Tigers end 6-game skid with win over White Sox

[August 08, 2008]  CHICAGO (AP) -- Miguel Cabrera and Curtis Granderson homered and Ryan Raburn made a nice catch to shut off a late Chicago rally Thursday night, helping the Detroit Tigers snap their six-game losing streak with an 8-3 victory over the White Sox.

Zach Miner (6-4) allowed seven hits and two runs -- one earned -- in six innings. Fernando Rodney got the final four outs to get his second save in six chances and just the 23rd in 43 opportunities for Detroit's struggling bullpen.

Magglio Ordonez had a two-run triple and Matt Joyce added a run-scoring double in the ninth to put it away. Detroit is 7 1/2 games behind the White Sox in the AL Central, and second-place Minnesota trails first-place Chicago by a half game.

Cabrera, who was 3-for-3 with two walks, lined a two-out, two-run homer -- his 21st of the season -- in the third to score Carlos Guillen, who'd doubled over Ken Griffey Jr.'s head in right.

Placido Polanco doubled past third in the fifth before Guillen hit a shot down the first base line for a triple that made it 3-0. Cabrera then delivered a two-out RBI single off Javier Vazquez (8-10) and it was 4-0.

Granderson led off the seventh with his 14th homer to put Detroit ahead 5-2.

Carlos Quentin's AL-leading 30th homer, off Bobby Seay in the eighth, pulled Chicago within 5-3.

But Chicago's rally fizzled when Jim Thome, who'd walked, was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Paul Konerko's double to left. Raburn, who initially had the ball bound away from him, threw to shortstop Ramon Santiago, who made a perfect peg to catcher Brandon Inge to easily get Thome for the second out.

After Seay hit Griffey with a pitch, Rodney relieved. Raburn, who entered the game in the seventh as a defensive replacement, saved the Tigers with a nice diving catch on Alexei Ramirez's liner with runners at second and third.

Chicago's Nick Swisher and Juan Uribe opened the bottom half of the fifth with back-to-back ground-rule doubles to make it 4-1, but Miner retired the next three batters. Santiago's wild throw to first on Ramirez's infield single allowed Konerko to score Chicago's second run in the sixth.

The White Sox loaded the bases in the fourth when Quentin was hit by a pitch for the 15th time this season and Thome and Konerko singled. But Miner struck out Griffey and Ramirez.

Vazquez, who threw a season-high 122 pitches, gave up eight hits and five runs in seven innings.

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen returned to the bench after serving a two-game suspension for making contact with umpire Tim Timmons and his comments Sunday after the Royals and White Sox were involved in a bench-clearing brawl.

Notes: Hall of Famer Goose Gossage, who spent his first five major league seasons with the White Sox starting in 1972, threw out the first pitch. ... The White Sox rested RF Jermaine Dye. The Tigers gave DH Gary Sheffield and SS Edgar Renteria a breather.

[Associated Press; By RICK GANO]

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