aaaaand we have our first big post season rain delay

The rain started pouring down in the top of the second in New York.  Delmon Young hit a solo home run for Detroit off of CC Sabathia.  Justin Verlander struck out Derek Jeter on the bottom half but he reached on a wild pitch as  Alex Avila couldn't corral the curveball in time.  That hurt, as he came home to score on Alex Rodriguez's groundout to third.

The game was 1-1 heading to the bottom of the second when play was halted.  The rain's coming down hard with a larger band of heavier rain expected to arrive around midnight or so.  It's questionable whether this game will resume.  Obviously it hurts both teams but it hurts Detroit worse.  Verlander threw 25 pitches.  I doubt he comes back tomorrow obviously.  Maybe Game 3 in Detroit but then he's out for game 5 if needed.  Blah, possibly a terrible turn of events for Detroit.  Even if this game resumes I doubt Verlander comes back out after a couple hour delay.  Neither does Sabathia.  Not good for either team but again maybe worse for Detroit.  Fister may end up being the Game 5 starter, which isn't the worst thing, if the decision is made to get another guaranteed start for Verlander in the series.

a neat little stat to come of out the recent Detroit sports success.

The Lions and Tigers had not won a game on the same day since 2007 before last week.  Now they've done it two straight weeks.

Obviously the NFL and baseball regular season overlaps cover only 3 or 4 football games per year, but that was still 12-16 opportunities over the past four years.  Obviously the Lions have been bad and piling up Ls.  The Tigers also haven't been good in September in a number of years either.

Now I wonder when the last time is that the Tigers and Lions have won on the same day 2 straight Sundays.

the Lions crushed the Chiefs today

Detroit destroyed Kansas City 48-3 today.  The 45 point margin of victory was Detroit's largest margin of victory in a regular season game in team history.  It matched a 45 point win over the Cleveland Browns in the 1957 NFL Championship game.  That would be the last championship they've won.  Can they at least get off the thinning list of teams that have never played in a Super Bowl at some point in the next few years?  Who knows.  But the Saints and the Cardinals both exited that dubious list over the last few years.

Mathew Stafford threw for 294 yards and 4 TDs.  Calvin Johnston caught 2 TD passes.  Jahved Best had 123 yards combined rushing and receiving with a TD.

Scarily enough, the defense should still get better.  Nick Fairley, the #4 pick out of Auburn hasn't played yet after a foot injury in pre-season.  Green Bay is going to be extremely good this year.  Chicago should be good.  Minnesota looks like they're going to not have a good year. Maybe that opens the door for the Lions in the wild card.

an NFL record for Detroit's Jason Hanson

Detroit kicker Jason Hanson, in his 20th season as a Lion, played in his 297th game as a Lion today.   That breaks the all-time record for games played by a player with a single team.  

Talk about toiling.  Being a Lion for 20 years.  He played with Barry Sanders.  Detroit made the playoffs with some regularity on the latter part of Sanders' career, though they only one 1 playoff game in that time.  To date that's still the last playoff game they won, when they went on the lose to Dallas during their Super Bowl Dynasty.

Since then they haven't been to the playoffs in forever.  Could this season be the year that changes?  They actually have talent on both sides of the ball at the same time for once.  We'll see.

Tigers take sole possession of first place behind another dominant Justin Verlander outing

Justin Verlander took a no hitter into the 8th inning before surrendering a one out single. He finished up a 4-0 win over Cleveland with a complete game 2-hitter. The second hit came with 2 outs in the 9th. Verlander walked one and set a season high for strikeouts for the second straight start, with 12. He upped his record to 8-3 on the season. His ERA now sits at a nifty 2.66 on the season.

Andy Dirks was 3-4 with 2 RBIs. He also stole a base. Alex Avila and Miguel Cabrera also added sac flies. Austin Jackson was 2-4 and added his 10th stolen base of the season. His batting average is approaching .260 after the horrendous early season slump.

This was the first game all season in which Detroit didn't have an extra base hit. They strung together 11 singles. The win of course is much more important. First place means nothing with 96 games left to play, but it's a solid confidence boost given that this season has had some ups and downs so far. Still though Detroit sits at 36-30. On paper before the season the second half of the schedule looked alot easier than the first half, so the hope was that the team could stay afloat as the younger hitters and the starting rotation gelled, then turn it on in the second half.

I personally still expect things to be a dogfight. They have cooled off after a hot start but Cleveland has looked good this year and I certainly don't expect them to collapse, even if they have cooled off from their major league best start. Chicago has a lot of talent. No matter how far down they are Minnesota is still Minnesota and I don't ever count them out until game 162 has ended.

the Lions seem to have had a nice draft

They took Auburn's Nick Fairley with the 13th pick. He could pair with Su to give Detroit one of the most explosive front fours in the league, as shocking as that is to say about Detroit.

Their second round pick was Titus Young, WR from Boise State. He's fast and will be a good slot receiver to line up with Calvin Johnson getting so much attention.

They took Mikel Leshoure, RB from Illinois, in the third round. Leshoure is a big, physical back, which is not something that they have. Jahved Best is a small, speedy guy. They need a guy who can pound for first downs on 3rd-and-1, or 4th-and-1, and someone who can move the chains during those times they have leads and are trying to run out the clock. Detroit lost a few of those games early in the season, just because they couldn't move the chains late.

OLB Douglas Hogue from Syracuse was their next pick. Analysts say he's got pretty good speed and coverage. Not a bad pick in the 5th round.

Johnny Culbreath, OT from South Carolina State, was their 7th round pick. He's a project, but he has a frame that can add some bulk and muscle and some raw tools to work with.

The analysts give Detroit a high draft grade, particularly on their top 3 picks. Fairley was a steal to fall to them at 13. He wasn't a need since they already have Suh, but you can't pass him up. That tandem could be monstrous together.

A stat from the Lions latest loss today...

One of the Lions wide receivers guaranteed a victory today.  I can only fathom two explanations for this:

1)  He got tired of guaranteeing a loss and decided to mix it up a bit.
2) He forgot what team he plays for.

Again Detroit was competitive, but again they lost.  Guaranteeing a win against the Bears when starting your third string QB is not good odds.   With the loss comes my  stat:

The Lions fell to 2-10 when leading at halftime since the start of 2008.

This is a shocking stat.  Detroit's actually been leading at the half in 12 games since 2008.