August 13: This Friday In Detroit Tigers History

Friday, August 13, 1982

The number one tune in the country was “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor. It was in the midst of a six-week reign on “American Top 40”, the radio-countdown show based on the Billboard Hot 100, which was hosted by legendary disc jockey Casey Kasem, a Detroit native. The song’s popularity stemmed from its inclusion in the movie Rocky III, starring Sylvester Stallone and Mr. T, but it was – and still is – the perfect rock & roll song to get Detroit Tigers fans fired up for action.

On this evening, the eyes of the Detroit Tigers were focused on the Royals, who were in town to begin a three-game weekend series. Right-hander Milt Wilcox was making his first start since July 19. Tendinitis in his shoulder had forced him to the disabled list. Kansas City came close to scoring a first-inning run after U.L. Washington dropped a one-out bunt and made it all the way to third base on Lance Parrish’s throwing error. That was some bad luck for the catcher who sported no. 13 on his back. Wilcox struck out George Brett and Amos Otis to avert further trouble.

Lou Whitaker had recently been moved up to the top of manager Sparky Anderson’s lineup. The silver-haired skipper dabbled with using his second baseman as a leadoff hitter briefly in 1979 and again in 1980, but this time it stuck. Three days earlier, Whitaker hit the first of his 23 career leadoff home runs off the Yankees’ Doyle Alexander, a future Tiger teammate. He did it again in this game, victimizing Royals’ righty Dave Frost with a shot to the seats in left field. Whitaker finished his brilliant career with 23 leadoff homers, which was a franchise record until Curtis Granderson hit his 24th in 2009. It was Sweet Lou’s 10th roundtripper of the season. Later in the inning, the Tigers took a 2-0 lead after Parrish singled and came around to score on a single from Chet Lemon.

Wilcox cruised through the next two innings, retiring all six hitters he faced and striking out three along the way. Then the Royals threatened. They loaded the bases in the fourth on a pair of walks and a single. Wilcox got out the jam when Steve Hammond, the most unheralded player in the Kansas City lineup, flew out to left. The Tigers’ offense cranked up the volume in the bottom of the fourth. Lemon led off with a single. After Rick Leach flew out, Tom Brookens hit a two-run home run. Ninth-place hitter Alan Trammell walked to turn the lineup over for Whitaker.

Three days earlier against the Yankees, Whitaker homered twice in the same game for the first time in his career. He did it again with another longball to left field. That put the Tigers up 6-0. Whitaker’s power was still developing at this stage of his career. The home runs off Frost were the left-handed hitter’s first two opposite-field blasts at Tiger Stadium. 1982 also marked the first time that Whitaker reached double figures in homers (15 total), although he was still three seasons away from hitting 20 for the first time. Whitaker admitted that he was surprised by what he’d done. He remarked,

“I guess I surprised the Royals too, because they pitched me outside after the first one, and I just went with it. It’s a matter of patience because you only need one pitch. You just have to wait until you get it and then make sure you keep it in play”.

Whitaker’s second home run knocked Frost out of the game. Righty Bill Castro took over, and Glenn Wilson immediately rocked him with a homer to left. It was the rookie outfielder’s fourth one that week (and he hit another two days later). The long inning on the bench didn’t faze Wilcox. He set the Royals down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the fifth. With it being his first start back after being activated, Anderson planned for his veteran hurler to go only five innings. It was a successful return. Wilcox gave up a pair of hits and a pair of walks while striking out seven. He said that his split-fingered fastball, which pitching coach extraordinaire Roger Craig taught him a year earlier, was working well for him.

Lefty Pat Underwood kept the Tigers’ shutout intact for a couple more innings before the Royals scored off him in the eighth. Detroit wasn’t done scoring, though. Leach singled to lead off the eighth and scored on Trammell’s two-run home run to left. Whitaker stayed hot by ripping a double to left. He advanced to third a wild pitch from Castro and scored on Wilson’s sacrifice fly. That made it 10-1 in favor of the home team, and that was the final score. Underwood pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his first save in preservation of Wilcox’s seventh win.

Friday, August 13, 1999

Time was running out at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull. Tiger Stadium was in its final season, and team had returned to Detroit to begin the first of the ballpark’s last four homestands. Many in the crowd of 32,003 on this evening were likely there for nostalgic reasons, since the ’99 Tigers (45-69) hadn’t been giving them much to cheer for.

Rookie righty Dave Borkowski, who was born in Detroit and went to high school in Sterling Heights, took the mound for the Tigers against the Anaheim Angels. It was his sixth big-league start and only his second at the ballpark he’d often visited as a fan in his younger years. He went on to start Tiger Stadium’s penultimate game on September 26. Borkowski’s counterpart was veteran righty Tim Belcher, who spent one miserable season with the Tigers in 1994.

Borkowski gave up one run in the top of the first. In the bottom half, his catcher, Brad Ausmus, found himself hitting leadoff for the first time anywhere since 1996. Manager Larry Parrish slotted him there because Ausmus could “take a pitch and work the count”. The future manager of both the Tigers and Angels did his job by working the count full before walking. Deivi Cruz singled, and Juan Encarnacion was hit by a pitch. With one out, Tony Clark singled through the hole between short and third to drive Ausmus in with the tying run. Damion Easley’s grounder forced Clark at second, but Cruz scored. Second baseman Jeff Huson made a bad throw trying to complete the double play, and that allowed Encarnacion to score. Easley was safe on the error. The Tigers took a 3-1 lead.

Troy Glaus got a run back for the Angels with his second-inning home run. In the fourth, a Tim Salmon single and Jim Edmonds triple tied the game at 3-3. After the Angels tagged Borkowski for three runs in the fifth, Parrish replaced him with Masao Kida. Detroit’s Japanese righty gave up a run in the sixth. The Angels were up 7-3.

With one out in the bottom of the sixth, Dean Palmer hit his 28th home run of the season. Palmer had signed with the Tigers as a free agent the previous November. He led the 1999 Tigers with 38 homers, 100 RBI, and 92 runs, but he came into this game stuck in a 2-for-28 slump. Later in the inning, Easley singled and Frank Catalanotto followed with a two-run homer. That cut the Detroit deficit to 7-6. Cat’s shot, his 10th of the year, knocked Belcher out of the game.

Angels reliever Mark Petkovsek did his job by retiring all five Tigers he faced, but after he struck out Encarnacion to begin the eighth inning, manager Terry Collins called on All-Star closer Troy Percival. The future Tiger won a seven-pitch battle with Palmer, who struck out on a curve ball. That brought up Clark. With the count even at 2-2, Percival tried to get a changeup past the 6-foot-8 slugger. It was a pitch that the right-handed relief ace had been experimenting with that season. Against Clark, it didn’t work. Tony the Tiger, the switch-hitter who was batting from the left side, belted it into the left-field stands for a game-tying home run. It was his 20th dinger of the year.

Percival had made his MLB debut against the Tigers in 1995. This was his 22nd appearance against them. Thorugh 23 2/3 innings, he hadn’t given up an earned run against Detroit until Clark took him deep on that ill-fated changeup. A distraught Percival lamented,

“That’s my third-best pitch, and that was a bad time to throw it. I didn’t stay aggressive, which is what I normally do. It was a stupid mistake…I left it up and out over the plate, and he got it pretty good.”

In the ninth, Tigers reliever Doug Brocail and Percival each threw 1-2-3 innings to send the game to extras. Detroit closer Todd Jones picked up where Brocail left off. He struck out Salmon and Edmonds, then needed one pitch to retire Todd Greene on a grounder to short. Anaheim countered with Shigetoshi Hasegawa in the bottom of the tenth. He would be facing the top of the Tigers’ lineup. Ausmus drove a single up the middle into center field. Cruz laid down a sacrifice bunt to move the runner up. Ausmus advanced to third when Encarnacion flew out to right.

That brought Palmer up. He lined a single to center, and Ausmus scored to seal the deal on an 8-7, 10-inning victory that made the post-game fireworks even more festive. It was Palmer’s third hit of the game. Luckily for the Tigers, the skipper didn’t take his third baseman up on his pre-game suggestion. Parrish said,

“The funny thing is that Dean poked his head into my office before the game and said ‘The way I’ve been scuffling, maybe you shouldn’t play me tonight’.”

Friday, August 13, 2004

The Tigers were in Anaheim on this evening, which made it a late night for fans catching the broadcast back in Michigan. Angels Stadium had been anything but heavenly for the Tigers, who were swept in a three-game series there back in May. They also got swept in each of their two previous visits before that, and the losing streak in their hosts’ ballpark had reached 11 games.

Detroit took a 2-0 lead in the top of the second. Amidst a pair of strikeouts by Angels righty John Lackey, Rondell White singled and Carlos Peña walked. On a 3-0 pitch, Brandon Inge took advantage of the green light that manager Alan Trammell had given him, and he drove in both runners with a double that sailed over right fielder Vladimir Guerrero’s head. Peña narrowly beat the relay throw as he slid into the plate. Afterward, a surprised Inge said he did a double take when he got the sign from third-base coach Juan Samuel. He stated,

“You better believe that when I get a 3-0 green light, I’m swinging if it’s close. I wasn’t sure what he would throw me, but I geared for a fastball, middle portion of the plate, and that’s what it was. I was going to take anything in or too far out.”

The Tigers missed out on an opportunity to score more in the fourth when Omar Infante grounded out to third base with two down after Lackey had walked three straight hitters. Rookie Nook Logan, whose career walk rate was a paltry 6.2%, was especially impressive in winning a 10-pitch battle to draw his free pass.

Jeremy Bonderman, the Tigers’ second-year righty, kept Anaheim off the board in the first four innings. He scuffled along the way, though. Six Angels had reached base, four via hits, one on a walk, and one runner was safe thanks to a Bonderman error. He did get through the third by inducing three straight infield groundouts. With one out in the fifth, Bondo committed his second error of the game when he made a bad throw trying to get Chone Figgins, who had bunted. Figgins advanced to second on the miscue. Guerrero, the future Hall of Famer, drove him in with a double to make it a 2-1 game.

With one out in the top of the fifth, Craig Monroe doubled. Lackey uncorked a wild pitch, which sent C-Mo to third. Inge knocked him in with a single that also knocked Lackey out of the game. The Tigers led 3-1 and again threatened to add more against righty reliever Scott Shields. The speedy Logan bunted for a single, and Carlos Guillen walked. Detroit had to settle for the lone run when Ivan Rodriguez left the bases loaded by hitting into a force play to end the inning.

Bonderman pitched a 1-2-3 inning in the sixth. After he gave up a leadoff single to former Tiger Curtis Pride in the seventh, Trammell called on Esteban Yan. The Tigers were the fifth of the seven teams Yan pitched for in the big leagues. The Angels became the sixth in 2005. The righty retired the first two hitters he faced, but he couldn’t get Big Bad Vlad. Guerrero tripled to the wall in right-center. Pride trotted home, and Detroit’s lead was down to 3-2. Yan stranded his runner at third by getting Garrett Anderson to ground out to Peña at first base.

The Tigers came out swinging against Shields in the eighth. Inge and Logan singled, and Infante moved them up with a sacrifice bunt. Guillen struck out, but Rodriguez walked to load the bases. For the third time in the game, Detroit left the sacks full when new Angels reliever Brendan Donnelly struck out Dmitri Young. The Tigers wound up leaving a total of 13 runners on base and went 3-for-13 with men in scoring position. Their inability to break the game open looked like it might come back to haunt them in the bottom of the eighth when the Angels tied the game against Yan. It was 3-3.

For the top of the ninth, Anaheim manager Mike Scioscia called on closer Troy Percival, who was still pitching effectively in what turned out to be his final year with the Angels. He signed with Detroit as a free agent that November. Exactly five years after experiencing an unlucky Friday the 13th against the Tigers, it happened to Percival again. White led off with a double. Jason Smith came in as a pinch-runner and went to third on Peña’s groundout. Monroe broke the tie with an RBI single. Inge followed with a single, his fourth hit of the game, to put runners on the corners.

The Tigers picked up an insurance run in controversial fashion. Logan flew out to Guerrero in right. The runners tagged up. Guerrero’s throw to shortstop David Eckstein nabbed Inge at second base as Monroe crossed the plate. Home plate umpire Tim McClelland, much to Scioscia’s chagrin, ruled that Monroe safely scored just before the third out was registered. Detroit closer Ugueth Urbina needed just eight pitches to put Figgins, Guerrero, and Anderson away in the bottom of the ninth to pick up his 20th save of the season in the Tigers’ 5-3 triumph.