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Tigers' offense allows star rookie to cruise in win

May 19, 2007 - 4:08 AM DETROIT (Ticker) -- Andrew Miller was not part of the Detroit Tigers' team that lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in five games in the World Series last season. With more outings like this, the star rookie will make sure history does not repeat itself.

Miller pitched six scoreless frames and won in his first major league start and Gary Sheffield homered and drove in three runs as the Tigers posted a 14-4 victory over the Cardinals on Friday in their first meeting since last season's World Series.

Miller (1-0), who was the sixth-overall pick in the 2006 draft, was sharp in his first major league start for Detroit. The 21-year-old lefthander, who is taking the place of injured starter Jeremy Bonderman, yielded just four hits and three walks while striking out two.

"I felt good about what I did tonight," Miller said. "I couldn't have asked for more. I wanted to throw strikes and get the hitters out with my stuff. Just stay ahead of the hitters. It gets a lot easier out there with more runs on the board. It's fun being a pitcher when you get that many runs."

"I didn't expect a lot from him (Miller)", Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "I just wanted him to compete. He did a good job, he had movement on his ball. He's a talent but he's not a finished product yet."

Detroit's offense wasted little time getting to St. Louis starter Braden Looper (5-3) as Sheffield blasted a two-run homer in the first and Magglio Ordonez hit a solo shot in the third to stake the Tigers to a quick 3-0 lead. Following a sacrifice fly from Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco lined an RBI double to left to put Detroit ahead 5-0.

"Basically, I made some mistakes over the middle of the plate," Looper said. "Against a hitter like that (Sheffield), you can't make pitches like that. I just might as well have turned around and threw the ball over the fence myself. I had no fastball control at all. It seemed like every pitch I threw fell on the barrel of the bat."

"(Sheffield has been a) upper-echelon run producer for a lot of years," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "They were looking to make an impact move and they made it."

Looper surrendered seven runs and nine hits in four innings - his shortest outing of the season. The two homers he allowed in the first three frames matched the total he had given up all season.

The Tigers blew the game open with a nine-run fifth, their most runs in an inning this season. After back-to-back singles knocked Looper out of the game, Cardinals reliever Kelvin Jimenez recorded only one out while allowing seven of the next eight Detroit batters to reach base, including consecutive run-scoring hits from Curtis Granderson, Polanco and Sheffield.

"This was a streak game," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "Those happen every now and then. Yesterday, we couldn't score any runs and today we score a bunch. That's baseball."

Reliever Russ Springer, who relieved Jimenez, finally was able to stop the bleeding, but not before yielding a two-run double to Ivan Rodriguez to cap the scoring in the frame, extending the Tigers bulge to 14-0.

The 14 runs were three more than the total the Tigers mustered in the five-game Fall Classic last season.

Sean Casey had four hits and Polanco had three hits and three RBI for the Tigers, who recovered from losing both ends of Thursday's doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox.

"It was real great to get a few hits in a game," Casey said. "Yesterday, I hit ropes that were caught and today everything snuck through. It's a crazy game. They say that you have to be a little crazy to play this game, I guess they are right."

Albert Pujols hit a solo homer and reached base in each plate appearance for the Cardinals, who have lost at least three consecutive games for the fourth time this season.

"Obviously, I didn't do enough to help the team win." Pujols said.