Justin Verlander didn’t have it tonight. Mike Maroth didn’t either. Nor did Jason Grilli. That, or the Rangers really brought their hitting shoes. Texas blew Detroit out of the water, 11-3. Gary Matthews Jr. hit for the cycle, in order, in his first four at-bats. Quite a spectacle. And he didn’t take the short porch either for his home run swing off Maroth.

After the Rangers took a 4-0 lead, Detroit cut it to 4-3 with some good swinging in the third inning. Sean Casey drove in a couple of runs. Brandon Inge drove in another. Earlier, the Tigers were taking slow approaches at the plate and working Kevin Millwood. Texas answered with three runs in the top of the fourth and that was that. Detroit never scored again. It got ugly.

I found this note at ESPN by the Elias Sports Bureau funny:

• Gary Matthews Jr. became the seventh player to hit for the cycle over the last two seasons and the fifth to do so from the leadoff slot in the batting order. Only three leadoff hitters — Eric Byrnes (2003), Craig Biggio (2002) and Neifi Perez (1998) — had cycled over the previous 13 years.

Just another pitiful game making this a pennant race not a fun one. The Tigers have a day off Thusday then a set with Baltimore. They’d best start looking like the Detroit of old, because we can only count on the Twins and White Sox losing so many times.

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After Magglio Ordonez grounded into a double play in the eighth inning, Carlos Guillen took matters into his own hands to break a 2-2 tie in the ninth. He took a full-count pitch into the left-field seats to give Detroit a 3-2 win. MUCH NEEDED! Will it help the Tigers get consistent for their final 17 games? I don’t know. I sure hope so. But for another day, no one gained any ground. Guillen homered earlier in the game, as did Marcus Thames. Six hits, three dingers.
Helped by three outfield assists by Craig Monroe, Kenny Rogers allowed two runs over seven innings. Fernando Rodney cleaned up the next two innings to get the win.

Kevin Millwood takes on Justin Verlander at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

MLB.com has a Rookie of the Year previews for the AL.

Justin Verlander, RHP, Tigers: One reason the Tigers went from a team that lost 109 games three years ago to one that could win 100 this season is this lanky right-hander who has been among the elite AL hurlers since early May. He rattled off an 11-1 record from May 4 to Aug. 9 and helped lead the Tigers’ unexpected pursuit of the AL Central title.

Joel Zumaya, RHP, Tigers: He has been one of the most reliable setup men in the Majors this season, striking out more than one batter an inning and surrendering about one hit every two innings he pitches. Zumaya has been a rock-solid bridge to closer Todd Jones.

Jason Beck has a recap of the tiebreakers. If the Tigers and Twins are tied for the wildcard, they play in Detroit. If the Tigers and White Sox are tied for the wildcard, they play in Chicago. If the Tigers are tied for the division and both teams have qualified for the playoffs, the team with the best head-to-head record wins; the other is the wildcard. So Detroit beats Minnesota, but Chicago beats Detroit.

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Yeah. Well. That’s just lovely. Detroit hits Texas pitching like mad for an inning and is silent for eight innings. The Tigers lost, 7-6, and dropped three in a row to the Rangers at Comerica Park.

Funny how it works. You beat the pitchers you shouldn’t, lose to the pitchers you should, waste fabulous pitching performances by guys like Zach Miner, and then waste a 6-run second inning with your ace on the mound.

This game was flat-out disgusting.

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Well. That’s a relief. I thought the Tigers just couldn’t hit White Sox pitchers. It turns out I was wrong.

They can’t hit David Wells or a Texas AAA pitcher either. Well, I feel much better. Er, not. Detroit lost, 3-1, Saturday, due to two unearned runs scoring after an Omar Infante error, and the Tigers bats falling silent against… what’s his name? Robinson Tejada. And his ERA was awful. Still is. Sounds like an adventure. And until the fifth inning, it was, as he had a perfect game.

Our own Nate Robertson had a perfect game through four innings until the radio guys went and jinxed it, resulting in a first-pitch home run by Mark Teixeira. Robertson allowed a second hit for the day, also to Teixeira. He’s a real tough-luck pitcher, picking up yet another loss when he pitched a quality start. That makes five, for third in the American League. Nate doesn’t actually have the worst record among pitchers in the AL’s top 10 in ERA. It just feels like it.

So, we can only attribute that to the Tigers’ woeful offensive production. This week, run totals of 1, 1 and 4 against Texas; 4 and 3 against Boston; and 3, 3 and 0 against Chicago. Last week, they added games of 2 and 4 against Minnesota to go with a 1 and 4 against Cleveland. It’s an offensive funk, and a bad one. In August the Tigers have the 11th best production... of 14 teams. They rank in the middle of the league in strikeouts this month, but 10th in walks taken and in slugging, 11th in average and 12th in OBP.

I guess it’s good to see the pitching is going so well. Pitching wins games. Just not recently. We knew it was going to be a tough August, but this is getting insane.

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Not much to write. Not much happened. Zach Miner allowed two runs. The bullpen gave up nada. And the Tigers lost anyway, 2-1. The team managed only five hits and only Craig Monroe made it to third base. Dmitri Young homered off Kevin Millwood for the game’s only run. Oh, and Monroe’s trip to third came on a ninth inning leadoff triple. And he got stranded there by the 3, 4 and 5 batters. Wow. Real intimidating meat of the lineup. No, more like real frustrating.

The team is 3-7 in its last 10. If memory serves, they had that bad of a stretch in early June, but that was the only time all year. It’s a bit annoying. They’ve only scored 69 (or 70, depending when ESPN updated) runs in August. They actually have a winning record for the month, thanks to some great pitching. But it’s rather frustrating. That’s about all I have to say about the game. If you can’t score a runner from third with no outs, you deserve to lose. Too bad, too. Miner didn’t.

The only thing of interest was this note at the bottom of the AP story, my bold:

Detroit LHP Mike Maroth is scheduled to make his third rehab start Saturday for Triple-A Toledo, but the Tigers don’t plan to use a six-man rotation when Maroth is ready to return.

So I go to the story by Jason Beck and find:

All that seems set is that Maroth’s return, whenever it is, could allow the Tigers to rest one of their other starters for a turn through the rotation. That’s about as close as Leyland wants to get to a six-man rotation, a point he emphasized on Friday afternoon.

“We will not have a six-man rotation,” he said. “If at some point everybody needed an extra day, and we had the flexibility to do that [for a turn], that would be a possibility.”

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I wasn’t too worried about the Tigers scoring in this game. This is Texas pitching we’re talking about. But with Kenny Rogers pitching and a potent Rangers’ offense for him to serve up softballs to, I wasn’t sure what to expect. With a little help — okay, a lot of help — from Joel Zumaya, Kenny Rogers earned his first win since July 5, before the All-Star break.

Rogers loaded the bases win the sixth inning with no outs after allowing just one run over the first five innings. Jim Leyland didn’t hesitate to call in a guy who can get some strikeouts out of the Texas lineup. With a first-batter hiccup — Zumaya walked him in — out of the way, Zoomer got a pop out and two strike outs. Rogers ended the day with two earned runs allowed and a 4-2 lead. Zumaya ended the inning with a highly pumped up near sellout crowd screaming. And he pitched another for good measure. Fernando Rodney and Todd Jones pitched uneventful innings and the score stuck.

Jones has been awesome lately. According to Detroit Tiger Tales:

Todd Jones, who has saved 34 games in 37 opportunities on the season, has not blown a save or lost a game since June 14. During that period, he has pitched 22 2/3 innings over 23 games allowing just 4 runs on 14 hits with a 16/3 K/BB ratio.

In total, it was a great pitching show against a good offensive team, much like we’ve seen all year.

Carlos Guillen homered, Omar Infante drove in a run, and things went fine — not impressive, but good enough — in Detroit’s halves of the innings.

I missed the first four innings because I went to the U.P. State Fair. I mention that only because most of my readers probably did not realize the U.P. was a state.

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