It’s a Walk Off Walk: Tigers 7, Red Sox 6

The Tigers battled back from a 6-1 deficit and walked, literally, away from this one with a 7-6 victory.  Ramon Santiago drew a four-pitch walk with the bases loaded to bring home the winning run in the bottom of the 12th, giving the Tigers, and Jose Valverde, the exciting victory.

LISTEN TO YOUR BUDDY, BILLY ZANE

BEATING BALL ODDS – BRENNAN BOESCH

Brennan Boesch continues to impress despite numbers that do not favor him in the SABR department.  He had four hits tonight, finishing 4-6 with 2 RBIs.  He struck out twice, but he is hitting .388 in his short time in the pros and has 19 RBIs in just 18 games.  He is currently on a six-game hitting streak.  Whammy.

ILL DONTRELLE

Dontrelle Willis, who hasn’t pitched in over 10 days due to missing a start because of the flu, walked seven batters in his 3.1 innings of work. He now has 22 walks in 32.2 innings of work and a 4.68 ERA.  He’s never been one for finding the strikezone, but he needs to start doing that for him to find continued success at this level.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS RAMON SANTIAGO

Ramon Santiago drew the bases loaded walk that won the game for the Tigers, but he needed a little reminder from his friends that he must touch first base before the walk becomes official.  Here’s a screenshot of Magglio, the game winning run, reminding him to touch first for the win to become official (H/T AlliKazoo):

LOOKS AT THE ROOKS

Austin Jackson was 0-5, dropping his average to .331, but he did not strike out.  He walked, as well.

Scott Sizemore was 0-2 with two strikeouts, and we’ll have more on him in a hot minute.  He did walk and score a run.

Brennan Boesch continues to impress, not only with his numbers, but with the number of times he gets his own section in recaps, as opposed to being mentioned with the other rooks.

SIZEMORE AND SCHERZER OPTIONED

Scott Sizemore and robot Max Scherzer were optioned to Triple-A Toledo after the game due to their lackluster performance thus far.  Our friend from BYB, AlliKazoo, has the video of DD reporting the news.  Danny Worth, Santiago, and Guillen (when he returns from the DL) are expected to fill in for Sizemore at 2B until he gets better.  Scherzer will be replaced by Armando Gags-arraga.  Gags will start Sunday’s game.

AROUND THE CENTRAL

Jake Peavy almost pitched a complete game, but Matt Thornton picked up the 2-out save against the Royals in the White Sox 5-4 win.  Bobby Jenks is not happy, I assume.

Cleveland beat the Orioles 8-2 behind Mitch Talbot’s eight strong innings.

Last, and certainly not least, the Twins lost 7-1 to the Yankees behind Andy Pettite’s W.  Jorge Posada was 3-4 with a HR and 2 RBIs in the win.  The Tigers pick up a game, as a result (1.5 GB).  The standings can be found here.