This was another tough loss on this homestand.  Chad Durbin gave a up solo homer to Ben Francisco to tie the game and eventually send the game into extra frames.  The Tigers then loaded up the bases with one out in the tenth but they couldn’t push a run across to win it.  Then Jose Capellan, in his Tiger debut, gave up a solo homerun to Casey Blake in the top of the eleventh for the game winner.  The homerun was big, but other then that one hit, Capellan didn’t give up a hit in two innings and he struck out three.

Nate Robertson had a pretty unusual start.  He lasted only five innings because he threw a ton of pitches (108) and out of his fifteen outs, none of them were on grounders.  He struck out a season high eight and then he gave up seven fly ball outs.  His rough inning was the third when he gave up two runs to the Indians, which was unfortunate because the Tigers’ hitters had just given him a 2-1 lead the inning before.

Bobby Seay only pitched to one batter in the ninth but it was a huge one.  With runners on first and second, he came in and struck out Travis Hafner to get out of the jam and to send the game into extra innings.

Carlos Guillen went two for five and he both drove in a run and scored one.  It was unfortunate though because in that tenth inning, he hit a weak popup to give the Indians their second out.  Gary Sheffield went three for five and he belted homerun number 19. 

It was another packed house.  The Tigers filled the stadium with nearly 41,000 fans and the rest of this series should be no different.  Through 39 homegames, the Tigers are eleventh in average attendance at 35,697.  If you annualize that, it puts the Tigers at just under 2.9 million fans, which would be a franchise record.  The previous record was 2,704,794, which was set way back in 1984.  And if anything, that average should come up a bit with the warmer weather months and the possibility of a pennant race well into September.

Tonight, Kenny Rogers goes for win number three and the Tigers will go up against right hander Jake Westbrook.  Rogers has been lights out since coming off of the DL and Westbrook has struggled this year (both with injuries on the mound) so hopefully the Tigers can get back on track with a win in this one.

Have a great Independence Day.

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