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Blame the offense? Sure. It scored four. Blame the starting pitcher? You bet. Doug Fister gave up six runs. Blame the defense? You have to. It was at least partially to blame for the Twins' crooked number in the fourth inning.
Maybe that should be the poll.
You're on the Internet. You probably know about those meme things where everyone writes some pithy statementwith the same photo. Well, copyright issues and all, I can't really create one of my own. But if I did, I'm certain tonight mine would say
Take 3 of 4 from the Rays on the road
Lose to the Twins at home
Yet again I'd like to take this moment to remind you I'm not very funny. You probably figured that part out, huh?
Anyway, I'd be failing in my Tigers recapper duties if I didn't mention two of the key plots of the night.
1) The fourth inning melt down. I don't know if you can really say Fister melted down. He got ahead of batters. He didn't put them away. He got batters to hit into a couple of plays that could have been turned into outs, but his defense didn't turn them into outs, so the Twins recorded four runs on six hits.
Those fit to bouts of exaggeration (you know who you are) might want to say all the hits could have been fielded. After going back and watching the replays on all of them a few times, I disagree. However, I do believe Prince Fielder should have turned an out on a grounder hit to him. Jhonny Peralta was not in a good position to turn an inning-ending double play on an earlier play, from what I can tell. Some, but not all, shortstops do manage to get at least one and possibly two outs on the play. Otherwise, the hits off Fister weren't hard, but they were hard enough to find a safe place on the field.
2) Brennan Boesch. Tigers manager Jim Leyland used Boesch to pinch hit for Ryan Raburn in the seventh inning. It seemed like a good bad idea at the time. Boesch struck out on three pitches to end the two-on, two-out threat. He came up with an identical opportunity in the ninth inning. Two on (again Miguel Cabrera and Delmon Young), two out. Another strikeout. At least he fouled off a few first.
After the game, we learned the Tigers are shuffling players around due to Max Scherzer having a sore hamstring. Full details will be in the next post. (EDIT: Read it here)
3 ROARS
N/A
3 HISSES
Lineup
Pitching
Fielding
GAME 79 POG
Drew Smyly edged out Brayan Villarreal