Wasn't THAT Something?

In this day game after a night game, Skipper Leyland rested several of his regulars. Brad Penny's own throwing error led to four White Sox unearned runs in the second inning.

The Tigers stayed close, though, and the score stood five to two with but one inning more to play. 

Anyone who turned the game off at this point should have known better, because lately something good always happens when it's most needed.

Leyland sent up a succession of pinch hitters against Sox reliever Chris Sale. Peralta struck out. Raburn homered (5-3 Sox). Ordonez walked. Inge was announced.

Sox manager Ozzie Guillen brought in his righty closer, Sergio Santos. The left-handed hitting Alex Avila lurked on the bench. Guillen, however, chose Santos vs. Avila (.301) over Sale vs. Inge (.203). 

Avila, who was getting the day off, homered to tie the score.Put it on the board ... YEEEEEEESS !!!

By now, you knew they were going to win it.

In the bottom ninth, the Sox moved Juan P. Air to third with the winning run. Phil Coke got AJ Pierzynski to ground into a double play and send the game into extra innings.  

Still with the script, Victor Martinez doubled in the tenth, Will Rhymes ran for him and scored on Carlos Guillen's single, and Valverde struck out the side to post the save.  

The Thursday afternoon 11-8 get-it-out-of-your-systems loss to the Royals on September 1; that was the last time the Tigers lost. I had to look it up. Twelve is their longest win streak since late July and early August 1934, when Mickey Cochrane was a rookie manager and radios looked like this --

Now they look like this -- 

-- and the march continues. For the first time since 1984, and only the second in my lifetime, the Tigers are flattening all opposition on their way to post-season glory. (So this is how it felt to be a Yankee fan in the 50s, and a Braves fan in the 90s.) In 1987 they came from three out in the last week to with the East, and they backed into the 2006 World Series as the wild card after folding down the stretch.

Lose A Couple?

White Sox lefty Gavin Floyd is usually tough on the Tigers, and was again tonight, save for one pitch.

It was the one Victor Martinez hit for a three run homer, after Miguel Cabrera had been intentionally walked.

The homer turned a 1-0 game into 4-0 and, in the sixth inning with Justin Verlander pitching, the game's pretty much over. 

JV won his 23rd, the most recorded by a Tiger since Joe Coleman in 1973. He's won eleven straight starts, and even Denny McLain in his 31 win season of 1968 didn't do that.

The win extended the Tigers' streak to eleven, most since '68, and created a problem for their fans. 

If the Tigers keep rolling, they could clinch the division this Saturday in a game the Fox TV rules prevent them from televising locally. 

There's only one solution, then, if the home fans are to see the champagne corks popped: they'll have to start losing.

Everybody Have Fun Tonight

Each starter had at least one hit. Twenty-one total, as the Lions put away the Bears 14-4 in Week One of the Major League Football season. Their tenth straight win, and it's hard to believe that they haven't won that many in a row since 1968 (eleven, from September 9 to 21).

Peralta and Raburn homered. Seven singles, a hit batter, and a two-run double by Ramon Santiago produced six runs in the sixth inning.

Raburn finished the night a triple short of the cycle. Governor Inge went 3 for 5 to boost his average over the Mendoza Line (.204). As your baseball blogger writes, The Draft Inge For President 2012 Committee is printing flyers and making signs.  

The Tigers' division lead is 11.5 games, but they're still in a pennant race of sorts. Post season qualifiers with the first, and second, highest winning percentages have home-field advantage, and the Tigers are two games ahead of the Texas Rangers for the second spot. (MLB being always able to come up with more rewards for finishing the season second best in something.)

Baseball Chemistry

Two runs, one unearned, off Twins' starter Scott Diamond in the first inning, and Doug Fister made them hold up. 

Fister's gem: seven innings, no runs on three hits, two walks. He, Delmon Young, and Wilson Betemit have proved to be just what the doctor ordered when the prescription is veteran help late in the season.

Ben-Wah then holds 'em in the eighth, striking out two, and on comes Papa Shut 'Em Down. 

Leadoff walk (Mauer), single (Luke Hughes), out, RBI grounder (Kubel). Tying run goes to second. Rene Tosoni strikes out. For this, Fernando Valverde gets a save; his 43rd, a new Tiger single-season record.

Of those 43, without going back through the whole season, I'm guessing from memory that in at least a quarter of those -- actually closer to a third -- the tying run was on base at some point in the inning. That's why we call him Fernando. In memory of Fernando Rodney. He could pile up the saves too, but you'd need your rosary and prayer candles before he was finished --

Sigh ... (My number one first reader is in the room again.) 

Can't you be positive for a change? Division Series tickets went on sale today. They sold out in an hour. 

That's nice. (My queen's employer leases a suite at Comerica.) 

Okay ... I will start being positive. For the rest of the season, I'll be a sodium atom.

Criswell Nailed It!

One-one the count, two out, 2-2 the score and nobody on, and Brandon Inge hit a high fly into the stands. He rounded third and headed for home, having won the game, he did ...

At this point in the season, having won eight in a row and increased their lead to ten games over the White Sox, one expects heroics like this every day. 

We'll stop calling him "Hinge." For now. He's still at .194, not getting any younger, and signed through next season.

Max Scherzer went seven, allowing two runs and five hits to keep the Tigers in this well-pitched, well-played game. Anthony Swarzak silenced the hot Tiger bats, permitting two runs and four hits in his six innings. Matt Capps and Alex Burnett got the game to Glenn Perkins. "If you're thinking one swing of the bat ... Perkins has allowed one home run ... count 'em, one," noted Dan Dickerson seconds before Inge's blow. 

The win also drops the former Fighting Ferrets into last place, 25 games out. 

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

The Braves and Mets also lost. Out west, the Dodgers beat the Giants and the Yankee lost in Anaheim, seconds apart. All of that makes September 10, 2011 the first Carrie Jacobs-Bond day in major league baseball in over two years. 

One can thus read the day's completed scoreboard with the serene feeling of inner peace that goes with the end of a perfect day.

Your baseball blogger has considered, if the Astros move to the American League, replacing one of the National League teams on the CJB Perfect Day list -- either the Mets or Braves, and probably the Braves -- with Osama bin Laden's favorite team, the White Sox. That would mean three teams from each league, and a more fair and equitable arrangement for everyone concerned.

The Era Of Good Feeling

Forty-four pitches for Brad Penny in the first inning; four runs for the Twins. 

The Tigers had them right where they wanted them. 

Homers by Avila (two on in the third), Santiago (one on in the fourth) and Delmon Young (solo in the fifth) got the Tigers back in the game, where we knew they would eventually be despite the bad first inning. 

Final: 8-4 Tigers. Penny went five and got the win.  

The Tigers have won 17 of their last 21 and are hitting over.300 as a team since mid-August, with just enough pitching from guys not named Justin Verlander to run away with the division.  The fan gets that feeling; that no matter how far behind they fall, however early, they'll find a way to win. 

It's also a nice to watch them add to a lead in September instead of lose it --

You stopped calling them the Pretenders. (Maggie is reading over my shoulder.) Or, what was your other name for them? The Heartbreakers?  

Yes, my queen. Back in May, when they were pretending to be contending, and breaking hearts all over the place -- 

And you stopped picking on Ryan Raburn. Good for you. I like him. He's cute. 

RR has also remembered what baseball bats are for, and, in this late season Era Of Good Feeling, the most villified of Tigers can be forgiven.

Speaking of Hinge: he is taking part in the fun, and could be elected governor right now, even with his .190 batting average. Over .200, and the Draft Inge Committee will go to work. Still lots of time left before the 2012 presidential election. 

 Criswell Predicts: Hinge is going to do something big in tomorrow's game.

Judy's Turn To Cry

Indians' reliever Frank Hermann gave up Bret Morel's second homer of the night, a three run shot in the seventh that widened the White Sox lead to 4-1. A walk, single and hit batter later, Josh Judy served up a grand slam to Paul Konerko. 8-1 Sox, game over.

Josh Judy is one of those rare players who has two first names, both starting with the same letter and having the same number of letters.  He's among a passel of players the Indians have shuttled between Cleveland and Columbus over the last several seasons, who we've come to like here in the second floor baseball bunker.Where we've rooted for the Indians, except when they played the Tigers and when they got too far ahead of the Tigers in the standings.

It hurts us when they get whacked; especially by the White Sox. Uniforms, ball park and its location, players, manager, fans, radio announcers; amng them there is precious little to like. If Osama bin Laden had been a baseball fan, he'd have been a White Sox fan. 

After the Tigers sweep, with the Tribe ten games out and one under .500 at 70-71, Tom Hamilton and Jim Rosenhaus are talking about next year. 

They weren't expected to do anything this year, but led for most of the first half and stayed in contention until September with a lot of key players on the DL. If they do limp home with a losing record, has it been a failed season? Of course not.