Category: Games

For One Night, At Least, It All Clicks

From my vantage point, tonight’s game at Comerica Park had the look and feel of a playoff game. Two good teams, a cool, overcast evening, and a sellout-plus crowd.

More importantly for Tigers fans, the game had the look and feel of a Tigers game from June or early July – from 2006 or 2007, take your pick.

Three things stood out for me:

Stellar starting pitching. Jair Jurrjens faces Cleveland for the second time in a week and mows them down, allowing just one (long) hit. True, he was matched virtually pitch for pitch by Fausto Carmona but Jurrjens (or as Jim Price said all night Jergens) had a wee bit more…

Timely hitting. Carmona looked like the second coming of Justin Verlander on June 12 during the first four-plus innings — and settled down again to dominate after Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Guillen went yard back-to-back in the fifth. Carmona made one more mistake than Jurrjens.

An air-tight bullpen. Joel Zumaya did tonight what he did so often last year. Came in for one key hitter and got him out. I didn’t expect to see him back out there in the eighth and am glad Jim Leyland held him back. Then Fernando Rodney and Todd Jones closed it out with precision. How often have we been able to say that lately?

When these three dimensions click for the Tigers good things happen. And tonight good things happened.

It takes you back to 2006…or even 2007.