I went to two games this week.  One was Wednesday, which marked the beginning of the Tigers slide towards the Wild Card.  I also went to today’s extra inning extraveganza that marked the Royals (yes, those Royals) six run come from behind win that sent the Tigers packing to New York instead of hosting the A’s in the first round of the playoffs.  It turns out that all the Tigers needed to do was win one of the last five games and they couldn’t do it despite having three games against the second worst team in baseball.  Yeah, that’s right.  The Tampa Devil Rays lost one more game then the Royals while Kansas City was busy sweeping us.

There is one good thing that comes out of the Tigers playing the Yankees in the first round.  When you check the schedule, the Twins and A’s have two 1 pm games and then a 4 pm on Friday.  That would have been the Tigers had they pulled out the game today.  Instead, they get the Yankees and all of their games are on primetime this week.  So for someone who has to work and deal with quarter end, it makes me happy that I’ll least get to see the Tigers play in the playoffs, win or lose.

I think today’s game was one of the longest I’ve ever been too, and it was warm and sunny so by the end of the game, we were all beat.  My two year old son was a trooper and even held up to run the bases.  I could run through the ways the Tigers could have won this game, but we’d be here for a while because they blew a ton of chances.  I knew it was over when Neifi Perez came in to pinch hit for Matt Stairs in that twelth and final inning.

We already know who the Yankees are throwing out in game one and it’s Chien Ming Wang.  If I had to guess, I’d say Justin Verlander was going to throw for the Tigers.  Kenny Rogers might because he only threw two innings today, but I guess we’ll see. 

There’s no Sunday night game so it looks like the regular season is done.  Let the playoffs begin.  I’ll do my playoff predictions either Monday night or Tuesday morning and I have yet to decide whether I’ll go with my heart or my head.

***UPDATE***

I just heard on Baseball Tonight that Nate Robertson will get the game one start.  Interesting.  Bonderman won’t be ready until at least Friday although I’d expect him to go Saturday.  That means Verlander will probably throw in game two and Rogers will go in game three.  Then again, what do I know.

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