FanHouse

If you're joining us late, here's the first three innings. The Tigers are up 1-0, Justin Verlander is pitching like he has somewhere to go and the Royals have yet to figure out what those little white square things are for in the infield.

Top of Fourth: Verlander brushes Mark Grudzielanek off the plate ... literally. The pitch deflects off Grudz's hand, giving him a free trip to first and an afternoon full of pain.

Alex Gordon is up and Mario Impemba and Rod Allen are bringing up all of last year's ill-fated George Brett comparisons. All that pressure didn't work out too well for him, did it? What do we say we do the kid a favor and forget about those expectations.

Gordon grounds to short, Grudz is out -- fielder's choice.

Billy Butler smokes one past a diving Miguel Cabrera for a base hit. Anyone think Brandon Inge could have gotten to that one? Asking that question every time Cabrera misses something is going to be my least favorite game to play this year.

In the end it doesn't matter: Mark Teahen ground back to Verlander to end the inning.

Bottom of Fourth: Pudge Rodriguez gets on with a liner to center.

Whoa, Mario just pointed out Jacque Jones' bright red bat: how did I not notice that before? Sadly, the magical red bat disappoints -- Jones strikes out swinging.

BTW, Meche, you got my apology, right? That's five K's already.

Meche seems distracted by Pudge on first base: that's two pickoff attempts.

Inge's patience pays off: he loops one into center, putting runners on second and third with one out and the top of the order due up. Bold prediction: both runners on end up scoring.

Renteria is making me look smart by drawing the walk. The bases are juiced for Placido Polanco. Another bold prediction: Polanco will not strike out.

Well, it wasn't the worst-case scenario -- that would be a double-play -- but it was close: a shallow-ish fly ball to Jose Guillen in right field. Magglio already tested that cannon earlier today -- the runners don't even try to advance. Two outs for Gary Sheffield.

Sheff's bat waggle distracts Meche into walking in a run. Bases are still juiced, with Magglio coming to the plate.

Maggs pops out to shallow left, inning over, crisis (mostly) averted for Meche. The Tigers got one run in, though: they're up 2-0. Meche has already thrown 84 pitches: another inning like that and he'll be done for the day.

Top of Fifth: Verlander, meanwhile, opens the inning with just 56 pitches thrown .. and he makes quick work of Ross Gload by getting him to ground out with two pitches. The kid is efficient.

John Buck works the count full but Verlander gets the called strike. Royals skipper Trey Hillman is not impressed: as Tony Pena starts his at-bat, the ump takes time out to tell Hillman to quit chirping.

The disruption does nothing for Pena's concentration: he strikes out swinging in six pitches. Nice work, skip!

Here's a question: how come golfers require absolute silence to hit a ball of a tee, but baseball players are expected to stay in the box to face a 95 mile per hour fastball with late movement while an entire stadium of fans cheers or boos (or, as the case may be, managers complain loudly from the dugout)? It just doesn't seem fair. I can't possibly be the first to ask that question.

Bottom of the Fifth: Miguel Cabrera just launched his first homer into left-center field. Nice way to give the home crowd what they want.

Seems the rest of the team is fine letting Miggy do all the work: Carlos Guillen, Ivan Rodriguez and Jacque Jones see a combined five pitches while going down in order, allowing Meche to pitch at least one more inning.
Whatever, it's still a good inning: the Tigers got another run on the board and set up the bottom of the sixth to open with the top of the order. Tigers lead 3-0.

Top of the Sixth: Joey Gathright, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter for DeJesus back in the third, slaps it to Renteria for the first out. I'm not sure the Tigers announcers ever said what happened to DeJesus (of course they probably did, but I'm doing five things at once and missed it), but a Google News search says DeJesus aggravated a sprained ankle.

Mark Grudzielanek works Verlander for seven pitches before getting on base with a single. Consider it payback for dinging his hand earlier.

And now Alex Gordon just left the yard, smacking a sinker that didn't sink with the fat part of the bat. The Royals are officially in this thing, down 3-2.

Jose Guillen and Billy Butler kill the momentum with two quick outs, but the Royals are officially on the board.

Meche enters the bottom of the sixth with 93 pitches thrown -- if he gets into trouble, he might not finish the inning.

Bottom of the Sixth: Um, yeah. Forget that talk about Meche being done. The bottom of the sixth took like two minutes to complete: Meche got Inge, Renteria and Polanco to go down in order using all of six pitches. Live bloggers across the country curse you, Meche! You're mowing them down faster than we can type.

Follow along the last three innings here.