Detroit Tigers Celebrate Labor Day with a 5-4 Win Over Tampa

The Detroit Tigers made everyone’s long weekend a bonus by beating the Tampa Bay Rays 5-4 on Labor Day and taking two of the three games over the weekend.  (Staff writer Steve Mitzel apologizes profusely for the tardiness of the posting of this article.  He woke up this morning dreaming the Tigers won a game.)

The Tigers throw the Kevin Costner of the big leagues in Randy Wolf and fans welcomed home Drew Smyly who was sent away last year in the David Price trade.

The Tigers hopped on Smyly early in the bottom of the third when Rajai Davis decided to reappear out of the magic hat and hit a two run homer scoring Anthony Gose as well.

The Rays bounced back in the top of the fourth and tied the score when Evan Longoria hit a two run blast to tie the game 2-2. James McCann traded blows in the bottom of the fourth with a two run shot scoring Nick Castellanos to give the Tigers a 4-2 lead.

Wolf pitched reasonably well for what the Tigers ask from him and was rocked in the fifth inning for two more runs. The first coming off catcher J.P. Arencibia’s solo home run and then later in the inning Mikie “Likes It” Mathook singled to score Brandon Guyer. Wolf was relieved after that and pitched 4 1/3 innings, allowing eight hits and four runs.

The Tigers bullpen of Drew VerHagen, Al Albuquerque, Alex Wilson, Blaine Hardy and Bruce Rondon combined to shut down the Rays the rest of the way throwing 4 2/3 innings, four hit and no runs.

The hero of the game was Rajai Davis who stepped up in the both of the seventh and hit his second home run of the game to left field and giving the Tigers the winning RBI 5-4. It was Rajai’s first two home run game since he was a Blue Jay in May 2012.

The Tigers and Rays face off again tonight with Matt Boyd trying to play the role of playoff spoiler against Erasmo Ramirez at 7:08 at Comerica Park.