Tigers shutout for twelve innings

The Tigers pitchers pitched 11 scoreless innings and still lost tonight. The Angels beat them 1-0 when Bobby Seay walked Garret Anderson on four pitches with the bases load in the 12th inning. Kenny Rogers pitched his best game of the year - seven shutout innings on five hits and one walk. Zach Miner kept it tied at zero with scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth. He got out of a bases loaded jam in the 8th and was then aided by a nice leaping catch by Magglio Ordonez to end the ninth.

Freddy Dolsi came in to pitch the 10th and survived some bizarre plays. First there was the Little League play. Torii Hunter singled and then moved up to second base after the ball was returned to the infield and Dolsi was walking back to the mound. He got a free base simply because nobody was paying attention. I don't think I've seen that before anywhere. Dolsi followed that with a wild pitch during an intentional walk to the next batter Garrett Anderson. Somehow, he got out of it when Miguel Cabrera made a nice play on a grounder to first. It's a good thing they didn't lose the game there because we never would have heard the end of it from the national media and this time the riducule probably would have been deserved.

Dolsi then pitched a scoreless 11th. He was left in for the 12th and proceeded to load the bases before yielding to Seay. You could blame this one on Seay or on Jim Leyland for letting rookie Dolsi go through the Angels line-up a second time around. I would blame the offense for their league leading 8th shutout though. The vaunted Tigers offense went 12 innings without scoring. That about says it all.

Note:

Gary Sheffield left the game in the third inning after hurting his oblique muscle running to first base. They are calling it oblique spasms but there is no indication of how much additional time he'll miss if any. He was replaced by Ryan Raburn tonight.