Rain, Rain, Go Away

The Tigers game started promptly at 3:35, merely 2 1/2 hours after it was scheduled to start. It was cold (colder than it was on my 5:30 run that morning) and rainy (rainier than it was on my 5:30 run). Feeling confident about the weather, I ignored my wife's advice to wear a warmer coat and stuck with the wind breaker. Whoops. My teeth chattered practically the whole time (we got there about 12:30pm, game ended at about 7:12pm).

About the actual game - started good, ended bad. The Tigers had a 5 run lead until the 6th & 7th innings happened. Porcello started to fall off in the 6th, then Downs was iffy, and then... Brayan Villareal. Ugh.

 Porcello was great until he gave up 3 straight hits in the 6th. Downs was rocky but settled down. We saw Villareal warming up and asked "WHY???" He was pretty bad his last outing. Counting yesterday, his past couple of outings he's given up a total of 8 earned runs on 4 hits and 5 walks in 2/3 of an inning. Detroit's relief staff is worst in the league, Villareal is a big reason why.

The Tigers got shut down the rest of the game, helped in the 9th by an ump who wanted the game to be over. THIS was strike three???

Not a great angle, but it's pretty clear the ball is low and Arencibia is setting up away. Victor Martinez also struck out on a couple of BAD calls. Not to say that the Tigers win if the ump makes the right calls, but the way it went they had no shot.

I caught some of the Pistons game on the ride home. They hurt their draft position a little by beating Cleveland, but the Drummond-Monroe tandem looked REALLY good.

Drummond did a great job of finding a passing lane in tight spaces, and Monroe did a great job of finding him for dunks. It cracks me up how surprised the color guy is in the above clip that Drummond dunks a lot. Must not have watched much basketball this year.

Mel Kiper, Todd McShay and NFL.com all put out new NFL mock drafts. Kiper had the Lions taking Dee Milliner in the 1st and Bjoern Werner in the second, and NFL.com's guy had them taking Eric Fisher with the #5 pick. McShay did a scenario-mock draft, where he examined 3 different ways the draft might go and who the Lions would take in each scenario. Here they are, in order of which scenario is most ideal for Detroit:

This really isn't anything new. Since Backus retired and Cherilus signed with Indianapolis, the Lions are bringing back 0 of last year's starting tackles. They need an OT. I've been high on Milliner all year. Less so with Ansah, but he's the popular DE pick that high in the draft. I still have my doubts about using such a high pick on a guy with as many unknowns as Ziggy, but we'll see. The Fisher pick looks pretty likely though.