Homers, pitching lift Tigers to victory
detroit.tigers.mlb.com
06/09/2006 1:10 AM ET
By Jason Beck / MLB.com
CHICAGO -- After five losses in as many tries, the Tigers finally beat the White Sox. But it was the way they did it that made it so important.
"When you're playing the top teams, if you tiptoe against them, you're going to get beat," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said after Thursday's 6-2 win. "If they beat you, fine, but you want to meet them head-on. There's no sneaking into third base or second base. You have to go. You have to play them and you have to beat them. It's that simple."
They've focused on baserunning since Spring Training, and Leyland has reminded them for the better part of a week that they have to push the tempo on the basepaths. This is arguably the first time they've won a game with it.
Ivan Rodriguez left Tuesday's game and missed Wednesday with lower back spasms. He said before Thursday's game that he was still sore. His play in the sixth didn't show it, and it set up the four-run inning that put the Tigers ahead.
Rodriguez's one-out single put him on base, but it was the Magglio Ordonez fly ball that followed that set up the Tigers rally. As Rob Mackowiak settled under the ball in medium range center field, Rodriguez was retreating back to first. Once Mackowiak caught it, Pudge took off.
"That was a great play, because it was the second out," Leyland said. "If he gets to second base, he can score on a base hit. You can always adjust if you see somebody really turn [a throw] loose or if you decide you can't make it. That was just an instinctive play by a veteran player, a winning player. And if he had been out, there wouldn't have been a word said."
He didn't have to worry about that. The dash seemed to catch Mackowiak by surprise. He fired flat-footed to second base as Rodriguez slid in.
"I want to get into scoring position with outs," Rodriguez said, "because any hit, I can score. Two outs, I get a big lead, and I go with the bat and I know [third-base coach Gene] Lamont is not going to [hold] me."
Three pitches later, that's what happened. Rodriguez beat Mackowiak again by scoring on Carlos Guillen's single to left-center. Guillen took second base when Mackowiak threw home instead of to the cutoff man.
Again, the Tigers had a runner in the same situation. Guillen wasn't stopping, and Lamont wasn't going to hold him, not when Omar Infante hit his bouncer to short.
Juan Uribe, playing his first game this series, charged the ball and fired to first. Lamont waved Guillen around in stride. Guillen was nearly halfway to home when Infante beat the throw to first. Paul Konerko alertly fired home, but Guillen beat that throw standing up, stepping around catcher A.J. Pierzynski and sprinting into the Tigers dugout.
"With two outs, I have to think to score on an infield hit," said Guillen, who nearly tried it in a similar situation Wednesday night.
Suddenly, the team that scored all its run on solo homers Tuesday and had been 0-for-12 through two games of the series had scored twice on three singles. Marcus Thames capped the rally in more powerful fashion when he pulled a hanging breaking ball from White Sox starter Jon Garland and lined it into the left-field seats for his 11th home run of the season.
"Jim was telling us in Spring Training: With defense and good baserunning, you're going to win a lot of games," Rodriguez said. "And that's what we've focused on this year a lot. We don't have a fast team, but if we're smart enough to run the bases smart, we're going to score a lot of runs. If we play defense day in and day out, we're going to be fine.
"We know we're going to hit, and the pitchers are doing a good job. But the best thing for us this year is defense and running the bases."
The defensive part had come earlier, and it helped the pitching recover. Tigers starter Kenny Rogers gave up four consecutive two-out hits in the first inning, including a two-run homer from Konerko.
Overaggressive baserunning helped Rogers out of the inning when Jermaine Dye tried to score on A.J. Pierzynski's double that one-hopped the right-field fence. Former White Sox right fielder Magglio Ordonez quickly fired the ball to second baseman Polanco, whose relay throw home beat Dye by such a large margin that Rodriguez had time to line up his tag for Dye's foot.
That ended Chicago's chance to open up a lead, and the White Sox didn't get another once Rogers adjusted.
"I think they were looking outside a lot," Rogers said, "so I tried to adjust from there. It wasn't about them hitting a good pitch. I made a couple of mistakes and they paid for it. I really tried to pitch to both sides and change speeds. I got in a little bit and gave my offense a chance to work."
Rogers gave up two more singles in the second inning, then retired the final 17 batters he faced. He had help when center fielder Curtis Granderson crashed into the fence to snare Uribe's deep drive to right-center.
In the end, it wasn't Chicago's offense that knocked out Rogers (8-3). It was Rogers' back.
"He reminded me that he's 41 years old," Leyland said.
Garland (4-3), who went 3-0 with a 1.10 ERA against the Tigers last season, could use a reminder of last year now. He has allowed 13 runs on 22 hits over 12 innings in two meetings with Detroit this season.
The Tigers, meanwhile, received their first sign that they can outplay the defending world champions. Leyland insisted before the game that it made no difference whether they won or lost this one. If the win itself didn't matter, at least the style of the win did.
"You can't sit back and hope that they fail," Granderson said. "You have to go and continue to put pressure on them, hopefully put all the control of the outcome in your hands. If you end up not winning it, at least you can say you put the pressure on." |
