Playoff Blogdome: Tigers at Athletics, Game 2

Canvassing the blogs after Detroit's 8-5 win over Oakland in the ALCS:

• Nate Robertson's Gum Time. No doubt it was Gum Time tonight. I had two packs in. They had me miked up for the broadcast. Skip nominated me to get miked up for the game tonight. I don't know how much coverage I had out there. I think I was the only one to throw it in, but down 3-1, why not? So I threw in a couple packs, get a little rally going. They actually weren't in my mouth. Half of the gum was hanging out of my mouth. It was pretty ugly.

• Athletics Nation. Don't get me wrong, I don't like going down 2-0 at home. The A's are now officially the underdogs in the series no matter how you slice it, having simply been outpitched, outhit, and outfielded in two home games, off to face their nemesis, Kenny Rogers, in less friendly confines. But tonight's game was a microcosm of why there is hope for the series as a whole. Tonight, the A's looked like they were cooked only to rise up and get Milton Bradley to the plate representing the tying run, only to go a step further and get Frank Thomas to the plate representing the winning run. Perhaps the series will follow the same script and the A's have some rising yet to do. The A's are down, but they're far from out. Frank Thomas hasn't hit his last high fly ball yet. Let's hope his last one has the distance.

• Detroit Tigers Weblog. I'm still nervous. It was only 2 weeks ago that the Tigers played a home weekend series against the worst team in the league needing merely 1 win. They couldn't do it. Now the Tigers need 2 wins against a team that has proved to be very good, even if they haven't shown it yet this series. Some people are saying that the Tigers learned from that series, and that it made them a better team. I don't know if that's true or not, but as fans it would be silly to forget what went down.

• Tiger Blog. What a game by Alexis Gomez. I immediately questioned why Leyland would throw him in there, and then of course he started driving in runs. He hit a two run seeing eye single in the fourth and then a he hit a huge two run homerun in the sixth inning. The other questionable hitter in the lineup was Neifi Perez. He was the only Tiger who didn't reach base last night. It was a big fat nothing.