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Does anything about the above line score make sense? I'm not sure that it does. We had Chicago jumping out to a six run lead. We have a listless Detroit Tigers team putting up a snowman in the sixth inning. (Good thing nobody squared to bunt. My head may have exploded.) Collin Balester's getting a win and Octavio Dotel's getting a save and Detroit had a bunch of hits and runs in a game started by Jake Peavy. Well, that's baseball, I guess.
And then there's my day. You probably didn't come here to read about me. Well, I hope not anyway. Ask anyone who is friends with me on Facebook, I'm pretty boring. Lots of German Shepherds, not much else. But I know there's some interest, so I'll share.
I felt pretty confident in what I wrote about Ryan Raburn for my Detroit News debut. (Go check it out!) I felt pretty sure I'd also get my butt handed to me in the comments (didn't even bother to read them, to be honest). Still, I was a bit nervous about the entire endeavor. When you know you're making a debut by putting your butt on the line taking the side of a guy hitting .135, you can't help but feel a bit something about it.
Raburn started off the game 0-for-2. He had everything laid out for him in the sixth inning. His team was rallying. Sox starter Jake Peavy was slowing. Raburn hits well in Chicago. He absolutely had to do something to help the team. All he does is hit a deep fly ball to left-center to clear the bases. Small sample size, coincidence, whatever. I didn't care at that point. Raburn homered. Relief -- and, of course, a bunch of tweets and messages and everything else.
Meanwhile the Tigers rally from a big deficit and finish a brutal nine-game road trip at 4-5. You always hope to go .500 on the road. Detroit nearly did so.
So it was a real whirlwind day. And for my next trick, I will ... figure that out this weekend.
Make sense of it? I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to try to enjoy the events of the day.
3 ROARS
Ryan Raburn - HR, 2 hits, 4 RBI, one relieved writer
Austin Jackson - Great HR shot to give Detroit the lead. He's found an incredible power stroke
Miguel Cabrera - 2 run HR, including the Tigers' first runs
3 HISSES
Max Scherzer - had a bad first inning and only made it through four
Jose Valverde - left with lower back tightness and several ducks on the pond
Octavio Dotel - Kinda feel bad for this, as he was called into immediate duty. but he nearly blew the save
GAME 35 TIGERS PLAYER OF THE GAME
Prince Fielder edged out his competition