Tigers Go Quietly Into Night

The Detroit Tigers tried lulling the Angels to sleep. Nice effort, but no luck. The last-place Tigers took another loss for their trouble.

This bordered on parody: With the teams playing only to make up a May rainout, and thus a tiny crowd guaranteed to watch the crummy home team, the Tigers promoted Monday’s game as “Silent Night”--no music blaring, the video screen left blank, just an organist and one guy on the microphone to announce batters and pitching changes.

“It was kind of like we played somewhere in a minor league stadium, without the crazy bat races,” Angel pitcher John Lackey said.

On a lethargic night in a near-empty ballpark, the Angels defeated the Tigers, 6-3, and defeated fatigue too. The Angels played 12 innings Sunday in Anaheim, landed in Detroit after 3 a.m., checked into their hotel, slept for a few hours, checked out and headed to Comerica Park, bags packed for a postgame flight to Chicago.

“I tried to drink as much coffee as possible,” designated hitter Brad Fullmer said.

With no artificial noise and a shortage of man-made noise, the Angels quietly went about their business.

The quietest of the Angels, leadoff hitter David Eckstein, reached base five times, on a career-high four hits, and an error. Shawn Wooten also had a career-high four hits, after replacing injured first baseman Scott Spiezio in the fourth inning. Fullmer and Troy Glaus hit consecutive home runs in the fifth inning to put the Angels ahead to stay.

Lackey sparkled, giving up a three-run home run and nothing else in 6 2/3 innings for the victory. He struck out eight, the most in his eight major league starts. He also started on the night this game was originally scheduled, for triple-A Salt Lake at Memphis, where they surely have had crazy bat races.

Brendan Donnelly, Scott Schoeneweis and Troy Percival got the final seven out, with Percival earning his 26th save. The Angels took a half-game lead on the Boston Red Sox in the American League wild-card race and closed within 2 1/2 games of the Seattle Mariners in the AL West.

Fullmer, who did not hit a home run in July, has homered in each of three games he has started this month. Glaus, who hit two home runs in July, has hit one in each of the last two games.

A dreary day nearly turned devastating for the Angels in the fourth inning, when Spiezio fouled a ball off his right kneecap. As he fell to the ground, he grabbed the knee.

“I thought it was split in two,” he said.

He said he was scared, particularly when trainer Ned Bergert asked him to straighten his right leg and he could not. Spiezio left--the first time in his career an injury forced him from a game, he said--but the feeling in the leg soon returned, and X-rays were negative. He is expected to sit out no more than a day or two.

Thus relieved, the Angels could return to pondering the Tigers’ “Silent Night,” a self-fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.

“It definitely had kind of a spring training night game atmosphere,” Tim Salmon said.

In accordance with league policy, the Tigers announced tickets sold--18,546, for the original date and for Monday.

The Tigers did not announce actual attendance, but it was generously estimated at one-third the amount of tickets sold--something close to the 6,798 that watched the triple-A game between Salt Lake and Iowa on Sunday at Des Moines.

Of course, it is difficult to argue that the good people of Detroit should spend their hard-earned dollars on the Tigers, particularly on $14 bleacher seats. The Tigers have not posted a winning record since 1993, and they are on pace to lose 102 games this season.

So, even with the music playing, the coming nights might well be silent.

“Would it have been different on any other night here? I don’t know, the way they’re playing right now,” Salmon said. “It seems like the town is not very happy with them.”