On Saturday Night, Comerica Park Was ALIVE!
It was not the best weekend for my Tigers. The came into this weekend with an opportunity to jump ahead of the Cleveland Indians in American League Central division standings. They have zero chance of catching the White Sox, but 2nd place finish would be a wonderful accomplishment for a team that began the year 9 and 24. They played some relatively heinous baseball on Friday and Sunday, including nearly having a perfect game thrown against them yesterday thanks to a masterful performance by Tristan McKenzie. Friday and Sunday were games to forget, but Saturday? Saturday was one of the best nights that Comerica Park has seen in a long long time.
It’s no secret why 32,000+ decided to fill Comerica Park on Saturday night. They came to see history. Miguel Cabrera continues to chase home run number 500, and he’s only 1 away. We didn’t get the opportunity to see that, instead the crowd in downtown Detroit saw a whale of a game. Jeimer Candelario hit a 2 run home run in the 1st inning off of Sam Hentges and for a brief, small moment, it felt like 2013 again.
This feeling did not last longer than a day. Like I said, Tristan McKenzie nearly threw a perfect game yesterday in an 11-0 Tigers loss, so it’s not like this honeymoon period was a long and fruitful one. But for several hours on a beautiful night in downtown Detroit, it was bliss. The Tigers ultimately ended up winning on Saturday 6 to 4 thanks to Eric Haase’s 2 RBI single on the bottom of the 8th.
In the grand scheme of things, the 2021 Detroit Tigers will not go down as a good baseball team. They are not going to make the playoffs. They are not going to win the Central. They might not even finish in 2nd place in their own division. In the world of baseball, they will mean very little. But it sure as hell feels like the fans have connected with this team way more than anyone ever expected them to. I’ve wondered why this is. Could it be as simple as the fact that they just don’t suck? I mean there is something to be said for that, especially considering just how much sucking this team has done since 2017. But I think for the first time in a long time, the ascension is noticeable. There are players on the Tigers roster right now that I can confidently say will be on the roster the next time they make the postseason. That is not something that we’ve been able to say over the last several years. Maybe it’s just the cynic in me, but I still think there might be another bad losing streak in here somewhere. This team has been punching way, way above their weight class for several months now, and while they take a lot of hard hits, and they aren’t strong enough to land a knockout punch, there’s something to be said about finally having a unit that’s capable of going 12 rounds. My hope is that the excitement doesn’t end with Miguel Cabrera‘s 500th home run. I hope that Miguel Cabrera‘s chase for number 500 becomes the spark that leads people back to Comerica again, because something has changed. The culture is not the same. The atmosphere is not the same, and Saturday proved that.
(Credit to Matt Henkel who did an unreal job with this video)