Tigers Sweep Nats Behind Strong Effort by Jeremy Bonderman

Washington 3, Detroit 8 (box)

The Detroit Tigers recorded their second consecutive series sweep with  a victory today over the Washington Nationals. It was their sixth straight win overall and improved their record to 35-6 in their last 41 home games versus National League clubs.

After giving up a couple of loud outs in the first inning, Tigers starter Jeremy Bonderman settled in nicely. At one point, he had struck out four consecutive batters and allowed only one hit through five. That was prior to yielding a home run to Adam Dunn. Bonderman (3-4) worked into the seventh for the fourth time in his last five starts.

The offense got going early and kept their foot on the pedal in this one. Alex Avila drove home a pair of runs with a double off the top of the wall in right center to put the Tigers ahead in the second. In the fourth Miguel Cabrera added another two-run double when his drive careened off the center field fence.

Only Don Kelly was without a hit among the Tigers starters, everybody else had at least two, highlighted by Ramon Santiago, who tied a career high with a four hit day. Read that last part again; eight different Tigers had at least two hits today. Plenty of Cheers after the jump. (…)

Cheers for

• Miguel Cabrera– Cabrera leads the AL with 59 RBI this season, helped out by three batted in today.
• Magglio Ordonez– Maggs collected three singlios and raised his average to a cool .330. He now had 43 batted in after knocking in just 50 all of last year.
• Brennan Boesch– Two more hits for Boesch coupled with a sparkling diving catch that helped quiet a potential Nats rally.
• Jeremy Bonderman– Bondo touched 94 with his fastball on a couple of occasions today. Could it be his velocity is starting to return? Now that he’s learned to pitch without it, he could be scary if he starts throwing in the mid-90s again. 7 IP, 5 H, 0 BB, and 7 K; that’s becoming a common sight when he pitches.

Jeers for

• Don Kelly– Everyone except Kelly collected at least two hit. C’mon, slacker.

Up next, the Tigers welcome home a couple of former ‘mates when Edwin Jackson, Dontrelle Willis, and the Diamondbacks come to the CoPa this weekend. Jackson and Willis will both pitch in this series, so this should be fun to see what kind of reaction they get. I’m guessing it will be a warm one.