Besides the recent posts by Billfer and Lee regarding Jeremy Bonderman's struggles, my arch-enemy Samara expressed major concern over Bondo's apparent attempt to grow a mustache.  I missed Saturday's game, so didn't see the growth above Bondo's upper lip.  But I can see why some might believe it had an adverse affect on his performance that day.

I have a bit of a different take on the subject, however.  If Bondo is really going to grow a mustache (which is presuming that he's indeed capable of sprouting a representative strip of hair on his face), then he should really follow through on the effort and try to own it.  Baseball is full of great mustaches.  Goose Gossage, Rollie Fingers, Al Hrabosky are but a few of them.  Bondo needs look no further than to his left in the Tigers clubhouse, where Todd Jones sports a 'stache that leaves opposing lineups shivering.  (That is, until those hitters realize that Jonesy can't strike them out and begin to tee off.)

  The vultures seem to be circling around the next scapegoat for the Tigers' troubles.  Kind of like a boxer dancing and shuffling around the ring, sizing up his opponent before cocking his arm and letting a punch fly.  Pitching coach Chuck Hernandez appears to be the next target of booing and disdain from Tiger Town, and Kurt looks at whether or not that's warranted over at Mack Avenue Tigers.

  If you're like Mike McClary and currently grappling with buyer's remorse over the Miguel Cabrera deal, you might not want to read this Toledo Blade profile of Burke Badenhop, one of the pitchers the Tigers traded to Florida in return. 

  Dan Berlin of sportsnet.ca thinks Justin Verlander should consider talking to Roy Halladay about struggling in the third year of a major league pitching career.  Halladay was throwing so badly (4-7, 10.64 the previous season) that the Blue Jays sent him down to Single-A to pull himself together.  One interesting difference between the two is that Halladay fixed himself by lowering his arm angle, while Verlander seems to have improved after raising his.

  If you haven't already read this NY Times article on Tiger Stadium's demolition battle, there's a quote from the New York Mets' chief operating officer, Jeff Wilpon, who so loved the old right field overhang that he insisted it be part of the Mets' new ballpark.  I've written about this before , but it drives me crazy that people in other cities valued the quirks of Tiger Stadium more than the Tigers themselves did when John McHale, Jr. and company designed Comerica Park.

  Remember when Michael Young's five-year, $80 million contract with the Texas Rangers suddenly set the market for shortstops, including Carlos Guillen?  Isn't it interesting that by next year, neither of those two guys could be playing shortstop?

  Where do you lean on the resentment scale when you see how well Troy Percival is pitching these days?  He has nine saves, a 1.93 ERA, and 13 strikeouts in 14 innings for those pesky Tampa Bay Rays.  Or maybe you're bigger than that, and don't begrudge Percival for collecting $12 million for 25 innings of work from 2005-2006.  Injuries happen, after all.  And his Tigers teammates thought enough of him to vote him a AL championship ring and full playoff share in '06.

Ask and ye shall receive!  Eric Seidman was able to hook us up with a clip of Jeremy Bonderman's pitch caroming into the lens of the ESPN camera behind home plate last night.  Just a bizarre play, and I love Pudge Rodriguez's sheepish, "uh-oh" walk toward the camera, as if he was going to be the one who had to apologize to old Mrs. Graham for smashing her patio window.  (I just, um, pulled that name out of thin air.)

And it didn't even look like the ball hit the lens that hard.  At first, I thought it was some goofy screen effect by ESPN.  Oops!  Ha ha!  You break it, you buy it, Bondo!  Hey Orel, do a report on that!

Then they show the actual lens, and it's one big spider web - smashed into pieces.  It was as if Bondo threw the ball right into the camera to announce his presence with authority.  Like the announcing crew, I wonder how much one of those lenses goes for?  Good thing Bondo got that new contract...

All of the pre-game hullabaloo swirled around the new lineup that Jim Leyland would pencil in tonight.  Maybe it was expecting too much for the re-shuffled batting order to put a bunch of runs on the scoreboard its first time out, and perhaps we'll see different results after certain hitters get accustomed to their new roles.  In its debut, however, the new lineup posted a frustratingly similar result:  11 runners left on base, only three runs scored, and a 6-3 loss to a pitcher that really should've been beaten.

The Tigers let Daisuke Matsuzaka off the hook tonight.  Pitchers who walk eight batters in five innings don't usually end the evening with a win.  But as we've seen too many times already this season, Detroit just couldn't follow up with a big hit and punish Dice-K for his mistakes.  And maybe I'm not giving Matsuzaka enough credit for getting out of the jams he created.  He only allowed two hits, consistently inducing a pop-up when he needed it. 

However, Leyland's message of grinding out at-bats just may have gotten through to his hitters.  Matsuzaka threw 109 pitches, so the Tigers made him work (though he put much of that burden on himself).  They didn't get the key hit against Dice-K when it was needed, but they didn't just flail away at pitches out of the strike zone, either.  He only posted one strikeout tonight, his lowest total this season.  When Tigers batters weren't getting anything to hit, they took the walk, and that's an approach we hadn't seen much of in Detroit's first 32 games.

Now they have to start driving those runners in.  Jeremy Bonderman was hardly great tonight, and it's aggravating to see the Tigers always having to claw back into the game when Bondo gives up 3-4 runs early.  But who knows how his six innings might have developed had he received some run support?  (Gary Sheffield certainly found his legs in left field having to run to the fence, trying to make a play on those balls Mike Lowell and Kevin Youkilis put over it.)

So I suppose how you feel about this one depends on your outlook.  Was it yet another troubling loss in which the Tigers didn't follow through on their talent and the opportunities presented to them?  Or is there something to build on from here?

Roll Call

We're going to try a new feature in these recaps, thanks to a applet/software thingie that was passed along by Jim McLennan, SB Nation's Arizona Diamondbacks blogger.  It's just a way of thanking those who commented in the GameThread, and welcoming anyone who may have stopped by for the first time. 

Thanks to Zappatista, pfuhrmeister, BobbyHigginson, bradm, Matt in Toledo, Fats Fothergill, rock n rye, ThaWalrus9, BigAl, and MackAveKurt for participating in tonight's commentary and discussion.

I feel like tonight's recap could almost be a recap of last night's.  Two previously injured and slumping batters continued their resurgence.  And a struggling starting pitcher threw the sort of game that should hush any questions and doubts.

Not that this game played out in exactly the same way.  For one thing, Jeremy Bonderman pitched deeper into the game than Kenny Rogers did last night, giving the bullpen a break on a night when they were one reliever short (thanks to the Jason Grilli trade).  And he did it throwing 10 fewer pitches than he did in 4 2/3 innings last week. 

But ¿quien es mas macho?  Bondo or Placido Polanco?  Could the Tigers really lose a game in which a guy not known for his power hit two home runs?  And in a ballpark whose dimensions make it tougher for right-handed hitters to reach the seats?  Had I not watched the game, I'm not sure I would've believed the box score.  Along came Polly, jacking two pitches over the left field fence.  Do we think this guy's slump is over?  Polanco's hit 6-for-10 against Yankees pitching the last two nights.

Others Who Get to Roar:

• Is Clay Rapada the team's new designated left-handed reliever?  Taking over for Bonderman at the end of the eighth inning, Rapada retired all four hitters he faced, all of them batting lefty.  And he even ended the game with authority, striking out Melky Cabrera.
• Marcus Thames just hasn't played this much this season, totaling 33 at-bats coming into tonight's game.  But he tends to make it count when he's in the lineup, and his two-run homer in the fifth gave the Tigers a lead they kept the rest of the night.  Thames' two home runs this season have been hit in Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium, respectively.
• There's been a lot of talk about how comfortable Miguel Cabrera looks at first base, and he made three nice picks in the dirt tonight, saving throws by Rapada and Carlos Guillen to get outs.
• That Curtis Granderson (one walk, one double) sure is good, ain't he?

What better way to spend an off-night than to talk Detroit Tigers with a buddy?  Mike McClary invited me to sit in on the latest episode of The Detroit Tigers Podcast.  We scratch our heads over Gary Sheffield and Jeremy Bonderman, ponder the future of Armando Galarraga, and wonder whether Brandon Inge should just get used to being a Tiger this season.

You can download Episode #45 directly from this link or head on over to the DTP's home page and/or The Daily Fungo for more.  

If you get a chance, please let Mike know what you think.  You can offer feedback by posting a comment (here or there) or calling in to his listener line (602-903-5174). 

Appreciation in advance for downloading and listening.  And once again, thanks to Mike for helping out with game recaps while I was traveling down south.

How long had it been since we watched the Detroit Tigers really flex their muscles and score some runs?  How long had it been since falling behind didn't automatically mean the Tigers would lose the game?  Where was the aggression?  Where was the passion?  Where was the desire to win?

For one night (and hopefully many more to come), it all came back.  And so did the Tigers in this game.  Twice, actually.  Oh, baby - how good did that feel? 

Are you familiar with the Marvel Comics version of The Mighty Thor?  (And yes, I'm quite aware of how geeky this blog has been today, using two images of Marvel superheroes.)  To teach him humility, the Thunder God's father banished him to Earth, giving him the body of not just a mortal man, but a disabled one who required a cane to walk.  That has been the Tigers' offense this season, most especially over the past two games. 

Humbled by his condition, everything changes when the mortal man is confronted by an adverse situation in which he truly needs his power.  At that point, Dr. Donald Blake strikes his cane against a surface.  The cane becomes the hammer Mjolnir (which I still can't pronounce, some 25 years after reading those comic books), and the crippled man becomes The Mighty Thor, God of Thunder.

The Tigers underwent a similar transformation tonight against the Minnesota Twins.  But you're excused if you missed it.  Most of this game looked like another exercise in total frustration.  Detroit errors led to Minnesota runs.  And once again, the Tigers' lineup wasn't scoring any of their own.  But with the score 5-0, something happened.  Batters started to string together consecutive hits, moving runners around the bases.  And then finally, the 24-inning run drought was over.  The Tigers scored a run!  Then they scored two more!  And another (though Carlos Guillen's limp around third base almost didn't let it happen).

After giving their fans hope with the comeback, however, the Tigers had the kind of inning that could make you want to kick a small animal.  Jeremy Bonderman gave up two hits and was taken out of the game.  Then Bobby Seay - who had been Detroit's best reliever to this point - came in and had the sort of meltdown we've become painfully familiar with.  After walking his first batter, Seay gave up three straight hits which brought in four more Minnesota runs.  Once again, Leyland left another reliever out there to hang.  The score was 9-4, and you were more than justified in disgustedly turning your TV off or switching over to the Red Wings game.

If you did, however, you missed something good.  You missed a Pudge line drive bounce off Denard Span's glove for a home run.  And an inning later, you missed the Tigers' lineup become a buzzsaw again, slamming a barrage of extra base hits all over the field.  Doubles and triples, oh my!  Rockets to right and center field.  Aggressive baserunning!  Huzzah!  Almost every starter got a hit tonight, and the one that didn't - Jacque Jones - was robbed on a great running catch by Delmon Young. 

Perhaps most impressive was that the chalk outline left on the pitching mound after the explosion was that of Pat Neshek, who had a 2.35 ERA against Detroit (with 20 strikeouts in 15 1/3 innings).  Once the damage was done, the Tigers actually had a lead to give to their closer.  Todd Jones kept it typically interesting by putting two runners on base, but ultimately got that third out.

What a double-fisted comeback.  Is this the sort of rally that can turn a struggling team around?  A lot of us will say so and hope so.  The Tigers still committed many of the same blunders that have left them with the worst record in baseball.  But for one night, at least, their offense overcame all of it.  And that's what we've been waiting go see.