Cabrera, Guillen Beat Down the Tribe

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.