Leading Off: The Tigers won their seventh-straight one-run game, topping the Orioles 5-4 [highlights here]. Andy Dirks went 4 for 4 and knocked in the winning run and Brad Penny was good enough for his eighth win … The victory marked the seventh straight game the club has won by one run. According to STATS LLC, Detroit’s seven straight wins by one run matches a club record, equaling the mark established by the 1944 club. The 1944 Tigers won seven straight such games July 18-29 … In other news, the Tigers transferred the option of pitcher Lester Oliveros from Triple A Toledo to Double A Erie on Friday.

Around the Central: The Indians beat the Twins 3-2 in Cleveland and the Royals handed the White Sox their seventh-straight home loss, 5-1.

More great work this week by Paul Swaney and his team at StadiumJourney.com. The spotlight turns to Jerry Uht Park, home of the Erie SeaWolves, the Tigers’ Double-A affiliate. Here’s a taste of Joshua Guiher‘s review:

Jerry Uht Park … was originally built in 1995 at a cost of $8.7 million. In 2006, the park underwent a $4 million upgrade that added a nice scoreboard, a very large picnic area and a second level of seating among other things.

All About Al. In his ESPN.com blog [$], Jim Bowden lists the under-the-radar players on each American League club. His pick for the Tigers is Alburquerque.

Alburquerque has been an important part of the first-place Tigers’ bullpen. The hard-throwing right-hander has an impressive 2.29 ERA with 55 strikeouts and just 18 hits against him in 35 1/3 innings pitched. His fastball plays in the 93-96 mph range, and he has a hard, downward, biting slider that misses bats.

The Phighting Phifty-one-year-old Tony Phillips. Choose your own bizarre angle to this story (with video!), I’ll go with the ‘Tony Phillips is still playing?!‘ perspective.

Did you know that Wilson Betemit is hitting .360 since joining the Tigers last month? With as little as he’s played on this road trip, I’d have guessed it was about 200 points less.

Finally, a Happy 49th Birthday to “Mad Men” star John Slattery. And we can’t forget to mention the 82nd birthday of actor Pat Harrington who played Schneider in the unwatchable 1970s sitcom “One Day at a Time.”

81-81, 3rd Place; 13 GB

Yesterday’s Results

Tigers 4 – Orioles 2

• W: Daniel Schlereth (2-0)
• L: Brad Bergesen (8-12)
• Save: Jose Valverde (26)
• HR: Brandon Inge (13)

Tigers History Lesson

Today’s Birthdays

• John Kiely, 46

• Joe Boever, 50

On this Date in Tigers History

• 2005 — The Tigers hired Jim Leyland as the club’s 36th manager.

• 1987 — The Tigers take advantage of one of the great collapses in history to win the AL East title, beating the Blue Jays, 1-0, behind the six-hit pitching of Frank Tanana. Toronto lost its last seven games of the season, including three straight in the season-ending series at Tiger Stadium.

• 1965 — The Tigers acquired RHP Bill Monbouquette from the Red Sox for infielder George Smith and outfielder George Thomas.

• 1934 — Schoolboy Rowe evens the World Series with a 12-inning, 3-2 victory, shutting out the Cardinals over the final nine innings. The Tigers tie the game in the ninth inning and win on Goose Goslin’s single.

• 1925 — Harry Heilmann gets six hits in the Tigers’ doubleheader sweep over the Browns, 10-4 and 11-6, to edge out teammate Ty Cobb for the batting crown, .393 to .389. Cobb bats over .300 for the 20th time. In the second game, fans see the unusual spectacle of two managers, both famous hitters, pitch against each other in the season finale. George Sisler of the Browns and Ty Cobb of the Tigers both pitch in relief for the two clubs. Cobb is perfect in his one inning, while Sisler holds Detroit scoreless in two.

37-30, 2nd place; 1.5 GB Minnesota

Today’s Game

Tigers vs. Diamondbacks | 1:05 p.m. ET – Comerica Park | On the air: FSD/AM 1270 and 97.1 FM

Pitching Matchup

Max Scherzer (3-6, 6.14 ERA) vs. RHP Ian Kennedy (3-4, 3.57 ERA)

Yesterday’s Results

Diamondbacks 6 – Tigers 5 | Fungo Recap

• W: Edwin Jackson (4-6)
• L: Rick Porcello (4-7)

Tigers History Lesson

Today’s Birthdays

• Bobby Seay, 32

• Paul Bako, 38

On this Date in Tigers History

• 1994 — In a 7-1 loss to the Indians, the Tigers’ string of 25 straight games of hitting a home run ends. The streak tied the major-league record set by the 1941 Yankees.

• 1985 — The Tigers acquired LHP Frank Tanana from the Rangers for RHP Duane James.

• 1984 — At Detroit, Yankee reliever Jose Rijo falls to 1-7 when he serves up a two-out, three-run homer to Howard Johnson in the 13th inning. The Tigers win, 9-6. Alan Trammell, Lance Parrish and Chet Lemon also hit homers for the Tigers, who draw their third-straight 40,000+ crowd.

• 1980 — White Sox reliever Ed Farmer swears he will take criminal action against Detroit’s Al Cowens following an on-field brawl at Chicago’s Comiskey Park.Cowens hit a grounder to short, and then charged the mound instead of running to first. He wanted to deliver justice for an incident a year earlier when a Farmer pitch shattered Cowens’ jaw.

  American League President Lee MacPhail suspends Cowens for seven games. The Tigers win 5-3 in 11 innings. (Read more on Cowens in this Fungo Flashback.)

• 1961 – Al Kaline plays third base for the first time in his career. His two hits and two RBIs lead the Tigers to a 5-4 win over the Senators. Kaline will return to the outfield and play third just once more in his career, in 1965.

• 1914 — The Tigers lose the services of Ty Cobb when he breaks his thumb in a fight with a butcher’s clerk. Cobb will be out until August 13.

• 1911 — Ty Cobb breaks the American League hitting streak record with an infield single against Cleveland’s Willie Mitchell. It is Cobb’s 30th straight game with a hit. He adds two stolen bases to help the Tigers win, 8-3.

In the first six games one thing was constant: the team that scored first would go on to lose. The Blue Jays, with the season in the balance, would take their chances and welcome an early lead off Tigers starter Frank Tanana.

Instead, the Tigers struck first. Larry Herndon led off the Detroit third inning with a home run off Blue Jays starter Jimmy Key. A strong wind gust nudged the ball over Bell’s outstretched glove and into the lower deck in left. The Tigers led 1-0 on Herndon’s first homer since Aug. 18.

“Luckily, I just got enough,” Herndon said to Tommy George of the Free Press. “I saw Bell go back and it looked like he had a chance to catch it. I looked at Bell all the way. And then when I heard and saw the crowd reaction behind the fence, I knew it was out.”

Key gave his team every opportunity to get back into the game. He blanked Detroit – allowing only a single by Lou Whitaker and three walks – over the next five innings. As the shadows crept across the Tiger Stadium infield, Tanana faced – and escaped – a number of threats. In the eighth, the Blue Jays placed a runner at third with only one out and the heart of the order coming to bat. Tanana got Juan Beniquez to line to right and then Jesse Barfield grounded out to end the inning.

In the bottom of the eighth, Key struck out the side and finished the game giving up only three hits. He could now only watch as his teammates worked to muster some offense against Tanana.

Cecil Fielder, who three years later would become a star with Detroit, led off the ninth inning with a strike out. The next hitter, Manny Lee, who was superb in replacing Tony Fernandez during the season’s final 10 days, battled with Tanana and fouled off five, full-count pitches. With the sixth, Lee grounded sharply to third for out number two.

The Blue Jays’ final hope rested on the bat of third baseman Garth Iorg, hitless in his previous three at bats. Iorg swung at the first pitch, a tantalizing curveball, and hit a slow roller between pitcher’s mound and first. Tanana scooped the ball, turned and softly underhanded it to first baseman Darrell Evans for the final out – clinching the Tigers second division championship in four years.

The Blue Jays could only watch as the Tigers celebrated a championship that, just a week earlier, appeared to be theirs.

“To lose that many one-run games, one play, one pitch, one hit turns ‘em all around,” Toronto manager Jimy Williams told the News’s Lynn Henning in a somber clubhouse afterward. “Especially one hit. We lost the first two and then, when you put nine eggs on the board, it’s tough to win.”

As the Blue Jays gathered their belongings and prepared for a long winter of questions and soul searching, the Tigers had more work ahead of them: the American League Championship Series against the Minnesota Twins.

Seven months earlier at their spring training home in Lakeland, Fla., the Tigers didn’t appear to have the ingredients required for a memorable season. At the time, Jack Morris said that the Tigers could win…but they’d have to do it with what they had. Hardly a stirring battle cry.

But when the final 10 days of the 1987 season arrived, the Tigers proved they had enough – plenty, in fact – to win the American League East title.

Final 1987 American League East Standings

]]> http://www.dailyfungo.com/2009/10/04/october-surprise-part-9-comeback-complete/feed/ 0 http://www.dailyfungo.com/2009/09/29/october-surprise-part-3-game-2-skips-away/ http://www.dailyfungo.com/2009/09/29/october-surprise-part-3-game-2-skips-away/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:45:43 +0000 Mike McClary http://www.dailyfungo.com/?p=2779 As the Tigers and Twins square off for the biggest series of the year with the division title hanging in the balance, we continue our look back on the last great race in Tigers history: 1987 and the seven games against the Toronto Blue Jays. Today: Game 2.

Part 1 – October Surprise: Tigers and Jays Battle for ’87 Division Title
Part 2 – Showdown in Toronto, Game 1

American League East Standings

September 25, 1987

Tigers left hander Frank Tanana had been in one divisional race in his 14-year career: in 1979 when he helped the California Angels win their first American League West title. In 1987, Tanana approached the twilight of his career but Toronto starter Jimmy Key’s best days were just dawning. Key had won 14 games in each of his first two years as a starter and in 1987 he would finish second in A.L. Cy Young voting, posting a 17-8 record and 2.76 ERA.

For the second straight night, the Tigers produced a two-run lead. In the Tigers’ second, Chet Lemon doubled and Darrell Evans singled him home. Later, in the sixth, Kirk Gibson bunted for a base hit and took second on Key’s wild throw to first. Larry Herndon followed with a single to left scoring Gibson and giving Tanana a two-run cushion.

Tanana pitched one of his best games of the season throwing seven scoreless innings, yielding just five hits and a walk. Key was equally masterful in his 8.1 innings pitched. He scattered nine hits, allowing only one earned run and walking a single hitter. Going into the ninth inning the Tigers maintained a 2-0 lead.

Whitt led of the ninth by flying out to center. The next batter, Jesse Barfield, singled off of reliever Dickie Noles. Anderson promptly lifted Noles for aging left-hander Willie Hernandez to face former-Tiger Rick Leach.

Leach wasted no time ripping a double to put runners on second and third with one out. The next batter, Manny Lee, tripled off Hernandez tying the game at two. Still with one out, Anderson brought in Mike Henneman, Detroit’s rookie closer. Henneman intentionally walked Willie Upshaw and then Liriano to load the bases. With the infield in, Lloyd Moseby hit a sharp grounder to Lou Whitaker. Whitaker passed up a risky second-to-first double play chance and threw home. The ball bounced past Mike Heath and allowed Lee to score the winning run.

“Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tram move to his left,” Whitaker told the Free Press’s John Lowe after the game. “The way we play together, I knew we had a chance to turn two, but we couldn’t take the chance.”

“Maybe I could have backed up and caught the ball with one foot on the back part of the plate,” Heath said to Lowe. “There possibly was time (to reposition himself at the plate), but at that point I just didn’t think about it. It just happened too quick. When I saw it down there, I tried to trap it. . . . and it just ate me up.”

Two games, two blown leads, two losses. Not what the Tigers had in mind. “I would not recommend this as a way to get ahead,” Anderson said to the Free Press’s Charlie Vincent.

Instead of tightening the pennant race, the Tigers were loosening their grip on postseason aspirations. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays had to feel more comfortable on their first-place perch.

Tomorrow: Another Heartbreaker

While this plays out, let’s look back at the final two weekends of the 1987 season when the Tigers and Blue Jays squared off for seven heart-pounding, one-run games that would ultimately decide the American League East title.

Today, Part 1.

“I’m telling you, everything is going to come down to our seven games with Toronto.” — Tigers Manager Sparky Anderson, Sept. 21, 1987

Entering the 1987 season, little was expected of the Detroit Tigers. Just three seasons removed from a wire-to-wire championship season, the Tigers were considered mere also-rans in a division filled with potent lineups, solid pitching and the defending League Champions, the Red Sox.

Adding to an already challenging divisional landscape, the Tigers faced life without their All Star catcher and cleanup hitter, Lance Parrish. The Big Wheel rejected the Tigers’ two-year, $2.4 million contract offer and instead signed a one-year $800,000 deal with the Philadelphia Phillies.

That’s why in the first weeks of the 1987 season the story in baseball was not the Detroit Tigers. Hardly. The Milwaukee Brewers’ 13-0 start captivated the baseball world. After 13 games the Tigers had a less-imposing 6-7 record. Twenty games into the season Milwaukee had stormed to 18-2, four games ahead of New York, followed by Toronto (12-8), Baltimore (9-11), Detroit (8-12) and Cleveland (6-14).

The Brewers, though, soon came back to earth. On May 1 the club sat atop the A.L. East with a 19-3 record. Fueled by a horrific stretch that saw the team lose 12 straight and 18 out of 20, Tom Trebelhorn‘s team limped into June at 24-21 and would eventually finish seven games off the pace.

By the middle of May the Tigers’ record was a lackluster 11-19. But whereas Milwaukee’s season had imploded by Memorial Day, the 24-24 Tigers began showing signs of life.

The Tigers Find Their Groove

In June, things started clicking for the Tigers. The loss of Parrish was buffered unexpectedly by slugging catcher Matt Nokes called up from Triple-A Nashville in May. Detroit found more punch on the waiver wire on June 4, when the team signed four-time National League batting champion Bill Madlock who had been released by the Dodgers. Madlock, a career .306 hitter, brought an experienced and still-dangerous bat to a Detroit lineup lacking in right-handed pop.

After acquiring Madlock, the Tigers rolled to a 73-40 record, a .646 winning percentage. Along with shortstop Alan Trammell, who was crafting an MVP-caliber season, Madlock helped catapult the team into contention in the A.L. East.

By July 1, Detroit posted a 41-32 record and on August 1 they were 58-41, good for third place, just a game and a half behind the second-place Blue Jays and three games behind the Yankees.

Over the final two months of the season it became clear that the Tigers were in a three-team race, though the Yankees would eventually fade. But to compete with the pitching-rich Blue Jays, the team needed a B-12 injection for the rotation.

On August 12, the Tigers acquired veteran right-handed pitcher Doyle Alexander from the Atlanta Braves in a trade for minor league prospect John Smoltz.

In Alexander the Tigers had found a complementary arm to a seasoned rotation of Morris, Frank Tanana and Walt Terrell. Alexander posted a perfect 9-0 record in his 11 starts with Detroit.

Heading into the next-to-last weekend of the season, the Tigers and Blue Jays were cruising. Detroit had taken two of three from Boston at Fenway Park and Toronto had swept three in Baltimore.

Then the baseball world turned its attention toward Toronto and a series that could decide the division champion.

Tomorrow: The First Showdown — the Tigers and Jays in Toronto

Some birthday for me. Actually, yesterday was a fine day and I never let the Tigers’ performance impact my birthday mood.

Because there’s absolutely nothing positive to discuss about the Tigers’ finale against the Tribe, humor me as I walk through notable Tigers games and events that happened on Aug. 2 since the year I was born.

• Overall, the Tigers are 20 and 15 on my birthday; in seven years they didn’t play, including during the 1981 strike.

• The Tigers beat the Twins 6-5 at Metropolitan Stadium on the day I was born in 1968. Don McMahon got the win in relief of Joe Sparma. Bill Freehan drove in three runs while the Twins’ Rod Carew went 3 for 4, of course.

• On Aug. 2, 1972, the Tigers purchases the contract of P Woodie Fryman from the Phillies. Two days later, they purchased C Duke Sims‘s contract from the Dodgers. Fryman, just 4-10 for Philadelphia, goes 10-3 for Detroit, while Sims hits .316 for the Tigers in 38 games.

• In 1975, at Fenway Park the game-time temperature was 103 degrees and the Tigers wilted under the heat of Rick Wise and the Red Sox and lost 7-2.

• In 1984, I was there when Jack Morris out dueled Bert Blyleven as the Tigers beat the Indians 2-1.

• On Aug. 2, 1985, Frank Tanana allowed one hit, a homer by Ben Oglivie in the 5th, and struck out eight on his way to beating the Brewers, 4-1.

• In 1990, Yankees rookie Kevin Maas hits his 10th home run in just 77 at bats, the fastest any player has ever reached that mark. Big deal. The Tigers won 6-5 in 11 innings.

Thanks for taking the trip down memory lane with me. Assuming you’re still there. Hello…?

I’ll certainly have more on The Bird this week, but I will share my single memory of Fidrych and his magical 1976 season.

My parents had tickets for one of the most dazzling games of that year: August 17, Detroit native Frank Tanana and the Angels against Fidrych and the Tigers at Tiger Stadium.

Back then, Tanana was a flamethrower and entered the game with a 14-8 record on his way to a 19-win season. The Bird was 13-4 and, as everyone knows, soaring toward the A.L. Rookie of the Year honors.

Anyway, I had two choices: I could attend the game with my family or I could spend the evening hanging out with my grandpa. The choice was easy: I hung out with grandpa.

And what a night! I ate ice cream, played Go Fish and listened to the game on WJR. The fact is, I wasn’t a diehard fan at that point (I was but a pup of 8 years) and, let’s face it, grandpa never disappointed. (One note about the ice cream. Grandpa asked me if I wanted syrup on my Sander’s vanilla. “Of course,” I said, expecting Hershey’s. Instead I got Log Cabin.)

So, what happened in that game? Not much. Only everything you’d expect in a game for the ages: A crowd of 51,822 watching Tanana go eight innings, give up just four hits, and strike out eight. For his part, Fidrych went the distance, too, scattering five hits, allowing only a pair of runs.

Despite the tremendous pitching by both starters, the real hero was The Bird’s personal catcher, Bruce Kimm, whose solo homer in the eighth broke a 2-2 tie. Did I mention it was the only homer he’d hit in his career? ‘Twas.

Sure, the baseball fan in me wishes I’d seen that game, but it’s a much richer memory — and a better story — having the worlds of Mark “The Bird” Fidrych and James McClary collide.

Less than a year after the Fidrych/Tanana tilt, I lost my grandpa — way too soon. Now we’ve lost The Bird before it was time.

Even before learning of Fidrych’s death this afternoon, I couldn’t think of him without thinking of my grandpa and that wonderful night in 1976.

And that’s not going to change.

This year, at 45, Moyer ended up at 16-7, 3.71, with 33 starts and 196 innings pitched. For his part, Rogers, 43, was 9-13, 5.70, 30 starts and 170+ innings pitched.

When Moyer was 43 (in 2006), he was 6-12, 4.39 in 25 starts with the Mariners and 5-2, 4.03, eight starts after a trade to Philly. In 2007, at 44, Moyer went 14-12, 5.01 in 33 starts.

On Opening Day — in fact, next Monday — Rogers will be 44. Should the Tigers consider him as a viable option as their number-five starter? Maybe.

Other stuff…

• On this date in 1976, the Orioles’ Jim Palmer, who led the American League with 22 victories and 315 innings pitched, wins the American League Cy Young Award be securing 19 of the 24 first-place votes. The Tigers’ rookie Mark Fidrych finished second with five. (Future-Tiger Frank Tanana was third.)

  The Bird would get his hardware, of course, during that postseason by winning the Rookie of the Year Award with 22 first-place votes to the two first-place votes for Twins catcher Butch Wynegar.

• Happy 49th Birthday to Lloyd Moseby, a long-time Blue Jays outfielder that joined the Tigers as a free agent for the 1990 and ’91 seasons. His best overall season was 1984: .280, 18 HR, 92 RBI and 15 triples.For the Tigers he simply kept centerfield warm for Milt Cuyler. Ahem. The Portland, Ark. native hit .255 in two Detroit seasons with a total of 20 homers. He retired after the 1991 season at the surprisingly young age of 31.

Tanana faced the Jays 10 days later, this time at Tiger Stadium, and with a different landscape atop the East division. On the last day of the season, Tanana and Toronto’s Jimmy Key squared off again. The Tigers came into the game one-up on the Jays. Win and clinch the division; lose and prepare for a one-game playoff the next day.

October 4, 1987

In the first six games one thing was constant: the team that scored first would go on to lose. The Blue Jays, with the season in the balance, would take their chances and welcome an early lead off Tigers starter Frank Tanana.

Instead, the Tigers struck first. Larry Herndon led off the Detroit third inning with a home run off Blue Jays starter Jimmy Key. A strong wind gust nudged the ball over Bell’s outstretched glove and into the lower deck in left. The Tigers led 1-0 on Herndon’s first homer since Aug. 18.

Key gave his team every opportunity to get back into the game. He blanked Detroit – allowing only a single by Whitaker and three walks – over the next five innings. As the shadows crept across the Tiger Stadium infield, Tanana faced – and escaped – a number of threats. In the eighth, the Blue Jays placed a runner at third with only one out and the heart of the order coming to bat. Tanana got Beniquez to line to right and then Jesse Barfield grounded out to end the inning.

In the bottom of the eighth, Key struck out the side and finished the game giving up only three hits. He could now only watch as his teammates worked to muster some offense against Tanana.

Cecil Fielder, who three years later would become a star with Detroit, led off the ninth inning with a strike out. The next hitter, Manny Lee, who was superb in replacing Tony Fernandez during the season’s final 10 days, battled with Tanana and fouled off five, full-count pitches. With the sixth, Lee grounded sharply to third for out number two.

The Blue Jays’ final hope rested on the bat of third baseman Garth Iorg, hitless in his previous three at bats. Iorg swung at the first pitch, a tantalizing curveball, and hit a slow roller between pitcher’s mound and first. Tanana scooped the ball, turned and softly underhanded it to first baseman Darrell Evans for the final out – clinching the Tigers second division championship in four years.

The Blue Jays could only watch as the Tigers celebrated a championship that, just a week earlier, appeared to be theirs.

I was at that game and can still remember the rumbling of the upper deck bleachers in centerfield. Today, there’s no way a manager would send his number-three starter out to the mound for the ninth inning of a one-run game. Then again, who knows?

I think it’s safe to say that this start was Tanana’s crowning achievement in Detroit. He went on to pitch five more years for the Tigers before ending his career in 1993 with both New York teams — first the Mets and then the Yankees.

For the Tigers he compiled a 96-82 record. Overall, his career numbers are 240-236 with a 3.66 ERA.