Random Thoughts: Miggy, Twins/Tigers

Yesterday’s thumping of the Minnesota Twins included taking advantage of the opposition’s lack of command, offense from unlikely sources, and a player who currently holds the Triple Crown.

September 22, 2012; Detroit, MI, USA; Detroit Tigers third baseman Miguel Cabrera (24) hits a home run fourth inning against the Minnesota Twins at Comerica Park. (photo: Rick Osentoski-US PRESSWIRE)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or aren’t a fan of baseball or the Detroit Tigers, you probably already know that Miguel Cabrera homered in yesterday’s 8-0 win: albeit it was the meaningless 8th run of the game that he provided, but it gave him his 42nd homer of the season, extending his career high, and more importantly, tying him with Josh Hamilton for the American League lead in that department.

So that gives him that, his .332 batting average and 131 runs batted in for the season, good for 1st place in all of those categories. Before we start today’s batch of games, he sits 7 points higher than Mike Trout in batting (.325) and 8 RBI’s in front of Hamilton (123). With 12 games to go, this enormous feat, which hasn’t been accomplished since 1967 when Carl Yastrzemski pulled it off (note: he didn’t have the outright lead in HR’s, as he was tied with Harmon Killebrew there), is well within reach.

But is that a good or a bad thing?

The Tigers also find themselves playing some rather meaningful baseball in the month of September. Thanks to the Angels beating the White Sox last night (who’ve now dropped 4 straight), the team is a mere 1/2 game behind the Pale Hose for the AL Central lead. Conceivably, they could find themselves in first place at the end of the day by taking care of business in today’s double-header, and perhaps another White Sox loss (they face Jered Weaver today). But with such emphasis on making the postseason, will Cabrera’s chase for baseball history get in the way of winning?

Hopefully it doesn’t. Miggy though, is certainly spoiling Tigers fans with his immense talent offensively. Hard not to stay tuned to this one, no matter who you’re a fan of.

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Max Scherzer will return to the mound this afternoon for game 1 of the twin-bill, after scaring the fan base with concerns over his throwing shoulder, which, as it turns out, was nothing more than fatigue. A couple of throwing sessions later, and he’s making a regular return. He’ll face Scott Diamond, who is 11-8 on the season with a respectable 3.69 ERA. Diamond has probably been the Twins best starter this season (the bar is low here, folks) but his last 4 starts have yielded no less than 4 ER allowed, including a 6 run, 7 hit allowance at the hands of the White Sox in his last start.

Game 2 will feature young Drew Smyly (4-3, 4.45 ERA) vs P.J. Walters (2-4, 6.39 ERA).

As mentioned, if the Tigers win both of these games today, they’ll at least share first place with 10 games left on the schedule (7 vs the Royals, 3 more vs the Twins). On paper, these games are all winnable. Naturally though, nothing’s ever played on paper.

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