Game 4: Angry Young man

Tragic number: Still 2. The cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die ... for at least another day.

A weird game indeed Thursday, starting with the pregame flap over the video supposedly showing Joe Mauer stealing signs and relaying them to Jason Kubel. If he wasn't, it won't hurt in in the long run if other teams think he does; if he was, shame on Gerald Laird for using such transparent signals that Mauer can pick them up immediately.

Or perhaps, as I told a Detroit fan who happens to be my supervisor, he can't use camouflaged signs with Justin Verlander pitching lest he confuse Verlander.

Anyway, on with the weirdness. Marcus Thames got hit by a hanging breaking ball from Scott Baker; Thames took offense and retaliated with a cheap shot slide far from second base with an elbow aimed at Orlando Cabrera's crotch. The umpire at second, Lance Barksdale, could have — should have — ruled it a double play. He didn't, so tensions got to mount a bit there.

Then Jose Mijares had some sort of brain cramp. Apparently he was peeved because the Tigers were taking bases through defensive indifference. (Note to Mijares — if your manager doesn't care if they take second base, you shouldn't care either). So he threw a pitch behind Adam Everett. Had he buzzed Thames, I think people would have understood. This one was just stupid. So the umps warned both benches, and Jim Leyland got ejected on the same principle that frequently gets Ron Gardenhire ejected: Their guy throws at us, and you're going to eject our guy if we retaliate? That's stupid.

So then Jeremy Bonderman threw behind Delmon Young and nailed him in the back knee, and Young knew who to blame. Mijares. We had the odd spectacle of a hit batter about to charge his own dugout. (Photo above).

Menawhile, Bonderman and Laird got ejected, Bonderman for throwing at Young — which everybody knew was coming — and Laird for telling the umpire how stupid it was to throw out Bonderman. Which it was. The guy who should have been ejected was Mijares.

Call this game a monument to stupidity and leave it at that.

Game 2: Tigers 6, Twins 5

Tragic number: Four.

Tuesday split doubleheader was an example of how the Tigers have remained in first place since May. They've been challenged, but they haven't broken, as the White Sox did in late August-early September on a death-march road trip through New York, Boston and Minnesota.

Or, for that matter, as the Twins did after a couple of difficult losses on a long West Coast road trip in July.

If the Tigers hold off the Twins this week, we shouldn't look so much to this game with regret as the game of July 18 — when R.A. Dickey tried to sneak a fastball past Ian Kinsler with the game on the line. Or the game of July 19, when the Twins staked Nick Blackburn to a 12-2 lead and lost 14-13, with the final out coming on a blown call at the plate. And the four losses in five games that followed those two shouldn't-have-happeneds.

The Twins keep grinding though. It's difficult to believe that they touched up Justin Verlander for four runs the way he was overpowering hitters the first five innings. But Brian Duensing had his worst start — five runs allowed in 4 2/3 innings, and Bobby Keppel didn't help a whole lot.

Facing Verlander is a lot like facing Zach Grienke — it's not easy to get the win. The Twins theoretically have the advantage in the pitching matchups the next two games. They need to win both. A split of this series does them no good.

I'm looking forward to seeing Eddie Bonine pitch Wednesday for the Tigers. Besides my tendency to root for my fellow Eddies, he is said to throw a knuckleball, albeit not as his primary pitch. There used to be a lot of pitchers who threw a knuckleball as a changeup, but that approach died out sometime in the 1960s.

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Other news:

*The Pioneer Press says the Twins have a deal with Miguel Angel Sano, a supposedly 16-year-old superprospect from the Dominican.

This signing, once finalized, would be significant as an indication that Minnesota is becoming a major player in the Dominican market. The Twins have scouted Dominica, and they've traded for players (Cristian Guzman, David Ortiz, Francisco Liriano) as a result of their scouting, but they haven't signed amateur players there.

*Chuck Knoblauch, once the Twins best player and then the resource upon which then-general manager Terry Ryan used to trigger the revival of the team, has been charged in a domestic battery case.

* The White Sox will not use Mark Buehrle against the Tigers in the season-closing series — he'll make his final start on Wednesday in a make-up doubleheader — but will pitch Jake Peavy against Detroit. This is good for the Twins, as Buehrle is struggling now and Peavy dominated the Tigers last week. The Sox's scheduled starters: Peavy, Freddy Garcia and John Danks.

Thanks, Ozzie.

Game 1: Twins 3, Tigers 2 — and Porcello

The tragic number remains at six after the first game. A lot of twists and turns — a sloppy first few innings by Nick Blackburn followed by 12 straight outs; a failed suicide squeeze in the ninth; and a 10th inning homer allowed by Joe Nathan after the Twins scored twice in the top half of the inning.

The Tigers started Rick Porcello (left), the 20-year-old who opened the season as Detroit's fifth starter and ends it as their second-most reliable starter.

And so the question: Should he be the AL Rookie of the Year?

Pitchers seldom win the prize, but this has been, literally, the season of the rookie starter — there have been more starts by rookies this year than in any season since the 1800s. And yeah, there are more games, period, but the trend is there.

Porcello — 14-9, 4.04 — has been, arguably, the best of the bunch, even though he's worked all season on a short leash. He's made 30 starts but worked just 165 innings — 5.5 innings per start — and only four times been allowed to exceed 100 pitches. (He threw a season high 111 pitches Tuesday.)

Heavy exposure in the majors is usually hazardous to young arms, and Porcello entered the season with just 125 minor league innings on his resume, all in High A ball. But Jim Leyland has been successful at the tricky task of prying valuable innings out of vulnerable arms and keeping them healthy. He did it a few years ago with Justin Verlander, and he recognized years ago that Livan Hernandez could be pushed beyond the workloads of most youngsters.

Porcello has room to improve. His BB/K and K/9 rates — the two things I most want to know about a pitcher — are unimpressive at best. But he is establishing himself as an extreme groundball pitcher, the kind of pitcher the Twins always imagined Carlos Silva to be, and he may be the rare pitcher who can get by striking out less than five men per nine innings. More likely, he'll add strikeouts as the reins are loosened. And, of course, if he stays healthy.

So: Is he the Rookie of the Year? Well, I'm not sure that he's had a better season than Texas shortstop Elvis Andrus, whose hitting stats don't connect to the value of his glove. Andrus may

not win the Gold Glove — it generally takes players a while to establish their superiority to the managers and coaches around the league — but I'm convinced that he's the best at the position in the league.

If I had a vote, I'd probably go for Andrus, but I'm not certain I'm right. I know this: I'd take either one for the Twins in a heartbeat.

Weather or not

And so game one of the Motown Showdown gets postponed. Theoretically to 11 a.m. today, but there's rain in the forecast again in Detroit.

The rainout and subsequent doubleheader doesn't affect the pitching assignments for this series. But it does create issues for both teams for the weekend. Nick Blackburn and Rick Porcello had been penciled in for Saturday's games; now those would be on three days rest rather than four. That's a problem to be resolved on another day, but it does eliminate the notion of handling the fifth-starter issue (and Friday's start) by going to four starters for the final week.

The day-night doubleheader in Comerica probably means Joe Mauer will catch the first game and DH in the nightcap, which is not optimal but is probably wise.

By the same token, the Tigers are likely to use their back-up catcher, Alex Avila, in one of the games. Jim Leyland hasn't been reluctant to pair rookie Avila with rookie Porcello — two of Avila's last three starts have come in games started by Porcello — and he's given Avila (a left-handed hitter) just 10 at-bats against lefties, so I rather expect Avila to catch the day game against Blackburn rather than the night game against Brian Duensing. (On the other hand, Avila has faced Duensing, hasn't faced Blackburn, and Gerald Laird is 3-for-10 against Blackburn with two walks.)

For what it's worth — not much, given how little Avila has played — the Tigers ERA with Avila catching is 5.87, with Laird 4.21. Laird hasn't had a good year at the plate, but he's got a legitimate argument for a Gold Glove.