Bombs Away!

Struggling Nate Robertson serves up five homers in loss
Tigers fall season-high 11 1/2 games out of first
BY JOHN LOWE • FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER • August 21, 2008

ARLINGTON, Texas -- There's an old saying in baseball that things usually get worse before they get better.
Nate Robertson experienced as much Wednesday night.
In the latest and worst in his long series of ineffective starts, Robertson tied a Tigers record by allowing five homers. He twice gave up back-to-back smashes.
He allowed eight runs and left in the fourth inning, and the Tigers lost, 9-1, falling a season-high 11 1/2 games out of first place. Texas right-hander Kevin Millwood threw a complete-game six-hitter.
The only other Tigers pitchers to allow five homers in a game were Don Mossi at Cleveland in 1961 and Jeff Weaver at home against Boston in 1999. All five allowed by Mossi were solos, and he won the game. But Weaver, like Robertson, lost by giving up all five of his homers from the second through fourth innings.