It Was The Third Of September

The day I'll always remember. Yes, I will.

Brad Penny didn't have it. After four and a half innings, the Tigers were down 8-1. 

They began to peck away at the deficit. In the fifth, Austin Jackson tripled in Carlos Guillen. Delmon Young homered to score Jackson. 

Then the rains came, and did it pour, with thunder and lightning added for effect. Many of the 40,000 who came to Comerica in 95 degree heat went home. It rained hard here as well. Lightning bolts flashed in the front yard. Thunder shook the second floor baseball bunker, and the power went off.

Wilson Betemit homered in the seventh. Peralta singled in V-Mart in the eighth to make it 8-6 and, even though the Tigers were down to their last three outs, the fan had a feeling that something special might happen in the ninth.

With one out, Austin Jackson hit his second triple of the game. Ryan Raburn curled one around the pole in left. Score tied at eight. (Almost all is forgiven.)

Miguel Cabrera, on the first pitch White Sox closer Sergio Santos threw him, hit a high fly into the stands. He rounded third and headed for home, having won the game, that brown-eyed handsome man!

Those who braved the nasty weather were pleasantly rewarded. Those of us watching the Fox Saturday telecast were delighted that the Tigers went from chumps to heroes on national TV.

David Pauley and Luis Marte were as vital as Raburn and Cabrera to the win. Pauley pitched a scoreless sixth, seventh, and eighth, and Marte blanked the Sox in the ninth to post his first major league victory.

The fan also gets the feeling that this loss finished off the Sox for 2011. Not that they ever were a serious threat to the Tigers. They're 7 1-2 out, and struggled all season just to get over the .500 mark.

The Indians are still hanging around, having won tonight in KC to stay five and a half out, with Big Series #4 starting on the Monday Labor Day holiday in Cleveland.

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Austin Jackson, who is the man, had four hits today, is 13 for his last 19, and has brought his average up to .259. That's hard to do late in the season, after you were under .200 in May with a demotion to Toledo still very possible.