What an absolute stinker!!! The Tigers must not have got the memo. This was the first game I was able to attend this season and on my birthday no less. My Tigers did not come through for me. I had hopes of a victory and a first place tie making a great present. Instead I got a well deserved Jim Leyland tirade following the game. Nate Robertson was horrible to put it bluntly. He easily cruised through the first before giving up an unearned run in the 2nd following a Brandon Inge error. However, he was only able to get one out in the 3rd before getting pulled after allowing 6 more runs. Nate appeared to have lost velocity on his fastball that was consistently in the mid-to-high 80s. He only hit 90 one time that I noticed and was not able to fool the Indians. This was another outing that Robertson got roughed up. He typically throws a mid-90s fastball and he needs that to be effective.
The bullpen came in and continued to give up runs to the Indians. Grilli went four innings and gave up 2 runs and Chris Spurling went the final 2.2 innings surrendering the final run.
The offense was equally as putrid. They only manufactured four hits. The runs came on home runs by Chris Shelton and Carlos Guillen. Shelton hit his ninth of the season to tie the score in the bottom of the second. Guillen went deep in the fourth.
After taking the first game from Cleveland the Tigers only scored 4 runs in the last 3 games of the series. They are fortunate to have won one of those games thanks to Mike Maroth. Detroit followed up a great 5-1 road trip with a sorry 2-5 home stand. Hopefully a trip out west for nine games will get the offense going.
*** OEs 3 Stars of the Game ***
#3 Placido Polanco – 1-4, .304 AVG
#2 Carlos Guillen - 1-2 with a HR, 1 BB, .298 AVG
#1 Chris Shelton – 1-3 with a HR, 1 BB, .471 AVG
