The No. 1 thing of importance to me: The Tigers shut out the Twins and took two of three during the first series between the teams.
Things that may be important to you: Dontrelle Willis had his best start since last May by going six strong innings before Joel Zumaya and Jose Valverde closed the book on the game for him.
Magglio Ordonez connected for the 2000th hit of his career and got a lengthy ovation from the fans. ESPN.com has some video.
The Tigers won. I just wanted to reiterate that because it just doesn't seem to happen often enough against the Twins.
Like most people who work during the day, I didn't see the game so there's not much I can add to the stats. But here's a few:
- Willis has gotten his ERA down to a rotation-leading 3.75. He walked just two and struck out six.
- I will continue being nervous for his every start.
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Austin Jackson saw just seven pitches in four plate appearances. Which seemed to work fine for him, as he had two hits and leads the AL with 31 currently.
- He even stole a base and went to third on the catcher's throwing error before scoring on Johnny Damon's sacrifice. That's a nice way to manufacture a run.
- He's on three consecutive games without a strikeout, too.
- He and Scott Sizemore combined efforts on the Tigers' second run of the game.
- Donnie Kelly hit the third run in.
- The Tigers have now hit 64 doubles in April and have scored 109 runs -- third in the American League as of this writing though their runs per game isn't quite as high.
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Joel Zumaya struck out Joe Mauer on three pitches in the eighth; the bullpen is pretty fun to watch when the Tigers have a lead.
Comment of the Night
Apparently SB Nation was slow today due to outside forces ... this was not lost in the gamethreaders. Playoffbeard had the comment that made me laugh. Turns out he was wrong, though.
You all can just assume I made the comment of the night at some point and it was somehow lost in cyberspace.