The Tigers west coast road trip ended on a sour note.  Both Monday and Wednesday, the Tigers were shut out.  On Monday, Ervin Santana and the Angels pen held the Tigers to six hits.  This afternoon, John Lackey had a one hitter going through the end of eight innings before Scot Shields came in and finished the shutout.

The bright spot was Jeremy Bonderman who had been struggling.  Bonderman went six innings and gave up only three hits and a walk with six strikeouts.  He did get into trouble in the sixth inning but he struck out Vlad Guerrero to get the first out of the inning and he got Tim Salmon to ground out to end the inning.  Also encouraging was the pen.  Jamie Walker, Joel Zumaya and Todd Jones combined to throw three perfect innings to close out the game.

Regardless, heading out west and finishing 6-3 means the team had a very solid performance.  The Tigers head back home for a three game series against the Twins and while the Twins have struggled, we haven’t had much luck against them (or any other team for that matter) the last few years.  We also haven’t had much luck at home this year.  Hopefully we turn both of those things around this weekend.

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