From The Associated Press

The television was tuned to another channel in the Tigers clubhouse when Detroit’s division-title hopes disappeared.

Moments after their 7-2 win over the Kansas City Royals , the Tigers were eliminated from the AL Central race when Cleveland beat Oakland. But Jim Leyland’s office TV was off and the players were watching the Lions-Eagles game.

The defending AL champions still have an outside shot at the wild card, but after the Yankees beat the Blue Jays 7-5, the Tigers were 5 1/2 behind with six games to play. They aren’t counting on a New York collapse in the final week to reach the postseason. That’s why Leyland rested Magglio Ordonez , Gary Sheffield and Ivan Rodriguez .

Leyland didn’t rest All-Star Justin Verlander , though, and he responded with his 18th win, aided by a pair of Marcus Thames homers.

Verlander (18-6) allowed two runs, five hits and two walks in six innings. He has 35 wins in his first two full seasons, the most for a Tigers pitcher since Frank Lary also had 35 from 1955-56.

Detroit scored four runs off Jorge De La Rosa in the first and never looked back.

With one out, Placido Polanco singled and scored on Ryan Raburn ’s double. Carlos Guillen made it 2-0 with an RBI single, and Thames homered off the foul pole in left.

De La Rosa (8-12) allowed four hits and a walk in the only inning of his first start since July 31.

Billy Butler led off the Kansas City second with his eighth homer, but the Royals handed the run back when Ramon Santiago reached on an error by third baseman Alex Gordon and scored after another error by second baseman Jason Smith .

Thames led off the third with another homer to left, his 16th, to give Detroit a 6-1 lead.

Neither team scored again until Smith’s RBI groundout made it 6-2 in the sixth, but the Royals never put together a serious rally against the Tigers’ bullpen.

Raburn capped the scoring with a leadoff homer in the eighth.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/recaps/2007/09/23/16858_recap.html

Michigan State (3-0) enters the Notre Dame game undefeated for the third consecutive season.

Michigan State is tied with Penn State and Indiana for the most sacks in the country — 17 — through three games. Notre Dame is last in the nation in sacks allowed with 23. Syracuse, with 18, is the only other school to allow more than 13.

Notre Dame’s players weren’t surprised by Weis’ declaration after the 38-point loss to Michigan that the Irish would return to a training camp mode.

“Something had to be changed,” nose tackle Pat Kuntz said. “I think everybody was surprised. But at the same time, we’ve got to change things.

“By whatever means, we’re open to it,” offensive tackle Sam Young said. “No one likes losing. If that means starting from square one, that’s fine by us.”

Notre Dame ranks last (119th) in the nation in rushing offense, total offense, scoring offense and sacks allowed. The Irish are threatening to reach the bottom in a couple of other categories: rushing defense (111th, 237.3 yards per game) and scoring defense (99th, 34.0 points per game).

The hole the Irish have dug in total offense is sizable. They are averaging 115.0 total yards per game. No. 118 Florida International averages 180.3 yards per game

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The Lions began preparation for their Week 3 match-up at Philadelphia, putting the wheels in motion for what they hope will be their third-consecutive win of the season and fourth in as many games.Detroit currently sits at 2-0 after wins at Oakland and against Minnesota while the Eagles are the opposite at 0-2 with losses at Green Bay and against Washington. Despite talk that Detroit could have it easy with Philadelphia coming off two straight losses, including a Monday night game giving them a short week, the Lions know an 0-2 record means absolutely nothing.

http://www.detroitlions.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=461391

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Marcus Thames had no idea how symbolic a fly ball could be.

When he launched a Rafael Betancourt fastball high into the bright blue sky during the eighth inning of Wednesday’s game at Jacobs Field, the Tigers were left to rue a pitch that Thames had barely missed crushing.

At the time, the bases were loaded with Tigers. Cleveland was leading, 4-2. By a tiny fraction of an inch, Thames had avoided blasting Betancourt’s pitch deep into the left-field seats for what would have been a grand slam home run and a chance to have salvaged at least one of the three big games that the Indians instead won as they swept their way closer to the American League playoffs.

“Thames just missed it,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland acknowledged afterward.

The “just missed it” tag could have applied to so many facets of the Tigers’ play during a momentous series, which the first-place, playoff-bound Indians secured with Wednesday’s 4-2 victory.

Any chance the Tigers had for putting a scare into the Indians vanished because of Detroit’s pop-gun offense, which was no match for Cleveland’s muscle.

The numbers were almost embarrassing for a Tigers team known previously for its power:

The Tigers had 31 hits in their three games against the Indians, but only six were for extra bases. Their only home run was hit by Placido Polanco, who entered the week with all of eight home runs in 2007.

Cleveland, by contrast, had 21 hits spanning three games. Eleven of those hits were for extra bases, and eight of those extra-base blasts were home runs.

Wednesday’s loss, which saw C.C. Sabathia win his 18th game of the season and Tigers left-hander Nate Robertson slip to 8-12, means the Tigers (83-70) must go 7-2 in their final nine games to hit the 90-victory mark, which would at least provide some statistical consolation to a team all but officially out of the playoff chase.

The final swing begins with a weekend home series against Kansas City, followed by a three-game, Comerica Park finale against the Twins. Detroit closes its regular season next weekend against the White Sox in Chicago.

No matter what happens in the season’s waning nine days, the Tigers will be left to lament their belly-flop at Jacobs Field.

In all three games, the Tigers had at least a two-run lead. In all three games, their offense shut down at the very point Cleveland’s caught fire.

The Tigers even managed a 2-0 lead Wednesday against Sabathia, who might well win this year’s American League Cy Young Award. In the third inning, a single by Mike Rabelo, followed by a one-out double from Ramon Santiago — the supposed light hitter was 6-for-10 with four RBIs in the Indians series — set things up for Ryan Raburn’s two-run single that once again put the Tigers on top.

But this week’s storyline was consistent. Casey Blake, whom you would think has something personal against the Tigers the way he bashes them, naturally hit a home run in the bottom of the third off Robertson to make it 2-1.

After the Indians scored three more times in the fifth, the ballgame had effectively ended, in step with Detroit’s once-upon-a-time glowing playoff hopes.

Robertson, who genuinely pleased Leyland with his five-hit effort over seven innings, said of Blake:

“Whatever he’s doing, he’s doing right.”

Blake would tell you he’s not missing anything hittable.

In the wake of their Cleveland experience, the Tigers wish they could relate.

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A 17-point lead quickly turned into a one-point deficit. The opposing crowd was roaring its approval. The kind of situation that would have doomed the Detroit Lions a year ago was easily overcome in the season opener.Jon Kitna backed up his big boasts by throwing a go-ahead, 32-yard touchdown pass to Shaun McDonald with 4:15 remaining, and Dewayne White caused two turnovers in the closing minutes to help the Lions spoil Lane Kiffin’s coaching debut in Oakland with a 36-21 victory over the Raiders on Sunday.

“I said during the offseason that how we handle adversity will be telling for this ballclub,” Kitna said. “I think we’re starting to turn the corner on that now. Guys are expecting to make plays now, and you saw the results.”

Kitna predicted in the offseason that the Lions would end a string of six double-digit loss seasons with at least 10 wins. That was heady stuff for a team coming off a 3-13 season. But Detroit lost eight of those games by seven or fewer points, lacking a few big plays at clutch times.

Kitna and White delivered in the season opener.

The matchup between the NFL’s two worst teams from a year ago turned highly entertaining in the second half when former Lions backup quarterback Josh McCown led the Raiders on three touchdown drives to turn a 17-0 deficit into a 21-20 Oakland lead with 7:43 to go.

Kitna then completed four of five passes on the game-winning drive, capping it with his third touchdown pass of the game. Facing no pressure, Kitna moved around in the pocket until McDonald broke open in the end zone for the score. McDonald then taunted the fans in Oakland’s Black Hole, celebrating the go-ahead score.

“In the fourth quarter, when it got loud, we didn’t blink,” Kitna said. “We kept executing and doing what we needed to do.”

The Lions added to the lead when Jason Hanson kicked a 23-yard field goal with 2 minutes left after McCown was intercepted by White.

White then stripped McCown on the next play and recovered a fumble to set up a 14-yard score by Tatum Bell that iced the game. White’s big plays validated the $13 million in guaranteed money the Lions gave him in the offseason to sign with Detroit.

“He’s a playmaker,” coach Rod Marinelli said. “He’s always been that, and it’s his time. He’s got the keys to the car.”

Kitna finished 27-for-36 for 289 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions. Bell added 87 yards rushing on 15 carries as the Lions gained 392 yards against last year’s third-ranked defense.

“With that amount of points, we should be able to win football games,” Raiders linebacker Kirk Morrison said. “We just didn’t pull it out.”

Despite the loss, the Raiders showed much more offensive spunk than they did a year ago, when they managed only 12 touchdowns on offense on the way to a 2-14 season. McCown, who beat out Daunte Culpepper for the starting job, completed 30 of 40 passes for 313 yards and two touchdowns, but also turned the ball over three times.

Ronald Curry had 10 catches for 133 yards and a 4-yard score and LaMont Jordan scored on a 12-yard run and had 159 yards of total offense. But McCown’s focus is on the missed opportunities.

“It just makes me sick,” McCown said. “I dwell more on the negatives right now, the turnovers and the things like that. Those are the things that I go over and over in my mind.”

Kiffin, 32, became the youngest man to coach a game in the NFL since Harland Svare took over the Los Angeles Rams as a 31-year old in 1962. The Raiders fans disagreed with his decision to start McCown, booing the offense and chanting “Daunte! Daunte!” after McCown was intercepted early in the third quarter.

“Fans have the right to their opinions,” Kiffin said. “After the third touchdown in a row they weren’t chanting for Daunte anymore.”

That first interception set up a 16-yard TD pass from Kitna to Calvin Johnson that made it 17-0. Making that score even worse was the fact that the Raiders passed on the chance to draft Johnson, picking quarterback JaMarcus Russell instead. While Russell remains unsigned in a contract dispute, Johnson had four catches for 70 yards in his debut.

“There’s definitely a winning attitude here,” Johnson said. “I wasn’t here, but a lot of guys say it’s totally different around here this year. This is a great way to come out and get started.”

McCown then put it together in Oakland’s best offensive stretch in years. He threw a 42-yard pass to Curry that set up Curry’s touchdown. That ended a stretch of 232 minutes, 44 seconds without a touchdown for the Raiders, dating to last season.

They got into the end zone again less than 3 minutes later. Stanford Routt’s interception of a pass that deflected off Roy Williams‘ hands set up Jordan’s score that cut it to 17-14. A 7-yard pass to Justin Griffith on the next drive gave Oakland the lead, but Kitna made sure it wouldn’t last.

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