Ordonez, offense muscle up for much needed victory

Well, there you go. More Tigers crossed home plate tonight than the entire series against the Yankees in a 9-7 victory. Nothing like an off day, a return trip home to Comerica and the delight that comes with facing soft-tossing lefty, Garrett Olson, to wake up the bats.

As Lee has mentioned, the Tigers are a vastly superior team at home, and that proved true tonight. What also proved true is that Olson is really not a good pitcher and kind of compares to the last guy the Tigers annihilated offensively in Bruce Chen. So, I'm not going to go dancing down the street b/c of the win tonight and I'm not going to proclaim that the Tigers bats are alive after a brief nap in NY. But, I will give some credit in a few of my post game thoughts...

• Marcus Thames had the best 0 for 3 game in a long time. He drew two walks and nearly hit the ball out of the park twice. I predicted a long ball for him and Cabrera and I just missed.
• Miguel Cabrera, on the other hand, swung a good stick and his numbers showed up in the box score. 3-3 with a home run, a double and 2 drawn walks. A good start to the series for a guy who has been receiving a lot of criticism on local talk radio.
• Magglio Ordonez can still rake against left handed pitching. He had an OPS of .843 against lefties before he tonight and he added to that with a grand slam that really put the game out of reach (despite some scary moments at the end of the game).
• Kudos once again goes out to Fernando Rodney. He put runners on second and third with just 1 out before he issued a strikeout and then a long, long fly ball to Clete Thomas to end my heart attack and to ensure that the Tigers could sleep easy tonight. Officially, he is 20 for 20 in save opportunities. Eventually, he is going to walk that tight rope one too many times and he will blow a save. But, even when that happens, he has been so solid this year in save situations that I won't even cause too much of a stink over it.
  
• Brandon Lyon and Zach Miner also did their jobs tonight out of the pen. Ni was hit hard tonight for maybe his worst outing as a Tiger (2 hits, 1 ER in 0.2 IP), and Bobby Seay finally gave up a HR this year. Seay has been as steady as Tiger Woods on a Sunday, so I'm not going to worry too much about that.
• To me, though, the story of the night is Rick Porcello. Our offense should destroy Olson. And, we did. I'm more interested to see if they can rake against Felix Hernandez. For Porcello, though, this was a chance to make up for the previous two outings. Again, though, he struggled. At times, he looked real good (as evidenced by the 4 k's in just 5 innings). But, anytime a pitcher allows 9 hits and 5 ER, it is not a good start. His peripheral numbers suggest that he is a back of the rotation starter and not a #3. His pitching on the mound has started to reflect that recently. In his last 5 starts he has not lasted 6 innings and I detailed the horror that has been his last 3 starts just a post below this one. Against the Mariners and Olson, he and our team can get away with a start like that. But, we are going to need Porcello's best stuff on Sunday night against the White Sox. A national TV audience will get a chance to see him that night. A great performance on that stage may be the shot in the arm he needs to get going in the second half of the season. A 4th straight bad outing, though, may take this stretch from being a mini slump to an outright concern going forward. Until then, rest that golden arm and try to keep the thoughts of Jim Thome, Carlos Quentin, Jermain Dye and Paul Konerko walking up to the plate from keeping you up at night, Rick.
  

-Its King Felix Hernandez against Armando Galaragga tomorrow night. Obviously, this is a mismatch of epic proportions on paper. But, its a home game and Hernandez has been prone to bouts of inconsistency/ really poor outings from time to time. Considering it has been a long time since an elite pitcher has done that against us, we may be due. Here's hoping, right?