**FREDI GONZALEZ
Were the long balls the killer for Minor, or iving up walks before them?
“That’s the key right there, not necessarily the home run balls, but you walk Pena (in the third inning) and you walk Jackson with two outs (in the seventh), and here comes the big boys. I know Infante’s not a big boy, but he’s definitely not a No. 9 hitter. He hits ninth in the American League with this lineup, but he’s dangerous. For me those are the two things, those walks. They made him pay for it.”
On Minor being the most reliable guy before tonight
“You take away that one inning there in the seventh and he kept us in the ballgame, he really did a nice job. But you can’t walk the Penas of the world, because all of a sudden here comes Jackson and Torii Hunter and Cabrera and those guys.”
On the starting pitching getting roughed up here in Detroit
“That’s a pretty good lineup. We gave them some outs, we gave them some opportunities to score, and they took advantage. Guy that hits third for them won the Triple Crown, and he don’t miss those opportunities. You bring in Gearrin to face Hunter and Cabrera, and Miggy knows exactly what he wants to do with the plan there, and he’s not going to give in. He’s going to hit the right field, and he hits the ball over the right-field fence like a left-handed pull hitter.”
Were you encouraged when team scrapped for three runs to tie in the fourth?
“Yeah, I thought we were in good shape. We were making some things happen, hit-and-running a couple of times with those guys at the bottom and top of the lineup, trying to force the issue a little bit. And we just … they added on. They added on late.”
On the bad trip, brutal week
“I think over the course of 162 games and however many weeks in the season, you’re going to go through a road trip like this. And now we’ve got to get ready to go home, be home for seven days or so, hopefully get good weather and go out and get some work done that we need to get done and get it going again.”
**CORY GEARRIN
On the homer by Cabrera on 3-0 pitch
“They’re good hitters. I fell behind 3-0 and tried to get a strike through, and he hit it. The guy’s a great hitter. You kind of just have to tip your hat right there. I wanted to be aggressive, wanted to come at him and not give up the AB, and he did what he was up there to do.”
Did it feel as this trip went on, that guys were expecting things to go wrong?
“No. That’s baseball sometimes. We’ve played really well this season, and then sometimes you have games like tonight. I wish I could have done more to give us an opportunity to really win that game there the last two or three innings, but it’s what happened tonight. It’s tough. We’ll come back tomorrow and get ready for the Nationals.”
**MIKE MINOR
On his performance against a great lineup
“I left some balls over the middle of the plate, but even the balls that I felt like I executed, they still had good swings on them and fouled them off, or just missed them.”
Kick yourself over the walks before homers?
“Yeah. Definitely the first one (to Bryan Pena in third inning) and then the home run. That’s what hurt me a lot of times last year, the walks and the home runs. And it happened again tonight.”
On the persistent rain
“It wasn’t that bad, because they kept putting the kitty litter or whatever it was on the mound and the basepaths. It wasn’t that bad. There was no excuse for any of the elements to come into play.”
Was the most frustrating part giving up runs after your team had come back from 3-0 deficit to tie?
“Definitely. Because I thought the hitters did a good job with Fister tonight. He was throwing the ball well and we still managed to put some runs on the board and quite a few hits. It was pretty much left up to me to hold them, and I didn’t.”
On the pitch that Infante took deep
“I threw him a slider in that went over the fence. That’s the pitch to righties that for some reason I hang a lot, and they end up hitting it pretty solid. Other than that, I guess maybe I didn’t throw enough curveballs, because the curveballs that I did throw, there was only a couple that got hit. But they were still only singles, they weren’t sitting on it or whatever, and I had a couple of swing-and-missses. I didn’t really throw any backdoor sliders, threw too many changeups probably.”
Was it just a miserable sort of road trip?
“Yeah, especially when you get down like that, it doesn’t feel good against a good team like that.”
**DAN UGGLA
Do you view this as just a bad sort of week that teams are going to encounter?
“Yeah, I guess. This was a tough road trip. You could tell it wore on us. The weather, the travel, the doubleheader, the days off, everything kind of caught up to us here. Not taking anything away from them (Tigers). They swung the bats great and got great pitching all three days.
“Like I said, we’re happy to be going home and put this one behind us, get started, get back to work tomorrow.”
Glad to be able to face Nats and Mets now at home, the two teams behind you in standings?
“Yeah, of course. We welcome the challenge of anybody coming in, whether it’s someone in our division or someone on the West Coast. It’s always a little more fun playing against your division rivals, so we’re excited about it. We’re going to try to get some rest on this flight and sleep in a little bit tomorrow, get back at it again tomorrow.”
Do you think the first two weeks of the season were more indicative of the offense than the past week?
“Yeah. I mean, it doesn’t matter how good your lineup is, everybody is going to have their ups and downs. When they’re hot, they’re going to cool off a little bit. Right now we kind of just hit a little cold spell. It’ll be good to get home. Like I said, this is a long road trip. This offense hasn’t even scratched the surface of what we’re capable of doing yet. Like, look at them over there (Tigers). They were kind of battling there for the first couple of weeks, now they’re really starting to turn it on, they’re starting to get hot.
“We’re going to get hot again, and we’re going to put up some big scores.”
