A couple of things happened today. First, at 71-70 the Tigers are above .500! Gotta be honest with you: When the Tigers fell beneath .500 in early August I never thought they'd be above it again this year. I mean, I knew their schedule was favorable to make a comeback to end the season. Still, I didn't know if they'd able to. Oh, and you know what else? They have a positive run differential again! (That actually happened last night.)
Second, the White Sox are six games out of first place. They entered the series with Detroit at 3.5 games behind the Twins. So, hey, playing spoiler is pretty fun. (You know what else would be fun? Doing the Sox a favor and beating the Twins too!)
Third, Rick Porcello pitched a fairly nice game. He went eight innings, forced 12 ground ball outs, kept the ball down, allowed just four hits and no walks. Chicago picked up a pair of runs on a homer, and another on a wild pitch. So work to be done, as always. But a nice game.
Fourth, Johnny Damon went 4-for-4! ( What, you thought I'd put that anywhere else?)
Fifth, Austin Jackson went 0-for-4? Ouch. Four strikeouts too.
Well I'll stop with the counting, but Will Rhymes had three hits and Jhonny Peralta drove in runs both times he had runners in scoring position. Ryan Perry earned his second save of the season. Closer Jose Valverde has a sore elbow, according to a tweet from MLB.com's Jason Beck, and will be out a few days.
So, Cram it, Hawk, as they say. Detroit took three of four games and has not lost by more than one run since the Yankees series. The Tigers are playing some pretty good baseball. Enjoy!