Detroit Tigers – “A Socking”

 

After the Tigers six game home stand, Detroit would take the road and head to “Beantown” Boston Massachusetts, to take on the defending World Series Champions Red Sox.  Game one of the four game series would be rained out.  That meant that Detroit would have to play a day-night double header on Tuesday.

In game one of the double header Detroit would send their Ace Mathew Boyd to the mound against the World Champions.  The Sox would strike first against Boyd by putting up a two spot in the bottom of the third inning.  The runs would come via Mookie Betts 2-run RBI single into left field, Christian Vazquez and Tzu-Wei Lin would score on the play, giving the Sox a 2-run lead (2-0).

In the top of the fourth inning the Tigers would get a run back. The run would come by a Ronny Rodriguez RBI double to left center field that would short hop the green monster and score Niko Goodrum from second base making the game 2-1 in favor of the Sox.  An inning later in the top of the 5th inning Detroit would tie the game up on a Grayson Greiner solo-homerun to left field, the game would be tied at two (2-2).  One inning later in the top of the 6th, Tiger shortstop Ronny Rodriguez would hit his first home run of the year, which would give Detroit a one run advantage (3-2). In the bottom half of that inning Boston would do the same. Xander Bogaerts would hit a solo-homerun to left center field, which would tie the game up again at three (3-3).

Moving onto the top of the 8th inning it would be the Tigers that would widen the lead. In the 8th, the Tiger’s second baseman Josh Harrison would hit a 2-run double into center field.  Niko Goodrum and Ronny Rodriguez would score on the play giving Detroit a 5-3 lead.  Detroit would score two more runs in the 8th and 9th innings making the game 7-3, Boston would get a lone run back in the bottom of the 9th but that would be it. The Tigers would win game one by the score of 7-3.

 

In Game two of the double header Detroit would send Spencer Trunbull to the hill to take on Hector Velazquez and the Sox in the nightcap.  The Tigers would be the ones to strike first in this one. In the top of the 4th inning with the bases loaded for the Tigers Brandon Dixon would step up the plate.  Dixon would rope a bases clearing double down the left field line.  Jeimer Candelario, Miguel Cabrera and Niko Goodrum would all score on the play giving the Tigers an early three run advantage (3-0).

The shutout would only last until the bottom of the 7th inning.  Xander Bogaerts would hit a little flare over Ronny Rodriguez’s head.  Andrew Benintendi would score on the play which would get the Sox on the board, cutting the Tigers lead down to two (3-1).  An inning later in the bottom of the 8th, Michael Chavis the Red Sox infielder would hit his first homerun of the year and give the Sox another run (3-2).  In the top of the 9th inning the Tigers would pull away a bit by a John hicks double. Hick’s double would score Ronny Rodriguez from second bases and give Detroit a two-run advantage (4-2). The Tigers would end up winning that game by that same score and win the day-night double header (4-2).

 

In game three of the series Detroit would send left handed pitcher Tyson Ross to the mound on Wednesday.  Boston would get on the board first in the second inning.  Sox third baseman Rafael Devers would single in on a groundball to right field, J.D. Martinez would score on the play giving the Sox a 1-0 lead.  Three batters later the sox would add another run. This time it would come off Christian Vazquez’s bat.  Vazquez would single on a fly ball to right, Michael Chavis would score giving the Sox a 2-0 lead.

In the bottom of the 5th Boston would score two more runs.  The first would come on a Mookie Betts double to center field and the second would come off of J.D. Martinez’s bat.  Martinez would hit an RBI single into left field, Mookie Betts would score on the play, and the Sox would take a 4-0 lead.  However, Boston would not be done.  With the game in the bottom of the 8th inning, and the sore 5-1 Sox, Christian Vazquez would step up to the plate again.  Vazquez would hit an RBI single into left field giving the Sox a 6-1 lead.  A batter later Andrew Benintendi would hit an RBI double into left field, Vazquez would score on the play to give the Sox a 6-1 lead.  Boston would score four more runs in that game and three out of the four would come on bases loaded walks.

In the end Boston would end up rolling over Detroit and win the game by the score of 11-4.

 

In the 4th and final game in Boston the Tigers would be gifted with a not so pleasant going away present.  In the bottom of the 2nd inning Michael Chavis would hit the Tigers a 2-run-homerun to left field to give Boston a two-run lead.  In the top of the third however, Jeimer Candelario would single into right field, JaCoby Jones would score on the play getting Detroit on the board and making the game 2-1 Sox.  One batter later Nick Castellanos would hit a two-run homerun down the right field line, that would hit the foul pole and give Detroit a 3-2 lead.

However, in the bottom of the 3rd inning the Red Sox would take that lead right back.  To start the bottom of the 3rd inning, J.D Martinez would hit a game tying RBI single into left field, Mookie Betts would score on the play and the game would be tied up at three (3-3).  Two batters later Rafael Devers would hit a 2-run RBI double off the green monster out in left field and the red Sox would take a 5-3 lead.  Boston would get two more runs in the 4th and 6th innings. The Sox would end up winning the game by the score of 7-3 and Detroit would earn a split in the series.

On Friday the Tigers would have to face another Sox team.  This time they would travel to the south side of Chicago to take on their rival the White Sox in a three game weekend series.

Game one of the series would be a see-saw battle between the two teams with a lot of lead changes.  The Tigers would strike first blood in the top of the first inning.  Detroit would get two runs by Nicholas Castellanos 2-run-homerun that would land in the center field seats, and Detroit would take a 2-run lead (2-0).

Detroit would end up hitting back-to-back home-runs when their “big man” Miguel Cabrera would go deep down the right field line to give the Tigers another run (3-0).  In the bottom half of the first, the White Sox would get a run of their own, and that run would also come from their “big man,” Jose Abreu.  Abreu would hit a ground ball past the second baseman Josh Harrison and into right field to get Chicago on the board (3-1).

In the top of the 2nd inning the Tigers would get that run right back. In the second Miguel Cabrera would get another RBI.  This time it would come in the form of a single into center field, Jeimer Candelario would score on the play extending the Tiger’s lead (3-1).

In the top of the third inning the Tigers would just keep adding on to their lead.  In the third, Grayson Greiner would hit his third homerun of the season and give the Tigers a 5-1 lead.  Moving on into the top of the 6th inning the Tigers would have a commanding lead by the score of 10-4.  It looked like the Tigers would roll past the White Sox in the first game of the series.

However, that wasn’t quite the case.  The White Sox would score five runs in the bottom of the 6th inning to only trail Detroit by one run (10-9).  In the bottom of the 9th inning with the game tied up at eleven, Sox shortstop Tim Anderson would step up to the plate.  Anderson would hit a walk-off bomb off Tiger reliver Joe Jimenez, and the Sox would complete one of the biggest comebacks in franchise history.  The final score was 12-11.

(Game two of the series was rained out. And will be made up on July the 3rd in Chicago)

 

In the final game of the of the shorten two game set it would be the White Sox again who would take the early advantage against the Tigers.  In the bottom of the 1st inning the Sox would get to Tiger’s starter Mattew Boyd.  Boyd would give up a ground-rule 2 RBI double to Sox catcher Welington Castillo.  Leury Garcia and Jose Abreu would score giving the Sox the 2-0 lead.

Although, a half-inning later the Tigers would get one run back.  The run would come by Grayson Greiner’s RBI single to right field, Ronny Rodriguez would score to cut the Sox lead down to one.  However, later in the game the White Sox would put up some insurance runs against the Tigers.  In the bottom of the 7th Leury Garcia would hit a beautifully placed sacrifice bunt that went back to the mound and just under Buck Farmer’s glove. Ryan Cordell would score from third base to give the Sox a 2-run advantage.  For good measure Chicago would score one more run in the bottom of the 8th inning.  In the 8th Yolmer Sanchez would hit a sacrifice fly to the right fielder Nicholas Castellanos, Yoan Moncada would score from third base on the play to make the game 4-1 in favor of the Sox.

In the end the White Sox would win the game by that score of 4-1.  The Tigers would end up losing the shorten series to the south-siders and will now move on to the “City of Brotherly Love” to take on Bryce Harper and the Phillies in a short 2-game interleague set.