Well, there you have it faithful Tigers fans, your first winning streak of the season. Some say that a true streak only begins at a total of three games, but we’ve been desperate for anything positive so this will have to suffice.
Needless to say, neither of their wins were what critics would consider “pretty“, but definitely steps if not leaps in the right direction. Murmers of Monday’s big come from behind win being the potential start of their expected turnaround, were followed up with Tuesday’s surge of power that displayed the potential that this team has for putting up quick runs. This mini-series sweep of the Twins can be viewed as nothing other than a great success.
The “D” is slowly finding it’s way back to Detroit, as the progress made in the last two days is an indication that at least the players have some pride and that maybe that will drive them back to respectability.
On Monday night, the Tigers were twice back five runs of the Twins and battled their way back, almost solely on the back of their leader, Ivan Rodriguez. Making up for a rare miscue earlier in the game when he booted a foul pop-up for his first error of the year, “Pudge” fully redeemed himself with a solo homer (with a little help from rookie right fielder Denard Span…ooops!) in the 7th, and then a bases clearing triple in the 8th to tie it, before scoring the winning run on a line shot sac-fly by Jacque Jones. Pudge was pumped up and let his emotions show on what has probably been a tougher start than the expected sputter out the gates in his first season in Motown.
Pudge hasn’t looked that jacked since winning the World Series!
Detroits’ sputtering found a way to score runs in bunches twice, enabling them to an 11-9 win. Todd Jones decided to make the game interesting before closing the door, but one way or the other, he didn’t allow a run to cross the plate and ultimately that’s what matters.
Whew! Yet ANOTHER close one (The Todd Jones Saga Continues…)
Fast forward to Tuesday, and the Tigers are trailing early again with the score 4-1 heading into the bottom of the 6th. Maggs hits a solo homer, 4-2. Bottom of the 7th, Guillen hits a solo jack, 4-3. Bottom of the 8th, Polanco singles, Ordonez proves clutch again and doubles to knot it up at 4, which leads to Miguel Cabrera clubbing a 2-run jack to take the lead for good. Cue the broken record, as Todd Jones comes into the game in the 9th for his first opportunity at back-to-back saves this season and of course makes it interesting by giving up a triple and an RBI single to former Tiger Craig Monroe to make it interesting enough for the white-knuckled faithful, Tigers win 6-5 and have their first multi-win streak of the year. 4-10. Not great, but better than what it could be considering how not much has gone right to this point.
One thing is for certain, the Tigers will obviously go as far as their bats will take them and judging on the start of week three, the sky is the limit. On to Cleveland for another mini-set, and then to Toronto for a tough four game battle. Let’s just hope that the Tigers bats have woken up and only have to deal with one or two of their big bats slumping at a time, instead of the six or seven that started the year colder than a swimming pool in North Bay in January. And for those of you not familiar with North Bay, or even winters in Northern Ontario for that matter, all you have to do is look at the Tigers stats through the start of the season to understand the potential for shrinkage coming out of that said pool.
