Garret Craig

The Tigers batted around Kei Igawa last night in their 6-5 victory over New York, and have now won 2 of their last three games. Despite being held to just one run against Josh Beckett on Thursday night, the Tigers have scored 17 runs over the past three games.

Last night, Ivan ‘Pudge’ Rodriguez went 3-4 with 2 RBI’s, Placido Polanco and Magglio Ordonez each went 2-4 with an RBI, Gary Sheffield doubled in a run of his own, going 1-4, and improving his average to .204.

The Tigers are now 4th in the AL (7th in the MLB) in batting average, and 2nd in the AL (6th in the MLB) in total runs scored. The Tigers also find themselves 2nd in the AL (5th in the MLB) in base-on-balls.

But don’t get too excited, the Tigers pitching is still among the worst in the league statistically. They’ve given up the most runs in the MLB with 204, and they have the worst ERA in the MLB with a staggering 5.10.

The Tigers will try to put a streak together as they play the Yankees today (Saturday) at 3:40p. Jeremy Bonderman will duel Darrell Rasner.

Justin Verlander went 5 2/3 innings Sunday night on ESPN in the Detroit Tigers 6-2 loss to the Angels, giving up 6 “earned” runs on 7 hits, 4 walks, and 3 k’s. Impressive? Not statistically, but at least two of those “earned” runs can not realistically be faulted to Verlander, the first of which came on an RBI triple on a playable fly ball that was misplayed by Magglio Ordonez in right field.

No, if you watched the first five innings of the game, you would have seen glimpses of the Justin Verlander that we saw in the 06 and 07 seasons, who had his velocity back and was pitching consistent high-90’s with his fastball.

Verlander had good control of most of his pitches, especially his curve-ball (which was ’stellar’). He threw 57 strikes and 45 balls (Most of which were pitched in the 6th inning collapse) while giving up 4 walks in the game.

Then again, it is the stats that count for tonight, so we’ll see if the Tigers can recover and get back on track Tuesday night when Kenny Rogers faces the dangerous New York Yankees.