This game had it all.  You had a four inning, pre-rain delay pitchers duel, back to back homers and a near fatal meltdown by the bullpen.  Still, you have to be happy with quite a few things in this game.  First off, they held on and won and they also got another nice outing from their starting pitcher.  Nate Robertson improved to 5-0 and he threw six shutout innings.  He probably would have thrown more had it not been for the rain.  Denny Bautista looked sharp with two shutout innings but then Bobby Seay and Todd Jones combined to give up four runs in the ninth inning.  Fortunately, with the tying run on second base, Jones got Juan Pierre to fly out to center to end it.

Marcus Thames and Brandon Inge hit back to back solo shots in the sixth inning and while those looked like padding at the time, each of those runs were needed.  Carlos Guillen had three hits and he was one of five Tigers to finish with a multi-hit game.  Clayton Kershaw was sharp, but in that case, nature was our friend and Kershaw didn’t come back into the game after the rain delay.

The White Sox lost again so the Tigers are back to just five six back.  They’re a half game back of the Indians (tied in the loss column) and they’re one and a half back of the Twins (one in the loss column).  The Tigers hit the road and they’ll play tomorrow night against the Giants.  It’ll be a solid matchup of young pitchers with Justin Verlander going up against NL Cy Young contender Tim Lincecum.

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