Tigers 4, Twins 3: Capps Blows Save as Detroit Sweeps Minnesota

Maybe my headline is a little bit unfair to Matt Capps, because I'm not really sure how this game wasn't a blowout for the Tigers. P.J. Walters allowed so many base runners that to the untrained eye it may have looked like he had more men on base than outs recorded. Jared Burton made a nice snag on a hard chopping grounder from Brennan Boesch to get himself out of the seventh inning, but recorded just one swinging strike and appeared to be in the cross hairs of Detroit batters.

So when the Twins led 3-2 going into the ninth inning, thanks to an Alexi Casilla RBI infield single, a big RBI double from Joe Mauer, and a RBI single from Josh Willingham, it came as a pleasant surprise. And when Miguel Cabrera took Capps deep, to dead center field, it seemed more like odds evening themselves out than some kind of unfair treatment by the baseball gods.

The Twins did match the Tigers hit-for-hit, twelve a side. The Twins were also slightly better with runners in scoring position, going 3-for-10 to Detroit's 2-for-15. It goes without saying that one of those two Tiger hits was Cabrera's bomb.

We'll talk about something more interesting this evening, but for now I'll leave you with notes, studs, and duds after the jump.

Notes

• Offensively, Justin Morneau stranded seven runners while going 0-for-5. Two in the first, two in the third, one in the sixth, and two more as he flew out to end the game. It just wasn't Justin's afternoon.
• Ryan Doumit doubled and walked this afternoon, helping him to continue a strong month of May in which he's belted a .281/.400/.561 triple slash.
• Since his recall, Ben Revere is 11-for-37 (.297) with a couple of walks (.350 OBP). This is Revere's upside. If he can come out of 2012 with an OBP north of .340, that's a big win for this franchise. It's not as though he's been terribly lucky or unlucky with batting average on balls in play to this point either, so while we're still dealing with a relatively small sample size this year it's not unreasonable to think this level of performance could be sustainable provided he continues to hit a good number of line drives and maintains his speed.
• In his last ten games, Denard Span has had six multi-hit games, leading to a .348 average in that frame to go along with a trio of walks, a trio of stolen bases, and ten runs scored. Certain parts of this team are doing exactly what we'd like them to do, and Span is one of them.
• Walters allowed seven hits and five (FIVE!) walks in six innings today, but still pulled a rabbit out of his hat by allowed just a pair of runs. With the exception of a 1-2-3 second inning, Walters had a runner in scoring position every inning and had the bases loaded in the first, fourth, and fifth innings.