Detroit 11, Cleveland 3 (box)
Magic Number 9
The big boys in Detroit’s lineup showed up in a big way last night as the Tigers won their third straight game. Miguel Cabrera homered and drove in three and Carlos Guillen a four RBI night, including a pair of home runs.
Rick Porcello pitched well enough, though he wasn’t very sharp. The Indians loaded the bases in each of the first two innings, but couldn’t come up with the big hit when they needed it, scoring just one run in the process. Porcello worked through the fifth to pick up his 14th victory, leading all major league rookies.
The Tigers jumped out to an early 4-0 lead against Justin Masterson, thanks in part to an error, but mostly thanks to a few timely hits. After Masterson fanned Curtis Granderson to begin the game, four consecutive Tigers had base hits, including an RBI double from Aubrey Huff. Guillen’s ground ball to first scored another run when Andy Marte threw wildly to home, and Brandon Inge knocked in the fourth run of the inning with a ground out.
Detroit didn’t take its foot off the gas in this one, however, as they scored seven more times before it was over. Masterson gave up a two run blast to Guillen in the third and a mammoth two run bomb to Cabrera in the fourth before he left the game having allowed eight runs to score.
Cheers for
- Miguel Cabrera- As I said yesterday, maybe he’s heating up at just the right time. El Martillo’s three RBI gives him 95 on the year, so he seems a sure bet to join Derrek Lee and Albert Pujols as the only players this season to hit better than .300 with at least 30 homers and at least 100 RBI.
- Carlos Guillen- If you frequent Bless You Boys, you know there was a heated debate yesterday about whether Ryan Raburn should be playing everyday at Guillen’s expense. Guillen did his best to quash all that noise by homering from the left side, then adding a homer and a double from the right side. It was the first right handed home run for Guillen this year.
- Clete Thomas- Clete got a rare start and delivered a single and a double and scored twice. He also added his customarily strong defense, making a fine running catch in the deep right center field gap. Someone really should tell him where the camera is during post-game interviews, though.
Jeers to
- No Jeers today, after a win like that, I’d really have to be picking nit to point out the fact that Jeremy Bonderman couldn’t throw a strike or that Granderson struck out three times, so I won’t even mention those guys… oh, wait, I just did.
What’s on tap
Carlos Carrasco will take the mound to face the Tigers for the second time, still searching for his first big league win. The Tribe has dropped 10 straight games and would appear to be at a disadvantage tonight against Justin Verlander. Winning a road series is important, but since the Tigers have already done that, why not go ahead and keep the pressure on Minnesota by sweeping the Indians?
Division Update
One more reason to hate the White Sox? They went out and got swept at home by the Twins. Chicago’s playoff chances have been all but gone for a few weeks now, but they couldn’t manage to win even one game from Minnesota. As a result the Twins have now won nine of their past 10 games.
The Twins will take today off as they travel to Kansas City to take on the red hot Royals over the weekend. Here’s hoping the Royals do to the Twins what they did to Boston and Detroit recently.
Call to the Pen
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Guillen has been pretty spectacular since the All-Star break…. and Maggs has somewhat quietly hit .352. We were really counting on these guys to carry the offense with Sheffield cut, and “defensive specialists” installed at catcher and short. Over the first half of the season those two were the primary reason that the Tigers offense was near the bottom of the league. Now the Venezuelans are hot, and their final numbers won’t be all that terrible come October. But… the Tigers as a team have been even worse offensively since the All-Star break than before it. Guillen and Ordonez can’t take all the blame anymore, and they should be playing every day to pick up the slack offensively, whether they have any defensive range or not. If somebody should be benched, bench Huff. The reason the offense has been so terrible is clear, no team can score many runs if they are carrying THREE defensive specialists, arguably four if you count Polanco. Polanco and Inge do just enough offensively (barely) to justify their failings offensivly. Laird and Everett really don’t, and I think have to go come 2010.
Chris- I would bet that Laird is back next year, but will split time with Avila behind the plate, as for Everett, I assume he will not be back, as the Tigers have Cale Iorg and Brent Dlugach in the minors, both of whom are highly regarded defensively. One could assume that either of those guys could probably hit as much as Everett has this year. I think the offensive failings in the second half can be largely blamed on the lead off hitter. Granderson has been brutal in that spot all season, as worse lately. His home runs are nice, but he doesn’t get on base much. I feel the Tigers need to find themselves a true lead off man this offseason.
Granderson this year has actually been what we should have expected from him all along – with maybe a little bit of regression or bad luck. He has power and speed, walks a fair amount, plays great defense, and that makes him an asset to the team. He strikes out too much to hit for high average, always has, and probably always will. He also has typically had awful splits against lefties. I wouldn’t blame everything on him, even if he ought to bat fifth or sixth instead of leadoff. His dropoff from the first to second half has only been on the order of 50 points of OPS. Inge, Everett and Laird have done much, much worse. Everyone would be better off with a true leadoff man, but they’re as rare as catchers that win batting titles. What options do we have – aside from a platoon?