy Fletcher.

The pitch in question came just after Thomas hit a long foul ball down the right-field line. But would Grilli, a Detroit teammate of Thomas during the 2008 season, throw at him?

"When you don't throw any wild pitches the rest of the time you're out there, and one goes behind his head after a loud foul, it just looks suspicious," Leyland said. "I'm not saying he did or he didn't, but it did look suspicious. We were trying to send a message back."

Leyland later described Grilli's pitch as "careless."

"I don't know," he said. "I didn't know what to think, whether he did or didn't do it on purpose. That's part of the game. Just go on about your business."

Grilli didn't indicate any hard feelings.

"I had great experiences over there," Grilli said. "I've been with the Tigers more than with any team in my career. It's bragging rights, playing against your friends."

The Tigers' message pitch came an inning and a half later after Andrus homered to make it a 7-3 game. Zach Miner threw his next pitch behind Ian Kinsler.

"We weren't trying to throw the ball behind Kinsler," Leyland said. "We were trying to throw the ball down and in on him to get him to move his feet, just to send a message back. No question about it. And I'd do it again, because I felt Grilli's was a real careless pitch. I think careless is a pretty good description of it."

Once Eddie Guardado's first pitch of the seventh inning went inside to Adam Everett, his teammate on the Twins last year, the dugouts were warned.

"I just don't think there was anything to it," Everett said. "To get it tight is one thing. To try to hit somebody is another."

The one player hit by a ball was Ramon Santiago, and it was a fourth-inning foul tip that knocked him out of the game with a bruised right shin. He's day-to-day.

All the while, the Tigers couldn't mount even the hint of a comeback. Mathis provided the shutdown inning before Grilli, Guardado, Darren O'Day and former Tigers prospect Guillermo Moscoso wrapped up.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tigers 13, Rangers 5
Tigers rough up Rangers
Lynn Henning / The Detroit News

Arlington, Texas -- Given that a lot of things haven't been done conventionally by the Tigers in 2009, it figured manager Jim Leyland's team would be good for a night as crazy as Wednesday's game at Rangers Ballpark.

The team that acted for the past month as if it had been inoculated against hitting broke loose for 19 hits in a 13-5 rout of the Texas Rangers that also featured some slick pitching by Justin Verlander.

Verlander struck out 13 batters in seven innings, matching his career best, and never walked a soul as he pushed his record to 12-5 and helped the Tigers stop a three-game slide.

But it was an offense that has been so mystifying inept for so many nights and weeks that stunned everyone Wednesday, beginning with a Rangers Ballpark crowd of 33,235.

Curtis Granderson was a tone-setter with two home runs, including his second leadoff home run of the series as he took the team home-run lead with 22. Miguel Cabrera slammed a three-run home run to go with a double and two singles, good for 4 RBIs. Marcus Thames added a home run and a double, while Ryan Raburn and Adam Everett had three hits apiece.

Verlander could have gotten by with a lot less help.

He struck out seven batters in the first four innings and had 10 by the end of the fifth. The fifth was the only inning where he stumbled.

After a booted ground ball by Raburn -- who started in place of the hobbling Brandon Inge -- put the leadoff batter on, Verlander allowed four singles, good for three runs.

Of course, he struck out the last two batters after getting his first out of the inning on -- yes -- another strikeout.

He was pummeling the deft-hitting Rangers with everything in his arsenal. Verlander's fastball, curveball, and change-up combination was devastating as he stayed ahead of hitters and finished them off with two-strike pitches that made the Rangers groan.

His only serious mistake was a hanging breaking ball to Andruw Jones in the second that Jones walloped 417 feet into the left-field seats for the Rangers' first run.

On the opposite end of the pitching spectrum was Rangers starter Scott Feldman. His evening began with Granderson mashing his third pitch and first strike of the night into the right-field seats. An inning later, Granderson did it again with a man on base to climb past Inge for the team lead in home runs.

The Tigers scored at least once in each of the first four innings. Feldman disappeared early, allowing 10 hits and six runs in 2 1/3 innings.

Verlander exited after the seventh inning after he had reached 115 pitches. He was followed by Brandon Lyon, who pitched yet another scoreless inning of relief, and by rookie Casey Fien who finished things off, although not before allowing Jones' second home run of the evening leading off the ninth.

The Tigers are off today as they head to Cleveland for a three-game weekend series against the Indians, who have already made a change in their pitching rotation: Cliff Lee, the former Cy Young Award winner, won't start Friday's game, after all.

He was traded Wednesday to Philadelphia as the Indians prepare for a makeover.

lynn.henning@detnews.com.

Verlander's K's lead finale rout of Rangers
Granderson, Cabrera show lumber in Detroit power surge

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

07/30/09 12:33 AM ET

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ARLINGTON -- Adam Everett didn't need to wait for the question. The Tigers' 13-5 win Wednesday at Texas meant that much.

"Big," Everett blurted out.

For a team that had scored five runs total over the first two games of the series -- one against a rookie starter, the other against an emergency starter and a patchwork bullpen -- yes, it was.

Of course they pounced on a bad night for Scott Feldman and an evening when the Rangers bullpen was caught a little short. They weren't going to overlook that. And with 13 runners left on base, it still wasn't a great night for them.

"An OK game, not a nice game," said Curtis Granderson, who homered in each of his first two at-bats.

But the way they had struggled to find the big inning so many times over the past few weeks against pitchers of all varieties, it was a necessary game.

"That's exactly what we needed. We needed to come out and play up to our expectations and play up to our abilities," Everett said. "We hadn't done that in a long, long time. And [in support of] arguably our best pitcher. When you can do that, that's huge."

The combination of Justin Verlander and an ignited Detroit offense against Feldman meant a game in which the Tigers seemed to spend almost the entire first four innings at the plate. They expended 38 pitches out of Feldman in the top of the first inning, then watched Verlander retire the Rangers on 16 pitches in the bottom half. A 32-pitch third inning for the Tigers' offense preceded a 12-pitch bottom half.

If baseball had time of possession, the Detroit would've worn down Texas with it. The shutdown inning the Tigers couldn't find Tuesday came multiple times from Verlander a night later.

"I call them stop innings," Verlander said. "When your team goes out there and scores, you have the momentum. You want to go out there and get your guys back in the dugout as quick as possible. That's something that I always try to do: When our guys put up runs, get our guys back in the dugout and swinging again. I think that's how you get a lot of wins."

In the case of Verlander (12-5), it's how he moved into a tie for the Major League wins lead to go with his commanding American League strikeout lead. His 13 strikeouts tied a career high he set May 14 at Minnesota, but this time he didn't walk a batter in the process.

He wanted to help get his offense back onto the field. His hitters, meanwhile, wanted to give him a cushion on the scoreboard.

"Anytime you can do that for him and give him that type of support, you've got a great chance of winning that game," Everett said.

The Tigers scored more than three runs in just one inning, a seventh inning in which Miguel Cabrera's three-run homer put Detroit into double digits. More important, they scored in each of the first seven innings.

Granderson homered in each of the first two innings, including his 20th career leadoff home run to open it. Carlos Guillen added a two-run single in the second and a bases-loaded walk off former Tigers farmhand Guillermo Moscoso in the third. Marcus Thames hit a solo shot in the fourth. Cabrera doubled in Guillen in the fifth before his seventh-inning blast, both hits coming with runners in scoring position.

Only a Marlon Byrd catch in deep center field and an acrobatic play from Omar Vizquel late kept Cabrera from a five-hit game. He still fell just a triple shy of the cycle.

Before the game, Leyland talked with Cabrera to try to take some pressure off of him. The message was simple.

"Don't try to carry the team," Leyland said. "Just be yourself. Just have fun and play baseball. That's what he does. I don't need him to carry the team. I just want him to take advantage of his opportunities. If he does that, he'll be plenty good enough, and I think a lot of those things will fall in place."

Verlander's outing fell in line. He retired 12 of Texas' first 14 batters through four innings, striking out seven, before a Ryan Raburn error and two singles loaded the bases with one out in the fifth. Vizquel's single and Michael Young's two-run double brought the Rangers to 8-4 and put the potential tying run on deck.

After a first-pitch ball to David Murphy, Verlander fired three straight fastballs past him -- the first two at 98 mph, the last at 99. Six more fastballs at 96 mph or above finally finished off Byrd to end the threat.

"It's fun to watch him pitch when he's right," Leyland said.

On nights like this, it has to be fun. But given all that the Tigers have had to handle on the board, it had to be big.

"We can sleep a little better now," Everett said.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers fall in 13-inning endurance battle
Guillen ties it ninth; Jackson tosses 115 pitches through four

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/01/09 1:55 AM ET

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CLEVELAND -- Edwin Jackson walked off the mound and into the visitors' dugout at Progressive Field one last time Friday night looking like he had just labored through a complete game. After all, he had thrown 115 pitches, his fifth highest total of the season.

Amazingly, it was just the end of the fourth inning. The Indians made him work that hard. Little could anyone imagine they still had nine more innings and three more hours to go before Jamey Carroll's 13th-inning single would decide this 6-5 Tigers loss just after midnight ET on Saturday morning.

It was an endurance battle in so many ways.

"Hey, that was a great effort," manager Jim Leyland said. "They busted their tails, and that's all you can ask for."

No Major League pitcher since at least 1988 had thrown as many pitches as Jackson did Friday without pitching into the fifth inning, according to research on baseball-reference.com and retrosheet.org. Just five other times in the last 20 years had the Tigers pitching staff thrown more pitches in a game, and one of them was their 16-inning win July 3 at Minnesota.

The Tigers' 265th and final pitch from Casey Fien (0-1), the last reliever left in the bullpen, wasn't bad. But Carroll hit it in a very good location, just inside first base as Miguel Cabrera watched helplessly and Jhonny Peralta trotted home happily after his leadoff double.

"He hit it in the perfect spot," Leyland lamented. "We just couldn't get one of those."

Said Carroll: "Fortunately, it was a couple of inches inside the line, and we go home happy."

Hours earlier, Jackson was looking for swings and misses and couldn't get them, no matter how much he tried. He took the mound with a 2-0 lead thanks to Clete Thomas' first-inning single, then gave it up to Asdrubal Cabrera, whose two-run homer capped a nine-pitch battle that included three straight two-strike foul balls to extend the at-bat.

"It's big for the other team when they tie the game early," said Carlos Guillen, whose ninth-inning homer eventually tied the game again.

Three batters later, Travis Hafner battled Jackson for 11 pitches, six of them two-strike fouls, before finally whiffing on a 98-mph fastball for the second out. Pitching coach Rick Knapp went out simply to give him a rest.

"I want to say between Hafner and Cabrera, I felt like I threw about 50 pitches," Jackson said. "They kept fouling them off and fouling them off."

An inning later, rookie Trevor Crowe lasted 10 pitches and four straight two-strike foul balls against him before lacing a one-out single to left. Jackson eventually stranded the bases loaded that inning, overpowering Shin-Soo Choo with a 99-mph fastball for a groundout. It was Jackson's 64th pitch of the night.

The pitches kept piling up. He had 88 through three, then hit the 100-pitch mark with only one out in the fourth.

"His command wasn't good and his secondary stuff was not good," Leyland said. "His slider, he threw a couple real nasty ones. But for whatever reason, he wasn't getting on top of it, and it wasn't real sharp."

The good ones he threw didn't matter. They were fouled off, too. The Indians fouled off 28 Jackson pitches, almost as many as he threw for called and swinging strikes combined.

"They made me work from the beginning," Jackson said. "They kept spoiling good pitches and spoiling good pitches."

Choo's fourth-inning double scored Crowe to put Jackson behind in the fourth, then Crowe added on runs in the sixth and eighth. The Tigers didn't score again until Magglio Ordonez doubled and scored in the eighth, which left them with a two-run deficit entering the ninth once Placido Polanco's sliding stop for a double play kept Cleveland from breaking open the game in the eighth.

Polanco's leadoff single off Indians closer Kerry Wood brought up Guillen as the potential tying run. He jumped on a 3-1 fastball and drove it deep to right for his second home run since coming off the disabled list a week ago.

"I was trying to be aggressive and make good contact," Guillen said.

Carroll entered as a pinch-runner in the ninth, but was stranded on second when closer Fernando Rodney struck out Crowe to send it into extra innings. An inning later, Carroll had a chance to end it, but Brandon Lyon caught him on a called third strike with runners at second and third.

Rodney and Lyon combined for five scoreless innings. It wasn't enough.

"It was a great ballgame," Leyland said, "but they finally got a big hit and we didn't."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Saturday, August 1, 2009
Tigers 4, White Sox 3 (12)
Porcello sharp before Tigers scratch out extra-inning victory
Tom Gage / The Detroit News

Cleveland -- Winning in 12 innings after losing in 13, the Tigers outlasted the Indians for a 4-3 victory on Saturday night.

The back-to-back marathons, lasting more than 8 1/2 hours, marked the first time since 1988 that the Tigers have played consecutive games of at least 12 innings each.

Ryan Raburn's two-out single in the 12th, after the Tigers had opened the inning with a pair of walks, drove in the tie-breaking run. Relief pitcher Jose Veras balked in the second, and deciding, run.

The victory allowed the Tigers to maintain a 1 ½ -game lead in the American League Central over the also-victorious Chicago White Sox.

Bobby Seay (2-2) was the winning pitcher. Zach Miner allowed a run in the 12th, but retired Grady Sizemore on a pop-up to short with the tying run on third for his first major league save.

The tiebreaking runs came three innings after the Indians tied it in the bottom of the ninth on a triple-single sequence against Fernando Rodney, his first blown save this season in 22 save opportunities.

Before that, though, introductions had definitely been in order.

Rick Porcello, say hello to the eighth inning. Eighth inning, this is Tigers rookie Rick Porcello.

The two of you hadn't yet met.

But they did in this game when Porcello worked the first eight innings before handing the ninth to Rodney. The 20-year-old right-hander had lasted as long as seven innings in three of his 18 starts this season.

His pitching line: Eight innings, four hits, one run -- which the Indians scored in the first -- plus one walk and three strikeouts.

The outstanding performance ended a stretch of four consecutive starts in which Porcello allowed four or more earned runs. It looked, in fact, like one of his starts in May, when he went 5-0, allowing fewer than two earned runs four consecutive times.

If he's reverting to May, it's good news for the Tigers.

With a pitch count of 91, in fact, Porcello looked strong enough to continue. But there was no way manager Jim Leyland was going to ask more from him than he'd already done.

The Tigers didn't get a hit off Indians' starter Jeremy Sowers until Raburn's single in the fifth following a leadoff walk to Marcus Thames.

They did absolutely nothing against the left-hander the first three innings, but showed signs of life in the fourth when it took an outstanding play in center by Grady Sizemore to steal a hit from Placido Polanco -- and another good defensive play up the middle by shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera to take a hit away from Miguel Cabrera.

The walk-single combination by the Tigers in the fifth, however, led to the tying run. With one out, Dusty Ryan also walked -- loading the bases. Adam Everett's fly ball to left proved deep enough for Thames to score from third.

Three consecutive singles to start the sixth -- Polanco, Magglio Ordonez and Miguel Cabrera -- gave the Tigers their second run. With a bases-loaded chance to get more, however, Ryan took a called third strike.

Porcello didn't have a smooth first inning.

He walked Sizemore to get it started. Sizemore stole second, then went to third when Miguel Cabrera misplayed a grounder to first for an error.

Peralta's single to center drove in Sizemore.

That's as much damage as the Indians did, however, as Travis Hafner followed with a double-play grounder to short.

Porcello settled down after that, allowing assorted singles, but nothing that got him into any kind of trouble. In fact, from the third inning to the sixth, he retired 11 in a row.

As a yardstick of how he improved after the first, Porcello went to a 3-0 count on Sizemore leading off the sixth, but instead of walking him as he did in the first, he came back to strike him out.

His 10th victory of the season was not to be, however.

tom.gage@detnews.com

Tigers overcome to pinch Tribe in 12th
Rodney blows first save; Raburn ignites winning frame

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/02/09 12:38 AM ET

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CLEVELAND -- And to think, the Tigers came to town this weekend with their late-inning relievers needing work.

Before the Tigers took the field Saturday, manager Jim Leyland talked about the disappointment a team has after losing a long extra-inning game. Hours later, he nearly had another one to deal with, the Indians threatening and the Tigers holding on. In the end, it was another clutch Ryan Raburn hit, a 12th-inning insurance balk, and more long relief work that helped Detroit pull out a 4-3 win at Progressive Field.

Leyland still has a potential mess to deal with in his bullpen to rest some tired arms. But thanks to some clutch outs, Fernando Rodney's first blown save of the year did not end up being a blown win.

"Kind of a weird game, a wild game," Leyland said, "but it ended up right."

Not since Aug. 26-27, 1988, had the Tigers played back-to-back games of at least 12 innings. That team was fighting for dear life to stay on top of the American League East and split those games at Milwaukee before it lost 10 of 11 to fall out of the lead for good, part of a late-season collapse.

This year's Tigers are hoping that fate doesn't happen to them, but they've had to fight for the last 2 1/2 months to maintain their AL Central lead. The White Sox beat the Yankees again Saturday afternoon, meaning a Tigers loss would've brought Chicago to within a half-game.

So when Asdrubal Cabrera led off the ninth inning with a triple off Rodney, it would've been understandable to fear the worst. At that point, it would've been tough not to expect extra innings.

"To be honest with you, when a guy gets a leadoff triple, I'm thinking it's a tied game," Leyland said. "I'm not going to lie. When a guy gets a leadoff triple, nobody out, you've got to think it's a tied game, and you've got to be thinking what you're going to do next, who's coming up for you."

At that point, with Cleveland's Cabrera on third and nobody out, Rick Porcello's gem of an outing might as well be in the distant past. His eight innings of one-run ball weren't just his first quality start since June 12, but arguably the best outing of his brief career.

Porcello retired 15 of 16 batters after giving up a first-inning run, and he induced twice as many ground balls (16) as fly balls (eight). With a 20-year-old rookie at 91 pitches, close to his usual pitch count, and a closer Leyland prefers to bring in to start an inning rather than insert with runners on base, there was no question, even with Rodney coming off two innings Friday.

"If you're talking about a veteran guy like [Justin] Verlander or [Edwin] Jackson, it may be little bit different," Leyland said.

Rodney, whose streak of 21 consecutive save opportunity converted was the Tigers' longest since Matt Anderson in 2001, still nearly converted this one. He struck out Shin-Soo Choo for the first out and had Jhonny Peralta in a 1-2 count before he hit a soft fly ball into shallow left-center field.

"I never think that run's going to score," Rodney said. "I'm pitching to keep the run at third base, but that blooper happened. Little popup, very difficult play, nothing you can do."

Granderson's diving catch couldn't stop Cabrera from tagging up to score, but it kept the winning run off base. Once Rodney retired Travis Hafner, back they went into extra innings, and back came the extra-inning mentality of Detroit's relievers.

"You know when it's a tie game and they've got their last at-bats, you have to make quality pitches," left-hander Bobby Seay said. "If you do get beat, you get beat with your best pitch. Obviously, with home-field advantage, they get the last at-bat. I think it speaks volumes about how Zach [Miner] pitched and how Ryan [Perry] pitched as well."

Perry escaped a 10th-inning jam when Wyatt Toregas' liner to short allowed Adam Everett to double off Jamey Carroll, Friday's hero, to end the inning. Seay (2-2) stranded a runner at second in the 11th by striking out Hafner.

Raburn, who drove in the go-ahead run in the Tigers' 16-inning win July 3 at Minnesota, singled in Placido Polanco before Jose Veras (1-1) gave up an insurance run on a balk. That extra run became huge after Carroll singled and Trevor Crowe doubled with one out in the bottom of the 12th.

As Crowe's liner scooted to the fence in left-center field, Granderson was thinking to keep him at second, regardless of whether Carroll scored.

"Right away, I thought there's going to be a run on second base. There's no play at home," Granderson said. "But they ended up stopping him."

As it turned out, he fired the ball back in quickly enough to hold Carroll at third, rendering Toregas' run-scoring groundout meaningless and allowing Miner to hold on with a first-pitch popout from Grady Sizemore for his first Major League save.

"Trevor Hoffman better watch out," Miner joked.

Add up Friday and Saturday, and Tigers relievers pitched 12 innings in just over a 24-hour span, allowing five runs on 15 hits with 11 strikeouts. It's a split decision they'll take, hopefully with some rest to follow.

"We battled down to the last out tonight," Seay said.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Galarraga roughed up in loss to Tribe
Tigers stifled on day righty allows eight runs in 5 2/3 innings

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/02/09 5:51 PM ET

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CLEVELAND -- Tigers manager Jim Leyland really did say it out of the blue Sunday morning.

"Today's the biggest game of the year for us, in my opinion, up to this point," Leyland said. "Not whether we win or lose, but if we can get innings out of [Armando] Galarraga today to get our bullpen straightened back out, this is the biggest game of the year."

Innings-wise, the Tigers got what they needed, albeit barely. That was good, because the 11-1 loss to the Indians didn't provide much else for them.

"If you could find any bright spots today, that's the one bright spot," Leyland said afterward. "We got enough innings out of Armando. They weren't all obviously good innings, but we got enough innings out of him to kind of get our bullpen back in order."

Now Detroit will try to get Galarraga back in order.

After Tigers relievers threw 12-plus innings over the previous two nights -- both extra-inning games -- there was no confusion about what Galarraga had to do. Whether he baffled the Tribe or whether Cleveland rocked him, he was going to have to give what he could for at least 100 pitches.

His first career loss at Progressive Field, where he beat the Indians twice last year, ended up being a big one. His eight runs and 11 hits allowed both were career highs, and many of his pitches later looked like he tried to aim the ball. But he knew that if it got to that, he wasn't going to get any relief for a while.

"I thought about it," Galarraga said. "I wanted to get to more innings. I kind of feel bad for that. I wish I could have more innings, no matter if I'm doing good or bad."

From his personal standpoint, this one fell into the latter.

"It's a bad start," Galarraga said. "I'll come back next time, do my best. I haven't been throwing great, but I've been throwing better the last couple starts."

His July actually was better than his winless record would suggest, having allowed 10 runs over four starts and lasting at least seven innings in three of them. His ERA dropped by one-half run in that span. Once he gave up five fourth-inning runs Sunday, it was back over 5.00.

Third-base umpire Chris Guccione's call that Asdrubal Cabrera would've scored on Shin-Soo Choo's double without fan interference put Galarraga behind three batters into his outing. Once he escaped further damage with a double-play comeback, however, Galarraga got onto a roll of seven outs in eight batters.

That said, a lot of those outs came when he was behind. Each of Cleveland's first three hitters had 2-0 counts, as did five of the first 10 hitters Galarraga faced.

"He didn't have command today," catcher Gerald Laird said. "He wasn't really too crisp early, even though he only gave up one run. He settled down a little bit the second and third inning, but his command wasn't real sharp the whole game."

Against an aggressive Indians lineup that fouled off 28 pitches over Edwin Jackson's four innings Friday and hit into early outs against Rick Porcello on Saturday, it put Galarraga in a difficult spot.

"I thought he pitched on the defensive from the very first inning," Leyland said. "When you do that, something's in your head. If you pitch aggressively and they hit you, you tip your cap to them. But if you're pitching from behind all the time, I mean, what do you expect on 2-0 [counts]?"

Come the fourth inning, the expected happened. Jhonny Peralta's leadoff single on a 2-0 pitch began a barrage of six hits, the last four for extra bases. Andy Marte and Trevor Crowe hit back-to-back doubles down the foul lines ahead of Grady Sizemore's two-out, two-run homer.

The Indians batted around that inning, but Galarraga retired five straight after Peralta's leadoff double in the fifth. He had three consecutive strikeouts and was an out away from ending the sixth when he walked Sizemore and fell behind on another 2-0 count to Cabrera, who took a 2-1 pitch deep for his fifth home run on the year. That knocked out Galarraga and brought in Casey Fien before Fu-Te Ni finished out the game.

"This is all a learning process for all of us," Leyland said. "And hopefully, he learned a lesson. If he learns a lesson from this, then I can learn from this. If he doesn't, then that's another story."

Leyland made that point to Galarraga back in the Tigers' dugout.

"Don't think too much," Galarraga said was the lesson. "Sometimes that's what happens. But when it's tough, it's tough trying to get outs and get better."

Indians starter Carl Pavano (9-8) beat the Tigers for the third time in as many starts this season, scattering four singles over seven innings before Ramon Santiago's sacrifice fly plated Gerald Laird in the eighth.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.