Friday, May 12, 2006

Tigers Hang on to Beat Indians

In their first game versus the Indians since Leyland's "We stunk" speech, the Tigers survived two Casey Blake homers and some shaky relief pitching to eke out a 5-4 victory over their Ohio rivals. The Tigers took a 5-2 lead in a 3 run 7th inning highlighted by a Craig Monroe home run. In the bottom of the inning, Joel Zumaya relieved Kenny Rogers with one out and allowed a solo homer to Casey Blake, his second of the game. Fernando Rodney came in to pitch the 8th inning and allowed another to make it a one run game. Todd Jones then saved the game with a perfect 9th. With Rodney giving up runs in two straight games, Jones seems to have regained the lead in the "closer controversy" this week.

Dmitri Young is hurting again and his sore quad may land him on the disabled list for a second time. Marcus Thames took his spot in the order and homered for the first run of the game. If Young goes on the DL again, he would likely be replaced by Alexis Gomez, Josh Phelps or Eric Ludwick. Although I'd prefer to see Phelps or Ludwick, my guess would be Gomez since he bats left-handed and Leyland seems to like him. If they do bring up Gomez, I really hope they leave him in a backup role and let Thames play against both LHP and RHP. Thames is having no trouble with righties so far hitting .400/.464/.920 in 25 At bats.

1 comment:

  1. Bert, I think a player only has to go through waivers once during the season.

    ReplyDelete

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