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The Tigers offense misfired on their opportunities to take advantage of Oakland pitching and the A’s made the most of mistakes by Detroit’s pitchers. With the Tigers holding a 3-2 lead in the sixth Nate Robertson hung a slider to Jay Payton who deposited a three run homer down the left field line. A single by Chavez and a walk to Frank Thomas set the stage for the deciding at-bat. Besides for the ill-fated slider Robertson again pitched well in his seven innings of work. However, he walked four batters and base-on-balls always seem to prove costly. Two of the walks came around to score providing the difference in the game. Jason Grilli pitched a scoreless eighth to lower his ERA to 3.86 on the year. Detroit went ahead in the second inning, but squandered a great opportunity to really get to Joe Blanton. Carlos Guillen doubled and scored on a single off the bat of Craig Monroe. Shelton followed with a single to put runners on the corners with only one out. Brandon Inge got a hitters count of 3-0, but he weakly popped out to first stranding the runner at third. Blanton got out of trouble by getting the next batter Granderson to fly out. The Tigers came back to tie the game in the fifth after falling behind 2-1. Granderson singled and came all the way around on Placido Polanco’s double. Marcus Thames hit his 17th home run of the year to give Detroit the advantage in the sixth. The Tigers had no luck getting anything going against the A’s bullpen. Justin Verlander looks to add some fireworks to this series with his eleventh win on the fourth of July. *** OEs 3 Stars of the Game *** #3 Marcus Thames – 1-4 with a run scored, a HR and a RBI
#2 Craig Monroe – 2-4 with a RBI
#1 Placido Polanco – 2-4 with a RBI  On Tap – Game 84 (56-27) @ Oakland Athletics (43-39) July 4th, 5:05 ET
Justin Verlander (10-4, 3.13) v. Dan Haren (6-6, 3.53) --------------------------------------------------------
Go Tigers!!!
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