Take that, Martino!

The Tigers completed their three-game sweep of the Orioles last night, beating them 8-6 after Craig Monroe blasted a three run homer to cap Detroit's 6-run 7th inning. The sweep was particularly impressive coming against a first place team and featuring a hard-fought one run victory and two come-from-behind rallies.

The story of the series was probably the Tiger pitching, which holds the fifth best ERA in the American League for the season. Throw out a 5 run inning last night and the Tigers only gave up 7 runs in 26 innings to the best-hitting team in baseball. Nate Robertson and Jason Johnson both had strong outings Friday and Saturday, respectively, each allowing only 3 runs in 8 innings of work. Ugueth Urbina pitched a shaky 9th Friday night, but ultimately closed the door and got the save in all three games.

Craig Monroe and Dmitri Young paced the Tigers offense for the weekend. Monroe finally looked like he does on my Xbox, clubbing a homer in all three games. Actually, on my Xbox, he gets a homer virtually every at-bat, but that's probably an unrealistic expectation. D-Young had 2 homers and 4 RBI for the series.

I was at the game Friday night (and my dad went to all three) and I am proud to say that these Tigers are a good baseball team. Their pitching has kept them afloat all season, but seeing the offense go out and win the game last night makes me very optimistic about the rest of the season. Taking 3 in a row from the first place Orioles is a heck of a start on the road to the division title.

Well, the division title will be tough. But I think these guys can finish above .500. This sweep erases last week's 4-game losing streak and puts them just 2 games under sea level. Remember - this team really hasn't gotten hot yet this season. No huge losing streaks either, but their biggest winning streak was five games over a week and a half in mid-April that didn't start any sort of momentum because it came while they were dodging snowstorms trying to play some baseball.

If the hitting is coming around, well, watch out Twins. There's a new Tiger on the block.