Monday, August 14, 2006

Tigers End Losing Streak

I was unable to write much the last two days but Jim Leyland summed up the Chicago series succincntly (in Jason Beck's column):
As manager Jim Leyland summarized, "We got our [tails] kicked. It's as simple as that. No what-ifs. We got our [tails] kicked."
If that was not simple enough for you, he put it another way later (in Mike Bauman's column):
"Plain and simple, they played good and we did not," Leyland said. "We got what we deserved this weekend -- we got swept."
Add the White Sox sweep to the last two games of the Twins series and you've got a 5 game losing streak, the longest string of failures of the season for the Tigers. The result was a 10 game lead over the second place pale hose shrinking to 5 1/2 games. This sent all the Tiger message boards on the internet into a state of panic. Tiger fans being disappointed about a 5 1/2 game lead in August? Times have certainly changed.

Tonight, the Tigers eased the minds of their fans a bit with a 7-4 victory over the Red Sox, a team to watch if the Tigers find themselves in the Wild Card race. The Tigers jumped out to an early 5-0 lead after two innings versus Josh Beckett. Dmitri Young and Carlos Guillen had RBI singles in the first. Another first inning run scored on an error by Wily Mo Pena. Sean Casey had a two run single in the second.

The Red Sox made the game interesting with a run in the 5th and a 2 run home run by Youkilis in the 6th cutting the leade to 5-3. Overall, Nate Robertson pitched a solid game allowing 3 runs on 5 hits in 6 innings. He left with a 5-3 lead after 6. The Tigers hung on to win with help from Joel Zumaya (who gave up a run in 2 innings) and Todd Jones (who pitched a perfect 9th). It's good to see the Tigers back in the win column again.

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