Joel Zumaya made his first appearrance in almost four months last night...
It was a grand entrance.
Purple Haze playing in the background, blasting through the ballpark as well as the television speakers. Coming in to shut down a team that had the tying run on base in the seventh inning.
Five pitches, five fastballs, one out...
He seems to be back.
Now Gary Sheffield is out for about a week. This is unfortunate because he really has a chance to do something special this season. He is already 20/20, and he has an outside chance to go 30/30, but to do so, he will need to play in some games. Missing the next six could put the lid on any hopes.
Then again, if he can get on base and feel better, he might have a chance to steal some bases.
It seems like every time the Tigers start to get healthy, they lose another star. Luckily, they haven't lost anyone (outside of Zumaya, and maybe Kenny Rogers) for an extended period of time, but when September 1 hits, this team will still be in the race even though they have had seemingly everyone out for a time this year.
Marcus Thames, Brandon Inge, Carlos Guillen, Placido Polanco, Ivan Rodriguez, Jeremy Bonderman, Nate Robertson, Rogers and Zumaya, and now Sheffield, have all missed some time with nagging injuries, the flu, or more. Somehow, they have lucked out, though and when everything came to a head, the Indians stopped playing as good of ball as well.
Well, this is the time to shine, and the Tigers will do it for the next six days without Gary Sheffield. They really don't lose a lot except someone to pitch to before Magglio Ordonez. Marcus Thames got hot, got hurt, and came back still seeing the ball pretty well. Hopefully Cameron Maybin can take the next six days and run.
The Tigers have Paul Byrd tonight who got shelled in a seven run second inning not too long ago against the Yankees. I watched a bit of the tape, and it seems like he rushed a lot of pitches. Let's hope he does that again tonight and the Tigers take early advantage with Verlander on the hill. Getting to the Yankees after a sweep of Cleveland in first place by a game and a half looks pretty good. Even if the Tigers get swept, they should at least only be a game down coming out of that series and going into (finally) an easier part of the schedule.
The Indians schedule, on the other hand, gets harder while the Tigers gets easier. They have a big ten game road trip to start September at Minnesota, Los Angeles, and then at Chicago. The Tigers have a lot of games with Chicago left too, but they don't have Minnesota until they will hopefully be out of the race. While the Indians will have ten on the road, the Tigers will have ten at home, and then the big series hits in Cleveland in the middle of September.
Judging by the schedule, if the two teams are with a game of each other coming out of the next six days, the Tigers should have a slight lead going into that series. If no team implodes beforehand, and the two teams split the series, the Tigers should be up a couple of games with nine to play, unless they get swept and then the two teams should be no worse for the Tigers than tied. It's going to come down to the season's last week.
Hopefully not the last weekend, where the Tigers have Chicago and Cleveland plays against the Royals, but the Royals spoiled the Tigers division hopes last year, so you never know...
