The Tigers continue to pick up ground in the division with another win over the Dodgers this afternoon.  It wasn’t pretty, but Eddie Bonine won in his major league debut.  He gave up six runs on nine hits with two strikeouts (no walks, which is nice) in 5 1/3 innings.  Casey Fossum gave up a run but he’s now closer to getting his ERA under 20 while Zach Miner and Bobby Seay combined to throw three shutout frames to close out the game.

Every Tiger starter got a hit in this one except for Carlos Guillen.  Miguel Cabrera and Marcus Thames both went yard in the Tigers six run fourth inning while six Tigers had at least two hits.  Ivan Rodriguez had a team high three hits while Magglio Ordonez scored a team high three runs.

The Tigers now six games under .500 and if the White Sox lose (they’re down 1-0 through seven innings), the Tigers will be seven games back.  An Indians loss would be nice too but they’re up 3-2.

Tomorrow, the Tigers will send Nate Robertson to the mound and he’ll take on Dodgers top prospect Clayton Kershaw.  The lefthander probably should be a Tiger, but because of the way the Royals drafted in the past (cheap), the Tigers didn’t end up picking him.  In 2006, Andrew Miller was probably the best pitcher in the draft, but because of signability issues, the Royals took Luke Hochevar with their top pick instead and four other teams passed on Miller.  Had the Royals or anyone else taken Miller, the Tigers would have most likely picked up Kershaw, who went to the Dodgers with the very next pick.

Anyway, Kershaw has had a tough time in his first major league season but the kid just turned 20 two months ago.  Hopefully the Tigers can continue Kershaw’s string of mediocre starts.

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