Radio Silence

Inside big-box stores, you can't hear the ball game. All that concrete and steel framework absorbs AM radio signals.

When I came out and heard that Duane Below was pitching, at two in the afternoon, I knew something unpleasant had happened, that deserved absorbing.

Unpleasantness indeed, in the form of an eight run Rangers first inning. Rick Porcello gave up all eight. A Josh Hamilton homer, a passel of singles and walks, a two-run triple by Ian Kinsler, and an error by Hinge at second that kept things going.

When the first three Rangers hitters in the second singled, and singled, and doubled, Porcello came out.

Duane Below pitched six scoreless innings in long relief. In ten innings this season, he hasn't allowed an earned run. (So when does he get a start?)

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They're playing a day-night makeup doubleheader (all players must wear makeup) due to last night's rainout/windout/coldout.

What lousy weather, the out-of-towner might observe. (But at least the economy sucks and the people are nasty.) Doesn't the ball park have a roof?

No ... 

This afternoon's first pitch temperature was in the low 40s. The flags were sticking straight out. Just another balmy spring day in Motown. The Tigers' radio announcers tried to get the rest of us to believe that, for those sitting in the sun, it was actually a nice day.

Over forty-one thousand fans attended the game.

Freezing your ass off at a Tigers game is as much a Detroit rite of passage as becoming the victim of some random act of violence on one of your rare, ill-advised, trips south of Eight Mile. A tradition that evidently someone felt had to be preserved. (The unofficial city motto: Suffer, It's Good For You, It Builds Character.) Thus the lack of a ball park with a roof. They don't get it in Minneapolis either. Shame on you Minnesotans, for being just like Detroit. I thought you were smarter than that.

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The Gas Man pitched the ninth and gave up the last three hits and single run (a homer by Mike Napoli, but by then it didn't matter), and, between games, was shipped to Toledo.

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Game two: a 33 pitch hold by Fernando Ben-Wah, a 30 pitch save by Fernando Valverde. Single, single, walk, single, ball one, ball two, ball three ... had 'em all the way.