Tigers Lose 6-5; Division Cleveland's, Wildcard Out of Reach.

You cannot teach and old dog new tricks. Especially a stubborn, should-be-retirement-home-bed-ridden, chain-smoking man named Jim Leyland. Or, as I like to call him, "Hunches" Leyland. You know, at least bring some colorful nickname to the party to help negate the crushing feeling of giving away a 5-1 game after a series of mistakes all game long continually put the Tigers in the worst position to win a baseball game.

Tigers were up 2-1 after a Placido Polanco homer to left field. An inning later, in the 4th, Paul Byrd hit a rough patch and the Tigers looked to knock him, and the Tribe, straight out of this crucial series opener.

Magglio Ordonez singled on a frozen rope to left field followed by Carlos Guillen doubling down the left field line. 2nd and 3rd with 0 outs and Ivan Rodriguez grounds to short where Peralta boots the ball and the run scores while Guillen moves to 3rd. Timo Perez singles into right field plating Guillen and sending Rodriguez to 3rd base after Jason Michaels fumbled the ball in right, to make it 4-1. Ramon Santiago then laid down a bunt to first and reached base and Rodriguez scored to make it 5-1.

And then Jim Leyland's ever present bout of sympathy kicks in. To get Byrd off the hook he elects to attempt to bunt Timo and Santiago over despite the fact that another hard hit ball would likely end Byrd's night and extend the lead even further. Inge lays down a terrible bunt about a foot in fair territory, catcher Kelly Shoppach fires to 3rd and Blake fires to 1st and suddenly a rally has become Santiago on 2nd with 2 out. Inning over.

Skip ahead to the bottom of the 8th inning. Fernando Rodney and Todd Jones are unavailable due to being used so frequently in the Minnesota series. No problem. Joel Zumaya just slides into the 9th inning so bring in Miner or Grilli to get through the 8th inning. Doesn't Jason Grilli make sense here? "Hunches" showed a staunch loyalty to Grilli when he couldn't throw a rock into the ocean, leading to the pinnacle of Grilli being booed off the Comerica Park mound. Plus, Gas Can Grilli hasn't pitched since September 11th. Why has he fallen out of favor with the skipper? Especially since August 8th he's gone 21.1 innings striking out 14, with a 2.49 ERA and a .208 batting average against -- a.k.a. he's actually been good. Yet, he sits in the bullpen. So it's surely going to be Zach Miner. He did throw 24 pitches on Saturday in 2/3 of an inning against the Twins, but he should be able to go for the 8th inning. Or, a better move is going to Bobby Seay. Grady Sizemore leads off followed by rookie Asdrubal Cabrera and Travis Hafner. Play the matchup game, it's crunch time. Since May 28th Seay has a 0.95 ERA 25 K's/10 BB's in 28.1 IP while holding opposing hitters to a .208 BAA.

Wrong.

Joel Zumaya trots out for the 8th inning. Strange. Who's going to close the 9th? Is he game to get 6 outs? He did throw 24 pitches total in his previous 2 outings and this would be 3 appearances in 4 days. He walks Grady Sizemore on 6 pitches. Asdrubal Cabrera singles to LF on the first pitch he sees. Now it's the heart of the order. After a quick mound visit from Leyland, Hafner grounds out to Polanco on a ball that gave him no shot to turn two. So it's 2nd and 3rd with 1 out. Victor Martinez grounds out to first on the first pitch he sees and we all think "maybe this hunch will pay off."

Wrong again.

Jhonny Peralta homers for the 2nd time in the game on the 2nd pitch he sees to right field. Tie game. 5-5. Season slipping through the fingers.

Franklin Gutierrez singled and Kenny Lofton struck out to end the torturous 8th inning. If only we knew it'd be downhill from there.

After 21 pitches, Zumaya's evening is done and Zach Miner trots in. Still, after a years worth of vilifying Jason Grilli, you start to wonder where he is. Miner struggles out of the gate walking Blake on 5 pitches. Kelly Shoppach lays down a sac bunt making it 1 out and the winning run on 2nd. A left handed hitting Grady Sizemore is up with 1st base open and Bobby Seay ready in the bullpen. You have two options. (1) Go get Bobby Seay and let him face the top 3 in the order (Sizemore/Cabrera/Hafner) or (2) you walk Sizemore to set up the double play and hopefully leave the heart of the Indians order to lead off the 10th.

Hunches Leyland chooses option 3. Which is to keep his hand down the front of his pants like he always does and do nothing to put us in the best position to win a game. Grady Sizemore lined a 2-1 pitch to left field for the 2nd out. Asdrubal Cabrera walks on 4 pitches. With no mound visit you know there was no conversation in which Zach Miner went all Rick Vaughn asking to face slugger Clue Heywood -- or in this case, Travis Hafner. Luckily Hafner grounded out to Inge to end the heart attack of a 9th inning.

In the 10th, Victor Martinez flies out to Curtis Granderson on 2 pitches. Jhonny Peralta saw 7 pitches and walked. Franklin Gutierrez strikes out on a hit and run as I-Rod gunned down pinch-runner Josh Barfield. -- at this point the pitch count is piling up for Miner, but he makes it through the 10th.

In the 11th inning, Miner returns to the mound after throwing 32 pitches and walking 3 hitters in just 2 innings of work. With Clay Rapada, Tim Byrdak, Bobby Seay, Chad Durbin, Virgil Vasquez, Jason Grilli, and Jose Capellan available in the bullpen, Miner is getting hung out to dry. After a 6 pitch at-bat Kenny Lofton finally grounds out. Casey Blake sees 4 pitches and on the 5th -- a good low fastball with movement -- he golfs out the crushing blow to the Tigers season for a 6-5 Indians win.

See, I had postponed posting here as (1) we had fallen out of the race a bit and breaking down all the mistakes Hunches makes just wasn't worth the time and (2) I was busy. After crawling back into it and a chance to close the gap immensely with Cleveland the Tigers emotionally pull you right back in. Then Hunches fumbles the hand off and 2007 is circling the drain.

Is this entirely Hunches Leyland's fault? Absolutely not. Joel Zumaya and Zach Miner's lack of control were the culprits here. But, Hunches is paid to put the Tigers in the best position to win baseball games and he failed to do that by bunting with Inge in a situation that didn't call for it, by bringing in Zumaya in the 8th -- an inning too early -- and hanging Miner out to dry. The postseason is on the line and we have a wealth of arms in the bullpen with the September call-ups and we don't play the typical by-the-book match up game when we should be managing every aspect of the game like it's game 7 of the World Series because, well, it is. We needed this win tonight. We needed the boost of taking this series from Cleveland. We had the foot on the throat and Hunches kicked our feet out from under us.

We've wasted an MVP caliber season from Magglio Ordonez.
We've wasted a career year from Carlos Guillen -- who's managed to stay healthy all year.
We've wasted a very fine season from Justin Verlander that should net him his second consecutive top 10 finish in the Cy Young voting.
We've wasted the first ever quad-22 season from Curtis Granderson. Something that Lee Panas, an excellent Tigers blogger, notes in this entry here.
We've wasted another year for a lineup that features 7 out of 8 regular starters that are older then 30 years old.

It could be worse, I suppose. I mean, hey, at least Lloyd Carr isn't at the helm.