Wild Night

If Kevin Youkilis would've had a day off, Armando Galarraga's start probably would've looked a whole lot better.

As it stands though, the young righty was touched up for 5 runs on 7 hits and 1 walk in 5.1 innings. The aforementioned "Youk" smacked a pair of home runs totaling three RBIs. While Armando was touched up a little bit in the hit column, he only walked one batter, and brought his strikeout total back up to six. The bullpen provided him no relief as far as a decision is concerned, giving up a grand total of four runs in only 3.2 innings. Zach Miner gave up two runs in only an inning of work, and Francisco Cruceta proved that he can be shaky as well. Cruceta walked two (and struck out two), and gave up a 3-run home run to Mike Lowell (one of the baserunners belonging to Miner). Todd Jones had his normal scary ninth, but didn't allow any runs to cross the plate, and kept Detroit within one run.


Young ace Clay Buccholz showed why his off-speed stuff has earned him the Red Sox minor league pitcher of the year for two consecutive seasons. The fact that he couldn't locate his fastball took away from the effectiveness of his excellent breaking stuff, and allowed the Tigers to pick him apart. Ten hits, one walk, and five runs chased Buccholz from the game.


The Tigers offense exploding in a game where their pitcher wasn't dominating was a welcome respite. Placido Polanco and Gary Sheffield were the unlikely heroes of the day, going 5-6 and 3-4 (with a walk) respectively. Polanco's final hit being the game winning bloop over the head of Julio Lugo, to cap the victory and Jonathon Papelbon's first blown save of the season. That hit moved the Tigers to five games under .500, and Josh Beckett is tabbed for tomorrow.