the last 2 games, Detroit has split with Minnesota

Tuesday night Delmon Young hit a home run in his first Tiger at-bat.   He was 2-4 and was hit by a pitch.  But Tuesday was the Jim Thome show. Thome hit his 599th career home run off of Rick Porcello.   In his next at-bat he hit number 600, a three-run shot off of Daniel Schlereth.  Thome becomes the 8th player to reach the 600 home run plateau.  He's the first player to ever hit 599 and 600 in back-to-back at bats.

Powered by Thome's 5 RBIs Minnesota won 9-6.  Porcello gave up 6 runs, 4 earned, in 6 innings pitched.  He fell to 11-8 on the season.

For Detroit Victor Martinez hit a 2 run home run, his 7th of the season.  Alex Avila was 3-4, with an RBI triple.   Wilson Betemit and Ryan Raburn both drove in runs.  Magglio Ordonez was 2-4 in what could be his last regular playing time barring injuries.  Jim Leyland said that Magglio's playing time is going to be limited and that Delmon Young and Brennan Boesch were going to be the regular outfielders going forward.

The roster move Detroit made to make room for Young ended up being Will Rhymes.  He was sent back down.  Ryan Raburn and Ramon Santiago will play second until Carlos Guillen returns from the DL.  After that though, Detroit will have to make a decision regarding a roster regular I would think.  The easiest choice is sending Andy Dirks back down.  He's hit well enough to deserve staying , but he'd probably be back when the roster expands to 40 in a couple weeks anyway, so that's more likely than cutting someone loose entirely.

Last night Justin Verlander had another dominant outing, allowing 1 run in 7.2 innings pitched.  He struck out 8 to pass 200 K's on the season.  Verlander is now 18-5 on the season with a 2.31 ERA.  He leads the Majors in wins and leads the American League in strikeouts.  He's got to be the A.L. Cy Young front runner at this point.

Miguel Cabrera was 2-3 with 3 RBIs.   Ramon Santiago hit his 3rd home run of the season.   Alex Avila was 2-2 with an RBI.  Jhonny Peralta was 2-4 with an RBI.  Victor Martinez drove in a run.  Delmon Young was 2-4, and Brennan Boesch hit a double and scored 3 times in his first start since being relegated to pinch hit duty for 4 games due to a sore thumb.  Detroit finally won a game by more than 1 run, 7-1.

Cleveland lost to Chicago last night so Detroit's lead is back to 3 games.