Five years ago this week, the Tigers sent a young, often frustrating righthander to the mound in the fourth game of the American League Division Series. With a win, no sure thing with the unpredictable starter, the Tigers would eliminate the Yankees and move on to the American League Championship Series against the Oakland A’s. Twenty-three-year-old Jeremy Bonderman was the Tigers’ starter [...]

In 1984, the Tigers made the no-brainer decision to leave southpaw reliever Sid Monge off the playoff roster. Monge had an undistinguished half seaon with the Tigers after being picked up off waivers from the Padres — 1-0, 4.25 ERA in 19 games. He didn’t pitch enough in the regular season and, left hander or [...]

There’s no shortage of joy when the Tigers face the Twins for the final time during a season. Yes, 2009 included – outcome notwithstanding. And just think, a week from now we can say the same about the White Sox. The Friday Rundown The Tigers are in first place, 8.5 games ahead of the White [...]

A couple weeks ago, friend of the Fungo Lynn Henning wrote why it made sense to give Justin Verlander an extra day of rest heading into the three-game weekend series against the Indians. In the column, Henning pointed to specific examples in Tigers history where heavy workloads resulted in truncated careers – among them Mark [...]

In case you missed it, ESPN.com’s SweetSpot blog has featured a nice collection of Tigers-focused posts over the past few days: Dave Schoenfield lists his unsung heroes, among them is Jhonny Peralta: I’ve sung Peralta’s praises on several occasions, but everyone just keeps talking about this Verlander guy. All Peralta has done is hit over [...]

Welcome to the last full week of August. The Tigers enjoy a 4.5-game lead on the Indians today. The last time they led the A.L. Central by that many games was Sept. 16, 2009. Leading Off: I’ve watched a lot of Tigers baseball in my time but I can’t recall a more exciting final out [...]

Welcome to the weekend. Leading Off: The Royals or the Tigers’ bullpen, depending on your point of view, did their best to ruin another terrific outing by Rick Porcello – but neither was up to the task. The Tigers came back, after leading 3-0, to win 4-3 in 10 innings. Daniel Schlereth (1-1) earned the [...]