Grab Bag of Oddities

Gerald Laird has changed his uniform number from 8 to 12, snatching Lloyd McClendon's uniform number! I find this most unusual. How often do players just change their uni number solely as a slump-buster? Also, John Keating reports that Laird has made no compensation as of yet to McClendon, and plans to do so only if he benefits from the change (improved offensive numbers)! Hilarious. Did McClendon just go for a straight swap and take Laird's number 8? I don't know, nobody mentioned it. Why was this not part of the story???

Carlos Guillen struck out in the bottom of the second inning, and I exclaimed with mildly stern disapproval, "Carlos," and my son chimes in from the other room "Guillen, suckage." He didn't even know what had happened! What did I do in my current or former life to deserve my son hating the Tigers? It hurts, so deeply inside, it hurts. Then, to add insult to injury, my husband quips, "he'll be injured in the next two weeks. Do you think other teams' general managers think "durability" when they think of Carlos Guillen?" Really, the gears in my brain are circling feverishly trying to identify terrible things I must have done to be the subject of such cruel barbs from my family. I'm heading to a local sports bar to watch the games in a non-hostile environment from now on.

Rick Porcello came into the game with a 2.29 groundball to flyball ratio, which Rod said is the best in the majors (over some time period, but I didn't catch exactly what, I think it was the time period since Rick came into the majors until now). This game was characterized by fly ball after fly ball for Pretty Little Ricky. What gives? Magglio Ordóñez made a funny catch against the right/center field wall. He went back for it, tripped against the wall at the last second, fell down as the ball came into his glove, but mercifully held on to it. If he had dropped it, derisive laughter would have followed from the previously mentioned Tiger haters in my household. As it was, we chuckled at the play, but it was all good-natured from my end, I assure you. Never any bad vibes for Mi Magglio.

The following is not an oddity at all. I'm not the least bit surprised that Roy Halladay threw a perfect game. He has always shown that he's more than capable of accomplishing the feat, and tonight he pulled it off. Congratulations, Roy, it's an achievement worthy of your stellar career. I followed the last couple outs on MLB.com's Gameday, and FSN showed the final out, a nice play at that, to preserve the perfection.

Tonight's Tiger game does not compare favorably to Roy's perfect game, so I won't mention any further details (like Laird being robbed of a home run, and later failing to pick a ball out of the dirt from cutoff man Adam Everett). Sigh.