The Central Division leading Cleveland Indians come to town for a four game series starting Friday night at 7:05. The Indians have arguably the best young offense in baseball with solid young players at almost every position and many "experts" pick them to steal the division crown from the White Sox. Victor Martinez is the best offensive catcher in baseball and DH Travis Hafner is right on Chris Shelton's heels with 6 Home Runs already this young season. Shortstop Jhonny "Don't Call Me Johnny" Peralta and Centerfielder Grady Sizemore are among the other young offensive stars for the Tribe while veteran infielders Aaron Boone and Ronnie Belliard help fill out the lineup.

The Indians owned the Tigers last year in Comerica Park, winning the last seven games there so we can't really hope for too much of a homefield advantage. This is an important series if we have any hope of making a push for the division. It's a long season, but if we keep dropping all these games to our division rivals, we could find ourselves on the outside looking in by June 1st.

Game one matches up lefty Kenny Rogers for the Tigers and Righty Jake Westbrook for the Indians.

The Tigers have been able to get to Westbrook pretty well in his career as he's 3-5 with a 6.07 ERA in 11 career starts. He's off to a good start this year, though, winning both of his first two starts while only allowing 3 runs in over 13 innings pitched, so we'll need to bust out the good lumber to take this one down. Maggs, Pudge, and Monroe have had some success against him in the past and Dimitri Young has absolutely OWNED him, going 10-20 career with 2 homers and nine rbi's, so look for Da Meat Hook to hopefully finally get untracked.

The Tigers Kenny Rogers pitched a gem in his first start against the Royals and then got rocked in his return to face his former team in Texas. Let's hope it's the Kenny we saw on Opening day. He shut the Indians down last year while with the Rangers allowing only three earned runs in his two starts. Victor Martinez, Jhonny Peralta and Travis Hafner have all had some success against him in their relatively young careers, going a combined 15-42.

Jason Johnson signed with Cleveland, didn't he?

Jason Johnson signed with Cleveland, didn't he?

Yep, and he's pitched well in both his starts.

We need a win....badly.

We so should have offered JJ arbitration.

Inge with 2 homers so far.

Tigers up 5-0 in the 4th inning.

Inge is germinating.

Great win by the Tigers. Rogers threw 111 pitches so I expect him to miss his next start.

Fuck Diesel.

Goin to the game today. Section 140B Row B
Hopefully it'll be a win.

Jeremy Bonderman is terrible.

The boys took a rather large dump all over the field today. Bonderman got hammered.

I swear to God, Jeremy Bonderman is one of the most overrated young prospects in the league. Guys like Josh Beckett and D-Train came up at the same age as Bonderman and they've done twice as much. Bonderman is no better than Mike Maroth at this point.

I think you're over reacting just a little bit.

He had 0 command today.
That said, the tigers had the bases loaded twice. Once with 1 out and once with 0 outs and did nothing. You cant put this all on Bonderman.

Joel Zumaya is DEAD SEXY.

Have we ever won a 1-0 game? Ever?

Looking good!

Young lands on DL
Tigers call up outfielder Alexis Gomez from Triple-A

The Tigers placed DH/outfielder Dmitri Young on the 15-day disabled list Saturday. How long he'll be there is a question too early for the club to answer.

Young strained the quadriceps muscle in his right leg running the base paths on Friday night as he tried to slow down heading into third. He left the game immediately and, after the game, described the injury as "not good."

Young looked noticeably better walking around the clubhouse Saturday morning and in the dugout during the game. Head athletic trainer Kevin Rand saw it as a somewhat encouraging sign, though not nearly a sign of health.

"In some ways, He felt a little better this morning than he thought he was going to feel," Rand said. "Still, making certain moves, he knew he was injured."

At this point, though, nobody knows any sort of timetable on when Young could be back. He also missed two weeks during Spring Training with a strained quadriceps in the other leg, which ended up being less severe than originally expected.

This time, Rand said, "It's too early to tell. We've got to get him pain free. We've got to get his range of motion back, and then address strengthening issues before we even get thinking about any sort of timetable at this point."

Until he's back, that's where manager Jim Leyland is going to leave the topic. As he said during Spring Training, his track record as a manager is to not discuss injured players until they're close to returning. When Young is ready to play, as Leyland put it, he's ready to play.

"That's the way I've always worked," he said. "I'll deal with what I've got. I can't worry about what I don't have right now. I'm going to miss Dmitri, because that's my man, but right now I'm not going to have him."

Gomez called up: To take Young's place on the roster, the Tigers purchased the contract of outfielder Alexis Gomez from Triple-A Toledo. Though Gomez had opened the season with a 4-for-27 start, he had plenty of company in a Mud Hens lineup that has struggled since the start of the season.

Leyland said his decision came down to Hens manager Larry Parrish's recommendation, but other factors worked in his favor. He's a left-handed hitter joining a roster that became even more tilted towards right-handed hitters with the switch-hitting Young out.

"Basically, Larry Parrish said he was probably the closest guy [to ready]," Leyland said. "That's the way we work. A little added bonus on our part is we just felt with the Spring Training this kid had, he could've really made the club. It came down to him and Marcus [Thames], and Marcus made the club, and rightfully so. Gomez could've very easily been on the club, and we felt with everything he did in Spring Training, we felt like we should reward him."

Gomez was rewarded by seeing his name on the lineup card as he walked into the clubhouse around 9:30 a.m., following a 6:20 a.m. flight out of Durham.

"That's what makes me forget about sleep," Gomez said.

As for who would take Young's place in the lineup, Leyland said, "I'll play that by ear. I've got some options."

Saturday's option was Thames, who has played in five of the Tigers' first 11 games. But thanks to some other absences, Gomez and Omar Infante were in the lineup, too.
http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060415&content_id=1401564&vkey=news_det&fext=.jsp&c_id=det

Shelton is a crazy mother fucker.

Shelton is a crazy mother fucker.



[smilie=2thumbsup.g:

He just did it again. This is crazy.

Chris Shelton = En Fuego

I'm on-line right now ordering my Shelton jersey

Nate's getting raked again.

doesnt look like much hope for a comeback today

they are burning out the pen today thats for sure

I don't know anything about Alexis Gomez, can anybody help me out?

I don't know anything about Alexis Gomez, can anybody help me out?

http://wtfdetroit.com/viewtopic.php?p=37464#37464

Interesting that for a guy with all that athleticism and can play all 3 outfield positions, he's playing DH today.

Seems like if you are going to work him into the lineup, you might as well give one of your regulars the DH slot for a day off.

Nate Robertson has been shit last year and so far this year. What to do, what to do...

While I agree that Nate got his ass handed to him today, I can't bash him too hard for last year. As far as run support goes, he got absolutely none. As a matter of fact, when he was on the mound the Tigers produced the least amount of runs.

While I agree that Nate got his ass handed to him today, I can't bash him too hard for last year. As far as run support goes, he got absolutely none. As a matter of fact, when he was on the mound the Tigers produced the least amount of runs.

Yeah, I know -- however, he's just done very little to ever impress me, I guess.

How bout that 99mph FB to strikeout the 3rd out while in a Jam
...
Everyone was fired up

Anyone catch Local 4 sports? Jimmy blew up in the dressing room. Good for him

Anyone catch Local 4 sports? Jimmy blew up in the dressing room. Good for him

His comments to the media were pretty salty too.......

http://www.mlive.com/tigers/audio/index.ssf?/tigers/audio/audio06.html

I wish there was some audio of the closed door tirade, and your damn right good for him.

Thats just fuckin great. So much better than the last few years after games like this, we'd here "Well we did some good things, and they caught a few breaks, and we'll take some positives from this and move on."

Fuck that.

Jimmy stuck it to the whole team. Great for him.