August 13: This Friday In Detroit Tigers History

Today is Friday, August 13. It’s a date that has special significance for Motor City Bengals’ resident historian, who was born on a Friday the 13th in August once upon a time. In celebration, here are four occasions in his lifetime that this box on the calendar proved to be unlucky for Detroit Tigers opponents.

Apologies to any superstitious readers who have triskaidekaphobia.

Friday, August 13, 1976

Vern Ruhle rooted for Al Kaline and the Detroit Tigers when he was growing up in Coleman, Michigan. He made his big league debut in September 1974, just in time to be the soon-to-be retired Kaline’s teammate. In 1976, Ruhle was in his second full season as a Tigers pitcher. The right-hander drew the starting assignment in this road game against the Kansas City Royals. He had been hittable but able to limit damage. Coming into this evening, opponents were hitting .285 against Ruhle in 23 starts, but his ERA was a respectable 3.76. A lack of run support factored into his 6-9 record. In seven of those losses, the Tigers scored two runs or less for him.

Ruhle was strong through the first five innings. He gave up only a second-inning single and a third-inning walk. One of those baserunners was wiped out on a failed steal attempt. Meanwhile, Royals right-handed starter Al Fitzmorris also handled the Tigers pretty easily. Willie Horton reached on an error by Kansas City shortstop Freddie Patek to lead off the second. Rookie Jason Thompson walked to lead off the fifth, then stole second base. It was the first steal of his career. That had been it for the Detroit offense.

The tide turned for the Tigers in the top of the sixth. Chuck Scrivener, Detroit’s ninth-place hitter, walked to lead off the inning. Ron LeFlore’s single, the Tigers’ first hit, sent Scrivener to third. Ben Oglivie put the Bengals on the board when he drove his teammate in with a sacrifice fly to center. Fitzmorris got out of the inning with a couple infield groundouts, and the Tigers settled for a 1-0 lead. Patek singled off Ruhle to begin the bottom of the sixth, then stole his 43rd base of the season. Frank White singled, which sent Patek to third. Then White stole second. Future Tiger Al Cowens grounded out to shortstop Tom Veryzer, but that drove in the tying run.

One of the game’s key plays happened next. Amos Otis broke his bat delivering a single into right that Rusty Staub fielded. White, who was on third, went halfway home on contact. He was called back by his third-base coach, who thought Staub was going to make the catch. When the ball dropped in, White took off for home again. Staub, who was in his first year with the Tigers, wasn’t known for his defense. In fact, this was the only season he played in the outfield for team. He spent the remainder of his time in Detroit strictly as a designated hitter. In this instance, though, Rusty rose to the occasion. He fired a laser to catcher Johnny Wockenfuss, and White was tagged out.

The inning continued for future Hall of Famer George Brett. While he was at the plate, Otis became the third Royal in the inning to steal second base. Ruhle got Brett to pop out to third baseman Aurelio Rodriguez in foul territory to end the Kansas City threat. Detroit struck again in the top of the seventh. With two outs, Veryzer doubled. Wockenfuss atoned for his role in letting the Royals run wild on the bases in the sixth. He knocked a double into left field and Veryzer scored the Tigers’ tie-breaking run. After the seventh-inning stretch, Ruhle set the Royals down 1-2-3.

LeFlore led off the eighth with a single. That prompted a pitching change. Royals manager Whitey Herzog, a former Tigers player, called on lefty Steve Mingori to face the left-handed hitting Oglivie. Tigers manager Ralph Houk decided not to burn a pinch-hitter, and Oglivie laid down a sacrifice bunt to send LeFlore to second. Staub’s single drove in LeFlore in with a valuable insurance run. The two biggest bats in the Detroit lineup had come through nicely. Staub topped the 1976 Tigers with 176 hits, and LeFlore was right behind him with 172. Rusty led the team with 96 RBI, and Ronnie led the way with 92 runs scored.

Ruhle got through a scoreless eighth to keep Detroit’s 3-1 lead intact, although he gave up a couple singles. The third out in the inning was the second key play of the game for the Tigers. Oglivie made a superb diving grab in left-center to rob Otis of a hit and keep the Royals from scoring. Afterward, Herzog acknowledged that the catch “killed us”, but Houk said that Ben was a good outfielder who never surprised him. Describing how it unfolded, Oglivie commented,

“The ball wasn’t hit as good as I thought it was at first. The ball got in the lights, but I got a fairly good jump. I backhanded the ball close to the ground, very close to the ground. I made sure the webbing of my glove was off the ground.”

The Royals weren’t about to go quietly, though. Brett doubled to lead off the bottom of the ninth. That was it for Ruhle. Houk summoned his chief fireman, lefty John Hiller. Detroit native John Mayberry greeted with him a single that scored Brett. Hal McRae followed with a single. Jim Wohlford bunted toward first base, but Thompson was able to scoop up the ball and make the throw to Rodriguez at third to nab Mayberry. Cookie Rojas’ flyout to left moved pinch-runner Tom Hall to third. With the tying run 90 feet away, Hiller struck out Buck Martinez with a changeup to end the game and earn his 11th save. The Tigers escaped with a 3-2 victory, and Ruhle picked up his 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.