Monday, September 21, 2009

Tigers come up with big win over Twins

In defeating the Minnesota Twins on Sunday afternoon, the Detroit Tigers certainly helped their chances at winning the A.L. Central.

Sure 2 out of 3 would have been nice, but the Tigers' victory their second this year at the Metrodome, and the first in regular innings (the other took 16).

If the Tigers had lost, their lead would have dropped to one measly game, not too comforting given the way they have been playing lately. Not too mention that it would likely have continued their bad momentum. Instead, the Tigers won the game and increased the lead to 3 games.

The Tigers now head out to Cleveland. Prior to the Metrodome series, I said that the Tigers would need to win at least one game. They did. Now they will need at least two. I don't care that the game is on the road. The Tigers need as many wins as they can get, since they play their last 10 games against the Twins and the Chicago-don't-forget-about-us-just-yet-White Sox.

If they win the series against Cleveland, not only will it obviously help them in the win column, but it will also flip the way that we look at the Minnesota-Chicago series. If the Tigers are winning, then Minnesota winning is kind of good because it practically eliminates Chicago from contention, and since the Tigers would also be winning their lead would stay intact.

A sweep would probably be best, but I'm not going to ask for too much. Even powerhouses like the Yankees and Angels aren't expected to just go around sweeping teams on the road. And the fact that the Tigers are one of the league's weakest road teams this year certainly doesn't help their chances.

What the Tigers need to do is take advantage of their Sunday victory by using it to swin momentum back in their direction. And now is the best time to do so because if the Tigers lose the series to Cleveland, chances are that the bad momentum will rear its ugly head again.

And when you're closing out the season against your two biggest division threats, bad momentum is something that must be avoided.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Two out of Three sure would be nice. Hopefully thats what the Sox will do against the Twins. Eat em up Tigers Eat em up. Zook