While Maybin MIGHT improve our offense, what I'm really counting on is he improves our defense. He's faster than Granderson, so maybe he can take over CF, BUT.. Even if he doesn't, or if JL doesn't want to play him there, he's STILL a much better fielder than Mags... Bringing up Mabin, IMO, more gives us a true DH (Mags, Thames, ext.) by putting a more solid glove in the field than it does improves our lineup with his bat...

Still, I think and hope you're right. Even if it is an indirect consequence I think bringing up Mabin improves this team next year...

I'm also excited to see Infante play more, have a more solid backup in the middle of the infield (Perez is garbage), and have a replacement for Guillen or Polanco when they decide to hang it up...

I'm not saying he should or he would or anything like that. I just said I'm surprised, that out of frusteration, he mentioned anything about it. It seems like he's never gotten any run support, this year or last. It seems like he's always gotten screwed as far as pitching a great game only to give up 1 run or have a middle reliever come in during the 8th inning and give up 3 runs, screwing Nate out of a win. That's happened probably 3 times this year. 13-12 is a big difference vs 15-9, especially considering salaries, bonuses, respect around the league, etc.

The Tigers clinched at least the wild card today.

And have passed the Yanks for most wins in the AL.

In the midst of trying to win the division crown, Leyland should have stopped them from spraying the champagne everywhere. They need to celebrate when they win the division, NOT win the clinch a wild card berth.

First time in 20 yrs deserves some celebration, even if the work isn't quite done yet. Leyland was crying for God's sake... Even if we do NOTHING from here on out, this season was a WILD success...

They will be celebrating winning the division soon enough. Our bats are alive again and Polanco is back! I believe we will also finish with the best record over the Yankees. The only way I don't see this happening is if Leyland tries to align our pitching staff for the playoffs now, which may very well happen.

Will - I understand this, but when they're 75-41 or whatever at one point and they play sub-.500 ball for the entire month of August. They played like nobody expected and were absolutely amazing for April, May, June, and July and then just gave up in August. They had the division won going into August (up by what, 13 games?). To still be in the race for a home field advantage and their first penant in 20 years, they should be less excited about barely clinging to a wild card and be more excited to go out and kick some badonkadonk for another 6 games and win the division, like everyone has expected for the past few months.

Well, since the Tigers lost yesterday and the Twins won, we are now in a tie for first place for the first time in about 3 months. We still have the tie breaker edge over the Twins since we won the season series, but we now have to take care of business against the Royals in the final 3 games to win the division. I still have faith we can get the division, but the Tigers sure are making it interesting.....

The only happy thing about this is that the Twinkies have to play the White Sox and we have to play the Royals.

Hopefully Chicago will help us out and steal one from the Twinkies (Santana isn't pitching any of the 3 games as far as I know, they want him fresh as can be for the playoffs) and we can sweep KC...KC will be looking to kill us if they can, since we destroyed them a few games last week (11-4, etc).

Plus - the Yanks are playing a hot Toronto team, who won't make it easy.

KC always plays us tough too... For w/e reason we have always seemed to have a hard time against even the crappiest of KC teams... Hopefully we can break that trend.

On a side note... Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but I can see the Chi sox throwing a game or two to screw us... The White Sox just seem to hate us, and there are a few reasons for them to do so...

Um, not sure about them playing us too tough, since we are 14-1 against them so far this season....



I hear ya, but I honestly don't believe Guillen would want to throw any games, regardless of the fact they mean nothing for his team.....

Like I said... KC plays us tough... I don't care how many games we've won against them this year... They're always around and they seem to be a better team when they play us...

That said.. I'm sure as hell glad that the Sox are whoopin' up on the Twins... They should have won last night, and took care of business today... That's HUGE for us!!!

WJB - Did you see Miner get destroyed? 5 hits, 4 ERs in a whopping 6 total ABs. LOL. Miner started off throwing very well, but he's stunk since.

Starting Miner was just a weird decison IMO. I don't know why Leyland had any confidence in him. Uses relievers or something, we have space for call-ups. BTW, am I right in thinking that if both the Tigers and Twins lose, we have the tiebreaker, or would we go into a playoff?