The sign of a good team, as we know, is scoring, and then holding that lead in the next half inning. Or rallying after it allows runs in the previous half inning. Most of the season, Detroit does those things. Heck, the Tigers did them today. But Minnesota did them, too, and Minnesota did them last. The Twins bullpen came through after quite a nice starting pitching matchup between Johan Santana and Jeremy Bonderman to win, 4-3.

The Tigers came back from a 1-0 deficit when Brent Clevlen tripled off Santana, then came in on a Placido Polanco single. The next half inning, Minnesota took a 2-1 lead when Carlos Guillen failed to field a ground ball cleanly for what should have been the third out. That was fine. Next half inning, Brandon Inge hit a 2-run homer to give the Tigers a 3-2 lead. And then, a half inning later, now the top of the eighth, the Twins’ Justin Mourneau homered — his 30th, a Minnesota first since 1987 — to give them a 4-3 lead. Juan Rincon and Joe Nathan — baseball’s top closer in my opinion — shut the Tigers down in the eighth and ninth innings to give the Twins a 2-1 series victory.

The interesting thing in that result was that the Twins moved into second place at 8 1-2 games behind the Tigers. Chicago’s loss to New York left the Sox at 9 games behind Detroit. And the Twins now lead the wildcard. Reports of their demise were premature. Althouhg, with Boof Bonser moving into the rotation for any period of time, they have an uphill struggle. Maybe Matt Garza will pick up that slack some. They do seem to be a fundamental enough team that they should still be able to compete.

It was Detroit’s first lost series since going 1-2 in Oakland in early July. So yeah, not a real big concern right now. All three games were played pretty nicely by both teams. And that’s why they’re two of the hottest teams in the American League.

Some days, you lose.

Nate Robertson pitched a pretty good game tonight, but he and the Tigers fell, 4-2. He wasn’t real flashy. Three walks. Two strikeouts. He gave up three runs and three doubles. But neither were really anything you can really point at finger at him for. It was one of those games where all the hits fall in the right place. By the looks of the replays, a pair of RBI hits fell just far enough inside the foul line, one a fly, one a line drive. Basically, the ball was hit perfectly to where there was absolutely no shot at making a play.

On the other side of things, the Tigers’ bats just wouldn’t come through. They can’t every game. But it was the spectacular collapse of loading the bases with no outs in the fourth inning and then scoring no runs that hurts. Credit Minnesota left fielder Jason Tyner. Most guys in the major leagues would have been out the way he threw the ball home to get the double play. That, I would say, was the turning point of the game. When Minnesota scored in the next half inning, that was pretty much it. You can never count the Tigers out in a close game, but it just had the feeling of a game Detroit wasn’t going to pull out. When Fernando Rodney surrendered three straight singles in the ninth inning before giving up a run, well, that was that.

In part because of Liriano’s sore arm, but a big part because the Tigers were able to contain the Twins to take advantage of it, Detroit took an easy 9-3 victory over Minnesota to end the Twins’ 8-game road-winning streak. Liriano gave up 10 hits and four runs in four innings of work. Coupled with a White Sox loss, the Tigers lead the AL Central by 10 games. I never thought that would be possible.

76-36? Wow. It’s hard to believe this is our team it’s happening to.

Detroit scored in all ways possible. Some small ball. A pair of home runs by Marcus Thames and Craig Monroe. Liriano still struck out five. And the Tigers took advantage of the Twins bullpen to score five runs to go with four off the starter. Monroe finished 3-for-4, flush with newfound confidence from getting the thumb’s up from Mike.

I just caught the game on the radio — great way to catch a game, bad way to blog about one — so there’s not too much I can add specifically. But it was great to see Zach Miner pitch another nice game against the Twins. He pitched a bit deeper into the game, and got seven consecutive batters out at one point and had a nice 1-2-3 inning to start the game. He gave up an extra run on a nice homer by Joe Mauer, and then turned things over to Joel Zumaya. Zoomer did his Zoomer thing pretty well.

With the victory, Detroit is 7-0 at home against the Twins and wrapped up a series victory with their 10th win against three losses. That makes the first series victory over Minnesota since 2000. [But I cannot recall where I read/heard that, but I confirmed it wasa 7-6 series that year at Baseball-Reference.]

It was good to get another win against the Twins. I’m not one who subscribes to the series meaning a lot to the Tigers. It’s not a throwaway series, you still want to take two wins. But I think the records that they are, it means more to them than it does to Detroit. The Tigers just have to play decent ball down the stretch and the division is won. The Twins have to do a whole lot more.

A note on Liriano from Tom Gage, and the news doesn’t sound good:

After Monday night’s game, the Twins’ star lefty Francisco Liriano said he was scared about a new problem in his left arm. He said he couldn’t throw any of his pitches the way he wanted from the second inning on, and that his arm bothered him on every pitch. Not good, in other words. Not good at all for a team that depends on two pitchers as much as the Twins depend on Santana and Liriano.

You really don’t want to see any problems for a promising young pitcher like that. One more update, the Star Tribune reports Liriano is now out indefinitely. It’s a frightening reminder how much at risk every young pitcher is.

It’s, oh, 4 or 5 weeks too early to point this out, but the Tigers’ magic number is 42. That’s getting pretty close to the Mets’ domination over the National League.

Our friends from a Twins blog — Stick and Ball Guy — will be looking in on us this series, so welcome to them!

This one was penned in as a pitcher’s duel, and for seven innings it was. And walking to the mound in the eighth inning was Jeremy Bonderman, unsuspecting of what would occur at the Humphrey’s House of Horrordome.

By all accounts Bonderman pitched a phenomenal game. After allowing Minnesota second baseman Luis Castillo on base with a bunt (Brandon Inge and Magglio Ordonez teamed up for a pair of errors to make it a pseudo-triple) to lead off the game, Bonderman sent the next 17 batters back to the dugout. Who broke up the string? No other than Castillo with a walk in the seventh inning, but that was fine too. The pitch count looked good at 86 when Bonderman went back to the mound with a three-run lead just six outs from sweeping the red-hot Twins.

And then it happened. And the Tigers lost, 6-4.

Bad decision. Bad throw. Bad hop. Bad bounce. Bad call. Oh, and balk. And it was 6-3, Minnesota, when Bonderman walked to the dugout 10 batters later and still only two outs to his credit. The defensive fundamentals Detroit had shown for the series went out the window and all sorts of bad things happened, most of them not Bonderman’s fault. Maybe the first inning foreshadowed it, but I didn’t see it coming. Don’t let me make it sound like it was all the Tigers’ doing, the Twins had some nice hitting, some good bounces, and some great decisions. But it all started with an error.

The first writethrough AP gamer shows just how wacky it was:

[Bonderman] retired 17 in a row until the single by Morneau, who took second on a wild throw by shortstop Carlos Guillen and scored when Jason Kubel’s chopper slid through first baseman Shelton’s legs.

Mike Redmond hit another bouncer, this one down the left-field line that barely stayed fair, that went for a double and drove in Kubel.

Tyner followed with a high chop to first that skipped over Shelton’s head for a single. Jason Bartlett hit a grounder to third that Brandon Inge fielded, but missed tagging Redmond as he dove back into third

Aaron Gleeman also has a nice summation of the improbable events.

On the other hand, the Tigers forced Johan Santana to make good pitches, but he didn’t always comply. (And a couple of balls looked like they should have been strikes). His pitch count rose dramatically because of it. From 24 pitches after two innings to 57 after three to 77 after four to 97 after five. He left in the sixth inning having struck out just four, while walking three and allowing three runs. Still, he kept the Tigers from scoring with runners on second and third and no outs. He also sent them back to the dugout runless with bases loaded. So, while it wasn’t a great day by Santana’s standards, it was still pretty decent.

Chris Shelton drove in Magglio Ordonez in the ninth inning to cut it to 6-4, but that was that.

Lost in all of this was Brent Clevlen, starting in his first major league game with Santana on the mound. He made his presence known in the first inning when he threw Castillo out at home on a center field fly ball that, by all accounts, ought to have been enough. In the third inning, Clevlen doubled off Santana and later scored. He scored again after drawing a walk off Santana in the sixth. And in the eighth, he broke up a double play with a hard slide into Castillo. In all, it was a pretty nice major league debut, I’d have to say.

But all for naught. It’s a tough way to lose a game. Ought to make for an interesting Fangraph. I’m sure Jim Leyland uses it to teach his guys when not to attempt a web gem, but the team otherwise lets it roll off their shoulders. Detroit took 2-of-3 from Minnesota and nearly pulled off a sweep. It’s the 13th series they’ve won out of 14, including every one since the All-Star Break.

The road trip continues Monday in Tampa. Eventually Todd Jones is going to have to change his underwear.

Oh, and the White Sox lost, so no ground was given in the Central this series.

I could probably add “surprise Tigers fans by taking series” to the headline, given what I and others said coming into the series at the HHHorrorDome.

The Tigers led, 6-0, in the fourth inning but Minnesota would not go away before the Tigers felled them, 8-6.

Todd Jones allowed one run but had a three-run cushion. After all his 1-2-3 innings lately, it’s allowable. Nate Robertson pitched for a quality start, but got hit hard in the seventh. And Curtis Granderson and Dmitri Young each homered. Granderson had three RBIs and is quite the big-game player. Oh, and Brandon Inge is still hitting, going 3-for-4.

The Tigers jumped on the Twins by getting the first six baserunners aboard and scoring two first-inning runs. They loaded the bases before Minnesota starter Brad Radke managed to get an out. It probably could have been a bigger inning than it was, but it certainly could have been a smaller inning than it was, too, if the Twins had turned either double play attempt successfully. Instead, it was two runs scored on fielder’s choice. Some big ball with the home runs, some small ball with the sacs, and the deep and varied Tigers offense got hits and runs from all over the lineup during a third straight game without Pudge Rodriguez.

The 70-33 record means Detroit has a shot to meet last year’s win total (71) by the end of July. Maybe not against Johan Santana (given the first two games, who knows) today, but definitely against Tampa Monday.

Pudge may miss today’s game too, as Danny Knobler reports Pudge’s thumb was too sore to throw.

As all the great headlines are taken — thanks Mike! — I’ll just celebrate how needed that victory was. At the very least, taking one from Fransisco Liriano, if you could call it “taking” when he strikes out 12 and lasts eight innings, and winning the opening game, 3-2, gives us hope we can win the series. At the very least, any of the hopes the Twins had of coming out of the weekend just 5 1/2 behind the division lead are shot. They can only get as “close” as 7 1/2 now.

I didn’t see much of the game, I heard a good chunk of it though. My impression was Detroit came into the game with the plan of working Liriano and hoping to get him out of the game somewhere in the middle innings via pitch count, at the worst. It worked, and the Tigers led 2-0 on a Magglio Ordonez hit after a single and walk opened the inning. And then Liriano took matters into his own qualified hands. If they took a pitch, they struck out. If they swung, they struck out. If they took a ball, they still struck out (far as Dickerson and Price said). Liriano had it working and there was little they could do to extend his pitch count. Just as soon as Joe Nathan came into the game, the Tigers seemed to get back to the plan. I think we have to give full credit to Liriano, who looked and sounded like a once-a-generation pitcher.

Now we have to give full credit to Zach Miner as well. He may not have been able to match Liriano strikeout-per-strikeout, but he performed admirably, allowing just two runs in six innings — another quality start. The two runs he allowed were, in part, due to Minnesota playing small ball and pushing the baserunner around with some stolen bases off Vance Wilson. Wilson made up for it in the seventh inning by throwing out an attempted steal. It was especially nice to see Miner throw well after his past two ugly outings.

A couple of base runners off Juan Rincon and a — dare I say it? — clutch hit by Craig Monroe in the tenth gave Detroit a 3-2 lead, and Todd Jones protected it with a strikeout (wow!), long fly ball to the warning track and groundout (in reverse order!)
In all, it was a great baseball game, both sets of fans should be able to say that, but no game is really all that great if you lose, I’ll admit. Detroit and Gum-Time Robertson go for the series victory Saturday night against a hot Brad Radke.

Man, that was a big win.

You know how important it was for the Tigers to take two at home from Chicago — despite the fact the home team really should be penciled down for two anyway? It’s going to be like that for Minnesota. At 8 1/2 games out, they really want to claw their way back into AL Central contention. Owner of a 34-for-42 winning streak, they hardly gained ground on the Tigers since early June. They realize they’ll have to provide their own traction in head-to-head play. The Twins are throwing their dome, their top three pitchers and a younger, better offense than earlier this season at the Tigers to do it.

ESPN’s Short Hops has a pitching rundown, so I won’t repeat that. I will just say this: On paper, Detroit should probably win one game, the middle game of Nate Robertson against Brad Radke. Left handers Johan Santana and Francisco Liriano are too good of pitchers, not that Radke isn’t. But baseball never really works like you expect it to. . Maybe Zach Miner beats Francisco Liriano tonight. Maybe Jeremy Bonderman beats Johan Santana Sunday. Maybe both happen. Who knows. Detroit can get on other team’s aces. Ask Santana about that Vance Wilson home run. Or Chris Carpenter about, well, anybody.

Since the All-Star Break, the Twins have an ERA of 3.43 and nearly a strikeout per inning. The Tigers are all the way down in the 5.28 range. And both teams have seen the Twins and White Sox, so there’s no weaker schedule argument to be made. Minnesota’s just been getting the job done. You tend to want to get to another team’s bullpen, but the Twins, like the Tigers, make you think twice. Then again, after Liriano (who doesn’t even average 100 pitches per game, so well taken care of is he) the pen might not look too bad. Minnesota has also outscored Detroit, 80 runs to 76. So its offense, led by Justin Morneau, has been performing, too.

At some point, Minnesota is going to sputter. It happens to every team, no matter the talent. You just hope that sputter begins this weekend. And, yes, we do have a pretty good team of its own that is going to make some of its own luck.

My prediction? Tigers take one. They are just too good a team to get swept, and they’ve burnt some of the mystique off the dome and the Twins by taking 7-of-9 this season. Detroit was 1-2 in the Dome with a blown save in May. But the Twins are playing great ball, so it’s hard to say they can’t win a series at home.

I’d like to cool off some of this Liriano-for-Cy-Young talk. Maybe Justin Verlander’s teammates can help him out. But, who knows. There’s no harm in losing a series every now and then, especially when you have as big a divisional lead as Detroit does. Minnesota would gain just one game. Don’t make a habit of it, and good things follow.

Finally, I’ll link to Sweaty Men Endeavors and Complete Sports. Sweaty Men has an interview with a Twins fan, Complete Sports with Sweaty Men blogger, Ian.

So Torii Hunter predicted the Twins wouldn’t be swept again by the Tigers?

Hunter said: “They’re a good team, but we’re good enough to win at least one game there, maybe more.”

Hey, with Johan Santana on the mound during the series, it’s not like he went out on a limb.

Todd Jones made it interesting again, but earned his 12th save for the season and the Tigers beat Minnesota 5-3 Thursday. With two runners on, Hunter flew out for the sweep’s final out.

Tigers fans should enjoy the story at the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

The Twins used to view the Detroit Tigers as the type of rollover opponent that every aspiring playoff team needs.

But by Thursday afternoon, after Detroit completed another sweep at Comerica Park with a 5-3 win, it was abundantly clear the tables have turned.”Funny things happen here, and I’m glad we don’t come back for a while,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “I like the Motown city, but I’m kind of tired of it.”

The Star Tribune also pointed out the Twins were 67-27 (.713) from 2001 through 2005 against Detroit.

As I watch the gametracker, because Rush Limbaugh pre-empts the Tigers in Marquette …

By now you’ve read (likely watched or heard) all about Justin Verlander’s magnificant 2-0 victory over the Twins on Wednesday. He gave up 6 hits and no walks in 8 innings. He was helped by some nice defense, but Detroit has backed its pitching staff well this year. It was also nice to see Vance Wilson continue batting well. After his start last year, many people (myself included) had our doubts. Hopefully we’ll see that continue. Detroit Tigers Tales analyzes Verlander’s game.
But what about the other end of the equation? Twins ace Johan Santana strikes out 12, just mows down the Tigers for most of the game, but comes up two runs short. In the past, that’s the kind of game we lose. Heck, this year, we lost that kind of game to Santana already 11 days ago. The Minneapolis Star Tribune thought Santana’s comments in losing the gem were directed at his team.

“I felt pretty good; I was doing my job,” Santana said. “But that lets you know right there; it’s not just about one guy. It takes 25 guys to win a ballgame; and unfortunately, tonight that wasn’t the case.”

“You know you’re facing a team at the top of your division,” Santana said. “And you want to play good against these guys and show them that you can challenge them. And unfortunately we couldn’t stay with it and score some runs and win this game.”

Former Tiger Rondell White continues to be very complimentary of his former teammates. In the MLB.com story, he said Verlander “pitched like he’s been in the league 10 years.”

What impressed White most about Verlander’s outing was his ability to keep his fastball from settling in at one speed. From the game’s start to the end of the eighth, Verlander threw some fastballs that hit the low 90s; he threw others that touched the high 90s.

Unfortunately the Tigers’ six-game winning streak is marred by the fact “Young charged” appears near every mention of the Tigers. Following brother Delmon’s example this year (who, was following Dmitri’s example, I guess), Dmitri Young is being charged with domestic violence for allegedly choking a woman. He’s not in today’s lineup. Given his sore quad and .192 average, that really isn’t too big a surprise.

In other news: 

ESPN’s podcast with Buster Olney today discussed the Tigers. The brought up the pitching staff’s success, called them a legitimate contender, called them this year’ 2005 White Sox, and mentioned one AL executive said they’re the best team in baseball right now.
(hat tip: The Daily Fungo):  MSNBC wrote about Jim Leyland.  While the writer oversimplifies things, such as leaving out some pretty important additions to the pitching staff and ignoring the fact our top batters are healthy this year, there’s some validity to his point:

They’re essentially the same team that couldn’t win an intrasquad game last year. The single biggest difference between now and then is Leyland.

Leyland makes teams win. He’s personally intense, but in a feet-on-the-desk kind of way. In an age in which managers talk increasingly like CEOs, he’s gnarly and lean, his speech is peppered with profanities

I gotta add one more quote to that, just cause it’s such a loose and humorous comment.

“Obviously, he’s been blessed with great players,” Brandon Inge said with a laugh Tuesday night.

Coming back from a three-run deficit with a five-running third inning, the Tigers helped propel themselves to baseball’s best record, tied with the White Sox, and may also have propelled Minnesota starter Kyle Lohse into the bullpen.

The Tigers haven’t been too kind to him. Lohse is 0-3 with a 13+ ERA against Detroit this year, the St. Paul Pioneer Press wrote. His slow start coupled with his leaving both the dugout and clubhouse early may have knocked him into the bullpen.

UPDATE:  Lohse sent to AAA. 

Lest we think anyone in the national media cares about the Tigers’ top-overall record, I could find no mention (other than the game story) on ESPN, SI, Fox Sports, Sportsline, etc. Although the Tigers did move up to No. 4 on the Sportsline power ranking. As much as the player quotes, this is a graphic reminder there are no first-place trophies for leading in May.

That leads me to the best headline for the day, courtesy of Mlive: Latest win vaults Tigers into first place; Leyland doesn’t give a bleep.

Leyland snapped: “I don’t give a (bleep) about being in first place.”

And from the same article a quote from Joel Zumaya, whose bulldog-self is getting pretty fun.

“I don’t really care about being in first place, I just want to go out there challenge teams and show ‘em what we have this year,” said Zumaya, who pitched in the seventh and eighth innings. “We’re not going to back down from anybody this year.”

MLive was especially interesting today. Another story addressed what Leyland thinks of the famous 40-game test of Sparky Anderson. This is not your father’s Tigers.

“No, I look at today. I don’t care anything about that,” Leyland said of the 40-game “marker.”

The story goes on to explain Leyland thinks you can’t get too worried over a slow start to the season or too excited about a fast start, nor can you break the year down into sections. Ask last year’s Houston Astros if the 40-game marker is indicative of performance. Or the Oakland A’s, who just missed a wildcard after a horrible first two months. On the other hand, the White Sox came out of the gate fast and won the World Series. I think it’s all just trying to read the tea leaves.

Tigers rookie Justin Verlander takes on Johan Santana tonight. Should be a good game to watch, if the Pistons weren’t playing game five at the same time. Lots of channel flipping will be done tonight in Michigan, I expect. Though with those pitchers, it should be a pretty low-scoring, fast-paced game. Which means I probably just jinxed things.