When this week started the Tigers had to finish one game of their 4 game series against the Tampa Bay Rays and then play the Indians before leaving on a road trip to Tampa Bay and KC. Back then the Tigers were 3 1/2 games ahead of the Twins.
Tonight the Tigers have just completed a run of 6 consecutive victories and have put a full 7 games between themselves and the Twins.
The starting pitchers have really allowed this to happen. Washburn and Galarraga did not pitch well in their starts. Washburn allowed 8 earned runs in 5 2/3 innings on Monday. That was the final game of the home Tampa series and did not seem like a good start to the week. It was later learned that
Washburn had a sore knee (and has had one for much of the season).
But for most of the rest of the week it was the starters who controlled the games for Detroit. Porcello came in the next day and held the Indians to only 2 runs in 7 innings. Nate Robertson followed up his debut with an even better performance, allowing no runs in 6 innings. Verlander continued his Cy Young worthy season with a 1 run performance to start the Tigers' road trip in Tampa Bay. Galarraga was the only fly in the ointment as he allowed 6 runs in 2 1/3 innings on Saturday. This afternoon Jackson allowed only 3 runs in 8 innings.
So, for the week the starters allowed 24 runs over 7 games (3.4 runs/ game) with 14 of those runs in only 2 games.
The bull pen has been pretty amazing this week. The best example was the game Galarraga started. The pen took over in the 3rd inning and stopped the Rays in their tracks. Six pitchers combined for 0 runs in 6 2/3 innings. But for the entire week the pen allowed only 9 runs. The only two bad performances were from Ni on Thursday (3 runs on 1/3 inning) and Rodney's nearly blown save on Friday (2 runs in 1 inning).
All of this pitching has allowed time for the batters to do their thing, and they have started to do just that. In every game in Tampa the Tigers have trailed until late in the game. Friday night they won it with an 8th inning rally. Saturday they did the same thing. Sunday they waited until the 9th to take the lead.
The bats have not been dominating. The team batting average for the week was .277, respectable but not dominating. The slugging % was .483, again not particularily great. The runs per game was 5.71 though, so the hits were timely. And what hits they were too. Polanco hit game winning hits both
Thursday and
Friday.
Saturday it was Everett with a Suicide Squeeze. Inge hit a
9th inning Grand Slam on Sunday to reverse a 3-1 Rays lead- plenty of drama on that one! Earlier in the week the home run led the way as they beat the Indians on
Tuesday.
So the Tigers completed back to back sweeps over the Indians and the Rays. They are 11-4 in games against the Indians in 2009 and they finished up 5-2 against the AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays.
This week they have a trip to Kansas City for 3 games before heading home for a 4 game series with the Blue Jays. Detroit hasn't played Toronto since the open series of the year. Let's hope the Tigers do better this time around.
| Games back | Elimination # |
| Tigers | -- | -- |
| Twins | 7 | 20 |
| W. Sox | 8 | 18 |
| Indians | 15 | 15 |
| Royals | 24 | 3 |
