26th
June
2008
Game 77: The Sheff is cooking!
posted in 2008 season |Tigers 8
Cardinals 7
Recap:
- The recipe was four hits, a 2 hour, 25 minute rain delay, and a Clete Thomas double
- Mix them together with a poor pitching performance by anyone not named Todd Jones and the result was an exciting ninth-inning walkoff hit by Gary Sheffield for the dessert, er, victory.
- OK, enough of that.
- Those were the facts, however. Sheffield went 4-for-5.
- So did Carlos Guillen, who homered. His was good for three runs.
- The teams more or less played tennis for most of the game, exchanging the lead nearly every inning.
- Armando Galarraga couldn’t escape the rain delay, but allowed five runs in less than five complete innings anyway.
- Joel Zumaya walked in a run in an uninspiring performance.
- Marcus Thames got ejected early for arguing a strike 3 call vehemently.
- But every time the Cardinals took the lead, the Tigers came back to tie it.
- I really hope someone has a photo or video of Todd Jones’ pretending to be Magglio Ordonez during the rain delay, because it was on FSN and hilarious.
- Chicago lost, so the Tigers are back to 5 games out of first.
Analysis:
- For anyone who stayed up, this game was definitely an enjoyable one to watch and worth your while.
- Wow, Sheff was ready to come back to the majors. This is excellent news for the Tigers indeed.
- The strike zone took a lot of guff from the TV and radio announcers. The pitch to Thames that caused him to get mad looked pretty bad on TV, but everything is more clear in instant replay.
Other stuff:
- Brandon Inge went on the DL with his strained oblique bothering him. Catcher Dane Sardinha got the call up. Hopefully Brandon heals quick and gets back to Detroit soon. He gives Leyland a lot of needed flexibility. And Leyland said he’ll play Pudge more frequently in the meantime.
- Denny Bautista was traded to the Pirates for a minor league who isn’t particiularly exciting. I’ll look more into him later.
Hi Kurt; long-time reader, first-time commenter. I don’t get the Bautista-Pearson trade either. Pearson had fair numbers last year in single-A, but he bombed when they tried to bring him up to AA this year. Compare that with Denny, who put up at least mediocre numbers *in the majors.* There’s got to be something else going on.
The Big Tilde had a picture of Jonsey up last night. Pretty funny stuff.
As far as the Bautista trade goes, I think this is more DD giving him (Bautista) a chance to go soemwhere he can play in the majors, which is a pretty stand up move (at least from a player perspective).