Headed into the last day of the baseball regular season, the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins were tied on top of the AL Central. After both teams won on Sunday, the two ballclubs will have to play a tiebreaker to settle the division title. The tiebreaker will take place on Tuesday in Minnesota at the Metrodome.
The Tigers were able to beat the Chicago White Sox 5-3 thanks to great efforts by Justin Verlander and Ryan Raburn. Verlander didn’t give up a run until the eighth inning, while Raburn hit a pair of homers to finish with three runs and three …read more

The Detroit Tigers have seemingly been in control of the AL Central for the entire 2009 baseball season. But with only two games left on the schedule, the Twins are making the Tigers sweat.
The Twins beat the Kansas City Royals on Friday, while the Tigers lost to the Chicago White Sox. As a result, the Twins trail the Tigers by only one game now.
After getting up 10-0 on the Royals, the Twins almost saw the entire lead disappear. In fact, the Royals cut the lead to 10-7 and even had the tying run at the plate in the eighth …read more

The Detroit Tigers could have clinched the AL Central with a win on Thursday. The Minnesota Twins weren’t having it. Instead, the Twins handed the Tigers an 8-3 defeat.
After Gerald Laird put the Tigers up 1-0 with an RBI single in the second inning, the Twins went on a tear. They scored the game’s next eight runs, with the biggest hit being a three RBI bases clearing double by Orlando Cabrera in the eighth inning.
Twins starting pitcher Scott Baker was very good. In five innings, he gave up five hits and no earned runs. With the win, he improved his …read more

The Minnesota Twins just won’t quit. On Tuesday in the first game of a doubleheader, the Twins defeated the Detroit Tigers to pull within one game in the AL Central. With a win in the second game of the doubleheader, the two teams would be tied.
In the 3-2 Twins victory, Orlando Cabrera authored the winning hit. With the game tied 1-1 in the tenth inning, Cabrera hit a run scoring single. Delmon Young followed later in the inning with a sac fly.
In the bottom of the tenth, Curtis Granderson hit a solo home run but Joe Nathan retired the other …read more

The Detroit Tigers were headed in the wrong direction. On Sunday, they got some relief — at least temporarily. In Minnesota, the Tigers were able to top the Twins by a final count of 6-2 to push their lead to three games in the AL Central.
Placido Polanco was the star at the plate for the Tigers. He went 2-for-4 with a run and three RBIs. His two-run single in the fifth inning gave Detroit a lead that it would never lose.
On the mound, Nate Robertson when five innings while giving up two earned runs and striking out six to earn …read more

Whew… That’s a mouthful! The Chicago White Sox hit four consecutive home runs off two Kansas City Royals pitchers in the sixth inning of Thursday’s game.
Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Alexei Ramirez and Juan Uribe completed the rare feat for the White Sox. Thome, Konerko and Ramirez all homered off KC hurler Joel Peralta, before he was yanked in favor of Robinson Tejeda, who surrendered the final blast to Uribe.
The video shows the impressive accomplishment, but you have to wonder what was going through the head of Peralta, who gave up three of the bombs. After the first …read more

“I tried to play him in the outfield. It didn’t work. He couldn’t throw in from the outfield.”
I saw the big bold quote on this story before I even read it. And when I saw it – I just about spit a mouthful of Mt. Dew all over my computer screen. Now – this is a quote! A quote from none other than the ‘Master of Words’ – Jim Leyland.
Leyland is obviously fed up with hearing about Gary Sheffield’s claim that the 39-year-old can still play the outfield every day. Right now it looks like Sheff …read more

In case you haven’t noticed, the best pennant chase in Major League Baseball is not happening in the American League East. It’s actually happening in the AL Central, where the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins are fighting for the top spot.
Coming into today’s games, the White Sox hold a slim one-half game lead over the second place Twins. However, it took 12th inning heroics by the Kansas City Royals to knock the Twins from the top spot on Sunday.
Sure, the AL East has big names like the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees (who are …read more

I’m sure everyone noticed that C.C. Sabathia won his first game with the Milwaukee Brewers this week, yet his former team – the Cleveland Indians – have dropped 10 consecutive contests. General Manager Mark Shapiro better hope that Matt LaPorta is on track to make the majors this season, otherwise his team could be falling well past the Seattle Mariners and the Washington Nationals with the worst record in the entire league.
You already know my feelings on the Sabathia trade. The Indians didn’t get enough in return for the former Cy Young Award winner. Shapiro jumped the …read more