The Tigers four game losing streak came to an end last night as Gary Sheffield was the biggest of a large group of hitting stars in the teams 14-2 blowout win.  Sheffield belted two homers to bring his season total up to twelve and he drove in five runs.  His batting average has crept up to .262 but his OPS is up to .868, which is close to where he was at in 2005 before he had all the injuries.

In looking at his splits page, most of his production has come in the month of May where he’s hitting .314/.383/.647, which is what we’re paying him for.  He’s one of three Tigers who is averaging four or more pitches per plate appearance and he leads the team with 31 walks and he’s tied with Ordonez with 44 runs.  Not too shabby and it’s making for quite an impressive one/two punch with Sheffield and Ordonez in the middle of the lineup.

Jeremy Bonderman improved to 4-0 with another nice start.  He struck out eight and didn’t walk anyone.  Wil Ledezma also threw 2 2/2 impressive innings of mop up work to close out the game.

The rubber game is tonight.  Nate Robertson will take on an pretty impressive James Shields.  Scott Kazmir gets a lot of the attention in the Rays rotation but it’s been Shields who’s quietly put up some nice numbers.

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