127 0 All The Olde English Ds Game 44: Detroit Tigers 8 Kansas City Royals 0 5/23/06, 6:19am Verlandermania!!!!! Justin Verlander may be the biggest thing to hit Detroit since the automobile. At the least he is the most exciting rookie pitcher the Tiger have had since Mark “The Bird” Fidrich was talking to the ball. Verlander lets the ball do the talking after it leaves his hand. Verlander pitched his first career, and I’ll go out on a limb and say it won’t be his last, complete game shutout. Granted it was against the Royals, but Verlander threw a 99 mph fastball in the ninth inning to strike out Mientkiewicz. Not many guys can throw 99 mph and even few can do so in the ninth after 100+ pitches. Verlander is showing he is unlike most pitchers. He showed great control walking only one while striking out seven and scattering five hits. The rookie fireballer won his sixth game of the year and lowered his ERA to 2.70 on the year. I am going to need to halt my rookie of the year campaign for Verlander and begin to focus on the All-Star game in Pittsburgh. The Tigers offense battered around Jeremy Affeldt early and often. They used the long ball to score five runs in the second. Brandon Inge started things with a two run shot his tenth on the year. Curtis Granderson broke it open with his eighth home run a three run blast to left. The game was pretty much over at that point. Detroit hammered out 14 hits including three more for Magglio Ordonez who is now hitting .325. His two RBI give him 31 for the year and he is looking like the RBI machine he was prior to injury. Infante also had three hits and Marcus Thames had a pair. All of the Tigers had at least one hit on the evening. Fewer than 10,000 people in KC witnessed the Tigers 30th victory in only the 44th game of the year. Detroit maintains their lead atop the AL Central. Kenny Rogers goes for victory number eight tonight. *** OEs 3 Stars of the Game *** #3 Magglio Ordonez – 3-5 with a run scored and 2 RBI #2 Curtis Granderson – 1-4 with a run scored, 1 BB, a HR and 3 RBI #1 Justin Verlander – Win (6), 9 IP, 5 Hs, 0 Rs, 1 BB, 7 Ks, 2.70 ERA &img-http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/images/2006/05/23/gbsuqQ2s.jpg-img& On Tap – Game 45 (30-14) @ Kansas City Royals (10-32) May 23rd, 8:10 ET Kenny Rogers (7-2, 2.91) v. Runelvys Hernandez (1-3, 6.75) [The Olde English Ds from Whitmore Lake/MI] Replies: 194