Such A Night!

That’s the title of an old Elvis Presley song that I was reminded of after the Tigers beat the Twins 9-0.

Oh, what a night, you know it really was, such a night!

Rick Porcello took the mound for his fifth major league start of his budding career, and picked up the win. In the 87 pitches he tossed, he didn’t allow any runs, gave up only four hits, and struck out three.

Impressive!

Nate Robertson and Juan Rincon shared relief duties to help the Tigers nail it down.

The biggest news of the night was the batting order. After Carlos Guillen was placed on the DL, Clete Thomas was brought up, and the shake-up began. Jim Leyland shuffled the line-up in such a way, that it looked as though a different club had taken the field.

Josh Anderson was in the lead-off spot. Clete Thomas, playing in right, was third in the order, while Miguel Cabrera batted clean-up. Granderson was fifth. A struggling Magglio Ordonez, the designated hitter, was placed in the six hole.

“We’re trying to get something going,” Leyland said Tuesday. “We’ve got to shake it up a little bit and get something going. I obviously tried to get a little speed up top. There’s a little speed in the middle with Grandy.”

The changes paid off bigger than a 50-1 long shot winning the Kentucky Derby. Thomas had a double, a two run triple, and a single. He came up a home run short of hitting for the cycle.

Cabrera went deep with his seventh home run of the season, and drove in four runs during the game. Anderson had two hits, and Granderson let one loose, his ninth of the year.

The shake-up seems to have helped. Leyland remarked further saying,

This is what a manager does. This is my job, is to try to be a little creative. If things really aren’t working, if a couple guys are struggling, you change it up a little bit.”

Tonight, the Tigers will be in Chicago to play the White Sox.

DODGERS WIN TWELVE AT HOME

Last night, the Dodgers tied the major league record for wins at home to start the season.

If you haven’t already heard, the last team to do that was the 1911 Detroit Tigers, under manager Hughie “Eee-Yaw” Jennings.

By the time they picked up their twelfth win at Bennett Park, the Tigers sported a record of 21-2. They were in first place, up by eight games on May 9, 1911.

But, after sitting on top of the American League by as much as 9.5 games later that month, they would slip to second place, 13.5 games back, by the end of the season.

Former Tigers pitcher, Jeff Weaver, who was recently added to the Dodgers rotation, got the win last night. That sounds like it could end up as a trivia question one day, doesn’t it?

Well, like I said (or Elvis did), it was such a night! It really was!

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