Nothing like a 10-9, three and a half hour game on a day where the wind was gusting up to 30 mph and the wind chill was below freezing.  Honestly, I thought this one was over in the early innings.  Curtis Granderon capped off an eight run third inning with his first career grand slam and the Tigers added another run in the fourth.  It was 10-2 when the proverbial poop hit the fan in the Blue Jays seventh.

In that seventh, the wind just became flat out crazy and Magglio Ordonez had a particularly tough time.  He never got charged with an error, but he looked like I do when thrown out in right field on a tough day out on the softball field, and that’s not a good thing.  To his credit, he made a great catch to finish up the inning on a ball that wouldn’t stand pat in that wind.

Nate Robertson picked up the win and he left in the sixth inning after he gave up two runs.  Jason Grilli bore the brunt of that big Blue Jays inning and he gave up five while Fernando Rodney was tagged for two runs.  At the plate, Ivan Rodriguez had four hits and Granderson drove in five.  The Tigers also showed some patience at the plate and they drew nine walks with Ordonez drawing three himself.  All nine Tiger starters reached base at least once.

The weather isn’t supposed to be much better tomorrow but it’s something Justin Verlander will have to cope with.  He’ll face Gustavio Chacin in a get away day game.

***UPDATE***

Here’s the WPA graph for today’s game.  You see it go up close to 100% when the Tigers scored all of those runs in the third but then things get hairy in the eighth inning.  And even though Curtis Granderon hit the grand slam, it just made a 4-0 lead an 8-0 lead so at the time, that didn’t add as much as you’d probably think.  In fact Placido Polanco led the hitters and he drove in only one run.  Todd Jones led the entire team with the troublesome ninth but he got out of his own jam so he gets the credit.

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