Kuzul

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse after the Tigers lost Joel Zumaya to a serious elbow injury, valued third baseman Brandon Inge had his hand broken by a wild pitch.

However, the Tigers can’t just simply pout about the situation.  Instead, they need to show some confidence in their depth at third base, just as they are in their pitching staff.

The Tigers are in a rough patch, to say the least right now.

They just ended a seven game losing streak last night against the Toronto Blue Jays and are still unsure who is going to step up to fill the void left by Inge at third base.

According to published reports, Inge should be out for four to six weeks. That being said, the Tigers are in desperate need of someone who can provide some fielding expertise and batting proficiency.

Scott Sizemore has been given a chance to prove himself once again. Although Sizemore is naturally a second baseman, he has shown manager Jim Leyland he can also hold his own at third.

As far as batting goes, Sizemore needs to improve. He has a .198 batting average with one home run and eight RBI this season.

Left fielder Don Kelly has also been given a crack at the third base position as well. Kelly has demonstrated an aptitude for adapting to the position, but like Sizemore, he desperately needs to provide a better bat.

This season, Kelly has a .217 batting average with one home run and eight RBI—eerily similar to Sizemore.

The Toledo Mud Hens, the Tigers’ AAA affiliate, don’t have any natural third basemen on their roster either, putting the Tigers in an interesting predicament.

Detroiters know that when putting a player in a different position than he is accustomed to playing, you might just find a hidden gem in your club.

For example, look at the Detroit Lions. When they put Mike Furrey, who originally played the strong safety position, at wide receiver, he had the most receptions in the NFL that year.

The Tigers need to find their Mike Furrey, and fast.  The American League Central race is not waiting on any team to get its game together.

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The Detroit Tigers suffered a really bad break on Tuesday night when starting 3B Brandon Inge was placed on the 15-day DL with a broken left hand. Inge broke the hand when he was hit by a pitch by Scott Feldman in the third inning of Monday night’s game against the Texas Rangers.

It’s expected that Inge will miss four-to-six weeks with the injury. This is a big blow to the Tigers as Inge is having a solid season on the field and is one of the leaders on this Detroit team.

Going into last night’s game against the Rangers, the Tigers were 2.5 games behind the first place Chicago White Sox in the AL Central. They are clearly in “win now” mode, so how do they replace Inge in the lineup and on the field?

They could go with Don Kelly for the time being, but his sub-.220 average might not cut the mustard in Detroit. Another internal option for the Tigers would be to move Carlos Guillen back to third, where he played 89 games back in 2008 and promote Scott Sizemore to play second base. Sizemore is currently hitting .331 in 163 AB’s for Triple-A Toledo.

If the Tigers want to go outside the organization and make a trade, there are a couple of inexpensive third baseman available on the market. Third baseman that available are Miguel Tejada, Jose Lopez, Ty Wigginton, Jorge Cantu, Jhonny Peralta, and Alberto Callaspo.

Whatever the Tigers decide to do, one thing is for sure — losing Inge at this stage of the season definitely hurts.

You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg

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The Detroit Tigers’ 8-6 extra-inning loss Monday to the A.L. West-leading Texas Rangers brought good and bad news.

Nelson Cruz hit a two-run-shot in the top of the 14th inning to give the Rangers a five-game lead over the Los Angeles Angels, and ended the Rangers’ 11-game losing streak at Comerica Park.  That’s the good news—for the Rangers.

Detroit is now two back of the red-hot Chicago White Sox in the A.L. Central. That’s great news—for the Sox.

The bad news for Detroit is third baseman Brandon Inge will be out 4-6 weeks with a non-disclosed fracture in his left hand from what looked to be a breaking ball from Rangers pitcher Scott Feldman.

But the bad news doesn’t end there.

Brennan Boesch’s single with one out in the bottom of the 10th loaded the bases, and set the table for Carlos Guillen to drive in the game-winning run. Unfortunately for Guillen, he hit into a 6-4-3 double play, squandering a golden opportunity.

Or, maybe it was Johnny Damon who failed to seize the day by not heading home on Boesch’s single. Damon had two on in the bottom of the 12th and grounded out to short—another blown chance to put the pesky Rangers to rest.

However, Damon extended his hitting-streak to 10 games, which is the fourth-longest active streak, with an RBI-single in the eighth inning that scored Ramon Santiago and tied the game 6-6.

The good news is that the Tigers showed they could go head-to-head with an elite team after the All-Star Break—a break that left the Tigers broken. Even if it did take over four hours to do so.

Miguel Cabrera continued his Triple-Crown-esque season by launching two solo home runs off Feldman—one in the third, and one in the fifth—that were both pulled to left field. He also added three RBI. Had Cabrera avoided hitting two rockets into center, he would have had four round-trippers.

Cabrera is second among big-leaguers with 24 home runs, and first with 81 RBI.

Magglio Ordonez followed suit, and duplicated Cabrera’s swing in the fifth to tie the game 5-5. Ordonez is hitting a shade over .300, has 12 home runs on the year, and has driven-in 58 runs.

Rookie sensation Austin Jackson continues to amaze onlookers, not only with his glove, but with his bat. Jackson recorded his 100th hit, which is among league leaders, and tops for A.L. rookies.

However, Jackson did have two miscues in the field. He appeared to corral a shoe-lace high fly-ball in the sixth inning, but it got away.  Then, he barely missed the Rangers’ heavy-hitter Vlad Guerrero’s pop-fly in the bottom of the ninth.

The Tigers were swept last weekend in a four-game series by the A.L. Central bottom-dwelling Cleveland Indians, in a set that saw just eight Detroit runs. For some, the losses brought up late-season choke talk.

Hopefully, for the Tigers’ sake, the Indians will do them a favor by handling the Minnesota Twins this week.

But with the milestones achieved, or those being approached, Tigers manager Jim Leyland is forced to make some tough decisions with limited options at his disposal.

Either Don Kelly or Ryan Raburn will have to man the hot corner in Inge’s absence.

Both have had issues with their gloves. Raburn’s now-notorious performance last year in Game 163 against the Twins has Tigers fans less than confident in regards to Raburn’s ability to be counted on.

Kelly is still young, and has shown flashes of both sides of the coin when it comes to fielding.

Texas’ Tommy Hunter (6-0) will face Detroit’s Armando Galarraga (3-2), who is fresh off a rehab assignment with the Toledo Mud Hens, at 7:05 p.m. Tuesday at Comerica Park.

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In a fairly unsurprising move, Bud Selig has announced that he will not in fact reverse the blown call by umpire Jim Joyce that cost Armando Galarraga the 21st perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball. 

Selig did say “that Major League Baseball will look at expanded replay and umpiring”. This is an improvement over the current system in place, but it doesn’t change the fact that a young pitcher has been robbed of baseball immortality. 

We have been spoiled with three perfect games over the past year and two in the last month. The recent successes of Mark Buerhle, Dallas Braden, and Roy Halladay might make the rarity of a  Perfect Game a little less legendary than we once thought.

We can often forget that there was a 34 year gap between perfect games at one point and the last perfect game before Buerhle’s gem, was back in 2004, thrown by Randy Johnson. 

Some of us could be old men before we see another piece of perfection.

Is that a reason to reverse the call? No, but it puts into perspective the magnitude of Galarraga’s accomplisment.

Or Joyce’s blunder. 

I didn’t expect Selig to reverse the call. The man is a spineless commissioner who makes far too much money. The man’s legacy will largely be made up of things he didn’t do, rather than his own accomplishments. 

Selig largely did nothing to punish the players who juiced up to win World Series, earned fat paychecks, and stole our love and loyalty, which was then spoiled due to events such as the BALCO scandal and the Mitchell report. 

I don’t expect Selig to be as bold as to reinstate Pete Rose, but for God’s sake, do something to earn your $18 million a year. 

None of us are really ready to call this the worst call of all time, but it very well may be. The perfect game is one of baseball’s elite accomplishments and Galarraga was denied his place in history by an admitted botched call. 

Overturned calls are rare and don’t really happen that often.

Perfect games are also rare.

There has never been precedent for a situation like this, which is precisely why Selig should step in and and reverse this mistake. 

With great power comes great responsibility.

Bud Selig has the power to do the right thing.

He just doesn’t really seem to care.

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General Motors Plants have been taken away over the years and Detroit has suffered. Detroit has suffered their share of pains by far, and another one occurred tonight. Armando Galarraga, the 28-year-old from Venezula, was one out away from a perfect game against the Indians.

Facing Jason Donald, he was able to get Donald to hit a grounder between the middle of first and second base. Galarraga covered first and received the ball for a Perfect Game. The problem is, the Umpire James Joyce didn’t see it that way. Donald was pronounced safe in a replay which clearly showed he was out. Miguel Cabrera, Jim Leyland and Carlos Guillen argued to no avail. Galarraga could do nothing but smile to the call. He would get the next batter in Trevor Crowe for the 3-0 Win.

Galarraga went the full 9 innings with 1 hit and 3 strikeouts. Fausto Carmona went 8 innings for the Indians and gave up 2 earned runs. It will be interesting to see how MLB goes about reviewing the end of this game.

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It looks like Max Scherzer’s brief stint with the Detroit Tigers’ Triple-A affiliate the Toledo Mud Hens was just what he needed.

Scherzer dominated while in Toledo, and he looked to be in top form against the Oakland Athletics on Sunday.

The young right-handed pitcher blazed his way through the A’s lineup with 14 of 17 outs coming by way of strikeout.

And he was aided by his friends during his second big-league triumph.

Detroit’s offense perked up a bit, and the MoTowners downed the A’s 10-2 for the first win of the Memorial Day weekend series.

More importantly, there seems to be a little life in catcher Gerald Laird’s bat—even if for a game.

Laird did something Sunday that he has had trouble accomplishing lately—putting the ball in play.

He finished with two hits, one of which scored a run. On the other side of the coin, his excitement to be on base cost Jim Leyland’s club a base runner, as he was picked off by a sly move to first by A’s pitcher Dallas Braden .

In his second game back from the 15-day disabled list, second basemen Carlos Guillen made his return felt.

Guillen collected just one hit, which drove in a run, but his arm and glove are proving to be invaluable at the middle bag—a slot that he hasn’t played on regular basis in over a decade.

His presence in the infield has brought much needed relief to a position that has been weak for the Tigers.

Brandon Inge must be reading newspapers and Tigers blogs.

He looked like he was on a mission to dismiss his abysmal month-long hitting drought. May hasn’t been kind to Inge—he has just 13 hits in the month, 11 less than he did in April. Racking up three in the last week will likely boost his confidence in regard to swinging the stick.

The Tigers’ third baseman went 3-for-3, which included a home run in the fourth inning. The touch-em-all hit put the Tigers in cruise control on their way to their 26th win of the season.

And speaking of bats, Miguel Cabrera’s is hotter than the weather. Cabrera is on a maniacal pace in 2010, plating runs like it’s going out of style. He had four RBIs on Sunday and holds the top spot in the majors with 48, which is five better than Texas’ Vlad Guerrero.

The American League Central race appears to be a two-horse derby. The Minnesota Twins are nursing a three-game advantage, with Tigers slowly but surely gaining ground.

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