A three-run homer and a loss later it showed that Leyland was pushing

A three-run homer and a loss later, it showed that Leyland was pushing the envelope a little too soon. I would think that after that poor display, Leyland may choose a different route of deception. But was it all Leyland's fault? I believe it was a combination of three things that went wrong.First, let's start by saying that Fernando Rodney has two pitches: a mid-90s fastball and a knee-buckling changeup. He struck out a hitter on five straight unhittable changeups. The most they could do with it was foul it off.Every time Ivan Rodriguez called for a fastball, they ripped a base hit, because his fastballs were elevated and in the wheelhouse. If I am a hitter facing Rodney, I'm sitting on a fastball.The three things are: One, Leyland should not have had him out there in the first place Two, Pudge called the wrong pitch And three, Rodney has to keep his fastball down. I haven't seen him do it in a while, even at Toledo. Bottom line: work him in slowly.

I know everyone wants this team back on track, but don't give away ball games just to give the kid some work.The same for Joel Zumaya: work him in slowly and let him build his confidence.The Tigers finished up their interleague road trip with four straight series victories and two of them were sweeps.With Marcus Thames hitting cannon shots and Curtis Granderson beginning to come around, we could see the team most analysts were projecting to be World Series contenders But first, let's get to .500.. Hey guys,I'm gonna start this week with a few nuggets from the end of this past week. If you haven't heard yet, Saban got commitment No. Season 7 of  The Ultimate Fighter ended last night  at The Pearl at The Palms in Las Vegas. There were 12 fights scheduled on the card and Spike TV aired six of the fights Most of the fights shown were boring and dull. There were many things better to do on a Saturday night than watch these unspectacular fights. Only MMA fans who enjoy watching fights go to a decision would have enjoyed the televised fights The first fight shown was Matt Riddle against Dante Rivera. This match was supposed to be a grudge match as these two did not get along on the show.

I don't think too many fans cared about this rivalry, and I don't think many people would have been  mad if this fight was a prelim instead of being on the main card. Riddle, as expected,  won by decision over his older opponent.The next fight was between Jeremy Stephens and Spencer Fisher in a battle of lightweights. This fight was more entertaining than the first fight but it ended in a decision too. The veteran Fisher dominated most of the action and it was another one-sided affair.The best fight on the show was next as Diego Sanchez fought lightly-regarded Luigi Fioravanti.  It was a closer battle than many anticipated as Fioravanti was able to avoid most of Sanchez's takedown attempts. Fioravanti never inflicted much damage to Sanchez, and Sanchez  was able to win via TKO in the third round.Amir Sadollah once again defeated C.B. Dolloway by arm-bar  to win The Ultimate Fighter championship for Season 7. In the night's main event, Kendall Grove easily defeated veteran Evan Tanner by decision.

Grove, who surprisingly was a underdog for this fight, used his reach advantage to control Tanner for much of the bout. Tanner was bloodied early but never gave up and showed a lot of heart and tenacity in not allowing Grove to finish him off with a knockout. Tanner knew he was not going to win if the fight came down to a decision, so he started to go for broke in the last round and tried to land haymakers. Most of the fights on the card were one-sided and not too entertaining. One fight between Cale Yarbrough and Tim Credeur got cancelled due to Credeur testing positive for an illegal substance. I don't think fans felt slighted at all with that fight having to be called off as both of these fighters are far from superstars.Since a lot of the fights went three rounds,  Spike TV only showed one prelim match featuring Drew McFedries against Marvin Eastman. McFedries looked really good and  won by TKO due to strikes in the first round The fights that were televised left a lot to be desired.