Minutes after Carlos Gomez had crossed home plate for the winning run, it has begun to settle in. When everyone wakes up Wednesday morning there will be no more baseball for this season. Our baseball gloves and caps will make way for footballs and snow shovels. The Twins-Tigers match-up for the last time in the Dome was worthy of a sendoff, and for that we have a lot to be proud of following 163 games of baseball.
Minnesota Twins Manager Ron Gardenhire.
This game would easily go on a Top 10 list of Tigers games in recent memory. It had everything that a fan could have asked for, except for the result and the length of time for the game.
Ryan Raburn committed a near-fatal two base error and then followed it up with a laser to the plate. Don Kelly was a goat to Tigers fans the last time he played in the dome, but this time he motored around from first to put the Tigers in front in the 10th. Magglio Ordonez, battling one of the worst seasons in his career, bolted his average northward of .310 with a clutch, booming homer. This Tigers team had just blown a 3 game lead with 4 to play, and they looked like they wanted that lead back.
The detractors of Jim Leyland will gain their ammunition from this game, but second-guessing will only takeaway from what happened on the field.
How many times can a team have a runner on 3rd with less than two outs and not touch the plate? Why didn’t the umpire award Brandon Inge first base after being grazed by an inside heater? This team played hard for 12 innings.
Karma, destiny, call it what you will – the Tigers offseason begins now as the AL Central silver medalists.
