The Pennant Race is Heating Up
It’s September. That means all of the top baseball teams are scrambling to win games and make their way into the playoffs. For the AL, that means the New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, and Detroit Tigers are going head to head in a desperate attempt to win the Wild Card position. While there is a lot of discussion over which team will get the AL Wild Card slot, talk of the NL pennant race has been practically mum!
The Tigers and Mariners had the distinct advantage of knocking each other down some games since they played one another. While the Tigers won the first two of the three game series, the Mariners weren’t about to let the Tigers get one step closer to moving ahead of them (just behind the Yankees). Today, the Tigers lost 14-7, at Comerica Field. Felix Hernandez started for the Mariners and in actuality he really didn’t control the ball game. Hernandez gave up multiple runs and hits to the Tigers, but that didn’t seem to matter.
What did affect the game was the crappy pitching by the Tigers bullpen. It all started with Jeremy Bonderman, who has sucked as a pitcher this year. Leland needs to send him down to Erie to make him learn a thing or two. Of course, with the bull pen plagued with multiple injuries this year (Rogers, Miller, Zumaya), Bonderman was the go to guy because Leland had no choice but to make him one.
Unfortunately, whatever efforts Bonderman seemed to make had no effect and he was taken out before even completing two full innings (after giving up 5 runs and loading the bases). From there the pitchers kept coming in and out of the game. There was Grilli, Zumaya, and by the time Virgil Vasquez entered the game I had stopped counting who the pitchers were.
We can only hope that the rumors that Bonderman is injured this year are true and cross out fingers that fellow pitcher Nate Robertson doesn’t suck as bad as he has lately. Perhaps the Tigers will get their act together and make it to the playoffs after all. However, being 6 ½ games behind Cleveland doesn’t help and the Indians aren’t the Tigers only problem.
With the Yankees standing in the Tigers way for the Wild Card, Detroit really needs to worry about A Rod. The Yankees took a clean sweep against the KC Royals and it has been thanks to the sudden explosion in the amount of A-Rod home runs. Love him or hate him, Alex Rodriguez is a real threat to the Tigers and if he doesn’t get into a sudden slump and the Tigers cannot manage to win their next 4-5 games, its looking like Detroit will be watching the playoffs from the sidelines this year.
Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, Seattle Mariners, Pennant Race, Playoffs, Wild Card, Jeremy Bonderman
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