Last night, the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians started what some are calling a very big, meaningful, August series. Max Scherzer vs Josh Tomlin, and... Joe West.
Major League Umpire and Grimace descendant Joe West essentially got in the way of what could have been a shutout by Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer when he called a pitch that went right down the middle of the plate, at the knees, for a BALL. The batter was Lonnie Chisenhall, who instead of striking out to end the inning, would work an infield single after Miguel Cabrera stumbled as he tossed to first for what would have been out number 3. Carlos Santana, who singled to start the inning, would eventually score on a wild pitch, all after an obvious blown strike call.
That trimmed the Tigers lead to 2-1, but a couple of big home runs in the bottom of the 7th off of Tomlin, a moon-shot by Alex Avila, followed by a back-to-back shot - on the following pitch - off the bat of Jhonny Peralta. A 4-1 win for the Tigers to open a 2.5 game lead over the Indians in the AL Central race. A monumental victory coming off a disappointing series with the Minnesota Twins (losing 2 of 3) and perhaps avoiding some short-time panic amongst the knee-jerkiest of Tigers fans. Doug Fister pitches tonight against David Huff in the hopes that Fister can find some of that command that we all thought we were getting when Seattle sent him our way. Always good to go into Sunday with a series win in hand vs your closest opponent.
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It seems that after that game was completed, bigger that the win itself was the news that the Tigers had purchased the contract of one Brandon Inge, and he will be joining the team for Saturday night's game. Oh, and how about starting on Saturday night too. Yep, batting .177 this season at the Major League level, comes back from his time in Toledo, having hit .287 with 7 home runs. He will platoon with Wilson Betemit, who will likely get his starts with right-handed pitching, and Inge against lefties. The casualty here is Andy Dirks, who was sent back to Toledo to make room for Inge on the roster.
More importantly, Inge's return will provide him a spot on the postseason roster, should the Tigers finish off this division and make the playoffs. Dirks will be back after major league rosters are allowed to expand from 25 to 40, on September 1st. Inge's defense, which isn't what it used to be, is still very important here. Since Inge was Designated For Assignment, the Tigers have used Betemit, Ryan Raburn, and Don Kelly at third, all with mixed results. Of the 3, Kelly might be better defensively but has struggled at the plate. Betemit, many will say, hasn't had enough playing time since he was dealt to the Tigers from Kansas City, has the offensive numbers that are decent for every day play, but his range is limited in the field. As for Ryan Raburn, Tigers fans will be fine if I don't remind them how terrible his is defensively.
The Tigers need Inge's glove, and if he can carry some of the mild success that he did at the plate in Toledo back to Detroit, that will be an automatic bonus for this team, and perhaps he can get the critics and fans to stop booing him... after all, he had a bitterness about that. The clear answer to avoid that is to be the player he's being paid $5.5M to be. Tigers fans will easily forget how bad he's been if he can pull this off.
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