Tigers Ten Games Over .500

(Edited at 11:45 PM. Thanks for the correction by commenters)

The Tigers beat the Indians 4-2 tonight to improve their record to 71-61. It's the first time they have been ten games over .500 since June 25. The Tigers also increased their lead to 4 1/2 games over the Twins who lost a heart breaker to the White Sox this afternoon. The White Sox scored four runs in the top of the ninth for a 4-2 come back victory. I saw the last couple of innings and it felt really strange to be rooting for the White Sox and not being annoyed by Hawk Harrelson.

Rick Porcello was very efficient tonight throwing just 80 pitches in 7 plus innings and walking nobody. He allowed just two runs on five hits including a home run by Travis Hafner leading off the eighth inning. As usual, the 20 year old right-hander used his devastating sinker tio induce a lot of ground balls. Eleven outs came on grounders including one double play. Rick still leads the American League with a 55.6 ground ball percentage.

Bobby Seay, Brandon Lyon and Fernando Rodney combined to pitch two scoreless innings to preserve the win. That's two straight games that the trio has worked though so we may not see them tomorrow afternoon. The Fausto Carmona versus Nate Robertson matchup might feature a lot of hitting so maybe we'll see the September call-ups in action at some point.

Magglio Ordonez paced the nine hit Tigers attack with three singles and is now batting .369 with a .982 OPS in 88 plate appearances since August 1. He doesn't play every day and Jim Leyland picks spots where he will maximize his offensive output but Magglio has still been valuable over the past month. Pacido Polanco added two hits and is now batting .312 since July 29.

The Tigers were helped by a horrendous Cleveland defense tonight. The Indians made five errors including three by third baseman Jhonny Peralta and allowed two unearned runs. It was the most errors in one game by the Indians since 1998.