Dombrowski, Leyland Renewed

The Miracle Worker for four years, The Resident Managerial Genuis for one. 

No Brandon Hinge on the coaching staff next season. 

Up by four games, with a Big Series against your closest pursuer starting tomorrow night? Good move. 

Out by four and headed nowhere, like the Indians are, and they don't get new deals. 

Dennison, The Men's Baseball Blogger

In the sixth inning, with the score Royals up nothing to four, the rain came. And did it pour. For an hour or more. 

The Tigers then scored three, and needed a perfect throw to get Peralta stretching for third with the tying run. That's what they got, from Royals right fielder Jeff Francoeur.

So what else did the Tigers get? Well, they got wet, and got sore, and the game they lost they couldn't win any more. And their lead remains at four after the Indians' loss at Arlington.

The floundering Tribe thus fall back to .500 (59-59) ahead of this week's Big Series with the Tigers at Cleveland. The Tigers' .535 winning percentage being good for third place in any of the other five divisions.

First place still talks and no one walks, as anyone who went to college and majored in baseball knowledge will point out.

Tigers Win, Tribe Survives

Indians-Rangers in Arlington was scoreless through six. In the seventh, the Indians scored three and allowed four. Asdrubal Cabrera dropped what would have been a inning-ending double play ball. Then, in the eighth, representing the tying run, he got picked off first.

I wanted the Tribe to win and get Cabrera off the hook. But a win wouldn't help the Tigers. They'd already won, 4-3 in KC, Verlander's 16th.

The Indians scored four in the ninth, and held off the Rangers to win 7-5. Which is okay. My other favorite team won, Cabrera didn't wear goat's horns, and one more day has been removed from the schedule with the Tigers losing no ground.

The Curious End Of The Baseball Game In The Night Time

Bottom tenth, two out, score tied at seven, Elvis Andrus on second. Josh Hamilton hits a grounder to short, and beats the throw to first. Only Matt LaPorta knows why he held the ball and ignored Andrus, who never stopped running and scored the game winner.

The Tigers also won in extra frames, in a more conventional way: Brennan Boesch singled in Andy Dirks to give his mates a 4-3 win in ten at KC.

The win and Indians loss in Texas returns the Tiger lead to four, again their widest of the season.

Getaway Day

Alexi Ogando is still the only Texas Rangers pitcher to beat the Tigers this season. 

This afternoon at Comerica, he recorded number three by allowing two runs in six-plus innings, as the Rangers won 5-2. 

Now comes a nine game road trip, with stops in KC (next) and Baltimore on either side of three games in Cleveland. 

We know what can happen when the Tigers, needing wins, play the Royals. The Orioles are just the sort of team to jump up and bite when least expected. And the Indians are the Indians, as baseball fan Gertrude Stein would say, especially in their home park. 

In the visitors' park (Fenway) tonight, they posted a 6-3 win which, combined with the Tigers' loss, reduces their deficit in the AL Central to three games.

Fister's Debut / The Ellsbury Doughboy

Seven innings, eight hits, three runs to MLB's second-best hitting team, the Texas Rangers. But no walks or strikeouts. 

Ryan Raburn homered in the eighth to make the score 5-3. Good thing he did, because Mike Napoli homered off Fernando Valverde with one out in the ninth. Papa Shut 'Em Down got the next two, and entered save number *30 out of *30 chances in this season's record book.

Raburn is hitting over .350 since the All-Star break; a hot stretch that has him all the way up to .227; a figure that by itself is an indicator of how bad things once were. 

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Indians' rookie second baseman Jason Kipnis as become in instant baseball celebrity. The other famous person with that name, after classical musician Igor Kipnis. 

The Tribe, in a curious trade deadline move, sent veteran infielder Orlando Cabrera to the Giants at a time when contending clubs like to hang onto experienced players. They've installed Kipnis at second and another freshman, Lonnie Chisenhall, at third. 

Tonight at Fenway, Kipnis homered in his fourth straight game. Future MVP and baseball CEO Al Rosen was the last Indian rookie to do that, in 1950.

"The greatest thrill in the world is to end the game with a home run and watch everybody else walk off the field while you're running the bases on air," Rosen once said. 

That's what Jacoby Ellsbury did in the ninth, giving the Red Sox a 4-3 win and  the Tigers a four game lead in the AL Central.

It Worked Again

Ben Wah, brought in to protect a 5-2 lead over the Rangers, gave up a solo homer to Neftali Perez and a two run shot to Mike Napoli. Tie game, just like that.

But I can get us a win, I said. Like Crash Davis in "Bull Durham:" "I can get us a rainout ..."

How? asked Maggie. 

I'll turn the game off. (This strategy having worked before, most notably in 1987 when Lou Whitaker hit a walkoff homer in a game I silenced knowing they needed a win. That's the year they won the AL East by one game. I still think I deserve a partial share of playoff money.)

I did, and in the next half inning Brennan Boesch homered.

Jose Valverde made the run hold up, and we had a 6-5 win.

My queen asked the question I knew she would: 

So why don't you do that more often?

You can't. Then its effectiveness would be compromised. It's a gift to be used sparingly. So affirmed the old man in the Twilight Zone who could see into the future and knew what you needed, and just happened to have it at hand.

Shoudn't you have waited until we play the Indians ... ?

No. (Aren't you glad you're single?) A win in August is as good as one in September, and the Indians were losing.

They did lose, at Fenway after a 90 minute rain delay despite rookie second baseman Jason Kipnis' third homer in three games, extending the Tigers' lead to three games.