In a bit of a rush today; we’re off to see the Tigers today.  At Henry Ford Hospital.  So here’s a moving pictures breakdown of last night’s extravaganza.  First, it started like this:

Then it turned into this:

Finally, we were treated to:

Oh, and a note to Roy Smalley: eat me.  You know how to play the game the right way?  Win.

We are getting mighty close to the very first Detroit Pants Party. In less than two weeks, we’ll all be roaming the SRO and shouting various invictives to the members of the Minnesota Twins. Also, our namesake, The Big Tilde, will still be out of commission for the Pants Party, but we won’t let it ruin our good time. Suss has promised* to have the TJE Mustache in full effect and I’ll offer up whatever bizarre facial hair Nate Robertson is sporting that day*. So, let’s review the particulars of the day, shall we?

What?
PANTS PARTY! Join Deadspin commenters, TB~ readers, and our assorted miscreant friends.

Where?
Comerica Park, Standing Room Only section

When?
Saturday, July 12th. It’s a 3:45pm game on Fox. Lots of time for our various shenanigans after the game.

Anything Else We Should Know?
Join the Facebook Group or e-mail me at deadonblog at gmail dot com and let me know if we can expect you. A lot of the out-of-town crew is staying downtown at the Courtyard by Marriott so we got that going for us, too.

* offers may expire, have never existed, or not be honored at anytime

“…the Tigers have a puncher’s chance of being back in this thing by the end of June. If they can pull of a 7-3 homestand and a pair of 4-2 trips after that, then they’ll have completed a 15-7 stretch and will be 39-42 heading into a stretch of 9 division games in July before the All-Star Break.”

So, it worked out a little bit better than that, no? An 8-2 homestand, 4-2 West Coast swing, and a 5-1 homestand later and our Tigers are above .500 for the first time all year. Standing tall at 41-40 at the halfway point of the season, the sins of May have all but been washed away. There’s been a glut of heroes from Marcus Thames’ amazing home run streak to the return of the Sheff. Eddie Bonine throwing a couple of nice performances and Justin Verlander returning to something resembling his old form. Old friends Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney came back and struggled at first, but seem to have settled back down. The Todd Jones Experience blew his first save and with it he almost blew the Tigers shot at returning to .500, only to have the Fat Man come through in the end.

Yet, as we reach a very important stretch before the All Star Break, we must reconcile the Tigers’ hot streak with the upcoming 2 week loss of our namesake. The Big Tilde is down for the time being and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Tigers are leaving the Copa for the next seven games, starting with a three game set against the white hot Twins, a team that is coming off a very recent ten game winning streak. Unfortunately, we also aren’t going to get JV and Kenny out there at the Hefty Bag. It’s paramount that Little Cat, Nate, and Bonine keep up appearances and pitch well in this series. Cletus the Slack Jawed Backup and Matt Joyce Needs A Nickname are going to have big shoes to fill while the Tilde is healing. This would be a great time for Miggy and the Sheff to heat up, no? The Tiggers follow up their Midwestern voyage with another trip out west to take on the Mariners for a four game series.

This week provides the Tigers with an excellent opportunity to make up some ground in the Central race and to get a little more comfortably above the .500 mark. The following week brings the Tigers back home for a pair against the Indians and a four game set against the Twins, again. And we, of course, will see you there on Saturday, July 12th.

For The Big Tilde hath been DL’d.

We’ll discuss the joy of having finally reached .500 later. For now, we just wanna put on The Cure and be still for a bit…

During the 5-5 rain delay, closère extraordinaire Todd “Frogger” Jones entertained the masses, as depicted by the AP’s Duane Burleson, with song and dance while donning artificial Tilde-xtension. This gave the real Tilde ample time to negotiate with the Gods to expedite the move of the clouds to Cleveland.

If, during the next rain delay, Tilde responds with a fake Jones-y mustache and a softshoe number, I think we can retire this weblog, for it can only go down from there.

EDIT - VIDEO AFTER THE JUMP

Awww, My Tiger, BInge is heading off to the DL today with that nasty oblique strain just refusing to get better.

Taking his place will be our 47th different Mud Hen of the year, catcher Dane Sardinha. Sardinha is hitting .206 and has committed FIVE errors thus far. I’m thinking Pudge is not going to be resting much anytime soon. (Ok, probably still tomorrow since it’s a day game following a night game…)

We won’t discuss what happened last night. We just hope the Little Cat has the cure.

It’s an off-day tonight, which gives me ample time to bring up something odd from Saturday. After their win over the San Diego Bay Pod Rays, Fox Sports Net casually threw out a statistic that literally made my mind explode into lesser minds, each of which also exploded, and so on until I had a Mandelbrot set of exploding brains:

They said the Detroit Tigers’ record, with a lead going into the 9th inning, was … hold on, let me take a sip of this delicious beverage…

32-0!

I did not believe this stat at all when I heard it, even though Fox Sports has never been wrong before. So I went to look it up. Damn sure enough, no losses with a lead after eight innings. Lots and lots of losses when it was tied, though!

That number, after Sunday’s win, is now 33-0. And after this post, it will be 33-1.

Son of Grander = Awesome.  You may return to your business now.

Lose the first game, win the next two. This is getting to be a habit. With today’s 5-3 victory over the Padres, the Tigers have won their fourth series in a row and completed a 4-2 road trip. The Tigers are getting very good at fulfilling the prophecies of the The Big Tilde. Even better news? The Fightin’ Tildes have climbed back to within 3 games of .500 and have a chance to move to 5 games out of first depending on how tonight’s Cubs/White Sox game goes. 

The best news of all? The Big Tilde himself seems to be breaking out of his June slump. He was 2/3 with a pair of RBI on Saturday and went 2/5 with 3 RBI and a game breaking homer. Hopefully the bat will stay hot upon the Tilde’s return to the Copa on Tuesday. 3 against the Cardinals followed by 3 against the Rockies. We owe it to the Cubs to beat up the Cardinals after they won their series against the White Sox this weekend. A 5-1 homestand will put the Tigers at 41-40 at the half way point. Winning both series and going 4-2 puts our heros at 40-41. Either way, we have a chance to really get back into contention this week at home in the D.

After a week and a half of not shaving, I felt like it was time. But before I began, like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind, I saw a pattern of a certain Tigers closer within the thick, full, thickfullness of the beard, and attempted to carve the beauty right then and there:

What have we learned?

1. Making these mustaches is harder than it looks.
2. There’s this nagging part of me that wants to keep it.