There Was a Baseball Game, Too

Detroit 3, Minnesota 4 (box)

On a night when the Tigers lost their voice, they also lost a baseball game, though it hardly seems to matter.

Detroit got a good start from Dontrelle Willis and they managed 11 hits against Minnesota’s Nick Blackburn, but in the end, fell short.

The Twins jumped out to an early 2-0 lead when Willis struggled with control in the first. Like in previous start however, he was able to settle in and hold the Twins without another run until the sixth.

The Tigers got four consecutive hits to tie the score at 2-2 in the fourth, but wouldn’t get another batter home until the ninth. That when Brennan Boesch took Blackburn deep to right field to tie the game at three.

The Tigers might have taken the lead as well, but after Alex Avila doubled to deep left center, Ramon Santiago’s groundball was trapped on the infield by J.J. Hardy. Avila must have thought the ball was going through and he rounded the bag hard. Hardy fired to third and Avila was tagged out headed home.

Hardy was in the middle of the action in the bottom of the ninth as well when he tripled with one out and scored the game winner two pitches later, when Ryan Perry uncorked a slider that Avila couldn’t corral.

Cheers and Jeers (and more on Ernie Harwell) after the jump.

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Cheers for

• Brennan Boesch– Boesch hit a ball that almost left the stadium to tie the score at three in the ninth. It was his second homer of the year.
• Joel Zumaya– 1.2 innings of scoreless relief kept the Tigers in the game again. It won’t be long before Perry and Zumaya switch roles, I think.

Jeers for

• Dontrelle Willis– Willis threw first pitch strikes to just 8 of the 23 batters he faced. He fell behind often and was probably fortunate to keep the damage as minimal as it was. If this is what a bad start looks like for him this year however, the Tigers are in good shape.

More on Ernie

I wrote a piece for FanSided’s general baseball site, Call to the Pen, which should be posted soon.

Also, please take some time to read a piece written by J. Ellet Lambie, the former writer at Eye of the Tigers, and the first member of the Tigersphere I could call a friend. I’m not sure what happened to J, as he left his site dark for more than a month before Paul Sporer took over. Emails to him have gone un-responded to. If anyone knows of his whereabouts, or at least his well-being, please let me know. You can find J’s article here, it is definitely worth the read.