Mikey D

I'm okay. No really, I am.

It hurt a lot last night, but I woke up this morning not thinking about how we blew a 7-game lead in September, or that we lost in a heartbreaking fashion in a play-in game, but rather appreciative for the great game we had last night. It was one hell of a game, you have to admit. I was even able to watch Sportscenter this morning, including every highlight of the game. And you know what? Rayburn throwing Casilla out at home was still fucking awesome.

Listening to "Mike and Mike" this morning, with Buster Olney filling in for Golic, Buster said something that made me not only appreciate last night's game, but realize that it was special. Buster said that after the game ended, his wife asked, "How long was that game?" That game lasted close to five hours, but the drama was so thick and intense, it felt a lot shorter. You know you're watching something memorable when you lose track of time completely and become completely immersed in the action in front of you.

Don't get me wrong, I am sad. Jeremy Schapp horribly compared the Tigers collapse to that of Saturn, saying that former Saturn workers and Tiger players will both be where they don't want to be: at home and not at their jobs(awful, right?). Yes, it's sad the Tigers didn't make the playoffs, and yes, it's sad for the city of Detroit. But if you watched the game last night, you can plainly see we are team with numerous flaws. We struggled to advance runners, and when they were in scoring position, failed to drive them home. It's plagued us all year (remember the Yankees series after the All-Star break? We went something like 1-23 with runners in scoring position). And after Minor and Lyon...we really had nobody else in our bullpen. Stretching Rodney as long as we did, it was just a matter of time before he broke down. Let's be real- it's Fernando Rodney. Perhaps a collapse this last month was not a matter of poor play, but just us playing to our abilities. We were far from perfect.

So we can choose to focus on our collapse (like most are), or we can choose to look at the positives. Despite being thin at every front- hitting, starting pitching, and bullpen- we won on defense and hustle, and overcame numerous injuries (Guillen, Bonderman, Zumaya, Willis, Robertson, Washburn) to somehow lead our division going into the last weekend of the season. And it brings me great joy to say this: "We went from worst to first, and that's something we're pretty darn proud of."

And I am proud of this team. I'm proud to be a Detroit Tigers fan. We will bring back our core next year, and make a run at this thing. Maybe a couple roster tweaks and a healthy roster will give us that boost to make it into the postseason.

I'm okay.

~Mikey D