Monday night May 30, Angel Stadium, Anaheim, CA

Angels 5, Tigers 1

Tigers record 24-26, .480, 4th place ALC, 4.5 GB Kansas City Royals

Good ball clubs support their ace pitcher when he is spinning a gem.
Good ball clubs do not fail to muster any offense whatsoever against pitchers that are journeyman quality at best, game after game.
Good ball clubs follow up hot streaks by cooling off to a week or two around .500 then pick it up again.
Good ball clubs do not follow such streaks by totally going into the tank for a week or two.
Good ball clubs do not simply change the faces of their bullpen pitchers after the previous ones sucked.
Good ball clubs can run bases.
Good ball clubs hit in the clutch.

The laments above all fit the 2016 Tigers to a T.

Jhoulys Chacin (2-3, 4.42) made them look like a bunch of bushers at the plate all night. The score was 0-0 in the top of the eight inning.

Justin Verlander (4-5. 4.11, stats that are badly inflated by the pen letting 85% of runners inherited from him to score) was tying to finish up his fifth straight excellent start. He had just navigated through the meat of the order, disposing of Trout and Pujols, so if he continued his clear sailing, a nine inning shutout was possible. But two of the previous four great starts were sullied by dreadful late inning efforts by the team. Tonight would be no exception.

Johnny Giovatella, who has hit but ten career home runs, led off the bottom of the 8th by hitting a ball into right field that J.D. Martinez allowed to drop in front of him to start the merry go round. Only the second hit allowed all night. But, wait! J.D. Martinez was playing to a depth in right that you would expect if Mike Trout or Albert Pujols were the batter. Yet, even playing as deep as he was and should not have been, that catch could have been made, i.m.o. But it was not.

Rafael Ortega followed with another single. Cliff Pennington then singled in Giovatella for the first run in the game. After Carlos Perez sacrifice bunted the runners to 2nd and 3rd, Gregory Petit hits a hot shot to the left of Andrew Romine at shortstop. Romine made a real good play catching it on one hop, but his throw home was late to try to nab Ortega at home.

But James McCann tried to save face on the play by throwing to first in an ill fated attempt to get Petit. The throw might have nabbed him except McCann had no lane to throw and the ball bounced into foul territory in right field off Petit, scoring Pennington and putting the Angels up by a commandimng score of 3-0. Bad time for McCann's first career error, a record 139 games to start his major league career.

Exit Verlander, who seemed snake bit the entire inning and enter Buck Farmer. Tiger bullpen up to its usual "stupid pet tricks" again. After a fly out to left by Kole Calhoun and intentional walk to Trout, Albert Pujols and C.J. Cron each singled. 5-0 Angels.

A meaningless double by J.D. Martinez and sac fly by Victor Martinez was all the putrid Detroit attack could throw at Chacin, who finished with a complete game win.