Unlike yesterday’s home opener, there were nothing but sunny skies for the Tigers when they took the field against the Cleveland Indians today. Jeremy Bonderman continued the string of strong starting pitching performances while Magglio Ordonez added onto his monster start with another home run to lead the Tigers to a 4-2 win.
Bonderman opened the eyes of the Tigers faithful early on with a 1-2-3 first inning, making Injuns Asdrubal Cabrera and Scott Sizemore’s brother look silly with a lethal slider-splitter combination. Bondo continued to roll, racking up 5 K’s in 5 innings, not allowing a baserunner until the 4th inning. In the 4th Bonderman ran into some trouble. He walked Shin-Soo Choo, gave up a single to Travis Hafner, and threw a wild pitch by catcher Alex Avila that allowed Choo to score from third. Bondo got out of the inning after giving up another free pass to Jhonny Peralta.
After Bonderman was lifted, lefty Brad Thomas gave up another run on an RBI single by Hafner, but settled down to pitch through the 6th and 7th innings. Fu-Te Ni hit the lesser Sizemore and Choo in between a couple of outs in the 8th. Ryan Perry got the final four outs of the game for his first career save.
Magglio got the Tigers’ offense started early, hitting a 2-run homer into the left field bullpen in the bottom of the 1st. The other two Tigers’ runs came in the 3rd inning on an RBI single from Brandon Inge and a sacrifice fly from Scott Sizemore. The Tags drew 9 walks on the afternoon, including 5 from Injuns starter Max Mitch Talbot, but didn’t have a single hit after the 3rd inning.
PERRY
With half of the bullpen out of commission after a hard day’s work yesterday, the Tigers were pretty much out of pitching options in the 8th inning when Fu-Te Ni started to struggle. Jim Leyland opted to bring Ryan Perry into the game for the four out save and Perry answered the call, needing only 12 pitches to get the last 4 outs.
LOOK AT THE ROOKS
Austin Jackson had a day to forget at the plate, going 0-for-5 with 2 strikeouts. Jackson has 8 K’s in five games, but his 4 extra base hits and 3 RBI have kept Tigers fans quiet so far. Hopefully Ajax doesn’t have too many of these games.
As mentioned above, Scotty Sizemore had his first career RBI in the 3rd inning on a sacrifice fly to CF. Otherwise, Sizemore continued to struggle with an 0-for-3 day, bringing his batting average down to a scary .091 for the season. His .267 on-base percentage is a positive sign though.
AROUND THE CENTRAL
The Twinkies won their fifth straight game with a 2-1 win over the White Sox. They lead the Central by 0.5 games over the Tigers. The Red Sox broke open a close game in the 9th inning, beating the Royals 8-3. The division standings are below. (click for larger image)
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