Detroit Tigers Notes And Quotes 6-10-11

--C Alex Avila hit two triples, tripling his career total, and scored the winning run after driving in the tying run in the four-run fifth inning on Thursday. Avila was stranded after leading off the third with a triple, but he came up after SS Jhonny Peralta opened the fifth with a single and tripled him home to tie the score, 1-1. Avila scored on a two-out single by 3B Don Kelly to put Detroit ahead for the first time in the game. "I hit 'em in the right spots," Avila said of his blows to right center. "This ballpark is conducive to extra base hits. On the first one, I had a feeling he was going to come first-pitch fastball. On the second one, I just jumped on a mistake, luckily got a good bounce out there." The only other Detroit catchers to hit two triples in a game were Brad Ausmus in 1999 and Lance Parrish in 1980.

--RHP Justin Verlander won his seventh game, pitching eight innings and striking out a season high 10 batters. He struggled a bit, working only two 1-2-3 innings. "They battled him," C Alex Avila said. "They kind of got his pitch count up. Once we got the lead he kind of settled in." "The seventh and eighth were two of the better innings he's pitched all year," manager Jim Leyland said. "Sometimes you smell it and you get a little hyper. He was calm and composed." Leyland sent Verlander home early from Texas to assure he'd get proper rest prior to his start, which looked good when the Tigers didn't get back to Detroit until after 3 a.m.

--RF Brennan Boesch definitely is on a tear. Boesch hit a two-run upper deck home run to cap a four-run fifth inning. He has five home runs over his last 12 games with 14 RBI and a .346 batting average. Boesch took an outside 1-and-0 fastball and roped it down the left field line for a double to lead off the fourth and also walked in the opening inning. He's going after fewer first pitches and getting himself into more 2-and-0 and 3-and-1 counts, where he can look for good fastballs to hit.

--3B Don Kelly got probably the biggest hit of the game Thursday, a single to left center that broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth. The previous two innings Detroit had wasted a leadoff triple and a leadoff double. Kelly's single turned bigger when RF Brennan Boesch followed with a home run. Kelly has scored five runs in his last four games while hitting second in Detroit's batting order. "I like hitting No. 2, being left-handed and being able to set the table for the big boys," he said.

--RHP Jose Valverde got his 16th save in 16 tries. A two-out walk marred an otherwise clean inning. Valverde has relied more on his fastball this season, but used a split-finger on a 1-and-2 count to strike out the leadoff batter in the ninth.

--LF Andy Dirks could be looking at reduced playing time when RF Magglio Ordonez returns to the active roster, expected to happen next week. Ordonez will probably go to right field initially, with RF Brennan Boesch shifting over to left. The key for Dirks, who will get late-inning defensive duty at the least as long as he's with the Tigers, will be whether Ordonez hits or not.

--2B Ryan Raburn heard the boos after going hitless in three at-bats. The most frustrating part, for Raburn and the fans, was he came up in the third following a leadoff triple by C Alex Avila and popped up weakly to first on an 0-and-1 pitch, then again in fifth after Avila tripled home a run with nobody out and struck out on three pitches. He also hit into a double play following a leadoff walk in the seventh.

BY THE NUMBERS
3 -- Number of times a Detroit catcher has tripled twice in the same game after C Alex Avila tripled in consecutive at-bats against Seattle. C Brad Ausmus tripled twice in a 1999 game and C Lance Parrish did so in 1980.

QUOTE TO NOTE
"Magglio's got to hit. That's just the way it is. That's what his forte is. That's what we need him to do. We need his bat." -- Manager Jim Leyland, discussing the way RF Magglio Ordonez will be used when he returns to the club early next week.

Copyright (C) 2011 The Sports Xchange. All Rights Reserved.