Earlier yesterday, I was listening to the Big Show and they had ESPN’s Steve Phillips on.   Phillips talked about how he wouldn’t have thrown Jair Jurrjens because his stuff was only okay and with it being the second time around, the surprise factor wouldn’t be there.  He said he would have skipped Jurrjens and with the day off on Monday, went with the rest of the rotation on regular rest.  It made a lot of sense and I for a while, I bought it into it.  That is, until the game actually started and Jurrjens proceeded to throw five plus innings of no-hit ball.  He finally gave up a solo homerun to Jhonny Peralta with one out in the sixth, but his box score line was about as good as you could ask.  He gave up the one run on one hit with four walks and a strikeout in 6 2/3 innings.  Oh yeah, and he won his first major league game.

Joel Zumaya made his return and while he pitched to just one batter, he touched 98 on the gun and he got Casey Blake to ground out weakly to second base with tying run on second.  Fernando Rodney put all three batters he faced down in order as did Todd Jones to close the game out to hold the Indians to just that single hit.

The Tigers scored both of their runs on their first two hits of the game.  Magglio Ordonez led off the with an opposite field homer and then Carlos Guillen followed that right up with a solo shot of his own.  Curtis Granderson had the only other hit with his 31st double of the season.

So the Tigers now sit just a half game back of first place with two left to play in the series.  Tonight, it’ll be Justin Verlander on the mound and he’ll go up against Paul Byrd.

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