Detroit broke out the lumber early against the Twins with both their bats and brooms. The Tigers swept Minnesota for the second time this year in two series at Copa. Apparently Torii Hunter’s guarantees carry as much weight as those made by Rasheed Wallace. Hunter said before this three game set that the Twins would not be swept again like they were during the 33-1 shellacking the first meeting. This game proved to be sloppy, but the Tigers were able to hold on for the victory behind a couple home runs and solid pitching again from Kenny Rogers. Roger’s pitched despite being sick with a gutsy performance. The Professor, as Rogers is known to the Tigers radio broadcaster Jim Price, became the first pitcher to win 7 games on the season and now has 197 victories in his 30 year career. Okay, maybe it’s the other Kenny Rogers that has been around that long. Obviously, Todd Jones had to make the game interesting in the ninth getting his 12th save.Polanco started things quickly in the first hitting his first home run of the season down the left field line for his 12th RBI. Placido finished the game with a three hit effort raising his average to .291. In addition to Polanco, Granderson and Guillen also contributed three hits to the Tigers cause. Detroit added another run in the first with two outs as Guillen double home Maggs who singled. The Twin cut the lead in half with a run in the top of the second. The Tigers powered in another two runs on a two run homer off the bat of Brandon Inge. He now has 9 HRs and 23 RBI on the year. Great production out of the nine hole. Detroit added a fifth run in the fifth following an error by the first baseman Morneau allowed Ordonez to score. The Twins played sloppy defense committing three errors and Detroit capitalized on Minnesota’s mistakes. Detroit returned the favor with poor base running as they had three runners thrown out including two on one play.
Detroit’s defense played sloppy in their own right committing two errors. Rogers made a poor pick-off throw to first that put a runner on third base. Cuddyer came around to score on a sac fly by Rondell White. Carlos Guillen made his 10th error on the year leading to the second Twins run. Both runs given up by Kenny Rogers were unearned. Jason Grilli came on and did a nice job of holding down the Twins. He walked the first batter he faced, which was the second unearned run charge to Rogers before getting the final out of the sixth. Grilli also worked the seventh allowing one hit and striking out one for his fourth hold. Rodney worked his traditional eighth inning role striking out two in the process. The Rollercoaster started the ninth with a 5-2 lead and quickly retired the first two batters. He got two strikes on Lew Ford before he doubled to extend the game. From there things became interesting. The next two batters singled cutting the lead to 5-3 and brining the winning run to the plate in the person of Torri Hunter. He drove a shot to deep right-center field that Granderson was able to track down on the warning track. The blood pressure raising save helped Jones move into a tie with Mike Henneman for the Tiger career lead in saves.
With the Devil Rays victory over the White Sox the Tigers took over sole possession of first place in the AL Central. Detroit now has the best record in all of baseball at 27-13. The Tigers have now won at least 27 out of their first forty games for only the fifth time in their 105 year history in the American League. Their winning streak now stands at 7 games which is the longest such streak since 1993. Bonderman will take the hit looking to extend the streak to eight and get his fifth victory of the season.
*** OEs 3 Stars of the Game ***
#3 Brandon Inge – 1-3 with a run scored, 1 BB, a HR and 2 RBI (23)
#2 Kenny Rogers – Win (7), 5.2 IP, 5 Hs, 2 Rs, 0 ER, 2 BBs, 4 Ks, 2.91 ERA
#1 Placido Polanco – 3-5 with a run scored, a HR and 1 RBI (12)
On Tap – Game 41 (27-13) v. Cincinnati Reds (24-17) May 19th, 7:05 ET
Jeremy Bonderman (4-2, 3.74) v. Brandon Claussen (2-4, 4.96)
