Detroit Tigers ease past Houston Astros 8-5 – MLB Spring Training
Detroit Tigers eased past the Houston Astros 8-5 at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, Florida on Monday, March 4 in an important Grape Fruit League encounter of the 2013 Spring Training.
Manager Jim Leyland will be very pleased to see him finally finding the road to recovery. In some ways it has turned out to be a forgettable Spring Training for the Tigers. Despite having some of the finest hitters and pitchers in their squad, they have
not been able to give consistent results. Of course, the Tigers will start the regular season as one of the favourites to win this year’s World Series title.
Last year, they dominated the American League Central Division and playoffs for that matter. However, Leyland and his men were unable to continue the good in the best of seven match World Series finals against the San Francisco Giants, losing four games
in a row.
Leyland is determined to turn things around and the fans also have high expectations from this team. It will be interesting to see if the Tigers can live up to these expectations by claiming their first World Series title in almost three decades.
"I am concerned," Leyland said. "I am not promoting anyone to closer just yet. We don't have a closer right now."
"Is it a concern? Sure it is," Leyland said. "But we didn't have a closer two months ago either. It's just too early to say. At some point this spring we are going to have to make a decision. Any of them will pitch well enough or they won't. With Rondon,
even his outings had been good so far I wouldn't have appointed him our closer yet."
Astros, on the other hand, will be slightly disappointed with the outcome of the game. Despite putting up a brave fight against one of the most powerful teams in the business, they were unable to cross the finish line. Tigers’ starting pitcher Rick Porcello
came back strongly from his poor showing as he allowed just three hits in four scoreless innings to claim his first win of Spring Training.
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