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Tigers 8 Indians 6....What a Thriller!

July 10, 2008

Mark Chipperfield

Tigers 8 Indians 6....What a Thriller!

"And no ones gonna save you from the beast about strike you know its thriller, thriller night". Those are the words sung by yes the crazy man himself Micheal Jackson in his hit song Thriller but oh how they pertain to the Tigers game Wednesday night. Nobody out of the Indians bullpen was ready to save the team from the beast of a lineup that was about strike. The thrilling game was concluded with Indian reliever Jensen Lewis giving up a walk-off two run home run to the striking beast Miguel Cabrera. But seriously enough with the Micheal Jackson analogy, what a game! The Tigers came back from a 6-0 deficit and when things looked as grim as the monster in Cloverfield they strung hits together like the lineup was projected to do all season. A key contribution to the comeback came from the young call-ups from triple A, Clete Thomas and Matt Joyce. Clete had a key walk that loaded the bases and Matt Joyce hit the tying two run home run that brought Detroit all the way back. Contributions came from all over the lineup Wednesday night and that is the never back down attitude that will get the Tigers back into the AL central race. Big Problem: Even though the Tigers won the game a huge problem emerged from the game against the Indians. The Tigers have nobody that can fill the 5th spot in the starting rotation. For the second consecutive start Eddie Bonine struggled through the first couple of innings and gave up 9 hits and 5 runs in only three and two thirds innings. That will not get it done if Detroit want to make the postseason. Possible solutions to this problem would be to move Casey Fossum out of the bullpen and make him the 5th starter but he has not really been effective at the big league level this season. Another scenario would be to have Zach Miner fill the void as he has in the past in the 2006 season. He did throw 4 innings of shutout baseball in his triple A start a couple of days ago. A possible solution that a lot of Tiger fans want the organization to do is call up Rick Porcello from Single A Lakeland. I am telling you right now that would not be a good idea at all. You would not want to shatter a young kid like that's confidence because the Tigers have invested so much into Rick. Also he may be domination at the Single A level but the major leagues are a whole different animal than Lakeland. The problem of not having a solid 5th starter is a huge problem that will most definitely need to be fixed if the Tigers want to be playing any meaningful games in October.

Keywords: Detroit Tigers, Eddie Bonine, Miguel Cabrera

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