On a cool night along San Francisco Bay, a deliriously hot Tigers team got the big chill Monday night as the Oakland Athletics came back twice to win, 5-3, at McAfee Coliseum.
Nate Robertson's mid-innings problems with the strike zone were a big problem Monday, although no more than Jay Payton's three-run homer in the sixth that turned a 3-2 Tigers lead into a 5-3 setback for manager Jim Leyland's team.
It was just the Tigers' fourth loss in their last 22 games and it failed to gain them any ground against the second-place Chicago White Sox, who lost to Baltimore.
Robertson walked four over three innings and two of the free-pass recipients scored as Robertson fell to 8-4 on the season.
The Tigers had come back from a 2-1 hole to tie the score in the fifth on Curtis Granderson's single and a long double to left-center by Placido Polanco.
They took a 3-2 lead in the sixth when, with two out, Marcus Thames walloped Joe Blanton's first pitch deep into the mezzanine in left-center field. It was the team-leading 17th home run of the season for Thames, who has just 188 at-bats on the season.
The lead lasted but minutes.
Eric Chavez led off the sixth with a single off Robertson and Frank Thomas took a four-pitch walk to put two runners on base with none out.
Robertson then hung a first-pitch breaking ball to Payton, who lined it just inside the left-field foul pole for his 100th career home run. It made a loser out of Robertson and doubled as a delightful Fourth of July-eve celebration for a crowd of 35,077.
The Tigers got a leadoff double from Pudge Rodriguez in the eighth but could not score as Magglio Ordonez took a called third strike and Carols Guillen and Thames were set down on terrific plays by Athletics second baseman Mark Ellis and third baseman Chavez, respectively.
The Tigers got Brandon Inge to second with two out in the ninth on an error by Bobby Crosby. But Granderson grounded out against Houston Street to end it.
The Tigers collected five hits in the first two innings and made the least of it, taking a 1-0 lead against Blanton.
Polanco and Rodriguez singled with one out in the first, only to dissolve one batter later when Magglio Ordonez hit a bat-shattering double-play grounder to second.
The Tigers' best shot, early on, against Blanton came in the second.
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Payton's blast foils Robertson
Payton's blast foils Robertson
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