• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Bonine, Granderson help Tigers top Rockies

Jun 28, 2008 - 3:58 AM DETROIT (Ticker) -- Rookie Eddie Bonine threw eight dominating innings in his third career start and Curtis Granderson had four hits, drove in a run and scored three runs as the Detroit Tigers continued their sizzling play with a 7-1 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Friday.

It was a total team effort as Ivan Rodriguez, Miguel Cabrera, Magglio Ordonez, Placido Polanco and Carlos Guillen all drove in runs as the Nos. 1-5 hitters combined to go 10-for-22 with five RBI in leading the Tigers to their third straight win and 15th in the last 19 games.

Jeff Baker had an RBI single for Colorado, which has lost five straight games.

Bonine (2-0) helped the Tigers stay hot by limiting the Rockies to just one run and five hits with two strikeouts. The 27-year-old righthander retired nine straight from the second to the fourth, and allowed just one runner to reach scoring position before Baker got Colorado on the board in the seventh.

Bonine recorded 17 ground-ball outs, but Tigers' manager Jim Leyland was most impressed by the zero in the walks column.

"I like strike-throwers and he's a strike-thrower with all his pitches," Leyland said of Bonine. "He can throw something besides a fastball when he's behind in the count. He can use both sides of the plate. That's pretty impressive. He's not going to overpower you, but that's OK. He's going to make your defense work and if your defense works good like we did tonight."

Bonine is still in awe of being in the majors.

"My wife's been up here the whole time and we've had to pinch ourselves a few times," he said. "It's pretty exciting. I'm just trying to get more comfortable with these guys, go out there and continue to have fun as well."

While Bonine was busy shutting down the Rockies, Detroit quietly built a comfortable lead against Colorado starter Ubaldo Jimenez (2-8).

Granderson, who is hitting .417 (28-for-67) over his last 19 games, sparked the Tigers all night. The center fielder singled in the first, stole second and scored on Guillen's double to give Detroit a 1-0 lead.

Two batters later, Cabrera plated Granderson with a single to center. Rodriguez and Ordonez had RBI singles in the third and fourth respectively, and Guillen hit into a double play in the sixth that scored Granderson for a 5-0 lead.

That was more than enough for Bonine, who has allowed just three runs and 11 hits over his last 15 innings in winning two straight starts. One of Bonine's only blemishes came in the seventh when he allowed a one-out double to Brad Hawpe. After Garrett Atkins was retired on a fly out, Baker drilled a double to right center to break up the shutout.

"The guys are having fun, hitting the ball, playing some great defense," Bonine said. "It's very fun every day coming to the clubhouse, it seems like these guys are pretty excited about the day, so it's fun."

"The kid (Bonine) pitched really well," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "It seemed like we set a record for hitting the most ground ball in a game. He threw a lot a first pitch strikes and came back with more second pitch strikes. You just can't win with that situation."

Meanwhile, Jimenez, who snapped a 13-start winless streak on Saturday, allowed four runs and nine hits in four innings with four strikeouts and three walks.

"I only had my fastball when I came out there tonight," Jimenez said. "It took me some time to adjust to my other pitches. My body just wasn't in the right position all night long. "This is a pretty good hitting team and I was putting the ball in the wrong place."

Granderson, who tripled in the second, capped his big night with a run-scoring triple in the eighth. Polanco followed with a sacrifice fly to provide the final margin.

"I know Leyland made a comment earlier in the season that if the two of us (him and Polanco) get going, a lot of things can happen," Granderson said. "He was doing stuff, I wasn't and vice versa. I was doing stuff, he wasn't. Hopefully we can go ahead and keep things clicking between the two of us the rest of the way."

The Tigers have a chance to move to .500 for the first time all season with a win on Saturday. Leyland could not put a finger on why Detroit started so slow and why they are finally playing up to expectations.

"I don't know," he said. "All I know is that we're playing better baseball, we're executing pretty good, in my opinion. We've got some nice combinations going with pitching, timely hitting, timely defensive plays. I think you just let the flow go. We want to get in a flow, a good flow. You want to try to keep it that way."