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The Tigers lead the major leagues in grand slams. But entering Thursday they had lost two games in which they hit a grand slam, including an April game with the White Sox in which the slam came from Carlos Guillen in the first inning.
Guillen hit another first-inning grand slam Thursday night, this one against Yankees right-hander Mike Mussina. It gave the Tigers a nice head start, but they still had to get 27 outs in noisy Yankee Stadium against the American League’s top-scoring team.
The Tigers emerged with an 8-5 win that belonged to two starting pitchers: Justin Verlander, who went 5 1/3 innings Thursday night and allowed three runs, and Jair Jurrjens, who by pitching seven innings in his debut Wednesday night kept the bullpen rested for all the work it had Thursday night.
The Tigers’ relievers looked rested. The first three pitched 2 2/3 scoreless innings and got all eight outs on strikeouts: one by Tim Byrdak, four by Zach Miner (his career high as a reliever) and three by Fernando Rodney (his second straight outing in which he struck out the side).
The Tigers regained first place in the Central Division by a half-game over the idle Indians. Cleveland went 0-6 against the Yankees. The Tigers are 1-0 against New York in an eight-game season series compressed into 12 days.
Guillen’s slam happened in part because Gary Sheffield (booed by at least 90% of the sellout) hit a sharp grounder to the left of Alex Rodriguez that glanced off the third baseman’s glove for an error. Rodriguez acknowledged that if he had fielded it, he might have turned an inning-ending double play.
Magglio Ordonez walked, and Guillen pulled Mussina’s 2-2 pitch over the rightfield fence for his first homer in 32 games. Guillen said he had been trying too hard to pull the ball. On Thursday, he was back to just trying to hit it hard.
The switch-hitting Guillen represents the Tigers’ only left-handed power threat in the middle of the order. His homer drought underlies the lack of left-handed power that has helped leave the Tigers just a game above .500 against right-handed starters.
The Yankees got their own left-handed home run: Bobby Abreu’s two-run drive in the third that made it 6-3. Abreu would have batted as the potential tying run the next inning except for the latest standout play by third baseman Brandon Inge. With two outs in the fourth inning, Inge speared Derek Jeter’s one-hop smash to his left and threw to second for an inning-ending force.
New York never got the potential tying run to the plate again.
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