A Tale Of Two Baseball Games

In tonight's third inning, Miguel Cabrera singled in Boesch and Young. Not many teams fall two runs down to Justin Verlander at Comerica and end the game victorious. The Twins wouldn't be among them.

Two-out singles by V-Mart, Avila, and Peralta in the fifth produced three more runs to wrap the game up, nice and neat with a ribbon on the package, 7-1 Tigers. 

At US Cellular, it seemed like the game would never end.  

The White Sox and Indians traded blows like two aging boxers fighting for their careers. After nine, they were tied at seven.

In the 14th, with Tribe starter David Huff on the mound, Juan P. Air singled in Gordon Beckham for the game-winner. The walkoff win was one of five in major league baseball tonight. It moved the Pale Hose one game over .500, and to within one half game of the Indians. More importantly for us Tigers fans: it increased our lead to 3 1-2 games.

Nineteen Indians, and eleven Sox, struck out. The Sox had the winning run in scoring position in the ninth, and in every extra inning. They had 22 hits and stranded 16 runners. 

And the fans ...  as the game was heard here on DX WTAM, the crowd noise became a persistent swirl, louder as the game crawled through extra innings. One wonders what the ball park experience at The Cell might be like, past midnight and in the company of several thousand White Sox fans who'd been drinking Old Style ("pure brewed in God's country") for five hours.

An Early Start To The Day

Listening to Francisco Liriano's no-hitter from last night via the Gameday Audio archive. I've known about this resource from day one but never used it until today, so bad did I want to hear the White Sox get no-hit as described by their own bored radio announcers, in their own evil ball park. (Ed Farmer sounds like Johnny Rotten calling a game.) If bin Laden had been a baseball fan, he'd have been a White Sox fan. 

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I hope we get hotter than bleep, after last night, just so we can stick it up them nickel-and-dime fans who cheer when Austin Jackson grounds out. Meaning he at least didn't strike out. (That's the Tigers?)

Yes, It Can

Max Scherzer shut the Pale Hose down on four hits and two walks over eight innings. 

Jose Valverde came in for the save, and the South Siders were thus broomed out of town, losers of nine out of their last ten, and losers the last nine times they've played the Tigers. 

There is nothing to like about the Chicago White Sox. Not their manager, any of their players, their uniforms, the ball park, or their radio announcers. Everything about them reminds me of a dip in Lake Huron ... in December.

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The Reds are playing the Cardinals in the Sunday night game, and the news here is that the Yankees or Red Sox aren't. 

This pairing makes the game available in three places on the AM radio dial: 1000 (ESPN WMVP Chicago), 700 (WLW Cincinnati) and 1120 (KMOX St. Louis), and bless the Cardinals' hearts for putting the games back on KMOX that can still be heard 40 states at night even with all the HD hiss.