Week 12

This week saw most of a road trip to the west coast for Interleague Play against the San Fransisco Giants and the San Diego Padres (with the end of a homestand last Sunday against the LA Dodgers).

Results- 6 Wins against 2 Losses. Not too shabby at all. Let's break it down some more...

Starters- Robertson had the best outing on Sunday against the Dodgers (0 earned runs in 6 innings facing only 21 batters). Robertson also had the worst outing last night against the Padres with 5 earned runs in 6 innings with 26 batters faced). But, both ended up in W's for the Tigers! Galarraga continued to impress with 0 earned runs in 6 innings on Wednesday against the Giants. Verlander had a good outing on Monday with only 2 earned runs and 7 strikeouts over 6 innings, but the Tigers took the loss on one of 2 bullpen implosions this week (we'll get to that later). Rogers was dealing on Wednesday with 1 earned run in 7 innings and finally got a win for his efforts. Bonine (aka "the New Guy") pitched pretty well on Friday (2 earned runs in 7 innings) but Bull Pen Implosion #2 cost the Tigers a win. By my figures the Starters ERA was 2.37 for the week! (10 earned runs over 38 innings pitched). That will win a lot of ballgames!

Relivers- The Bull Pen saw the return of Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumuya this week, 2 of the best arms of the incredible 2006 season. Both had been on the DL all summer. Bautista and Lopez were sent to Toledo to make room for the dynamic duo with the Tigers. Lopez will be pitching longer to possibly prepare him for a starter role later on (if necessary). Well, the only 2 losses of the week were directly the result of the Bull Pen. Tuesday Justin Verlander pitched well and handed it over after 6 innings and a one run lead- Dolsi did well at first, but in the 8th he couldn't get an out. Well, we've got Rodney back don't we? Let's see what he can do... Bless You Boys has the best graphical representation of the results. Rodney faced 5 batters and allowed 3 runs on 3 hits and a walk. Before it is all over the score is 8 to 4. Detroit did score 2 in the 9th to make it an 8-6 final, but it wasn't pretty. You can pretty much repeat the story for Friday's game (except it was tied up at 2 instead of Detroit having a 1 run lead). Rodney gets the ball after a strong start by Bonine and .... Ian brings out his nuclear fire ball again (he will run out of images before long if this continues). Rodney did not record an out but gave up 2 runs on 2 hits, 2 walks and never got anyone out. His ERA at that point is 135. Fossum tried to put out the fire but couldn't. The tie game was now a 2-6 game with 3 outs left for the Tigers, sorry. The good news is that, aside from those two games, the bull pen did well giving up only 4 runs.

Batters- There are really only two words for the week: Marcus Thames! He hit a home run almost everytime he went to the plate this week. And they were key hits too, the kind that win the game. Overall there were 10 homeruns this week and they scored 5.3 runs per game! That will do it. SLG % was up to .473.

They committed 4 errors this past week.

So they won 4 and lost 2. Again the Starters gave strong performances and the Batters scored runs. This is a good combination. Detroit is now in 3rd place and 6 games behind the White Sox.