Saw This One Coming

GAME SUMMARY

• Final Score: Kansas City 6  Detroit 1
• WP: Zack Greinke (8-1): 9 innings, 6 H, 0 BB, 1 ER, 8 K
• LP: Edwin Jackson (4-3): 6.1 innings, 7 H, 1 BB, 3 ER, 2 K, 89 pitches
• HR: Jose Guillen (4)

I was hoping that Zack Greinke would have his first off-day of 2009 tonight and it just didn’t happen.  Greinke was his usual dominant self and Edwin Jackson hung in there as long as he could before giving up the Tigers 1-0 lead in the sixth inning.  Greinke would hit 96 mph on the gun at times and then would drop in a 73 mph breaking ball…and they were all strikes.  The Tigers hitters didn’t look bad in this one, Greinke just looked that good.

Jackson looked good tonight after his 132 pitches last week.  Jackson was good, but Greinke was great.

The Tigers were fortunate enough to get some base hits off of Greinke early in the game, but Greinke was able to get three double-plays that obviously stopped a few could-be rallies.  Sometimes that’s just how it works.

This is why it was important for the Tigers to win the series opener against KC yesterday.  It would have been a real bummer losing game one and then facing Greinke.  The Tigers can still take the series if they can win tomorrow afternoon.

• Good: Placido Polanco got a couple of hits off of Greinke, including a double in the first inning that would lead to the Tigers run.
• Bad: Edwin Jackson was good with his pitches for the most part, but he threw the ball away twice and that ended up costing the Tigers at least a run or two.
• Bad: Brandon Lyon looks more and more hitable all of the time.  He served up the Jose Guillen home run and has now given up five longs balls in just over 20 innings of work.  That is terrible.  So what’s the deal with Lyon?  He’s good because he throws strikes (a la Todd Jones) but the trade of is that he gives up a ton of home runs?  That doesn’t sound like a good deal for the Tigers.
• Good: The Tigers are still in first place.