First Win's Always The Hardest by Jared Carrabis
Tigers Finally Win First Game Of Season

So the day after the designated hitter for the Detroit Tigers, Gary Sheffield, was forced to witness a World Series ring ceremony for the Boston Red Sox for a second time, it was the Tigers themselves who had the last laugh by putting an end to the laughing that the rest of the baseball world was taking part in. The winless start for the Tigers ended on Wednesday night as the Detroit Tigers picked up their first win of the 2008 season. Detroit knocked around lefty pitcher Jon Lester for four earned including a two-run home run into the monster seats off the bat off Marcus Thames.


This contest surely had Tigers fans back home saying “here we go again” as the Red Sox jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second. Unfortunately for Boston, those would be the only runs they would collect in the second game of this three game set. The inning started off when Terry Francona sent pinch hitter Sean Casey, who took over at first moving Youkilis to third for the injured Mike Lowell, singled to center with one out. JD Drew would follow with a walk putting two men on while Jason Varitek reached on an error (the second of the series for second baseman Placido Polanco, very rare) to load the bases for Jacoby Ellsbury who got the nod to start in center this evening.


Ellsbury would work the walk on six pitches forcing in Sean Casey from third giving Ellsbury his third RBI of the season. It seemed as if though the wheels were going to fall off for right-hander Jeremy Bonderman when the next batter, Julio Lugo, singled to right to bring Boston’s second run of the inning across home plate. After a visit to the mound, Bonderman would settle down and induce the double play off the bat of Dustin Pedroia to get out of a bases loaded jam having given up just two runs.


Bonderman would only go on to last five innings, giving up just those two runs (one earned) on five hits while striking out just two. The combination of Seay, Beltran, Bautista and the closer Todd Jones out of the pen would go on to put the Red Sox bats to sleep. The Detroit offense that we have all heard so much about this past off season finally reared its head right in Jon Lester’s face in the top of the fourth when they touched up Jon Lester for four earned. The crooked number the Tigers were about to put up was given a helping hand by Lester himself when he walked two consecutive batters with two outs.


Up came our old pal, Edgar Renteria. In an at bat where Renteria saw nothing but fastballs, the former Red Sox shortstop connected on the fourth fastball offering from Lester and scorched it into leftfield past Manny Ramirez scoring Miguel Cabrera from second and Carlos Guillen all the way around from first to tie up the proceedings. Renteria stood his ground at second base with a stand-up double not long before Marcus Thames put up an impressive nine pitch at bat resulting in a home run deep into the Boston night on a hanging breaking ball.


Those four runs would have been all the Tigers would need to secure their first win of 2008, but they weren’t done yet. As they touched up Bryan Corey for two runs in the top of the eighth and they would cap off their offensive awakening with a home run off the bat of Carlos Guillen in the top off the ninth courtesy of Javier Lopez.


Boston would threaten in the bottom of the ninth chasing five runs against Todd Jones by loading the bases but would come up short as Kevin Youkilis flew out to shallow leftfield to Edgar Renteria who miraculously did not make an error on the play. Boston’s bats were not as dead as they may sound as they were out-hit by the Tigers just ten hits to nine. The root of they inability to score more runs would stem back to the nine men left on base in this contest. The offensive struggles would continue for David Ortiz as he went 0 for 4 on the night dipping his average to .091 on the young season but once again, not something worth panicking about. The rubber match of this series will see the likes of Nate Robertson who has a career record of 1-2 at Fenway Park with an ERA of 7.56. Opposing Robertson will be the knuckle-baller, Tim Wakefield. Wake will be looking to build on his strong outing he had in Toronto where he threw five shutout innings against the Blue Jays before running into some trouble in the sixth.


Final Score: Tigers 7, Red Sox 2

Published on April 09, 2008

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