KEY STAT
4 RBI: The combined total of Miguel Cabrera and Victor Martinez
KEY PLAY
Trailing 3-2 entering the seventh inning, Detroit managed to tie it up when Andy Dirks drove in Austin Jackson. Then Miguel Cabrera came to the plate with his boomstick. Next thing you know, it's 5-3 after Cabrera's 18th home run of the season.
KEY THOUGHTS
I'm getting sick of writing the phrase "avoided the sweep." Of course it beats "were swept." But Detroit has lost the first two games of five of their last six series. That's not good. Not good at all. They had a good chance to win last night, of course. If Dan Haren wasn't pitching so incredible, anyway. And they seemed to run into a couple of teams who were in the middle of a hot streak. But still. Blech.
But go figure, the Tigers lose games when the 3-4-5 batters struggle, and they win games when the 3-4-5 batters do well. That's baseball, folks.
Brad Penny struggled in the first inning -- four of the first five batters got hits -- but settled in nicely until the seventh inning. He used his breaking ball, mixed his pitches, got some strike outs. We haven't seen Tigers pitchers stop the bleeding too well lately, but Penny did a nice job of doing so.
OK I've got a pod cast to prepare for so this recap is short!