Cabrera Chips In Before Being Thrown Out
Manager Jim Leyland was pondering giving Miguel Cabrera a day off to rest his sore back but changed his mind overnight.
Good move for the Tigers.
Cabrera hit a two-run double in a situation where it might have been prudent to walk him, then, after he was kicked out of the game for objecting to the strike zone, his replacement Jhonny Peralta hit a pinch two-run home run to help Detroit retake a lead it had blown.
Detroit eventually beat the Twins, 9-7, for its fifth consecutive victory on a six-game trip.
"I'm glad I didn't give him a day off," Leyland said. "I was thinking about it."
The Tigers are off Thursday and don't play again until Friday night so Cabrera will have almost 48 hours to rest his bad back.
Cabrera hasn't been hitting well lately but Leyland brushes that off.
"He drove a rocket in the gap," Leyland said. "I don't call that hurting. We get spoiled you know. We expect Miggy to do something every night and sometimes it doesn't happen."
Just his presence is important.
Cabrera walked following a two-out walk by Brennan Boesch in the first inning and it led to a run when Victor Martinez grounded a single to right.
Scott Sizemore walked and Boesch grounded a single to left in the fifth, with both scoring on Cabrera's double to left center. Cabrera scored on another ground single by Martinez, this one up the middle.
Cabrera was thumbed in the sixth for being overly demonstrative with his hands, and possibly for his language, when he took a third strike. Don Kelly replaced him at first but when Minnesota took the lead, 6-5, with a four-run seventh, Leyland trotted out Peralta to bat after Boesch walked on a 3-and-2 pitch with one out in the eighth.
Twins closer Matt Capps came in to face Peralta and served up an 0-and-1 fastball that was too high and banged off the facing of the second deck to give Detroit the lead, 7-6.
The Tigers blew that lead, too, but rallied for two in the ninth on an RBI triple by Brandon Inge and a suicide squeeze by Austin Jackson.
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