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Where: Fenway Park, Boston MA Listen: WWJ AM 950/WXYT-FM 97.1-HD2 Watch: FDSNDT; NESN; MLB.tv ($) Game Time Forecast: 82 degrees; winds W at 12 and expected to decrease very slightly during the game; 0% precipitation. Starting Pitchers: Detroit: Chris Paddack (5-11, 5.27 ERA; 107 K); Boston: TBD

I hope I didn’t kill Ray with my Benetti apostasy.

Doesn't break my heart ...

Holy ****, a walkoff HBP

Great game in Cleveland right now. 2-2 going into the ninth.

Hey, if people love it, that's fine. I don't. To each their own. But just because I don't like it doesn't mean I'm not sophisticated enough to understand it. I get why he's doing it. I just hope that the next guy is more dedicated to the team and its 162- (or 154-, whatever they end up deciding after expansion) game season. Just a personal preference. I acknowledged upfront that I might be on an island with this one. We all know how forums work—we bring up all kinds of important and unimportant things.

I said in the original post about this that I understood the contract.

No, I don’t hold it against the guy at all. Everyone should strive for their maximum potential. I would never want to pigeonhole him to stay in Detroit forever if that’s what he didn’t want. But that also doesn’t mean I have to love his bugging out on the team for arguably the most important game of the year. I’d like a guy who’s here and committed to the team 162 games a year, or as close to that as health and dire family situations will allow. Someone like … I don’t know … Ernie Harwell? Or Dan Dickerson. I don’t mind at all that Benetti has ambition beyond Detroit. Most people probably would. But to me, bugging out on the Tigers on their clinch day is really no better than Matt Shaw bugging out on the Cubs when he did that, underlying circumstances notwithstanding.

This may be an unpopular opinion—or maybe not, we’ll see—but I’m actually glad Jason Benetti wasn’t here to call the game that clinched the playoff spot for us. Yeah, I know what Benetti’s contract says, what it allows him to do, but to still take off for such an important game shows just what it all means to him. He’s not a Tigers guy. He’s not an ambassador for the team. He’s not one of us. He’s a mercenary, here only because we were the first team to call after he got run out of town by his hometown team, and he’s obviously gunning for a 100% national career. And he’s good at announcing, really good at it, so he’s going to get that all-national job, whether it’s next year, or the year after, or the year after that. But it will be sooner than later. And when he does get it, he will bolt with pleasure, and then Detroit will be as much of a blip on his career radar as Detroit is on Howard Stern’s. Benetti can stay in West Virginia tomorrow, too, for all I care.

Yes, that is right. Magic number is 2.

Yep, that’s who A.J. takes his orders from! 😂

I really like seeing the personalities in the clubhouse. I don’t live in Detroit and don’t really see the guys interviewed much during the season, so this is kind of a treat.

I misread it the same way you did.

If Guards lose tonight and tomorrow and we win tomorrow, CLE @ DET?

That’s a 108-win pace!

Overkill?! They just made the playoffs today! Who doesn’t celebrate that with champagne? Come on!

Maybe. You have point—at least as far as that goes, anyway, ‘cause ain’t no way we’re trading him.

I regret to inform the negative nellies among us that the Tigers are whooping and hollering in the clubhouse with champagne and everything. I guess they don’t have the good sense like we do to be embarrassed by how they exceeded last year’s win total and made the playoffs. 😉 😁

Good call. It’ll be Paddack for at least 80 or 90 pitches, regardless of how many runs he gives up; then Rainey and Seward (or Seward and Rainey). And if that’s not enough to get us eight full innings—or hopefully, nine—then Kahnle to mop up.

Absolutely! I said in another thread earlier today that I would have been at least somewhat relieved if we did not win tonight and tomorrow, we back into the playoffs with an Astros loss tonight, and then lose 2-0 in the ALWC series, because I would have much, much preferred that to losing out on the playoffs entirely. But charging into the playoffs with a win on the field—I am more than merely relieved. I am STOKED!

Tigers are BACK in the playoffs, and they clinch on the field! SUCK IT, NEGATIVE HORSE****!

Tigers beat Red Sox, 2-1, and so:

Three outs away from the playoffs, but it would be a lot cooler if we clinched it with a lot more runs than we have now.

I wasn’t the one who said that. The other guy said that about me. So why don’t you ask him which I like better?

I’ve long thought Booby Scales sounds a lot like one of the of DJs sampled on the Queens of the Stone Age album: