Back To The Stomping Grounds

The Tigers head to Kansas City today, where they will start and finish a three game road trip before heading back home on Monday. After sweeping the Baltimore Orioles during the week, the Tigs look continue their recent hot streak, winners of five in a row, by beating up on the Royals who are sliding back into the perennial whipping boys that they usually are, nine games under five hundred at 10-19.

Justin Verlander heads to the mound today, looking to get his second win on the year. Justin got knocked around against Minny last week, so it'll be a big confidence booster for all of us to see him go out and bitch slap KC like he usually does. Life time, he is 4-0 with a 1.36 ERA against the Royals.

As hot as the Tiger bats have been recently, they should only get hotter coming into Kauffman Stadium for this three game set. Pudge Rodriguez is batting .348 against them so far this year, and launched a huge home run last time the Tigs played in this stadium to win a game for the Tigers in the top of the ninth. Gary Sheffield also should look to continue his recent trend of success, especially after going 4-4 against Baltimore on Wednesday.

Watching Sheffield in person is quite an experience. His swing is just that much more vicious, every ball he hits looks like it's either going to kill someone or go into the seats. Leyland earned his money giving Sheff a day off two weeks ago, since he has raised his batting average 10o points since then and has a hit in 7 of the 9 games since that game against Chicago.

Carlos Guillen is rumored to be coming back to the line-up today after sitting the last two games of the Baltimore series. Guillen is having shoulder problems right now, brought on by attempting to learn to throw the ball over-hand in spring training, instead of the three-quarter arm-slot that he almost always uses. Even though the Tigs won both games that he sat, I would rather have Carlos out there than Neifi Fucking Perez every day of the week. Here's hoping that Guillen is feeling better, at least well enough to play.

Keys to the Game-

• Keep knocking pitchers around. Wins are wins, this is true, but one run games are a little close for comfort with all the confidence that I have in the Bullpen Bengals right now. Brian Bannister is the starter for KC tonight (who?), so he should be a prime target for some hard hit balls.
• Verlander quiets the KC line-up. It would be nice to see seven or eight innings of shut-out ball tonight, something that Justin didn't have last week at home. It's a big game from the stand point of Justin's mental state- if he gets shelled two straight times out, he might start to worry. But a big game tonight should silence those thoughts.
• Craig Monroe needs to keep hitting those clutch home runs like the big dog that he is. I love that man.