A picture of someone vomiting might have been more appropriate for tonight's recap.  Although the act of vomiting is rather violent.  And though some Tigers fans might feel that way right now (Watch out, small animals!), this game seemed to inspire more of an arms-folded disgust.

Was it entirely predictable that the Tigers would follow up a game in which they scored 10 runs and knocked 18 hits with a flaccid one-run, six-hit performance?  I'm not saying that this lineup should've done more against Josh Beckett, because he was quite good tonight, striking out eight batters.  What I am saying is that more - much more - is expected.

Justin Verlander didn't throw a very good game.  You're just not going to beat many teams giving up five runs and nine hits.  But how about scoring some runs for the guy?  Verlander deserves to be under .500 with the way he's pitched this season.  But if he gets any kind of run support, he's not dragging around a 1-6 record.  Maybe that's irrelevant tonight, but don't you wonder if the tiny margin of error his team provides is getting to him?  I imagine Verlander sometimes feels as if he has to throw the ball through a toilet paper tube.

By the way, has Kevin Youkilis officially been fitted for his Tigers Killer jacket?  Because he's definitely in the club now, after hitting yet another home run against Detroit.

Curtis Granderson is 0-for-10 over the last two games, with seven strikeouts.  He batted 2-for-18 in this series, striking out in eight of those at-bats.  Miguel Cabrera batted 2-for-14.  (And we'll have more on him tomorrow, though The Daily Fungo has a head start on us.)  Magglio Ordonez hit 4-for-16 with one RBI.

While enduring his weekly conversation with Rob Parker, the Detroit News' Tom Gage brought up Sparky Anderson's old adage that you couldn't judge a team until it's played 40 games.  Well, the Tigers have played 36 of them and are five games under .500.  Bear with me because I was an English major, but even if the Tigers win their next four (and how confident do you feel about that?), they'll be one game under .500 at the 40-game mark.

Maybe we should save ourselves the trouble and pass judgment now.

Roll Call

The Tigers didn't make it worthwhile to see this game through, but here are those who chimed in before it just became a slog.

Thanks to BigAl, pfuhrmeister, ThaWalrus9, miggy4mvp, rock n rye, LosTigres, tbliggins, Tigsfan, dettigionswings'stons, Matt in Toledo, and Tony K for being willing to have their hopes crushed.

I know that I have to press the "shift" key to type out a tilde (~), but I didn't realize opposing defenses were employing a shift to get The Big Tilde out.  I haven't been able to watch our Detroit Tigers on television for the past six days, so if this is something that's been mentioned or pointed out regularly by the home crew, I plead ignorance.  But Baseball Musings made a note of it, based on what was heard on today's Tigers-Jays broadcast:

The Tigers broadcast pointed out something about the defensive alignment against Magglio Ordonez.  The first baseman is playing way off the line, in what would usually be the hole between second and first.

Is that a big factor in Ordonez's current .271/.354/.429 average?  One of my initial thoughts was "So that shift's affecting his power?" but Maggs has the same number of home runs (two) at this point of the season as he did last year.  His RBIs are down a bit (seven, compared to 11), but how much has that been influenced by the Tigers' overall hitting struggles? 

Actually, despite whatever shifts defenses might be employing, Ordonez is actually hitting better as of April 21, 2008 than he was at the same time in 2007.  Back then, his average was .258/.338/.468.  However, Maggs really picked it up for the last eight games of the month, eventually raising his average to .344/.434/.622.  Five multi-hit games seriously boosted those numbers.  Can he repeat that same performance over the last eight games of April 2008?  We shall see.

No need for a long recap tonight, is there?  This one was all about the long ball.  The Tigers' bats finally look like they're shaking off that early spring chill.  Initially, the only problem was that the home runs came with no one on base.  Gary Sheffield, Magglio Ordonez, and Carlos Guillen each hit solo shots to put Detroit on the scoreboard.  But Justin Morneau struck a big blow in the sixth with a two-run blast off Nate Robertson.  That seemed like it might be the decisive moment of the game, until the fans at Comerica Park finally got an idea of why Miguel Cabrera is expected to be Detroit's Next Top Baseball Superstar.

As you probably know (unless you tried to shield yourself from the ugly truth), Cabrera came into the game batting .205/.300/.318 with one home run and three RBIs.  But with three hits in his previous two games, maybe it was finally starting to heat up.  Tonight, it all came together when both Cabrera and his team probably needed it most.  With Ordonez on second base, Cabrera sent a 1-2 pitch from Jesse Crain into the Tigers bullpen.  And for the second straight night, Detroit called it a comeback. 

If there's a pun, I suppose it's intended, but isn't it a relief to see the other team's bullpen cough up two games in a row?  (Let's not talk about Todd Jones giving up that deep fly to Delmon Young which Ryan Raburn kept in the park, but couldn't quite keep in his glove...)

Two-game series or not, a sweep is a sweep.  And winning their first series of the season comes at a great time, with the Tigers heading to Cleveland for the next two games.  How might that AL Central race look by Friday?

As exciting as it was to see the Tigers' offense come alive in their first win of the season Wednesday night, it was good pitching from Jeremy Bonderman and the bullpen that finally broke their losing streak.  If you needed a reminder of that, the pitching staff provided a sobering one last night, while also making it pretty clear that this team's long-term problems weren't solved with one win.

Accentuate the Positive?

In writers' workshops, we always tried to start out with a positive criticism before tearing a classmate to shreds.  So let's begin on a good note: Both Magglio Ordonez and Placido Polanco appear to be out of their respective slumps.  Maggs hit his first home run of the season (giving him his first RBI, as well), showing off that familiar whip-like swing that usually means a ball is landing in the seats.  And Polanco went 2-for-4 with two RBIs.  If both batters are heating up, that could go a long way toward solving what's plagued this team.  Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how many runs are scored, if the bullpen insists on giving up huge amounts of runs.

Eliminate the Negative

A slightly nagging question on my mind after Wednesday's game was why Zach Miner hadn't been used when the bullpen had to hold down a lead.  Was there anything to read into with that?  In Spring Training, Miner was being touted as an important part of the bullpen, someone who would be pitching important set-up innings.  One theory could be that Jim Leyland was nervous enough about his infield defense that he didn't want to put a sinkerball pitcher on the mound.  But maybe we got a more illuminating answer last night. 

Nate Robertson had already given up the lead when he left in the sixth inning.  But at 4-3, the Tigers were still in the ballgame.  That is, until Miner got generous with the walks.  He managed to get out of the sixth without a walk to Coco Crisp coming back to bite him.  But in the seventh, consecutive walks to Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz (who had to be happy Robertson was no longer in the game) gave Manny Ramirez an opportunity to build a more imposing lead.  And he obliged by driving both runners in.

But I don't mean to single out Miner because he wasn't the only reliever that hemorrhaged runs in this game.  Francis Beltran also walked two batters (one intentionally), though those runners didn't come around to score.  Yorman Bazardo, however, might have cost himself a major league job with his performance after taking over for Beltran.  Any chance the Tigers had at a comeback - and they did cut the margin to two runs - were destroyed with Bazardo's eighth inning.  Two walks, three hits, and four runs later, Detroit was flattened.  Even Jason Grilli was probably thinking, "Hoo!  That stunk!" 

Both Tom Gage and Danny Knobler write this morning that changes are likely to be made, possibly as soon as this afternoon.  Something has to be done, because this bullpen really has been as bad as people feared coming into the season.  (Detroit Tigers Thoughts has ideas on how the bullpen should be shuffled.)  Two guys will probably get the boot, as Leyland wants to go back to a 12-man bullpen and he'd prefer another left-hander among the relief corps.

Clerical Issues

Apologies for not sticking around in the Game Thread discussion last night.  Besides wireless connectivity issues here at Fort Casselberry, a long couple of days apparently caught up with me around the fourth inning and I crashed.  Not that it matters.  But if you were hanging out, looking for someone to chat with, I apologize for leaving you to listen to crickets chirp.  Or maybe very few wanted to endure that bullpen meltdown and changed the channel.  Anyway, we're back at it again tonight.