What started out looking pretty good turned really ugly, really fast.
The Tigers got on the board in the first with a Miggy solo shot. Brayan Pena put the Tigers up 2-0 after two with an RBI double, but the Tigers would score no more tonight.
Chris Sale pitched a complete game. He allowed two earned, walked 0 and struck out 6 on 109 pitches.
Doug Fister started out well but seemed to fall apart in the 4th inning. With 1 out Gordon Beckham singled. Fister got Alexei Ramirez to pop out but then walked Adam Dunn and the wheels began to fall off. A wild pitch moved the runners up to second and third. A walk to Konerko loaded the bases and another wild pitch scored Beckham and the White Sox were on the board. Fister got ex-Tiger Avisail Garcia to end the inning but Fister could never really recover.
Fister came out for the 5th, gave up three more runs, and the Sox never looked back, In Fister’s defense, he ran in to some bad luck. With one out and runners on first and second, Gordon Beckham hit a ground ball back to Fister, which at first was looking like an inning ending double play, but the ball went off of Fister’s leg past Infante and into right field and the Sox were rolling.
The Tigers had chances to score, they touched Sale for 9 hits but couldn’t get the big knock when they needed it. A big part of the Tigers’ offensive struggles were that Jacskon and Hunter were a combined 0-8, which meant Miggy was always hitting with nobody on base.
The Tigers left 16 men on base tonight, Omar Infante, back in the lineup, for the first time in over a month was 0-4 with 6 LOB.
I’m starting to worry a little bit. Since the streak ended, the Tigers have lost 3 of 4 to bad teams, the Yankees and the White Sox. Everything that seemed to be going so well suddenly isn’t. Fister was not good tonight. He wasn’t horrible but he had trouble with the strike zone and didn’t put in a quality start. Even more concerning is Al Alburquerque out of the pen. The Amazing Al has been more of an abomination lately. Tonight, for example, he pitched one inning, gave up 5 hits and 2 earned runs. I don’t think he’s an option out of the pen anymore, he’s a nightmare. And, where is the clutch hitting? We could have used a big hit from Infante, but I’ll cut him some slack, since this was his first game back.
On the bright side, Iggy is really flashing leather. He made an unbelievable play in the 6th. Josh Phegley hit a chopper that got over Fister’s head and looked like a sure infield hit. But on came Iggy, who dove, barehanded the ball, and threw to first with both feet off of the ground to get Phegley at first. Iggy also chipped in offensively with an infield single.
Bruce Rondon looked pretty good. He came on in the 8th to clean up the Amazing Al’s mess. With runners at second and third and nobody out Rondon surrendered a Texas Leaguer that got over the drawn in infield and a sacrifice fly but got Gordon Beckham to ground into an inning ending double play. This was not a bad outing for Rondon considering what he inherited.
“God, I love baseball.” – Roy Hobbs | The Natural
Flashin' Leather 
I thought this might be the game where the 15 game winning streak came to an end. Sale was due to beat us, and Fister pitching scared in the 4th inning was all it took. He pitched around Dunn and Konerko like they were Miggy and VMart – notice how I skipped Fielder. But I couldn’t figure out why he pitched so scared (careful) to them, when we were up 2 runs. Bad loss, but I kind of expected this one.
I can’t complain just yet, as we have 2 winnable games remaining before the big showdown this weekend with KC. It does sting a little more since we lost 2 to the awful yankees.
Chris, I agree with you about Al Al. He is useless anymore and should be jettisoned. But like all the problem players on this team JL is too slow to react. Darin Downs must be ready by now to return from his rehab….
I was thinking about getting tickets for the Friday afternoon makeup game with KC, but I’m afraid they’re going to bring up a guy from Toledo for a spot start, and JL will probably trot out the B-team lineup. So I’ll pass.
Cabrera is a beast!!
Sark, I think you’re correct. Fister did look a little off/scared in the 4th and ran into bad luck in the 5th. This wouldn’t be so bad if the Tigers had taken two in the Bronx.
Also, KC just keeps rolling!!!