MVN - Most Valuable Network

Twins give Tigers something to think about

Monday night’s loss was disappointing for the Twins, but the Twins were not losing sleep because the Tigers were trotting out Nate Robertson and Eddie Bonine in the final two games of the series.

With the way the Twins were hitting, they were going to get to those two starters, who do not scare anyone at the plate. The Twins did just that.

The Twins defeated the Tigers, 6-4, on Tuesday night, and they took the rubber game of the series by defeating the Tigers, 7-0, Wednesday afternoon.

On Tuesday night, Robertson put men on base in the first three innings, but the Tigers starter got out of it by the Twins grounding into double plays by three times. Still, it was a matter of time until Robertson would implode.

It happened in the fourth inning when Craig Monroe hit a three-run home run off Robertson, which gave the Twins a 3-1 lead over the Tigers. Robertson gave up five hits in the fifth inning, and the Twins scored three runs in that inning.

Overall, Robertson allowed six earned runs on 11 hits.

Bonine was no better on Wednesday. Everything fell apart for him in the third inning. He gave up 5 runs and 5 hits in that inning. Casey Fossum relieved him to get the final out of the third.

Bonine went 2 2/3 innings while allowing five runs on seven hits and two weeks.

Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski and Tigers manager Jim Leyland can’t be happy with what they are getting out of their #4 and #5 starters.

If the Tigers are going to be a serious player in the AL Central race, they are going to have to find a pitcher that will give the Tigers a chance to win. Justin Verlander and Armando Galarraga are good, but the Tigers need to get at least one more starter to keep up with the White Sox, who have starters that can win every fifth day.

Currently, the Tigers don’t have that. Who knows how much Kenny Rogers has left? Robertson and Bonine are unreliable. It’s hard to believe Dontrelle Willis will be a factor this season.

It won’t be easy either. The Tigers don’t have much to offer in the farm system that teams want. The one guy that could appeal to teams is Rick Porcello, but the Tigers are not going to give him up for a rental gun, and they should not. There are rumors that the Tigers could sign Freddie Garcia, who can help them.

It will be interesting how the Tigers go about this especially in light of what happened in Minneapolis.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 10:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.