Hits and Home Runs, Yankees win 23-19!

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Welcome to the Regular Season!

Hello Yankees!  What a way to have to start the season.  If the Tigers were a football team the runs scored over the 3-game series against the Yankees would be a pretty good score.  The two teams combined for 42 runs in 3 games, with the Tigers dropping the first two 6-3 and 10-6, coming back in a home-run-derby rubber match to win the last game 10-7.  They lost the home run competition to the Yankees 4 to 3 in Sunday's game, but won the hitting match 14 to 12 to take the victory.

Tiger starting pitchers had rocky starts in each of the games except in Verlander's season opener.  Brad Penny put 11 runners on base (4 walks and 7 hits) in his four and 1/3 innings and Max Scherzer did likewise putting 11 runners on base in Sunday's game with 2 walks an 9 hits in five innings.  Fortunately Scherzer had some run support and good late-inning relief pitching to get his first win of the season.  Verlander didn't have any run support in his good outing, nor help from his relievers to hold the game close.  Brad Penny had run support but not enough to get past the 6 runs he allowed in the first two innings, and no help from late relief in keeping it close.  All told the Tigers gave up a whopping 9 home runs to Yankee hitters.. 2 in the first game, 3 in the second, and 4 in the last game of the series.  The Tigers hit 5 home runs over the same 3-game period which is normally a pretty good outcome, except when playing the Yankees it appears.

Brennan Boesch

Late inning pitching has been good so far with Benoit and Valverde shutting down Yankee hitters in the 8th and 9th innings.  If the Tigers put together some good starts, and get better innings from the 6-7th inning guys, more wins will show up in the win column.  Brennan Boesch and Migel Cabrerra made for a deadly 1-2 punch hitting 3rd and 4th against the Yankees Sunday with Boesch going 4 for 4 with 4 RBIs, so look for that combination to return.  As soon as Victor Martinez gets into the game and/or Magglio Ordonez we could see the Tigers putting up more numbers like the Yankees did very soon.

That's it for this week's abbreviated post-series update.  Remember to keep an eye on the new Regular Season (2011) page to see how the guys are doing and check the Hitter and Pitcher Trends pages.  All three will be updated constantly even without new blog posts showing, so check in often.


Look for an update mid-week on former Tigers and a "Home-Opener" update as well when Friday's Opening Day game rolls around.


GO TIGERS!   ---Rob


Brennan Boesch Photo by Kathy Willens - Associated Press