Game 161: Tigers 9, Indians 6

The drive for .500 has run into the buzzsaw known as the Detroit offense. Jeanmar Gomez was its latest victim, giving up eight runs in 4.2 innings. Gomez gave up two runs in the first, and would give up runs in four of the five innings in which he pitched.

Unlike Monday's game, though, there were some good things that happened. The Indians scored some runs of their own, limiting Max Scherzer to 5.2 innings by scoring four runs on seven hits off him. Shelley Duncan started the scoring with a fourth inning RBI double; he's ending the season on fire, hitting .280/.353/.640 in the month of September. The Indians scored another run in the fifth on a Max Scherzer, then knocked out the Tigers' starter in the sixth on Jason Donald's two-run single.

Jim Thome hit his 444th career double in the seventh, driving in Carlos Santana. Later in the inning, Lonnie Chisenhall drove in the Tribe's sixth run with a single off a Phil Coke breaking ball. Chisenhall has looked better at the plate in these last few weeks. He's actually hit left-handed pitchers better than right-handers; five of his seven home runs have come off of left-handed pitchers. He still needs to get better at pitch selection, but you can see improvement on an almost daily basis.

There were also some good performances on the pitching side of the ledger. Nick Hagadone tossed 1.2 innings of scoreless baseball, including two strikeouts. Zach Putnam also threw a scoreless inning, striking out Brandon Inge in the process.

via www.fangraphs.com