Falling Down

After a heartbreaking loss on Tuesday, the Tigers absolutely needed a good start from Justin Verlander. Only one of his starts has been quality, and the rest (seven of them) have been at least four earned runs or more. He was not the problem today.

The offense, on the other hand, was.

Kansas City rookie pitcher Luke Hochevar pitched six very strong innings of shutout ball. He threw less strikes than Verlander on a comparable amount of pitches, but was bailed out routinely by the Tigers thin bats. He walked three batters, but only allowed four base hits (none for extra bases), and struck out five. Detroit's bats looked, for the lack of a better word (by my choice), pathetic. In the season series so far against the Royals, the Tigers are 3-36 with runners in scoring position.

The Tigers young ace looked good, but not quite as good as his counterpart. The only real mistake came on a two RBI single by Joey Gathright in the second inning. It wasn't really a mistake as much as it was a decent piece of hitting on a very low breaking ball by the KC speedster. After that blip, he didn't allow another run to score in his 6+ innings of work. It really was just what the Tigers needed from him. It would be nice to see him throw more first pitch strikes, and not get behind on hitters that he should be challenging, but this start was very encouraging nevertheless.

Down 2-0 in the top of the 8th inning, Placido Polanco and Carlos Guillen both got on with singles. On the first pitch of the next at bat, Magglio Ordonez grounded into a double play. A Miguel Cabrera ground out later, and the mild crisis was averted. After that poor showing by the heart of the order, it was left up to six, seven, and eight hitters in the 9th to salvage something. That was put to rest before anyone could blink. Joakim Soria struck out the first two batters he faced, and got a groundout to record his 10th save of the season.


That, my friends, is how you completely waste two quality starts from a couple of struggling starting pitchers.