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Tigers rally to beat Cardinals

Jun 26, 2008 - 10:24 PM DETROIT (Ticker) -- Clete Thomas walked with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning Thursday as the Detroit Tigers rallied for a 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in the rubber contest of a three-game interleague series.

After dramatic hits in the ninth inning by the Cardinals' Albert Pujols and the Tigers' Gary Sheffield, it was Thomas' patience at the plate that gave Detroit a second straight win in its final at-bat.

"You want to be the guy and get the big hit and win the game, but a walk is just as good," said Thomas, who also walked with the bases loaded in the sixth. "He (Mike Parisi) didn't throw anything close and I got the walk."

"(Thomas) showed a lot of composure," Tigers manager Jim Leyland added. "That's pretty impressive for a young hitter."

Pujols collected four hits after coming off the disabled list, including an RBI single off Todd Jones that gave the Cardinals a 2-1 lead in the top of the ninth.

Ryan Franklin could not close it out in the bottom half, as Sheffield drilled a one-out home run over the left field fence. Sheffield also had the winning hit Wednesday, a single in the ninth that gave the Tigers an 8-7 victory.

"He had crowded me with the last couple of pitches and I knew he was going to come up and over (the plate)," Sheffield said. "I was able to get all of it."

Parisi (0-4) started the 10th for the Cardinals and gave up a leadoff single to Curtis Granderson, his fourth hit of the game.

Granderson moved up on Ryan Rayburn's sacrifice. After Carlos Guillen was intentionally walked, Granderson advanced to third on Magglio Ordonez's flyout to right.

St. Louis manager Tony La Russa elected to intentionally walk Miguel Cabrera to load the bases. Parisi jumped ahead of Thomas 1-2, but missed with the next three pitches.

"I felt good out there, but I just couldn't get the job done," Parisi said. "I threw the ball (on the 3-2 pitch), it was away and we lost. That's it."

It ended a frustrating afternoon for the Cardinals, who managed only one unearned run off Detroit starter Nate Robertson, who surrendered 11 hits in 6 2/3 innings.

"I gave up a few hits today, but they didn't alarm me," Robertson said. "There were only a couple of hard hits and I think I made some good pitches on those hits."

Bobby Seay (1-1) tossed a scoreless inning to record the win, the Tigers' 14th in their last 19 games.

"We're trying to climb back into this thing," Leyland said. "We've made some headway."

The Tigers grabbed a 1-0 lead in the sixth, when reliever Ron Villone walked Thomas with the bases loaded. Jason Isringhausen replaced Villone and worked out of the jam by getting Sheffield to pop up.

In the bottom of the sixth, Tigers starting second baseman Placido Polanco was ejected by plate umpire Paul Schrieber for arguing a called third strike.

The ejection turned out to a big play, as the Cardinals tied it in the seventh on a throwing error by Rayburn, who replaced Polanco at second. However, like the Tigers in the previous inning, St. Louis could not do any further damage after loading the bases.

After failing to take advantage of numerous opportunities, the Cardinals grabbed the lead in the ninth, when pinch hitter Skip Schumaker, Aaron Miles and Pujols reached Jones for consecutive singles.

But St. Louis stranded 12 runners, including eight through the first five innings.