Today marks the beginning of the greatest sporting contest ever imagined in the history of all times.  The Tigers start a three game series against the White Sox at Comerica Park.  The Tig’s sit 5.5 games behind the Sox for first place in the central, so a series win or, gasp, a sweep, would be great.  Include the fact that the White Sox next series is 4 games against the Twins, and the Tig’s have a great opportunity to make up some ground on both of these rivals.  The Cats come off of a three game sweep of the Royals in which they scored 33 total runs and saw SODS award winner Armando Galarraga carry a perfect game into the seventh inning of the final contest.  I’m pretty sure they’ll never lose again.  The pitching matchups look like this:

Fri:  Nate Robertson (6-8, 5.69) vs Gavin Floyd (10-6, 3.52).
Sat:  Justin Verlander (8-9, 3.95) vs John Danks (7-4, 3.03).
Sun:  Zach Miner (4-3, 3.73) vs Javier Vazquez (7-8, 4.57).

The matchups look to favor the Sox a bit, but now that the bats are hotter than Traylor Howard covered in Dave’s Insanity Sauce, never to cool down again, what do we have to worry about?  The series is also important because, with the trade deadline six days away, the outcome should certainly affect the desicion to buy, sell, or stand pat.  For a breakdown of some of the Tiger’s possibilities, check out this post on Detroit Tigers Weblog.

Notes from Section 339

--Freddy Dolsi looks to be able to pitch in this series after sitting out two games with shoulder fatigue.
--Fernando Rodney recently received a haircut from amateur barber Dolsi, shrinking his hat size from 7 3/4 to 7 3/8.  “No mas long hair”, said Rodney.  Barry Bonds hat size recently shrank also, because he stopped using anabolic steriods.
--Here’s a funny little bit from The Onion