Here We Go Again
By Blake VandeBunte • Apr 6th, 2009 • Category: 2009 Season, Brandon Inge, Curtis Granderson, Justin Verlander, Magglio Ordonez, Miguel Cabrera, Toronto Blue JaysGAME SUMMARY:
- Final Score: Toronto 12 Detroit 5
- WP: Roy Halladay (1-0)
- LP: Justin Verlander (0-1)
- HR: Curtis Granderson, Brandon Inge, Travis Snider and Adam Lind
Boy, oh boy, was that disappointing. I got over to be my friend Kenny’s house at about 2:30 to spend the entire day watching baseball. It started out decently. It was pretty satisfying to see CC Sabathia get hit around and the Yankees lose. However, once the Tigers took the field things went down hill pretty quickly.
I won’t recap the entire game because I’m sure most people watched the game (at least most of it). Justin Verlander looked terrible. He easily matched his worst starts of last season and the Blue Jays batters absolutely teed off on Justin.
Verlander lasted only 3.2 innings and gave up 8 earned runs and was just hit terribly hard. To match his numbers from last season even further, he needed 80 pitches to get those 11 outs. I’m just going to stop there.
The bullpen wasn’t much better as Eddie Bonine and Juan Rincon were both hit around pretty significantly after both pitching really well during spring training. Nate Robertson threw a perfect seventh inning and struck out two batters and needed only nine pitches to get through the inning.
My pal Kenny had a killer joke at some point during this beat down. I was being a real sarcastic jerk and saying how glad I was the Tigers had made all of these defensive improvements. Kenny responded by saying the only way Adam Everett would have helped the defense is if they let him stand behind the fences to catch one of the two Blue Jays home runs.
Things go weird in the bottom of the eighth inning. Jim Leyland came out and said something to the home plate umpire and it was very brief. The whole conversation lasted about four seconds. I thought that was really strange. About two minutes Leyland pulled his team off the field because fans were throwing shit all over the field. One fan even threw a baseball that came pretty close to hitting Josh Anderson out in left.
That was really the most exciting part of the game, sadly. There are very few positives to take from this game but I’ll give it a shot:
- Curtis Granderson looked good. He went 1-3 with a walk, a home run, and made a few very nice plays in the outfield.
- Magglio Ordonez and Miguel Cabrera both went 2-4, sadly all four of their hits were singles
- The Tigers finally got to Roy Halladay. The Jays ace coughed up five runs in his seven innings of work.
- Brandon Inge slugged a two run homer off of Halladay. He was 2-23 against Halladay before that homer. By the way, Kenny called this home run, I witnessed it.
The Tigers and Jays will go at it again tomorrow. Edwin Jackson against David Purcey.
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