TIGER TOWN; OILERS MOVE ON

The Milwaukee Brewers had another walk-off win last night and David Bowie wasn't even there to judge it. For shame!

Check it out. That's the Dead Milkmen with Sparky Anderson in the memorable summer of 1987, pretty much the last time Detroit had a baseball team that was any good.

By the way, it's been 19 years, and I still haven't got over that Larry Herndon homer that decided the American League East title on the final day of that season. Just sharing.

The Milkmen split up in 1994, Tiger Stadium closed in '99 and Dave Blood, the band's bass player, took his own life two years ago. Yet Sparky looks the same. Go figure. And now the Tigers are good once again.

Detroit is tied with the White Sox for baseball's best record at 26-13 after Justin Verlander -- Justin Verlander!! -- outdueled Johan Santana 2-0 last night. Verlander's gem wasn't the best game pitched by a rookie last night -- that would be Casey Janssen's eight innings of shutout ball in the Jays' win over the Angels -- but it was the Tigers' sixth win in a row. Not only that, the Tigers have gone 26-13 while playing the bulk of their games on the road, where they're 16-7. That's impressive. After all, those games couldn't all have been against the Royals.

I wish I could write some deeper analysis about how the Tigers' success really isn't a surprise (which it isn't), but really, it just served a larger purpose, which was putting up a picture of Sparky Anderson with the Dead Milkmen.

Anyway, it's great to see the Tigers winning, but it might mean that for a change, the AL Central is going to cop two playoff spots. Which is a major downer for my Blue Jays, what with having to beat out Evil Empires 1 and 1-A to make the post-season.

SHARKS DROWN IN OIL SLICK

• OILERS 2 SHARKS 0 (Edmonton wins 4-2): What are we up to here, Day 27 of the Stanley Cup playoffs? Well, one playoff cliché was played out -- San Jose showed how fast a team can come unglued. Another didn't: the fourth win was not the hardest one to get for the Oilers. After triple OT in Game 3, giving up five unanswered goals in Game 4 and falling apart at home in the third period of the fifth game, the Sharks pretty much only travelled back to Edmonton for tonight's game to adhere with playoff custom.
• So it begs the question. Can Edmonton make the Stanley Cup final. Why not? Their power play will have to be very good against Anaheim, and their forecheckers will be facing a Scott Niedermayer and Francis Beauchemin, a far cry from San Jose's suspect back end. Plus, Anaheim should be ready to match the Oilers physically after having a week off. I'm afraid to say anything beyond stating this will go six or seven games. Same goes for the Eastern final.
• Damien Cox has a good column up at ESPN.com about how the Oilers flew under the radar screen, but did he slag Dwayne Roloson? Cox referred to him as a "garden variety journeyman goalie," adding that at the time the goalie was traded, "a cynic might have wondered whether Wild GM Doug Risebrough was sending Roloson into the enemy camp for the express purpose of helping his team catch the Oilers."
  That's punchy, but the Wild had to deal because they knew there was no chance of keeping both Roloson and Manny Fernandez when they become free agents this summer. Now, maybe I protest too much (I did use to work in Roloson's hometown of Simcoe, Ont., after all), but a "garden variety journeyman goalie" does not lead the NHL in goals-against average one season (2.00 in '02-03) and in save percentage the next (.933 in '03-04), even if he's playing in Jacques Lemaire's Church of Defensive Hockey. Roloson has shown he should have been a No. 1 goalie far earlier in his career.
• Remember a recent tangent I went on about U.S. hockey writers who can't get simple facts straight? Let's be honest, probably not. But trust me, I went on one. Here's another one for the injustice collectors: Sports Illustrated's Michael Farber, writing on May 12 after Colorado went out, noted how they won three Stanley Cups over the past decade. (It's two, Mike.) This is a guy who covered the Canadiens for many years and is considered the lead hockey writing for a (formerly) leading sports magazine. Jay-zus. Does SI.com even have copy editors or do they just spend all their time salivating over the cheerleader galleries? I know I would.

That's all for now. I'm all sports-ed out. Yesterday I watched the Canada-Slovakia quarter-final at the World Hockey Championship, FC Barcelona's win over Arsenal in the Champions League final, then after making the trek out for Ottawa Lynx-Syracuse Skychiefs Triple-A baseball game (suspended by rain in the second inning), I made it back to see the end of Edmonton's win and most of the Jays' win over the Angels.

Strange, with three sports on the docket, that soccer was the one that didn't involve a shutout.