Tigers split the weekend, but a few things of importance happened beyond the Cleveland Indians clinching the A.L. Central.

For one, with only a handful of games left, Magglio Ordonez is batting .358. It’s not like there’s a magic number for winning the mythical batting title, but he leads Ichiro by .007, so that’s pretty cool. Saturday, he hit his 50th double. Unfortunately, the Tigers lost.

Sunday, Detroit bounced back for its 85th win of the year. There’s a chance the Tigers can win 90. Not that it matters much, but hey, wins are good. But more importantly, Verlander won his 18th game of the season.

He has 35 wins in his first two full seasons, the most for a Tigers pitcher since Frank Lary also had 35 from 1955-56. (AP article)

Marcus Thames homered twice.

Six games remain.

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Detroit 5, KC 4

 The Tigers returned home to a large, loud cheering section, the newspapers report. I caught an inning during a lightning delay of a high school game, and I was quite impressed that you could hear Sean Casey’s home run before Jim or Dan could make the home run call.

Detroit had to rally back from a 4-0 deficit as a team finally figured out Jair Jurrjens. But with Casey’s homer in the fifth and Brandon Inge’s two-out single in the sixth, the Tigers came up with the victory. That allowd Todd Jones to earn his 38th save of the season.

Milestone game — sorta. I never know if it’s the “tie” or the “pass” that’s really the milestone –  as Pudge Rodriguez caught his 2,056th game, tying Gary Carter for third on the all-time list. Pudge is on track to pass Carlton Fisk in 2009. Oh, and Pudge doubled.

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Detroit 6, Royals 1

Jeremy Bonderman survived the first inning. I was around for that part. At that point, I decided the Tigers won. Of course, there was a lot to be played, oh, eight more innings or so I guess. But with Bonderman, you just have to figure if he makes it through inning 1, he’ll make it through innings 2 through 7 as well. And that’s just what he did.

Having gone winless since mid-July, Bondo struck out three and pitched to six batters (27) more than the minimum 21 possible for seven innings of work. He walked none. Bonderman credits his wife for noticing he was nibbling at the strike zone and said he attacked it better. 63 strikes in 87 pitches. That sounds like a pretty accurate explanation, as far as the box score is concerned.

Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya teamed up for 1-2-3 eighth and ninth innings, respectively.

Curtis Granderson is one step closer to his quadruple-20 season, as he hit home run No. 18. So he needs 2 homers and three steals in the final month. I think he’ll get it. I hope Leyland gives him the chance to steal more. He’s been caught just once. A lot of that is smart planning on when to send him. But there’s a lot of hit and runs, too, so it’s possible he could have had more steals.  With such a rare milestone nearing, Leyland has to give him a shot to get it and frankly, the sooner he gets it out of the way, the better. So, Jim, let him steal in Oakland!! I don’t think it would hurt the team to let him run a bit more. And while the home runs aren’t guaranteed, I’m pretty certain he can get two of them.

Magglio Ordonez also had three hits to help maintian his batting average lead. Oh, and he homered.

So, while this season’s final month isn’t all peaches and cream to think about, those two players are chasing marks that make every game worth watching.

Cleveland beat Seattle. Tigers remain 4.5 behind the AL entral leaders, but are 3 games behind the Yankees in the wild card and two behind Seattle.

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Royals 5, Tigers 0

What, exactly, do you expect me to tell you? This is why I can’t take the Tigers playoff chances seriously. This and yesterday.

Star of the game: Timo Perez. Uhm… yeah.

Goat: Andrew Miller gave up 5 runs. Then  got his first out of the day. I knew his coming back from Toledo was a bad idea.  A rush job by an organization flailing for an answer to the pitching injuries and woes. Miller should not start again this season. I’m not sure if he should even relieve. I think he’s still hurt or just tired and needs to be rested.

And that’s about it. This game was disgusting.

I got nothin.

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Royals 6, Tigers 3

I already discussed a key disagreement with Jim Leyland’s management here.

So here’s what happened. The Tigers had 16 hits. Four were doubles. Rather than translating into the winning six runs, that translated into the losing three. Let’s look further.

The 9-1-2-4 batters had a combined 12 hits. You’d think that would HAVE TO translate into more than three runs. But Timo Perez left on five runners from the No. 3 spot. Carlos Guillen, Pudge and Sean Casey all abandoned four runners from the 5-7 spots. No timely hitting. No runs. No win.

Nate Robertson gave up six runs. Three of those came on a two-out double with the base loaded. That basically spelled the beginning of the end. He gave up a home run the following inning and that was that.

The Indians won. The Mariners lost, at least. This is most certainly a frustrating start to the easy portion of the schedule.

If you’re looking for a bright spots on a day the Tigers fell 3-1/2 games out of first place, Placido Polanco had a three-hit day, as did Ramon Santiago. And Magglio Ordonez had a four-hit day, helping him keep the lead in batting average. And Jason Grilli did a nice job in the bullpen, going nearly four scoreless innings in relief of Robertson.

Bunt Singles:

• Curtis Granderson is featured in USA Today …er… today. Besides touching on the baseball aspect of Grandy’s career, the article also touches on a lot of the points that I think make him so popular among Tigers (and other baseball) fans.

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Royals 5, Tigers 2

These Royals are definitely improved. And, by the way, they’re not in last place anymore. They are in a two-way tie for fourth with the White Sox. Early on, it just seemed like Brian Bannister was dealing and runs were going to be at a premium. That was halfway true. It was hard for the Tigers to score. Not so hard for the Royals, who put up five extra-base hits and five runs on Nate Robertson. The Royals finished with 13 hits for the game.

Detroit had just six. One was a double by Magglio Ordonez, at least, signaling hopefully his drought is nearing an end. And Craig Monroe homered.

This series seemed primed for a letdown from the start and that’s exactly what it was. Detroit heads to Chicago for five games in four days.

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Bunt Singles:

Jason Beck reports Virgil Vasquez — who you may remember from the Sunday Night Baseball meltdown earlier this year — skipped his scheduled start. That likely means he’ll get the spot start in the day-night double header Tuesday.

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Tigers 10, Royals 8 (extras)

If Todd Jones had to blow a save — and that’s baseball, so Jones had to blow one sooner or later — at least the best possible result came from it: a win still. Brandon Inge walked off after a two-run homer in the 10th.

The game was ugly throughout. Justin Verlander gave up 5 runs, not even making it out of the sixth inning. He was credited with three wild pitches. Pudge Rodriguez took a passed ball on top of it. The bullpen cycled through a bunch of folks after that, but finally Jones took the mound with an 8-6 lead and promptly gave up three singles in four batters. A double play saved him.

Highlights? Ryan Raburn, his first in his career. He should really play ahead of Timo Perez more often. I don’t get it. Craig Monroe homered. So did Placido Polanco. And Maggs had another double. How about that 11th straight sellout crowd?

Maybe the big highlight: Cleveland lost, so it’s back to a two-game lead in the Central.

Another not-so-pretty game, but a win’s a win.

Even if it stinks.

Box 

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KC 10, Detroit 2

Well, not much I can recap. I didn’t see much of the game at all. Bits and pieces, some radio. Kenny Rogers gave up six runs. Jose Capellan, with help from Jason Grilli, gave up four more. Gary Sheffield had a solo homer. “The starter stank. The bullpen stank. The offense stank. The opponent played well.” That basically summarizes it, I’d say.

Oh well. It happens. Rogers had a second bad start, but I don’t read anything into that, either. I do think maybe Capellan is playing his way to Triple-A lately.

Am I surprised that the Tigers could lose to the Royals? Not at all. They just handled Boston. They’ve been on a roll. They’ve got a good team, too. I recently picked them to finish fourth in the division, not fifth, so that means I do have some faith in them.

Am I surprised the Tigers could lose to the Royals like that? Sure. Why not? It’s baseball. These things happen. They just came off the luck of three one-run victories. Why not a little black raincloud falling upon their head?

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Bunt Singles:

• Who’s your Tiger? It’s not Jason Grilli!
• How would Dontrelle Willis look in a Tigers uniform? Not too shabby, probably. Jayson Stark thinks it’s possible. Or something, anyway. I don’t really know. But I do know from now until the trade deadline passes, Detroit will probably be linked to every big name possibility. I’m sure Dave Dombrowski at last made a courtesy call to check on the price, and so the Tigers are “linked” to everybody.
• Big Al decided to answer Lynn Henning’s burning questions.
• The News (among others) reported Fernando Rodney resumed throwing in the bullpen, graduating from sessions of catch. Rodney needed a good, long rest to make sure he was really healthy before returning to the game. Maybe he can’t be 2006 form, but he needed to make sure not to continue pitching in pain or tired, thus ineffective, like this year. So I hope it’s not too rushed and it’s actually a good sign.

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Tigers 13, Kansas City 4

Sometimes you look at a score that’s close and you say, “but it really wasn’t that close.” Or you look at a lopsided victory and say “but it was a lot closer than that.”  This is a case where the difference was nine runs, but it may as well have been 20. Chad Durbin pitched seven shutout innings and stumbled a bit in the eighth, then Aqualino bailed him out but stubbed his toe in the ninth. Tigers win 13-4, but it may as well have been 20-0.

Detroit went up 6-0 in the second inning alone based on three home runs off KC starter Zach Greinke. Craig Monroe, Curtis Granderson and Gary Sheffield each put up two-run shots. Granderson finished the game a double away from the cycle; Monroe a triple.

We’ll fast forward a bit to the most amazing happening of the day: Neifi Perez hit a 3-run home run. Lemme repeat. Neifi. Perez. Homered. It happened in the seventh inning. It sounds like it was hardly a homer, but it goes in the stats books under the HR column. Good for Neifi. He takes a lot of crap (and he’s in way over his head), but it’s nice for him to have some success. Believe it or not, he actually had nine home runs in 2005.

This gives Detroit a seven-game winning streak heading into an off day before hosting the Mariners.

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Around the Central:

Cleveland 9, Baltimore 6 –  The Indians kept pace with the Tigers — or vice versa — with a victory over the Orioles. Trot Nixon went 5-for-5 with four RBIs for the Indians.

Boston 4, Minnesota 3 –  Twins lost but Torii Hunter extended his hitting streak to 21 games

Chicago vs. Angels – 3-3 tie in the ninth

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Tigers 7, KC 5

(AP Photo/Ed Zurga)

Detroit’s win streak hit six with another come-from-behind victory and another great showing by Magglio Ordonez and Placido Polanco. But the more important news of the day is that Joel Zumaya left the stadium with an unknown injury to his pitching hand. He was warming up in the bullpen and heard a pop.

Jason Beck said the injury was to the top knuckle on the middle finger.

Not sure how severe the injury is, but Leyland expected they’d have to call up another pitcher for Sunday.

Danny Knobler had more info at Mlive

“He looked at me and said, `I think I dislocated my finger,’ ” Jones said. “I’ve never seen that before. I’ve seen just about everything, but I’ve never seen that.”

Knobler added an MRI will be done back in Detroit Sunday, so we may not learn anything until Monday. It sounds bad. Click both links, I didn’t want to repost their entire offering.

UPDATE: Tom Gage reports Zumaya was placed on the DL with a “finger strain’ and Aqualino Lopez was called up to replace him a day after he was sent back to AAA. 

As for the game, the Tigers fell behind 3-0 early. Thus, they had the Royals right where they wanted them, I figured. Marcus Thames and doubled in the sixth, and Magglio homered solo-style, and suddenly it’s 4-4. Maggs struck again in the eighth with a two-run double to give the Tigers the lead. Here’s the part where I point out the obvious: any time Marcus Thames gets to play is a good time for the Tigers. That, and Maggs is awesome. But you knew that.

Pitching side, Maroth gave up a pair of homers. Wil Ledezma walked in a run and got into trouble, which Jose Mesa cleaned up for him. Bobby Seay bounced back and Todd Jones was uneventful.

So it was just another typical Tigers-KC game. Whether the Tigers lead or trail early, they win in the end. In other news, the Tigers are now tied for first place with the Indians.

Around the Central

Baltimore 8, Cleveland 2 – So the team that the Tigers handled bounced back well against the Indians. That’s great to see.

Minnesota 2, Boston 1 – Two early runs were all Johan Santana and four relievers needed to get by the BoSox.

Chicago 6, Angels 3 – Darin Erstad contributed at the plate, and Jon Garland did so on the mound.

DTown Baseball has a Central Division news roundup.

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