Rapid Reactions: Tigers Hold Off Lowly Twins

Tigers 8, Twins 7 (box)

• I’m about ready for Max Scherzer to stop giving up a billion and a half home runs every time out. It was nice to see that the walks were kept in check, but the home runs are killing me.
• Charlie Furbush entered the game as a LOOGY in the seventh inning, and struck out Jim Thome. His ERA remains at 0.00 after 9.0 innings of work with 10 strikeouts and only three walks. But I don’t think that he should be made a starter (yet), as some will undoubtedly suggest. When Coke returns, he’ll rejoin the rotation, and Oliver will likely head back to Toledo. I really like Furbush in the pen right now.

• I still don’t understand why hitters even try to hit Al Alburquerque‘s slider. You can’t hit it. I’d bet that Al Al would begin to struggle more if hitters displayed more patience against him.
• All 18 starters reached base in this game. That probably doesn’t happen very often.
• It was nice to see the Tigers get to Brian Duensing (eventually). Soft(er)-tossing lefties usually seem to inexplicably carve up the Detroit hitters.
• I think we’re all getting more than fed up with Ryan Raburn. His defense is pretty much unplayable even in the corner outfield. I would have rather seen Brennan Boesch play out there and have Raburn DH.
• It’s great to see the Twins struggle, because if any team deserves to go through it, they do.
• The Indians also won, so the Tigers stay 5 games back, but they’re still only 1.5 games out of the wild card, so they remain very much in the playoff hunt.

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