Heartbreaker

So, here's why the Tigers are destined to fail this year. OK, they might very well come back to win the next two in this series vs. the ChiSox, but I doubt it. I doubt, too, that they will suffer as bad a loss as Friday's 6-5 killer. A two-run bomb by Jermaine Dye won it for the ChiSox. The bomb came off of Todd Jones, and it shows a few major differences in the two teams. First, the ChiSox have Bobby Jenks as their closer and the Tigers have Jones. The ChiSox get big hits from their big guns, like Dye; when it comes time for the Tigers' big stars to perform, they fizzle.
Take my buddy, Pudge, for instance. That was a nice DP grounder to kill the rally in the Tigers' third inning. Plus, he made a fine play on the passed ball and then the throwing error -- with TWO OUT -- in the seventh. His passed ball and subsequent error allowed the tying run to score.
Carlos Guillen did get a huge hit, a bases-empty homer, to give the Tigers a 5-4 lead in the eighth. But these Tigers simply let too many chances slip away. The real good players in this lineup -- Granderson, Polanco, Ordonez and Cabrera -- are surrounded by far too many one-dimensional has-beens (like Renteria). And, of course, Shit-field and Pudge. Those two really had a chance to end the game right there in the third inning, but Shit-field can't hit the ball out of the infield, and Pudge taps into an inning-ending DP.
A killer loss. I don't think they'll win the next two, either.