Porcello Puts Away Pittsburgh, Tigers Win!

The Tiger hitters continued to be underachievers, scoring only two runs in today's game with Pittsburgh.  Rick Porcello made that work for a win as he pitched 8 innings of 1-hit shutout ball.  Since this was an interleague game, pitchers get to hit in the National League parks and Porcello got his third career Major League hit as he beat out an infield single. 

All three of Porcello's Big League hits have come at the expense of the Pirates.  The Tigers scored their runs on an RBI single by Casper Wells in the second, and a solo homer by Jhonny Peralta (he's hit six in the last 12 games) in the 4th.

Jose Valverde pitched the 9th to record his 11th save of the season, but it didn't go smoothly.  He gave up a single to the first batter he faced then hit the next with a pitch.  After a "come to Jesus" talk from Jim Leyland the Big Potato got the next three outs and closed out the win.

The Tigers come back to Comerica park for 10 games worth of home cookin' starting with a 3-game series with Tampa Bay tomorrow night.

Detroit gets back to .500 at 23-23 with today's win, 7 games behind the surprising first-place Cleveland Indians.

The Tigers have been pretty good at home this year,  and would benefit from getting a lengthy winning streak going about now.  If they could just avoid the weeklong losing streak that almost always seems to follow.