Price vs. Verlander

David the pitcher, not Jim the announcer, hi.

The battle between two of the American League's top hurlers came off not quite as expected.

Verlander gave up three solo homers, two by David Jennings and one by Ben Zobrist. Guys like Bert Blyleven got to the Hall of Fame by giving up home runs, in bunches but with no one on. Verlander, however, doesn't have the Twins' hitters of that era on his team, and three solos still add up to a 4-2 loss.

Price scattered five hits, and Fernando Rodney -- the original Fernando, one of three former Tigers wearing retro D-Rays unis -- got the save. Three up, three down on nine pitches, two strikeouts; his 22nd save to go with a 1.04 ERA. Too bad he didn't do more of that when he played for OUR team.

Well, That's Nice

Max Scherzer allowed two runs in six and the bullpen posted zeroes over the last three. His mates whacked D-Rays started James Shields for 14 hits. But the four runs they scored means they left a bunch on base (11 total).

A win is still a win, but this one leaves the baseball fan feeling hollow and empty. Tonight's was a clean, crisply played game of baseball. They looked like world champs. So why can't they do that more often?

Cowboys 13, Lions 9

Doug Fister gave up nine runs on nine hits and was gone after four and one-third innings. Roy Oswalt allowed five runs on 13 hits and lasted six. This ugly game also featured lots of pill-pounding (33 hits total), two home runs by David Murphy, and errors charged and uncharged. The Big Guy, just a big hugable, loveable teddy bear, threw two bunts away. Rugburn and Peralta between them allowed a mile-high pop up to fall untouched. 

Despite all the ugly, the Tigers were in the game in the eighth, having plated four in the frame's top half; two off Mike Adams the Texas Ranger (so not to confuse him with Mike Adams the Health Ranger). Two off the suddenly ineffective Octavio Dotel finished them off. You can only come back so many times per game.

The Tiger formerly known as Brennan Bash went 1 for 5, struck out with two on to end the second, and whiffed again with the sacks loaded to end the fifth. He's down to .232 and, if I hear one more "we've GOT to get Brennan Boesch going," I'm going to lose my breakfast. He's had all season to get it going, and playing a guy who still hasn't by almost July never was a luxury. You can have potential for only so long. Then you become the Purnal Goldy of the 2010s.

Official Mediocrity

For the third time in ten days, the Tigers stared Official Mediocrity (a .500 record) in the face and turned away.

With a chance to achieve OM at 37-37, they lost to the Rangers 7-5. 

Drew Smyly, back from the DL, gave up four in the fourth, and that was pretty much that. 

Prince Fielder drove in four of the Tigers' five well-scattered runs. 

The baseball situation (Universal Mediocrity) being what it is, 85 wins could still be good enough for the second wild-card spot. Four games over OM gets you into post-season. It's the MLB equivalent of grade inflation.

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The regular season baseball states of being are:

HB (Historically Bad, a category reserved for outfits like the 1962 Mets, and the 43-119
2003 Tigers).

JPA (Just Plain Awful, losing in the neighborhood of 100 games).

OB (Ordinarily Bad, between JPA and .500).

OM (Official Mediocrity, two or three games either side of .500).

PG (Pretty Good, between OM and Bridesmaid).

B (Bridesmaid, qualifying for a wild card spot).

W (Wonderfulness, having sole possession of first place).

Another Baseball Song

The Who did record a song about baseball:  "I Can't Explain." 

Some things that happen on baseball fields defy explanation. Like the clawless, toothless, one-run-per-game Tigers scoring five in tonight's first inning. 

Rangers starter Justin Grimm gave up three doubles and four singles in the initial frame, and was gone by the second.

Rick Porcello limited the league's best offense to six hits and one run. He left the game with a bang, striking out Mike NAP-OH-LEE with the sacks filled to put out a Rangers sixth inning rally.

Townsend would have been the stylish outfielder who wrote a blog using a pen name. Moon, the closer called "Wild Thing." Daltrey,  "The Kid." (And wouldn't Gary Carter be a great lead singer?) Entwistle: the big quiet guy; write him in the lineup at first base and you never know he's there.

Verlander Stops Skid

The message delivered to Justin Verlander by Quentin Berry's first inning two-run homer was clear: there's your runs, big guy; now make them stand up. 

And he did, allowing only two infield hits until the seventh. Then, along came Jones. (When the opponent's leadoff man is named Presley, bloggers are permitted to use MLB.com-style music puns.) Garrett Jones' two run homer, the Pirates' first hard-hit ball of the day, evened the score. 

In the eighth, something happened that hasn't happened in a long time. Delmon Young made a positive contribution to the Tiger offensive effort. He singled in QB with the go-ahead run.

JV struck out the last two Pirates to wrap up his eighth win, a complete game five-hitter. 

Rugburn, playing left field, took a homer away from Josh Harrison that would have tied the score in the eighth, and made The Resident Managerial Genuis look like one for inserting him as a defensive replacement.

One And One And One Is Three

The number of runs the Tigers have scored in regulation play in their last three games. 

They got lucky in the last game against the Cardinals, winning in ten. Again today at PNC, not so lucky. 

Brad Lincoln threw six innings of no-hit ball. The only Tiger to touch the plate was Miguel Cabrera, who homered. (I should write something like "Lincoln logs a fine outing," but will leave that to the MLB.com Editor In Charge Of Cute Headlines.)

Max Scherzer pitched well enough to win.  He allowed three runs in seven innings. They all scored on a fourth inning homer by Andrew McCutchen and, when your mates aren't hitting, one mistake can -- and often does -- cost you the game.

Pitchers' Fielding Practice

PFP, as Jim Price is fond or reminding the fans. The first thing pitchers do on the first day of spring training. Work on covering first, and fielding bunts. When pitchers don't field their position, bad things happen. 

With two on and AJ Burnett up to bunt, Doug Fister, who had a shot at a double play, tried for the out at third. (That's what pitchers do when they know they need to pitch a shutout to win.) He threw the ball away, Delmon Young airmailed it back in, and both runners scored.

That Fister pitched a decent rest of the game (two earned runs in six innings, eight hits), and that the final score of 4-1 indicates the game minus the error was winnable, are no surprises. Such are the things that happen when not even the .300 hitters at the top of the order are getting on base.

Quentin Berry, HE'S The Man!

In this afternoon's tenth inning, QB singled through a drawn-in infield to plate Ramon Santiago and give the Tigers a 2-1 walkoff win, and a series win over the Cardinals. 

Minor league rosters are dotted with players like Quentin Lonell Berry, who never became big-league stars only because they never got the chance.

QLB was drafted by the Phillies, but buried in the minors while Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth, and Raul Ibanez patrolled the Phillie outfield. The Padres and Mets, whose knack for appraising ballplayers might explain why the Pads have this season's worst record so far, and why the Mets in general suck, let him get away. At Carolina, the Reds' Double-A team, he was behind Jay Bruce, but who were these guys named Gomes and Stubbs? (The Reds finished third in 2011 with them in the outfield, without Berry.)

The big league club is loaded with talent. Someone is owed a lot of money. The GM's wife likes Player X, but not Player Y. Player Z reads books that don't have pictures in them. All reasons why players who deserve the opportunity to prove themselves big leaguers never get it.  "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air" -- Thomas Gray. Or Yogi Berra, I get them mixed up ...

Silenced By Westbrook

Jake Westbrook pitched a complete game five-hitter and had the Tigers beating the ball on the ground all night. 

He, in fact, dispatched Jackson, Berry and Cabrera on nine pitches in the eighth, getting all three to ground out.

Fellow sinker specialist Rick Porcello allowed ten hits in seven innings, but only two runs, and was a hard luck loser. Final: 3-1 Cardinals.

The Singles Club / Rabbits

Ten of the Tigers' twelve hits were singles. They still count, and were enough to give the hometown crew a 6-3 win over the now .500 defending world champ Cardinals.

Cardinal starter Lance Lynn, the National League's first ten-game winner of 2012,  had his roughest outing, allowing nine hits and five runs in five innings.

Charlie Brown was a late scratch, and Phil Coke got the save, his first of the season. He did so by -- attention, all current and future Tiger closers -- getting them out one-two-three in the ninth.

--------------------------------

Maggie is the real linguist in the house. I know what I know from three semesters of college French, and from listening to French covers of Beatles songs. 

She tells me that the Italian word for a rabbit or hare is "coniglio." From the Latin "cuniculus," a tunnel or burrow.

Using the Italian I've learned from watching Godfather movies, a "conigliaro" might be a man who raises rabbits. 

We haven't forgotten Tony C in the second floor baseball bunker. The Bryce Harper of the 1960s. 

Sir Paul

Paul McCartney turns 70 today. 

He never wrote any songs about baseball. Maggie suggested "Blue Jay Way," but that's a George Harrison song.  He did write a bunch about falling in love, that young girls like even after they become middle-aged women.

Meg 'N Peg both like him. I like him because he's left-handed, like Babe Ruth. Two southpaws, arguably the best ever at what they did.

On the day of Sir Paul's birth -- June 18 1942 -- the Tigers beat the Yankees 3-1 at Briggs Stadium. Virgil Trucks bested Spurgeon Ferdinand "Spud" Chandler. Both starters went the distance.

On the day he turns 70, they aren't playing. Another off day, for those golfers on the team who count off days like they were precious stones, and know exactly how many remain on the schedule. 

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Whomever it was -- possibly a rookie reporter with Canada's The Score cable channel -- who asked nineteen year old Mormon Bryce Harper if he planned to do any legal drinking when the Nats visited Toronto learned this: you don't mess with a missionary man!

Scherzer Fans Twelve

And he didn't walk any, which is just as good. 

Scherzer this season has been one of baseball's most baffling pitchers. He's averaging eleven and a half strikeouts per nine innings, but has allowed 90 hits in 78 innings. With that many hits per nine, you can't be walking people. No runs in eight this afternoon lowered his ERA to 5.17. 

But he stood the Rox on their heads, and that foreshadows more mound success.

Quentin Berry had five singles in five at bats. He's hitting .333 and remains baseball's best-kept secret. 

The first four in the lineup are, in fact, over .300. QB, Jackson at .323, and Cabrera and Fielder who've been there all year.

So see? Get Jackson and Fister back, get Max back in his groove, and good things will happen. Just wait until Andy Dirks returns. The printing of playoff tickets can resume, full speed ahead. 

And out favorite Tiger?

Rugburn struck out on three pitches pinch hitting in the eighth, standing there comme la maison au bord du chemin.

Bloomsday

In the 783 pages of his novel "Ulysses," James Joyce describes the activities of several ordinary people as they go about their ordinary days in their -- and his --  home town of Dublin. All the action takes place on June 16, 1904. When the Tigers, playing at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull when the yard was called Bennett Park, beat the Philadelphia Athletics 6-5.


Leopold Bloom is a character in the novel, and it's his name Joyce buffs who celebrate the day as a literary holiday have given June 16.


On this Bloomsday, the Tigers played the Colorado Rockies at the corner of Park and Comerica, and Tom and Maggie Bloom had quite an ordinary day.


We collaborated on breakfast;  sausage links and hash browns made from real potatoes, orange juice, and dry cereal. Maggie went to town, to meet her friend Peggy (Meg 'N Peg, they're affectionately called in the second floor baseball bunker) and to do some shopping. I cut the yard -- a task long overdue -- and contemplated the wisdom of having it paved over with green cement.


The Tigers played at four, on the Fox Saturday game. The Blue Jays, playing the Phillies at home, started at 1:07 PM. I tuned both the upstairs and downstairs radios to the game, washed the breakfast dishes, gave the kitchen a thorough cleaning, and contemplated converting to paper cups and plates, and plastic silverware. Every meal a picnic. How romantic.


Maggie called to ask what I wanted for dinner. I said kidney pie, gorgonzola cheese, and wine, since that's what Bloom ate on 6-16-04. She said she'd consider the request, but that its chances of fulfillment were unlikely.


The Jays won 6-5, on a walkoff single by Rajai Davis -- the last out in Verlander's 2011 no-hitter -- and pushed the Phils sans Howard and Utley all season deeper into the National League East cellar.


I called Maggie and asked her to bring home some powdered cleanser, since we were almost out, and to remind her that she was and always will be my special sweetheart, knowing that Peg would hear at least half the conversation.


Doug Fister, back from the DL, started and showed no signs of rust. He went through the Rockies' lineup like the proverbial knife through melted butter. The Tigers scored single runs in the first, fourth, and fifth. Miguel Cabrera hit a grounder back to the pitcher and, when the Rox were finally done throwing the ball away, scored. Rugburn went 1 for 3 with a walk, affirming the Tiger brain trust's decision to bring him up from Toledo while raising his average to .164. The Tigers won 4-1, their 31st win to go with 34 losses, one  step closer to official mediocrity (.500).


Maggie returned. Gone shopping almost six hours, she had two little bags of stuff that contained cleaning products but nothing that was on Bloom's menu. She said she was thankful we live close to the malls, unlike Peggy who's an hour's drive away.


Did they win? she asked.


Indeed they did, my queen. What's for dinner? 


What do we have?


Not much ...



So that's what we had. Toasted tuna sandwiches, the last of a bag of steak fries, leftover fast-food salad. Ritz crackers. An ordinary meal cobbled together by two ordinary people at the end of a day unremarkable save for the Tiger win. And I contemplated the wisdom of reading almost 800 pages of fiction to end up at more or less the same place.

Valverde Meltdown (Again?)

If Charlie Brown is still throwing spit balls, he needs to stop. 

His tenth inning line: 0.2 innings, three hits, six runs, one earned.


Maybe he threw Prince Fielder a spitter when he lobbed Eric Young's sacrifice bunt over the first baseman's head. 


The error put runners on first and third. A walk and a groundout followed , but then the circus music started to play. Single, walk, sac fly, single, out comes Papa Shut 'Em Down. Enter Luis Marte. Carlos Gonzalez and Michael Cuddyer hit two of the longest home runs you'll ever see hit at Comerica. All of Papa's runs scored. Eight Rockies touched home plate in the inning. Final: 12-4 Colorado.

But the game was really over in the Tigers' ninth, when the three-four-five-six hitters went down on nine pitches.  


---------------------------------


Two up, two down describes a generic row house plentiful in England, having two floors and two big rooms in each. 


It also fits the Tigers roster situation after tonight's game. Casey Crosby (four runs in 3.2 tonight) and Matt Young down, Doug Fister off the DL and Thad Weber up because the bullpen is exhausted, especially after tonight. It seems like they're either disabling someone, or calling up / sending down every day. And who in any line of work can be productive when one's workmates change that often? 


--------------------------------


Of all the players whose names appear in major league box scores, only Rugburn could go 1 for 5 and raise his average (to .160).

42K For Day Baseball At Wrigley

They oughta go out and get a bleepin job and find out what it's like to earn a living! The bleepers don't even work! That's why they're out at the bleepin game! Seventy percent of the world's workin! The other thirty come out to Wrigley ...  it's a playground for the bleepers ...


120K came out to see the Cubs and Tigers play; a record for a three game series at Wrigley. Today's attendance: 42, 292 good for nothing lowlifes who don't have jobs, and have nothing better to do besides come out to see day baseball. A sizeable portion of them were rooting for the Tigers. (Got guys bustin' their butts and people cheer for the other team. That's the Cubs?) If you didn't already know the game was at Wrigley, you'd think they were playing at Comerica. 

Don Kelly pinch hit a triple in the eighth (slide, Kelly, slide!) and scored on Austin Jackson's homer. Jackson drove in three of the Tigers' five runs, also plating Ryan Raburn with a seventh inning single.


Who? Yes, Rugburn is back. He went to Toledo and didn't get his groove back (hit .194 there) but came up when Drew Smyly went on the DL because they need right handed hitters and, according to Skipper Leyland, no one else deserved the opportunity.


Rugburn went 2 for 3 today, raising his average with the Tigers to .159. 

Justin Verlander went eight and allowed five hits. Charlie Brown allowed a run in the ninth, but finished off the bear cubbies by striking out Alfonso Soriano to end the game. 

Boesch's Night

He homered, and singled three times, drove in two and scored two -- and made a nice diving catch of a David DeJesus liner in the seventh -- as he the Tigers to an 8-4 win over les orsonceaux -- the bear cubs -- at Wrigley. 

He's 11 for 21 since the dropped-fly-ball game after which Tiger fans considered painting a target on his backside. In the process, he's raised his average to a respectable .252. If he keeps this up, your baseball blogger can start calling him Bash again.

Pretty Paper, Pretty Ribbons Of Blue

This is a picture of tonight's Cubs-Tigers game: 

The tag says "best wishes from Jhonny Peralta."


The Tiger shortstop committed throwing errors on back-to-back plays in the eighth, setting up the run that gave the Cubs a 4-3 win. 


Both plays could have gone either way, and fingers were once again pointed at the umperors. 


If the throws are good, however, both plays are easy outs. 

So the bear cubbies, owners of baseball's second worst record and already the subject of trade deadline speculation, found the right them to help them post win number 21. (Twenty-one wins, already?)

Charlie Brown

In the sports section on this Monday off-day morning is a story about a Youtube video that supposedly shows Jose Valverde spitting into his glove during yesterday's ninth inning. The implication being that he used a wet one to strike out Reds' leadoff hitter Devin Mesoroco. 

Then why didn't the umpires see it? They see everything. And hear everything. 

Whether the video is conclusive or not, Valverde now has a new blog name: Charlie Brown. The kid who was always throwing spit balls. (Who, me? Yeah, you!)

The Big Sunday Night Stage

The schedule maker at ESPN probably thought that, by June 10, both the Tigers and Reds would be leading their respective divisions, and worth a view on Sunday Night Baseball.


He  / she was half right.


He / she has been re-assigned to making sure that Erin Andrews' hotel rooms are stocked with her favorite brands of designer water. 

--------------------------------

OMG this must be the age of miracles: they scored four in the eighth, coming from three down to take a 7-6 lead (the final) and thus avoided showing the Sunday Night Baseball audience what stumblebums they've been the other six days of the week. The rally started the way many late-inning miracle rallies by Tiger opponents do, with a bases-loaded hit batter (Matt Young). Austin Jackson ground-rule doubled in two, and Aroldis Chapman wild-pitched in another. We win games with a little help from our friends.


No mercy for the ESPN staffer who chose this game for Sunday night, though. He or she is right now at the grocery store purchasing packages of M&Ms, and picking out the green ones for the candy dishes on the night stands in Ms. Andrews' hotel rooms. 

Tigers 3, Reds 2

JV gave up two runs in six innings. Fielder singled in Boesch with the go-ahead, and winning, run in the eighth inning. 

Cy Young and MVP on a last-place team? It could still happen.


---------------------------------------


Lost in the whirlpool of inconsistent starting pitching and unpredictable hitting have been the two setup guys, Bryan Villareal and Joaquin Benoit. When they've been healthy, they've sparkled.


Villareal: 8 hits in 14 innings, 21 Ks, 1.19 ERA. Benoit: 23 hits in 26 innings, 37 Ks, 1.35 ERA. Just like they drew it up in Lakeland.

Interleague Play

Get them in extra innings, on the road in a National League town, without the DH, and they're doomed. 

The crew that hasn't been playing NL style ball, and couldn't manufacture a run if its life depended on it anywhere, needs a home run. 

Meanwhile, the home team can little ball its way to a win. 

Which is what the Reds did tonight. 

Miguel Cairo -- he's still playing -- lead off the tenth with a triple, and Wilson Valdez squeezed him in. 

How they got there: Boesch homered and singled, driving in two and avoiding a trip to Toledo when Austin Jackson comes off the DL tomorrow.  His sixth inning single tied the score at five. Delmon Young hit a solo homer in the seventh. Then, yet another Tiger middle reliever made his major league debut in a pressure situation, and came off second best. Jose Ortega (who?) gave up a game-tying double to Todd Frazier, setting up extra innings.

Ortega arrived on the minor league carousel when Omar Santos was designated when Brian Holaday was called up to replace Alex Avila who's back on the DL, because Ben-Wah and Dotel have sore arms because the starters aren't going deep, and Luke Petkonen proved to be a Triple-A pitcher. All of this in the house that Jack built. Which is exactly where the fan feels he is when watching this year's Tigers.

Let's Build Something Together

What about a seven run lead off Derek Lowe?

And yes, per the script, a key to the four run first was a hit-and-run single by Brennan Boesch.

The search for a witty blog name for Boesch, then, will be put on hold for at least one day. 

They should consider themselves fortunate to leave town with this W. 

Leave with an L, and the howling could be heard all the way down in Cincinnati. 

Who's Next?

Hinge and Rugburn have been booed out of town. Another Public Enemy #1 is needed if Tiger fans are to have any fun at all the rest of the way. 

Let's try Brennan Boesch. "Bash," I called him on another blog, and last season whan he actually bashed the ball. I'll think of a new name for him. Just give me a while.

On June 6 2012, through almost a third of the season, the Tiger formerly known as Bash is hitting .222 with 20 runs batted in. 

With two on and two out in tonight's first inning, he clanged a catchable fly ball. The next guy, Michael Brantley, homered. Three unearned runs on the pitching line of Max Scherzer. An omen of how the rest of the game would go.

The Tigers scored six, but so did the Indians. The inconsistent Scherzer, after four good starts, allowed seven of the nine Tribe runs. The welding mask was definitely needed. If it protects one's eyes from the sun's direct rays, it should protect them from the moving images of Tiger baseball.

Yet another former Toledo Mud Hen, replacing an injured regular, made his major league debut. Brad Holaday, filling in for the disabled Alex Avila, went 1 for 4. 

But they were floundering with all the regulars healthy.

The crew that was supposed to flatten all opponents on the way to the big October dance is now 25 and 31 and one-half game ahead of the fourth place Royals. That makes the baseball blogger wonder who, among the Tiger uniformed brain trust, might pay for the bad start with his job. And wouldn't that be something if it happened after tomorrow's day game, on the last day of a home stand, when so many similar ritual sacrifices are made?

Someone in the bowels of Comerica might, as I type at 12:18 in the morning, be sewing the name FRANCONA on the back of a Tiger road jersey. 

And Venus Was Her Name

We have two choices for entertainment this evening: the Transit of Venus and the Tigers-Indians game. 

The next Transit of Venus happens in December 2117, when the Tigers will be picking up the pieces of another shattered season, while wondering which of their failed high-round draft picks won't be tendered a contract for 2118.

The Tribe is in town for three games; the next two nights and then a Thursday afternoon game.

My goddess has chosen the Transit. She somehow got her hands on a welder's mask, which she will use to watch Venus crawl across the sun's disk. "There's a little black spot on the sun today," sing the Police. We heard that on the radio today, during the Retro Lunch, of all the days to hear it.

She promised to come in and check on the game now and then. 

You might want to wear that mask while watching the Tigers play, I suggested. 

----------------------------------------------------

What an ugly game of baseball. The mask was definitely needed. The Tribe scored three of their four runs on three triples off Drew Smyly. The Tigers got one in the first, one in the ninth, and did nothing in between. The newly arrived Michael Young struck out four times. The boos grew louder with each whiff, turning to cheers only when he fouled a ball into the seats in his last at bat. 

33,258 fans passed on the Transit to come out to Comerica and watch the Detroit Mud Hens. Your baseball blogger wonders if Detroit has the league's best fans, or its most desperate fans.

Monday Off-Day / Disabled List

Let's visit the DL. Six Tigers are on it. Pitchers Schlereth (60 day) and Fister, outfielders Jackson and Dirks, and catchers Avila and Laird. 

In Saturday's 4-3 win, they played with one extra non-pitcher -- Ramon Santiago -- and only Don Kelly as the emergency backup catcher.

Matt Young, the Don Kelly of the future, is up from the Toledo Mud Hans to give the Detroit Mud Hens another guy on the bench. 

Four fill-ins started yesterday's game: Santos (catcher), Worth (second), Kelly (left) and Berry (center). Actually, anyone they put at second can be considered a fill-in. Which explains why they're playing like the third place, soon to be fourth place, team they are. But they were that with the regulars in the lineup. 

MVP and Cy Young on a last place team? It could still happen. 

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In tonight's Phillies-Dodgers game, one manager (Don Mattingly), one coach (Trey Hillman), and one closer (Jonathan Papelbon) were tossed for questioning the plate umperor's inconsistent strike zone. The ump's name: D.J. Raburn. Somehow, it seems only appropriate.

 

Magglio Ordonez Retires

No, actually, today's Comerica highlight was the pre-game ceremony honoring Magglio Ordonez, who had announced his retirement from baseball. 

In 2007, Magglio won the batting title with a .363 average, second in Tiger history to only Chas Gehringer's .371 in 1937. 

On October 14, 2006 -- a postcard-perfect Indian Summer Saturday afternoon in Detroit -- his walkoff homer off Oakland's Huston Street put the Tigers in the World Series.

In and around those, every Tiger fan has a handful of Magglio Moments. 

Mine is the entire second half of 2009. Maggs was hitting .260 at the All-Star break, and there was talk / fear of benching him to keep him from recording enough plate appearances to earn at $18 million option for 2010. But he hit .375 the rest of the way to finish at .310 and silence the naysayers who felt he was through. 

I wrote, on another blog, that over the break he had gone to Florida and tracked down the legendary Fountain of Youth, and returned with enough precious fluid to get him through 2009 and into 2010, and for as long as he wanted to play. 

June 26, 2010: he was hitting .303, still getting it done at age 37. Waved around third during another Tiger lost cause, injured ankle, out for the season. Right then, I sensed his career was over. 

He came back for 2011 but wasn't the same, hitting only .255. That winter, he wasn't offered a contract for 2012. 

He had a good run, though. Hit .307 in eight years with the White Sox, .312 in seven years with the Tigers. In 2016 he'll be eligible for the Hall of Fame, not a first-year guy but one who should get enough votes to stay on the writers' ballot for the full fifteen years. 

Isn't that right, Maggie-o? 

My queen also liked the hairdo. 

Maybe This Will Work

First Tiger hitter approaches the plate, stops, and calls to the opposing pitcher: 

We are the baseball players who say NEE!

Not the baseball players who say NEE (the pitcher says).

The same! And the baseball players who say NEE demand a sacrifice!

Well, what is it you want? 

We want a straight as a string, hit-me fastball right there.

A what?

NEE! NEE! NEE!

Stop! Please, no more ... you will get your straight as a string hit-me fastball. Wherever you want it. 

Very well. Then, once you have done that, you must try to strike out Miguel Cabrera wiiiiiiith ... a slice of Little Caesars pizza!

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The highlight of this afternoon, other than their first hitter, Derek Jeter, taking Verlander deep on the first pitch of the game, was a fan running on the field in the ninth inning. "Give me some dap" (bump fists), he asked Yankee right fielder Nick Swisher. Why not, Swish said after the game, he's going to jail anyway. But the baseball blogger wonders if he at first thought the fan wanted some wood filler:

Oh BTW ... Yanks 5 Tigers 1.

Valverde Gets The Win

That means he squandered a lead he was entrusted to protect. 

Two walks and two hit batters equaled one Yankee ninth inning run. Another wacky inning for John Sterling's collection. 

Omir Santos -- up from Toledo and tonight the only healthy catcher -- saved his hide, by driving in Brennan Boesch for the winning run in the bottom ninth. Boesch had singled, was singled to third by Peralta who moved up via a Ramon Santiago intentional walk. All of which indicate how much Mariano Rivera is missed. Yankee games now last all nine inning.

Two of the Tigers runs scored on homers by Miguel Cabrera to straighaway center field, into the shrubbery (the shrubbery! Nee! Nee!) that serves as the batter's eye.That happens about once every three years. Twice in one night is another sign of the impending apocalypse, and that we'd better start hoarding freeze-dried food right away.

Crosby's Debut / Santana's One-Hitter

Yankees' radio announcer John Sterling always looks for the unusual in baseball. The odd pitching line or play-by-play plot twist are his fascinations. 

He'd get a bang out of tonight's Yankee second inning totals: five runs, one hit, no error, no one left on base.

The one hit was a slam by Curtis Granderson. (Can someone remind me why we traded Granderson, and who we got for him? I keep forgetting).

The three on base were walked there by rookie Casey Crosby, making his major league debut. Against the Yankees, at home, opposed by C.C. Sa-BATH-eee-uh.

C.C. proved he was human by allowing three runs, but the game was over ... and Johan Santana was no-hitting the Cardinals. (Insert here sound of radio tuning through the dial, up from 880 to 1120.) 

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The record book will indicate that Santana no-hit the Cards tonight, pitching the first no-hitter in the Mets' 50 year history. 

The only hit he allowed was a sixth inning liner by Carlos Beltran, a fair ball that hit the left field line, but was called foul by third base umperor Adrian Johnson. 

So, once again, an UMPIRE finds a way to get his name into the game story. 

When the UMPIRE does that, it's never for a good reason.

I looked for the video on MLB, but it isn't there.

The Short Leash

I swear I'm not not making this up: 

In the park this afternoon, I found a dog leash, about three feet long --

-- and wondered if this is the same short leash Leyland had Rugburn on, teleported here by magic to a place where I'd find it.

In baseball jargon, the short leash is: we're hitting you second, and so you'd better not strike out three times. The long leash is Toledo. Off the leash is getting designated for assignment.