Tigers get lucky

The Tigers blew 4-0, 5-2, and 8-5 leads tonight. The Sox took a 9-8 lead in the 8th and Okajima, pitching with no one on base, retired the side without allowing a run. That set up Papelbon in the 9th. Matt Joyce, who earlier got his first big league hit, added another to lead off the inning. It was a cheap hit, as he checked his swing and hit a dribbler to Lugo. Lugo made a great barehanded effort, but Joyce beat the throw by a step. Then Lugo made an error on a ball hit right at him giving the Tigers runners on 1st and 2nd. Detriot had a pinch runner in who was flying to second, so I doubt they would have gotten two, but Lugo definitely could have gotten the trail runner.

Pudge came up next. Not the real Pudge. The fake one. In fact, I'm gonna call him I-Rod from now on. Anyway, I-Rod put down a real nice sacrifice bunt to move the runners up to second and 3rd, bringing up Curtis Granderson. Granderson grounded out to second, but the runner scored from third tying it up without the ball ever leaving the infield. Before Granderson's ground ball, nothing had even passed the infield grass, and no one was walked...and somehow the Tigers tied it up. Anyway, Placido Polanco comes up next, and Papelbon breaks his bat, yet the ball just gets over the reach of Lugo who really couldn't do anything about it. He went back for it and timed his jump perfectly and it just was out of his reach. Anyway, the game winning run scores.

Ridiculous. The hardest hit ball was a broken bat bloop single and somehow the Tigers score two runs. Jonathan Papelbon calmly walked off the mound, went into the dugout, and proceeded to beat the crap out of two Gatorade coolers.