2010 DETROIT TIGER SCHEDULE AND RESULTS

Everything clicks as Verlander dominates
Ace strikes out seven to avoid season sweep against Rays

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/11/10 8:12 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Forget about revenge on Matt Garza. The way the Rays had been playing them this season, the Tigers were just looking for a win.

They managed to get both Wednesday in their 3-2 victory.

Yes, the Tigers are still watching the scoreboard, trying to see if their chance to get back into the American League Central race is going to open. But more important now, they needed to play good baseball -- not for six or seven innings, but the whole game.

They had stretches against the Rays, especially with strong starting pitching, but losses to show for them. On Wednesday, with their final chance to avoid a season series sweep, Detroit came up with arguably its best all-around game in three weeks.

It took Justin Verlander's discovery of the pitching middle ground he'd been seeking, a solid two-way effort from Brennan Boesch that showed why he's still around, and another dramatic hit from Ryan Raburn -- this one a go-ahead two-run homer in the sixth.

The combination allowed those pressing Tigers to at last relax for a night and into Thursday's off-day. It might mean little when they head to Chicago for this weekend's three-game series against the White Sox, or it could mean plenty.

"Obviously, it's huge. Every win's huge," Verlander said. "Hopefully we're able to carry this into Chicago and New York and beat up on some tough teams."

Verlander won't pitch against the White Sox; his next start comes in Monday's series opener at Yankee Stadium. But Wednesday's victory might have meant the most for him. Verlander had been searching the past two or three starts for what he called the middle ground between commanding his fastball and commanding his breaking ball.

On Wednesday, he found it, and it was likely the difference between an arduous outing and a start that gave the Tigers a chance.

"You always like Verlander," Tigers manager Jim Leyland cautioned. "It's just a matter of sometimes you know what you are going to get, and sometimes you aren't real comfortable with it, yet you are comfortable."

Verlander wasn't comfortable with it, at least not through the first couple innings. After overcoming a leadoff walk in the first, he labored through a 30-pitch second inning that saw him walk the bases loaded, before getting Dan Johnson to pop out on a 2-0 pitch.

He threw 47 pitches over the first two innings, and with Phil Coke unavailable, the Tigers needed him to find a way to get deep into the game. The fact that Verlander found his way through some quick innings was actually little surprise. The fact that he did it while racking up strikeouts was.

"It started with locating my fastball," Verlander said. "I was locating my fastball early -- not just for strikes, but for quality strikes, throwing it where I wanted. When you're able to do that, it kind of puts hitters in a defensive mode, where you're able to use your offspeed stuff to your advantage a little bit better."

The fastball got him ahead in counts, but the secondary pitches put hitters away. After Carl Crawford singled with one out in the third, Verlander struck out seven of Tampa Bay's next eight hitters. Just two of them came on fastballs.

Evan Longoria went down swinging at a slider before Matt Joyce chased a 95-mph heater high and out of the zone. Willy Aybar watched Verlander drop a nasty curveball on the corner for strike three, leading off the fourth inning. B.J. Upton went down on three pitches, the last of them a changeup, before Jason Bartlett took a 1-2 slider.

"In that one inning, he went up there with three up and three down in like 10 pitches," catcher Gerald Laird said. "Not a lot of guys can do that that easy."

That's what Leyland wants to see out of Verlander. The strikeouts aren't as important as the quick outs and quick innings.

"All those pitches that extend his pitch count are normally foul balls on high fastballs," Leyland said. "Yes, he's a power pitcher, but power pitchers can still get quick outs."

Ideally, Leyland said, he'd like to get Verlander through at least one more inning with the same pitch count. As it turned out, six innings was enough.

For most of those, Verlander was dueling out for out with Garza, much as Max Scherzer did two weeks ago at Tropicana Field. While Scherzer's no-hit bid that night fell apart in the sixth, Garza went on to history. Miguel Cabrera's second-inning double and Brandon Inge's RBI single took care of those hopes, but Garza stranded the bases loaded twice to keep it at that.

Both times, a walk to Cabrera loaded the bases, and a sharp liner from Jhonny Peralta to the Rays infield kept them there. Longoria's quick grab ended the fifth that way, before his leadoff triple the next inning set up Joyce's single to tie it at 1.

It could've been worse, but Boesch's diving catch in short right field turned what would've been a go-ahead hit from Bartlett into an inning-ending double play.

"That was awesome," Verlander (13-7) said. "You don't know what happens or what else occurs, but that's the game right there."

Inge's one-out single in the bottom of the inning -- his second hit of the game after ending an 0-for-21 slump earlier -- set up Raburn, who got some revenge of his own on Garza with his fourth home run on the season.

Garza (11-7) tried to get Raburn with one of the many two-seam fastballs he threw all afternoon -- the same fastball that befuddled Raburn and the Tigers two weeks ago -- but Raburn drilled it deep to left.

"I was going for a ground-ball double play," Garza said, "and my last start against them, I beat him with that same pitch and he knew it. He got me, I got him. So you just tip your cap."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers' comeback trail flooded in Chicago
Bonderman's quick start fades; Raburn, Inge homer

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/14/10 1:20 AM ET
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CHICAGO -- The last time the Tigers were in the Windy City, they were on the Twins' heels, while the White Sox were 9 1/2 games out of first. They came back to town Friday essentially having traded places.

Friday's 8-4 loss was not the kind of game that's going to help them trade back. Instead, it continued the slide that has them looking up at the AL Central race as outsiders.

"We're just not putting together nine innings," Jeremy Bonderman said. "It's offense, defense, pitching. Shoot, it's my fault tonight."

It was a better game of baseball than they've been playing lately. It just wasn't nine good innings. Two bad innings -- two bad Bonderman pitches, really -- sank them.

"Bondo, other than two pitches, pitched really good," manager Jim Leyland said. "But the two pitches that went out of the ballpark were just really bad pitches. And they jumped on them, which they should've. Other than that, his outing could've been pretty good."

To Bonderman, his outing could've been victorious if not for those pitches.

"If I don't make the two pitches I made, we win that game," Bonderman said.

It was the fifth inning, and the three-run homer from Gordon Beckham, that ruined Bonderman's night and left the Tigers playing catch-up for the rest of the evening, before and after an 88-minute rain delay. They eventually scored enough runs that they would've caught up if it was just that, but the White Sox answered each time, starting with Mark Teahen's two-run homer in the sixth.

The Tigers, kings of the comeback for the first couple months of the season, don't have the offensive explosiveness to overcome shots like that right now. They can piece their way back, which they tried to do with a small two-run rally in the sixth and solo homers from Ryan Raburn in the seventh and Brandon Inge in the eighth, but getting the big inning is asking a lot.

For about four innings, Bonderman traded zeros with Mark Buehrle, giving the Tigers a fighting chance if they could've gotten one of those small rallies. It was a small rally from the White Sox that set up the bad pitch and the big homer that proved to be Bonderman's downfall.

None of the four balls put in play ahead of Beckham's homer were pounded, though the back-to-back ground-ball singles from Teahen and Alexei Ramirez were well-struck and well-placed. A.J. Pierzynski nearly loaded the bases with a well-placed bunt down the third-base line, but a highlight-reel barehand grab and throw from Inge turned it into an ordinary sacrifice bunt.

Those are the plays that almost become commonplace for Inge after all these years. They are not common for the less-athletic Bonderman, which made his barehanded stop on Mark Kotsay's dribbler to the third-base side of the mound a difficult play.

Had Bonderman stayed on his feet, he might have caught Teahen at home plate. Had he not gotten the ball at all, Inge might have had a chance at another play to get the out at first and at least slow the rally. Once he tumbled to the ground, he spiked the ball in the dirt on the way home, allowing Teahen to score easily.

After a first-pitch ball to Beckham, Bonderman made his first mistake.

"It was away, but it was just up in the zone," Bonderman said. "He was able to put a pretty good swing on it."

An infield single from Miguel Cabrera, earning him his first RBI since Aug. 1, and a run-scoring single from Carlos Guillen halved Detroit's deficit in the top of the sixth. But after Bonderman retired Alex Rios to lead off the bottom of the inning, he walked Paul Konerko and fell behind on Teahen to set up his second bad pitch, again a fastball.

"I just fell behind, elevated a fastball up and away," Bonderman said. "He didn't miss it."

It was Bonderman's 15th home run allowed in his last 13 starts, and his seventh in his last seven outings. He went through five May starts without a homer, and entered June with just two homers in his first nine outings. While a warm summer has proven kind for fly balls to carry, none of Bonderman's recent homers have seemed particularly cheap. This was the first time since his July 4 loss to the Mariners that the homers were particularly damaging; three of his previous four homers were solo shots, the other a two-run drive.

Teahen's two-run homer set up a final few innings in which the Tigers traded runs with the White Sox, giving them no chance at all. Neither Bonderman nor Eddie Bonine could come up with a shutdown inning late.

"We got a very big hit today," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "We had a couple of home runs. Meanwhile, we got good at-bats especially late in the game after the rain delay. We came out and scored a couple more runs."

The Tigers need shutdown innings to get back into the fight -- in the game, in the standings, anywhere. Instead, they fell back to 10 1/2 games down. Sure, the White Sox proved that things can change drastically in less than two months, but the Tigers have to play better baseball first.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Avila pulls out much-needed victory for Tigers
Two-run homer off Putz takes Porcello off the hook

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/15/10 12:07 AM ET

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CHICAGO -- Rick Porcello and Alex Avila have plenty in common, two young players trying to stay afloat in the big leagues as the magic of rookie fame wears off and the reality of sophomore seasons set in.

"We tell each other all the time, 'Let's get a win today. Let's do whatever we can to get a win,'" Avila said.

They did plenty Saturday. Porcello's seven innings kept the Tigers alive in a pitching duel. Avila's two-run homer in the ninth pulled them ahead for the first time all night. Put them together, and the 3-2 comeback victory over the White Sox at least halts the Tigers from sinking further in the AL Central.

Whether it ends up meaning anything in the division race this year remains to be seen. What manager Jim Leyland hopes, as much as anything, is that it means something for years down the road.

"We play hard every night," Leyland said. "We've been short-changed a little bit. People are probably laughing at us a little bit, but we play hard every night. We give it the best we have. We've got some young kids mixed in there, and I think the veterans are pressing to carry them right now. That's one thing that happens a little bit. That's just the situation we're in right now, but we'll fight through it."

At one point, Leyland did talk about having a chance. For a second, it sounded like he was talking about the division. He was talking about Porcello, and the chance for him to join Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer as a trio of nasty young starters. If they can get that, they could be contending for a while.

Saturday was a big step in the right direction for that, because Porcello all but carried his team while it struggled to put up some offense. Porcello was facing a White Sox lineup that had beaten him three times already this season and pummeled him at U.S. Cellular Field for eight runs over 3 1/3 innings June 9.

The White Sox managed nine hits over Porcello's seven innings, but all of them were singles. More than half of them were ground balls, as were 13 of Porcello's outs. His sinker was a nasty workhorse pitch.

"His stuff was very good today," Avila said. "His sinker was very good. He got a lot of ground balls, three double plays. That tells you right there the sinker was working. His slider was real good. His curveball wasn't as sharp as his last outing, but he threw it enough to where it was something to think about. It was kind of the same deal with his changeup. And he was able to locate today.

"With Rick, sometimes his sinker's so good that you want to keep calling it and keep throwing it and throwing it. A lot of times, you have to be able just to mix it up to get them off that pitch. Now that he has a wider range of pitches with the four-seamer, slider, cutter, his curveball and changeup, that's a lot for a hitter to think about, especially when he's throwing them all for strikes."

Therein lies the difference. Alex Rios swung at a slider with two on in the third, producing the ground ball up the middle that set up Carlos Guillen's behind-the-back flip and an inning-ending double play. Another slider induced a grounder to third from Carlos Quentin and another twin-killing.

It took two singles, a botched double-play throw from Guillen and an ill-advised throw home from Guillen to put Chicago on the board in the fifth, but Guillen's 425-foot homer off White Sox starter Edwin Jackson tied it in the next inning. Porcello rebounded to retire seven of Chicago's next eight hitters, taking him two outs into the seventh with barely 100 pitches as Juan Pierre stepped to the plate for the fourth time.

Porcello lost him to a four-pitch walk, putting the White Sox offense in motion for the run it needed. Porcello's 115th pitch was his career high, but it was the hit that put him behind, an Omar Vizquel ground ball through the right side.

"I left him in one [hitter] too long," Leyland said, "but I did it on purpose. This is a way for a young pitcher to get out of something."

Guillen's homer comprised the lone run off former teammate Jackson, who struck out 11 Tigers over his seven innings. Once Detroit fell behind and couldn't convert Johnny Damon's leadoff double into an eighth-inning run, thanks to outs from struggling Brennan Boesch and Miguel Cabrera, they had to hope for something from the bottom of the order.

They got it from the .214-hitting Avila. After Brandon Inge's leadoff single and J.J. Putz's strikeout of Ryan Raburn, Avila was waiting for a splitter.

"He was throwing all split-fingers to Inge and to Raburn," Avila said. "I wasn't necessarily looking for it. I was looking for a pitch. It was a split-finger that was just kind of hung up there. I saw it real good out of his hand and had a good swing. I wasn't trying for the home run, just trying to hit it hard into the gap and it just happened to go out."

Said Leyland: "I was thrilled to see that happen for him, and for us obviously."

For any catcher, it's a pretty complete night. For one trying to find his place and help a struggling ballclub, it was big enough that he allowed himself to clap his hands once or twice as he rounded the bases. His pitcher was waiting for him when he got back.

They did what they could, and once Phil Coke (7-1) finished off the ninth, with closer Jose Valverde out with a mild abdominal strain, they won a potentially huge game.

"He gave me a big hug when I got into the dugout," Avila said.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers tussle, rally to take finale in Chicago
Four home runs help Detroit win back-and-forth tilt

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/15/10 8:24 PM ET

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CHICAGO -- The Tigers earned their first series win since the All-Star break, and their first road series win since mid-May. But they had a bizarre Sunday afternoon against the White Sox -- and briefly against each other -- to get there.

A Tigers dugout that was trying to separate Armando Galarraga from Alex Avila and Gerald Laird after the first inning, then was looking for healthy relievers after blowing a four-run lead, was slapping hands with Johnny Damon after his go-ahead two-run triple in the eighth inning and again with Jhonny Peralta after his second home run of the game an inning later.

If winning creates chemistry, as Jim Leyland likes to say, then Sunday's 13-8 win at U.S. Cellular Field should be quite an ointment for Detroit. At the very least, it was an outlet to get rid of about four weeks of frustration.

"Anybody that had a doubt that these guys are busting their tails and trying, hopefully they don't have that doubt," Leyland said. "I'm not saying we've been doing good, because we haven't. We've been doing terrible. But it's not because of lack of effort. Anybody that says it's lack of effort, they're out of their minds. It's been hard for these guys."

He wasn't talking about the tempers specifically, but the tenaciousness.

The Tigers took two out of three to take a series for the first time since their second-half skid began. That elusive series win came in one of the least likely places against a team that had owned the Tigers for much of this season. The White Sox began their summer surge, in fact, by taking two out of three from Detroit in June.

Unlike Saturday, when the Tigers took their first lead of the night with Avila's ninth-inning home run, they commanded this one early. Carlos Guillen's two-run single in the third inning and home runs from Ryan Raburn and Peralta built a 5-1 lead in the middle of the fifth for the Tigers and Galarraga, whose day took a crazy turn when he confronted Avila and later Laird in the dugout after the first inning.

It was a dispute over the game plan and who wasn't working with it, but it might well have been a sign of the frustration going on with Galarraga, who hadn't won in his previous seven starts despite some solid performances.

"After that, he had a little fire," Avila said. "He went out there and pitched well, gave us a chance."

He had some of the confidence in his pitches that Leyland wanted to see, and he had the aggressive that he needed to get into the game. He worked ahead of hitters consistently over the first few innings, striking out five batters through four innings, before he started to fall behind.

Avila said his stuff got better as Galarraga's outing went on, but Galarraga said his slider became so sharp it was tough to control.

"My slider was moving a lot. It was hard to throw for strikes," Galarraga said. "It's been a long time since my slider moved like that. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing."

It ended up being both. Once he got back to the top of the White Sox order in the fifth inning and hit leadoff man Juan Pierre, the game started getting away from him. Nobody could control it.

That, more than anything, was what Leyland felt Galarraga should be angry about.

"He should be upset at himself about not holding that game down," Leyland said, "because he had good stuff."

Mark Teahen's RBI double and Ramon Castro's RBI single not only picked apart his outing in the fifth and drew the White Sox within a run, it pushed his pitch count to 104 and ended his afternoon. With Detroit's bullpen already short, rookie Robbie Weinhardt entered for the sixth and gave up three hits, including Alexei Ramirez's game-tying double and Paul Konerko's go-ahead homer.

That should've changed the lead for good, but back came the Tigers. Miguel Cabrera's first home run since July 31 was an opposite-field rocket off Sergio Santos that cut the lead to 7-6. Once Raburn led off the eighth with a single, the Tigers were ready to rough up J.J. Putz for the second time in 24 hours.

Putz was a strike away from finishing off the inning before missing on three straight pitches to Austin Jackson. He found the outer half of the plate on his first pitch to Damon, who drove it off the center-field fence to score both runners.

"That was a huge hit Johnny got," Leyland said. "The guys kept battling."

Another deep drive off Putz, this one from Brandon Inge that caromed off Andruw Jones' glove for a three-base error, scored Damon. Jones redeemed himself with a solo homer to cut it back to a run, but once Peralta took Tony Pena deep leading off the ninth, the Tigers had the kind of add-on inning they've missed for weeks.

After everything that happened Sunday, they sounded almost as tired as they were relieved. Time will tell if this starts a larger-scale rally, but it certainly showed some fight, literally and figuratively.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Scherzer, Raburn burn Yankees
Two-run homer more than enough offense for right-hander

By Jason Beck / MLB.com


08/17/10 1:35 AM ET

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NEW YORK -- Maybe this Tigers winning streak has some legs. It certainly has shown some arms.

It might include a gimpy leg, depending on how Carlos Guillen feels after taking a Brent Gardner slide around his left knee. It might also have a shaky arm, if Jose Valverde can't regain command of his splitter.

But through all the drama, including a nail-biter of a save from Valverde to finish off Monday's 3-1 win over the Yankees, the Tigers have won three straight on the road for the first time all season, and three straight anywhere for the first time since the All-Star break.

They also made up a half-game on the idle Twins in the American League Central. It isn't much, but it's progress.

"You just know crazier things have happened. It's baseball," said starter Max Scherzer, whose six scoreless innings earned him his first road win since mid-April. "I think we're playing with the attitude we have nothing to lose."

Crazy things happened Monday. The Tigers overcame them.

None of these last three Tigers wins have been easy. After back-to-back comeback wins in Chicago over the weekend, the Tigers never fell behind Monday at Yankee Stadium. But it sure felt close, enough so that a low-scoring duel at Yankee Stadium lasted longer than the 13-8 slugfest they won over the White Sox on Sunday.

"I think we've learned a lot about ourselves, especially with the young team that we have," said Johnny Damon, whose first game back in the Bronx since he and the Yankees parted ways ended up being overshadowed. "Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to get these big victories. As a young team, you're going to have to learn how to do that. And we've learned how to do it, especially the last couple days."

Scherzer (8-9) certainly could appreciate the challenge. His road woes have recently included a no-hit bid broken up by a sixth-inning grand slam, and a 5-1 lead blown in Boston. His overall four-game winless streak included seven innings with one earned run allowed last week against the Rays at Comerica Park, only to fall in a shutout.

He had to rear back for 115 pitches over six innings, with some of the best movement seen on his fastball all season. He kept coming back to his power pitch and kept Yankees hitters struggling to gauge it.

"I was pitching behind in the count a lot tonight -- 2-0, 1-0, 3-1," Scherzer said. "I was still able to execute pitches in those situations and not walk them. ... It just shows you how much execution comes into play."

Scherzer started off his outing with called third strikes on Derek Jeter and Nick Swisher, then sent down Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada swinging in the second inning. He later recovered from an infield mixup and dropped popup by Jhonny Peralta and Guillen to retire Rodriguez and Robinson Cano again in fourth.

Scherzer should have had a bigger lead to protect by then after the rough second inning the Tigers gave Yankees starter Javier Vazquez, but Detroit settled for a two-run homer from Ryan Raburn -- his fourth home run in Detroit's last five games -- before leaving the bases loaded in the same inning.

The Tigers drew 106 pitches from Vazquez (9-9) over four innings that included five hits, four walks and six strikeouts. Though Scherzer added just two strikeouts after his early outburst to finish with six, he allowed just two hits.

"I thought he was tremendous," manager Jim Leyland said, "but we needed one more inning of him. With him and [Justin] Verlander, we just need one more inning out of them with that same pitch count. It just changes everything and how you are able to deal with the bullpen."

The Tigers had Valverde back in the closer's role after he missed the weekend series with an abdominal strain, a return that became clear once Phil Coke replaced Scherzer to begin the seventh. An ill-advised attempt by Coke to barehand a ball led to a Posada infield single before Curtis Granderson's double brought in Ryan Perry to retire Francisco Cervelli and strand the tying run on second.

Once Perry gave up a two-out single in the eighth to bring up Mark Teixeira, in came Valverde for a four-out save. He walked Teixeira before retiring pinch-hitter Marcus Thames, then sat while Miguel Cabrera added an insurance run in the ninth with his second opposite-field homer in as many days.

Once Valverde came back, he might have been healthy, but he wasn't in control. Three walks and a Granderson single in a five-hitter span turned what should have been a comfortable save situation into mayhem, and eventually brought Leyland and head athletic trainer Kevin Rand to the mound to check on him.

"He said he was OK," Leyland said. "If they say they can pitch, I'm going to pitch them."

Valverde pitched to the brink, walking in the first run and putting the potential tying run on second as the lineup came back around to Jeter. Again, Valverde fell behind before he scrapped the slider in favor of the fastball.

On a full count, he got Jeter to ground to short. Guillen took Peralta's feed knowing Gardner was charging in on him, but stood in and released his throw to first just as Gardner's impact hit his knee.

Guillen limped back to the dugout afterwards, and he wasn't sure how it would feel Tuesday, but he was celebrating a win.

"I have to make that play," Guillen said.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Laborious start for Verlander sinks Tigers

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/17/10 11:48 PM ET

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NEW YORK -- These are usually the games where Justin Verlander shines. He had a showdown opposite CC Sabathia, a Tuesday night crowd of 46,906 at Yankee Stadium, and a Tigers squad behind him looking to turn a three-game winning streak into something closer to a mid-August tear.

Instead, the notable part of his night came in a rather self-critical postgame interview. If not for an Austin Jackson home run, it might've been the notable part altogether of the Tigers' 6-2 loss.

This is the spotlight game, and it tracked Verlander trying to make an adjustment to no avail. And afterward, it caught the frustration in Verlander's tone as he described the feeling of a big game squandered.

"This," Verlander said, "is the worst I've ever felt on the mound as a professional baseball player, bar none. I feel like I was so far from where I needed to be."

His manager didn't say that, nothing close. But he might not have challenged it.

"He just didn't have a good game tonight," Jim Leyland said, summarizing his ace's outing.

The fact that he didn't, or that he didn't have a very long game at all, is a symbol of the puzzle with Verlander this season in his follow-up to his spectacular 2009 season.

Plenty of statistics could quantify the difference between Sabathia and Verlander on Tuesday, but one in particular might sum it up best: Verlander needed 114 pitches to last five innings. Sabathia needed only one more pitch than Verlander to get through seven.

It's a point Leyland has made with Verlander and Max Scherzer in recent days, that he needs the same pitch count to last at least one more inning and save the bullpen. This was the lesson in action.

It isn't as if Verlander doesn't already know he needs to get deeper into games. He doesn't aim for a 35-pitch first inning, which he had Tuesday, or 63 pitches through the second. He has shown stretches this season, even after brutal opening innings, when he can rack up quick outs and survive to see the seventh or eighth inning. He also had a game in April when he needed 125 pitches to last five innings against the Angels, and said afterward he didn't deserve the win that he got from it.

Verlander kept the Tigers close after the early damage he allowed, but he couldn't keep them close long enough. He just couldn't make the adjustment, or just couldn't find the adjustment to make.

"Sometimes you can make little adjustments here and there, but these were massive adjustments that I needed to make," Verlander said. "And I don't know where it came from. I don't know where these bad habits came from today. All I know is that they need to be fixed and in a hurry.

"I can't pitch that way. There's no excuse for that."

With a taxed bullpen and a stingy opponent in Sabathia, the Tigers needed not only a quality performance from Verlander, but a deep one. They had some momentum from the game's first pitch, which Jackson drove out to left for his second home run of the year, but soon lost it in the bottom of the inning.

While Verlander entered Tuesday with a 3.72 ERA, his first-inning ERA stood at 7.12. It jumped to 7.56 by the time he induced an inning-ending double play from former teammate Marcus Thames to escape a bases-loaded jam with his 35th pitch of the inning. In between, he walked three of New York's first six batters and reached two other three-ball counts, including a 3-1 count to Nick Swisher before he laced a line drive to left field scoring Brett Gardner and Derek Jeter.

"He's no fun to face," Jeter said. "We took advantage, early on it looked like he struggled with his control, but he's as tough as anyone in baseball."

Said Verlander: "I was missing with everything. Nothing was good. None of my pitches were any good tonight. Wasn't throwing them for strikes. And when I did throw them for strikes, they were right down the middle. Obviously that's not going to work out for anybody at this level."

If it was a middle inning that had such an uncharacteristically high ERA for Verlander, maybe it could be explained away as a statistical anomaly. When it's the first, though, the question of pregame routine automatically comes up.

Verlander has made some tweaks to try to see what happens. This time, though, he said he felt good warming up in the bullpen.

"Everything was going well. Even in the bullpen today, everything felt good," Verlander said. "Go out there for the first inning and it's just all over the place, man. I couldn't throw it down the middle when I was trying."

Verlander has had plenty of high pitch counts after an inning, and his fair share of high scores. Once it's over, though, he usually settles into a pitch-efficiency mode and rattles off some quick inning to allow the Tigers a chance to get back into a game. After Sabathia retired the Tigers in order in the second, though, Verlander left a 2-1 fastball up to Granderson, who belted it to right for his 12th homer of the year.

Another single and another walk followed before Verlander retired Mark Teixeira and Robinson Cano consecutively to escape.

Verlander (13-8) retired 11 of the final 14 batters he faced, but still didn't feel comfortable. He tried to make his case to stay in for the sixth inning, but Leyland wouldn't have it. And the lesson he has been preaching was right there in practice.

"If you want to pitch more innings, you have to do it in fewer pitches," Leyland said. "I understood and I would've loved to put him back out there, but I've said it before: I'm not going to have that on my watch."

Verlander allowed three runs on five hits with five walks and five strikeouts in his shortest outing since June 22. Jeter's sixth-inning sacrifice fly and Cano's seventh-inning solo homer extended New York's lead off Daniel Schlereth.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Cabrera's two-homer night can't lift Tigers
Bonderman roughed up for three dingers, seven runs by Yanks

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/19/10 12:50 AM ET

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NEW YORK -- For as few strikes as Miguel Cabrera sees these days, the fact that he keeps inflicting damage on opponents is almost a marvel. By the end of Wednesday's 9-5 loss, the Tigers had to be relieved the Yankees didn't inflict any damage on him.

Cabrera hit home runs to right and left field to seal his third straight 30-homer season, but both were solo homers. Even with Don Kelly's two-run shot, the Tigers didn't have enough to overcome a rough outing from Jeremy Bonderman.

Both teams hit three homers, accounting for four runs. The difference was the runs that the Yankees picked up without the long ball.

"If you don't make pitches against that team, they're going to wear you out," Detroit manager Jim Leyland said.

Neither Leyland nor Bonderman would comment on whether Bonderman executed his first pitch of the night, a fastball that hit Brett Gardner around the back of his lower right leg. It came two days after his slide to try to break up Monday's game-ending double play hit Tigers second baseman Carlos Guillen in the knee, causing a deep bone bruise that forced Guillen on the 15-day disabled list Wednesday.

If Bonderman meant to hit Gardner -- he wasn't saying after the game -- it was arguably his best-located pitch of the inning. After he struck out Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira made him pay with a tape-measure home run to right field, followed by a Robinson Cano solo shot.

"It was a cutter that didn't really cut," Bonderman said of his pitch to Teixeira. "It cut right into his bat."

Cabrera answered in the next inning by taking Yankees starter Dustin Moseley's offering deep on a line to left. Cabrera came back up in the fourth and sent out an opposite-field shot to right, his 30th homer, to bring the Tigers within a run. But Ramiro Pena's RBI triple and Gardner's RBI double fueled a three-run bottom half to put the Yanks in command.

All six hits Bonderman (6-9) allowed over five innings went for extra bases -- three home runs, a triple and two doubles. He has given up five homers over his past two starts, and 18 over his past 14 outings after holding opponents homerless in five May starts.

"He battled through, I thought," Leyland said. "He didn't have real good stuff, obviously. He couldn't keep the ball in the park."

Cabrera became the first Tiger with three straight 30-homer seasons since Tony Clark from 1997-99, but he could only do so much. While his first shot led off the inning, his fourth-inning homer came with two outs after Moseley sent down Ramon Santiago and Ryan Raburn ahead of him. Cabrera was on deck in the seventh after the Tigers loaded the bases with one out, but Kerry Wood's back-to-back strikeouts of Santiago and Raburn kept Cabrera from coming to the plate.

It was the trickle-down effect of an injury-depleted lineup that lost Guillen to the disabled list earlier in the day. His severely bruised left knee and the struggles of rookie Brennan Boesch prompted a lineup shuffle that had Johnny Damon batting behind Cabrera, Raburn shifted to third and Santiago second.

"The lineup is not the way you'd like to have your lineup, really," Leyland said before the game. "You're really conscious [of who hits] before and after Cabrera."

Nobody can protect Cabrera in the lineup, Leyland likes to say, but protecting Cabrera took on slightly new meaning once Chad Gaudin's 1-1 pitch hit him in his ribs to lead off the eighth. Gaudin gave up a Damon single and walked Jhonny Peralta to load the bases with nobody out, forcing Yankees manager Joe Girardi to go his late-inning relief specialists in a 9-4 game.

Brandon Inge's sacrifice fly was all they managed against David Robertson.

"I feel bad that it got to that," Girardi said, "because on a night that I don't want to use Robertson or [Mariano Rivera], I've got to get them both in the game. To think that we [hit Cabrera] on purpose, they're going to have their thoughts and I understand that. Miguel Cabrera hit two homers, it looks bad. But you know how I use my bullpen, and this is not a night I wanted to use Robertson or Mo. But Chad didn't have it tonight."

Cabrera did, but he didn't have enough. He couldn't have.

"A game like that, you want to win," Cabrera said.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers get blown out of Bronx in finale

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/19/10 7:09 PM ET

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NEW YORK -- Even with a couple dozen family members and friends watching at the ballpark where he grew up watching games, Rick Porcello wanted this to be just another test against one of baseball's best lineups. He was a couple pitches, he felt, from making this a pretty good homecoming.

The fact that he couldn't make one of those pitches to Mark Teixeira or the hitters that followed made it a particularly devastating sixth inning in an 11-5 loss to the Yankees that ended up being another learning experience.

It ended a month-long stretch that the Tigers would probably love to forget.

A month ago, the Tigers began a string of 31 games against teams with winning records, looking to prove themselves and looking to stay in contention against the first-place White Sox and third-place Twins. Between injuries, callups and slumps, the Tigers ended the run as a much different looking team. Detroit went 10-21 over that stretch, including 3-4 on this just-finished road trip.

They're looking to win, no doubt, but they're also looking to teach and test. Porcello learned the cost of falling behind some of the hitters he grew up watching.

"It's definitely frustrating," Porcello said, "because I felt like I had good stuff and today was a pretty good day for me to go out there and compete against those guys. A couple stupid mistakes, and that's what ends up costing you."

Porcello grew up going to games at the old Yankee Stadium across the street, making the trip a few times a year from his New Jersey home with his father and brother. He was a Mets fan, but his dad pulled for the Yankees during the heart of the dynasty that ran from 1996 through 2000, and Porcello watched plenty of stars come through the Bronx.

He has faced these guys twice at Comerica Park, a few other times in Spring Training, has been to Yankee Stadium as a player, but hadn't been on the mound as the pitcher until Thursday.

Leyland expected Porcello to handle it with the same poise with which he has handled so many other starts, from last year's American League Central tiebreaker at a loud Metrodome to his return to the big leagues last month in Cleveland.

Porcello was ahead when he threw his first pitch, thanks to Miguel Cabrera's two-run home run in the first inning, a scorched ball to center field for his fifth homer in as many games and his 31st of the year. For three-plus innings, Porcello went after the vaunted Bronx Bombers lineup and churned through hitters.

Not only did Porcello retire 10 of the first 11 batters he faced, he didn't allow a ball out of the infield.

"I thought he was electric early on," manager Jim Leyland said, "but he just got some [pitches] up a little bit more, I guess. He got behind."

That happened in the fourth inning after back-to-back ground-ball singles from Teixeira and Robinson Cano. A 3-0 count to Nick Swisher led to a get-me-over pitch, which led to a Swisher line drive through the middle for an RBI. Curtis Granderson singled two batters later to tie the game.

"He threw a couple pitches that were borderline for strikes or balls," catcher Alex Avila said. "It kind of went the other way for us, and he may have tried to do a little bit too much. He got the ground balls he needed, they just went in the hole, and then everything kind of snowballed."

Porcello recovered for three groundouts in the fifth and put himself in position for a good start to the fifth with an 0-2 count to Teixeira. Four straight balls high put Teixeira on base, and trouble soon followed.

"For me, the biggest at-bat of the game was the walk to Teixeira," Porcello said. "Get him down, 0-2, and get him out, and it's a different game for sure. Especially with the depth of their lineup and the guys they've got hitting behind him, you can't put a guy like that on to lead off an inning."

But he did, and the next three Yankees reached base as well. Cano doubled in Teixeira, and Porcello fell to 3-0 counts on Swisher and Jorge Posada from there. Swisher ended up with a five-pitch walk. Posada, like Swisher two innings earlier, swung at a 3-0 pitch and lined an RBI single to left-center.

"I really felt like if I made a good pitch to Posada. He's a pretty good ground-ball candidate for the double play," Porcello said. "That's what we were looking for. I just wasn't able to get it done. Overall, with the exception of those couple pitches, it wasn't bad. It's just with a team like this, your mistakes get magnified times 10. They've got so much depth.

"Gotta be a little bit better next time I face them. Stuff was there."

The inning collapsed from there. By the time it ended, Teixeira, Cano, Swisher and Posada had come back around to bat again, including Cano's two-run homer off Eddie Bonine, Detroit's third reliever of the inning.

"The wheels fell off," Leyland said.

He wasn't talking about Porcello, but his young relief corps, including rookies Daniel Schlereth and Robbie Weinhardt. Detroit's starters finished the four-game series with a 6.43 ERA, while the bullpen allowed 10 runs.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Shades of near-perfecto in Galarraga's win

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/21/10 12:04 AM ET

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DETROIT -- Armando Galarraga doesn't want to be known only as the guy who was robbed of a perfect game. He admitted at times this summer that he grew tired of being asked about it. But as he racked up out after out against the Indians on Friday, he couldn't help but think about that magical night on June 2.

"It crossed my mind, more because I faced Cleveland," he admitted after the Tigers' 6-0 win. "If I face another team, I'm not like that, because it was too early. ... But the team was Cleveland, and I'm doing the same, and I was attacking the zone."

Why not? Everybody else in Comerica Park was thinking it. His teammates were leaving him alone in the dugout between innings, and after Brandon Inge's diving stop and no-look throw to first for the second out in the fifth, it popped into manager Jim Leyland's head.

"It did cross my mind: is this the good Lord somehow?" Leyland said. "Is he going to pitch a perfect game by chance because he didn't get the other one? I mean, could this be possible? I did think that. ... But as usual, I was wrong."

He didn't get perfection, but he got seven scoreless innings. Stuff-wise, Galarraga believes, he did even better.

He wanted so badly to build off of his near-perfect game in June that each struggling start that followed it frustrated him to no end. He's a perfectionist who wanted to build off perfection. He thinks he can build off of Friday, not because of the outs, but because of the pitches.

"I'll be honest -- this is my best game, because you only see them hit me one time hard," Galarraga said. "The other base hit was a popup that the second baseman [almost got], and the other was a line drive to shortstop. They only hit me hard once, and I got more strikeouts than in the almost perfect game. I kind of feel more dominating."

Depending on how you look at Jim Joyce's blown call, Galarraga retired 42 consecutive Indians batters -- 28 on June 2, and another 14 Friday night. Once he took the mound Friday, it was as if he simply picked up where he left off. Never mind that he had only one win and a 5.12 ERA in 12 starts in between, or that just three batters from that June 2 start were in Friday's lineup, or that then-Indians third baseman Jhonny Peralta is now on the Tigers.

Galarraga needed just seven pitches to retire the Indians in order in the first inning, and he didn't reach a three-ball count until Shin-Soo Choo went to a full count in the fourth. Galarraga finished him off with a called third strike, one of six strikeouts he piled up in the first 12 batters.

It couldn't just be a coincidence, and Galarraga admitted that he has an easier time with Cleveland hitters than other opponents.

"These guys, when you throw low, it's hard [for them to hit]," Galarraga said. "If you throw low to Chicago, like [Paul] Konerko, [Carlos] Quentin, line drives, they hit it throughout the park. Against pitchers like me, they concentrate low, so I have to change the plan. For me, it's more easy to throw to Cleveland or teams like that."

That, Galarraga said, was secondary. Yes, he was battling the Indians. More importantly, though, he wasn't battling himself.

"I found out today two things that were really big," Galarraga said. "It's the first time I found my mechanics in a long time. I don't know, I was like a different person, different delivery. And the other thing I found was a win. Hopefully everything's coming together now."

By the time Galarraga carried his perfect game into the fifth, he already had a pretty good cushion toward a win with a five-run lead. Don Kelly had already singled and scored twice on his way to a 4-for-4 game. But everyone else was thinking about more than a victory.

Galarraga needed just two pitches to retire the first two batters in the fifth, but he needed a masterful play from Inge for the second out. After Galarraga jammed Travis Hafner into a popout to short, Shelley Duncan hit a sharp grounder that Inge lunged to his left to knock down. The ball nearly rolled away, but Inge picked it up, picked himself up and rifled a throw to first for the out.

He didn't have time to look for first baseman Miguel Cabrera, but he didn't much care.

"I'll be honest, I didn't even know where I was throwing," Inge said. "I just let it go in the area. I'd rather have an error than a hit there. It was in my mind."

It was in everybody's mind after that. And once Jayson Nix battled his way to a full count and launched a line drive to deep left, some people had to be wondering whether destiny would somehow get Kelly to the ball for another defensive gem.

He got close enough to get his glove on it, but not close enough to get it in the glove, as it bounced off the fence for a double.

"Everybody is aware. I think we are all aware," said Nix, who was still with the White Sox when Galarraga faced Cleveland in June. "It was our first time coming back since then, even though I wasn't here. Especially when he starts out the first four innings, it's something that crosses your mind a little bit. It's not something you dwell on."

After that, they didn't have to. The way Galarraga shut the Indians down from there makes this a game he wants to dwell on and think about -- hopefully as a building block.

"I'm really happy, because it's not like it's a good start," Galarraga said. "It's like a start where I believe I found myself. So hopefully we keep going like that."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Scherzer strikes out eight to stymie Tribe

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/21/10 11:27 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Quietly, but steadily, Max Scherzer has been maturing this summer into one of the stingier starting pitchers in the American League. But he's still possibly his toughest critic.

He isn't a compare-and-contrast guy. To him, there isn't much to explain how he has fit into this groove since the All-Star break, posting a 1.94 second-half ERA and six-plus innings per start, including seven innings and one earned run in Saturday's 5-2 win over the Indians.

"Right now, I'm executing pitches," Scherzer said. "Everybody wants to look at the difference between now and then, but I'm not. I'm going out there pitching. Next start I have is against Toronto [next Thursday]. I'm going to go out there and try to execute as many pitches as I can and hopefully give the team a chance to win."

To others, he's executing more of his pitches with more variety, changing speeds and setting up his slider for big ground balls. He's also throwing fewer pitches per inning and getting deeper into games. In Saturday's case, his seven innings further saved a bullpen that had been exhausted after three straight five-inning starts in New York before Armando Galarraga went seven frames Friday.

In short, Scherzer has become the front-line starter the Tigers felt he had the potential to be when they acquired him from Arizona for Edwin Jackson last December. He isn't the staff ace; that title belongs to Justin Verlander. But he's giving the Tigers a consistent chance to win.

Scherzer has wins in back-to-back starts for just the third time all season, but that has more to do with the supporting cast than with him. He has five straight starts with at least six innings and two runs or fewer allowed.

"He looks like he's in total command from inning one now, and that's what I like," manager Jim Leyland said. "And he's learning how when he gets in a jam, to make a good pitch, get a little extra, throw a fastball up out of the strike zone, or a bad breaking ball. I think he's really picked up on some things. He's improving as we go on, and he's been fantastic for us for a while now."

It was Leyland who said after Scherzer's last start, and after Verlander's start a night later, that he needs them to get an extra inning with the same pitch count to help save the bullpen. He talked with Scherzer about it in New York between starts. Scherzer's 119 pitches Saturday were four more than his last start, but it got him through seven innings instead of six.

His key to that was 11 counts of 0-2. He took an Indians lineup still reeling from Galarraga's seven scoreless innings, established his fastball, went to his offspeed stuff and didn't let up.

"When you get to 0-2 counts, 1-2 counts, you're in the driver's seat," Scherzer said. "I strive so hard to have good first-pitch strikes and get ahead of hitters, because that's what so much of this game is dictated about. When you don't get ahead of hitters, you end up paying the price.

"Tonight, I felt like I did a pretty good job of mixing my pitches. Alex [Avila] had a good feel for when to throw the offspeed and which pitch, and my defense played good behind me."

Avila said they had a feel for how to mix Scherzer's pitches.

"With him, everything works off his fastball," Avila said. "But I think the difference is we've kind of incorporated everything a little earlier in the game to where he gets a good feel for all his pitches and he can throw them in any count. He has good command of all of them, and I think that's the biggest thing."

Perhaps the best example of that came not after another two-strike count, but how he reacted after a 10-pitch walk. When he walked Indians backup catcher Chris Gimenez on five pitches to lead off the third inning, he set up the top of the Cleveland order to fuel a rally, eventually loading the bases before Travis Hafner snuck an opposite-field single down the left-field line to score a second Cleveland run.

But Scherzer kept the damage at that by throwing three sliders to Jayson Nix, who grounded one to third at ex-teammate Jhonny Peralta to start an inning-ending double play. Once Jimenez battled out of a 1-2 count with four two-strike foul balls to walk again, Scherzer and Avila went after Indians leadoff man Trevor Crowe to stop it there.

"When [the Tigers] were hitting [the previous inning], we were talking about how we were going to approach Crowe the next time up," Avila said. "The way we pitched him was exactly what we talked about. It just happened that Gimenez was on base."

Scherzer (9-9) spotted an 83-mph changeup at the belt for strike one, then powered a fastball past him in almost the same spot for another 0-2 count. Two pitches and two foul balls later, Scherzer went to his slider down below his knees, which Crowe hit to second.

Will Rhymes flipped it to Peralta to start the double play.

"And I'm sure he'll tell you, with that many 0-2 counts, he wishes he could've finished the guys a little bit sooner, rather than getting to 2-2 or something," Avila said. "That's part of the game, but he pitched fantastic today."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Verlander dominates Tribe with command
Righty goes eight for 14th win; Rhymes collects four hits

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/22/10 6:17 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Five days after Justin Verlander pleaded for another inning from manager Jim Leyland, there was no need Sunday. He gave the Tigers all the innings they needed.

With the Tigers on their way to an 8-1 victory and a series sweep over the Indians, and Verlander well in command toward his 14th win of the year, Leyland and Verlander exchanged a handshake and a pat on the back at the entrance to the Tigers' dugout. Leyland still had a critique or two about what Verlander could do better, but it wasn't much.

There wasn't nearly as much talk about what separated Verlander from the pitcher he could become. This is the pitcher the Tigers see him becoming, the guy who can attack hitters with a few different pitches in almost any count.

"He's one of the best young pitchers," Leyland said. "He's really good, and today he showed why he's good. He mixed them all, used all his pitches. He got ahead of the hitters and pretty much dominated the game."

His performance finished off a dominant series for Detroit, its first since falling into its second-half struggles with a four-game series sweep at Cleveland coming out of the All-Star break. The Tigers outscored the Indians, 19-3, and outhit them, 36-14, en route to their first series sweep since taking three from Baltimore in early July. The Tigers have won 12 of their last 13 games against the Indians in Detroit, even as they try to find their bearings in Cleveland.

Two days after Don Kelly outhit the Indians in the series opener, Will Rhymes had as many hits as Cleveland -- four -- through the first five innings of the game. It's hard to call it revenge when it does little for the postseason picture. In terms of playing quality baseball, though, it means a lot.

"It's real big," said Kelly, who might've added to the hit total if not for two highlight catches in the Tigers' dugout from Indians third baseman Jayson Nix. "It's not like we changed the way we were playing. We just had some timely hits."

Verlander certainly didn't change how he pitched, but after his struggles Tuesday in New York, when he said he felt the worst of his professional career, he felt he had to change how he approached his start and his pitches. He worked on the side on his pitches and ended up finding more of a happy medium between throwing everything with maximum effort and throwing nonchalant.

"I felt really good," Verlander said. "I felt a lot better, obviously, than in New York. And I felt like a bunch of the stuff I worked on in between this last start and this one paid off. Some of the adjustments I made, I was able to get my fastball command better. It wasn't great. It wasn't as good as it's been, but I was throwing strikes with it. Just pitching, still having late life on the ball but not max effort."

In Sunday's case, pitching included all of his pitches, right from the first batter. After Indians leadoff man Trevor Crowe fouled off a 92-mph fastball to start the game, Verlander spotted a 75-mph curveball for strike two. He came back with another breaking ball two pitches later, threw back-to-back changeups at Asdrubal Cabrera, and started off Shin-Soo Choo with an offspeed pitch.

Less than half of Verlander's first-inning pitches, seven out of 15, were fastballs. The first-inning run he allowed came on a fastball Verlander lost up and over the plate to Choo, who sent it out for a solo homer. Even with that, it was an improvement over his 35-pitch opening inning at Yankee Stadium that led to two runs and three walks.

"If you look in the first inning, he mixed his pitches better, got some outs," Leyland said. "He wasn't just rearing back and throwing at high throttle. I was pleased with him today. That's progress."

It was the only time Verlander or the Tigers trailed in the game. Five first-inning singles, including Jhonny Peralta's two-run liner through the middle after an intentional walk to Brennan Boesch, plated three Tigers runs before Boesch's two-run double set up another three-spot in the second.

Both rallies plated Rhymes, who followed his first-inning bloop single with a double into the right-field corner in the second. He singled in Gerald Laird in the next inning before center fielder Trevor Crowe's fielding error moved him at third to score on Johnny Damon's single.

All that offense came off Indians starter Jeanmar Gomez, who won his Major League debut over the Tigers in mid-July with seven innings and no earned runs in Cleveland. Detroit avenged that Sunday by saddling him with seven earned runs on 11 hits over just three innings.

That was more than enough support for Verlander (14-8), whose efficient first inning carried over through the rest of his outing. Not until his eighth and final inning did he cross the 100-pitch mark, despite eight strikeouts and no 1-2-3 innings after the second.

"You never know when a big pitch count inning is going to creep up on you," Verlander said, "but obviously keeping your pitch count down early in the game is much more effective than keeping it down later in the game."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Seven-run sixth powers Tigers to victory

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/24/10 12:48 AM ET

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DETROIT -- The Tigers lost their AL Central lead down the stretch last year in part because they couldn't rack up wins against struggling teams like the Royals when they needed them. As they try to see what they can do over the season's final six weeks, at least they can say that isn't the case this year.

Whether they can get back within striking distance in the AL Central is going to depend on a lot more than what they can control. But after a 12-3 romp over the Royals marked their fourth straight victory, their longest winning streak since the week before the All-Star break, they've crawled within a game of the .500 mark.

They haven't been this close to break-even since August 4. They're still 10 games behind the division-leading Twins, who lost Monday, but they hadn't even been that close since August 10. They're playing good baseball against the teams they're expected to play well against, outscoring Cleveland and Kansas City by a combined 31-6 margin, and they've won seven of their last 10 games dating back to their last road trip.

After a month they'd love to forget against teams with winning records, they seem to have recovered. On Monday, they managed to score a dozen runs not only without a home run, but with just four extra-base hits -- all doubles. They went 9-for-17 with runners in scoring position, defying their season average of .250 in those situations, and had three players with three RBIs each.

And they wore down a team that went to three extra-inning games against the White Sox in a 24-hour stretch Saturday night and Sunday afternoon in Kansas City.

"We caught them at the right time tonight," manager Jim Leyland said. "That won't happen tomorrow. It was good to see everybody throw some hits in, big hits, knocking in runs with singles and doubles."

Those timely hits included two in what is developing as one of the biggest situations they face over the final month, making opponents pay for intentionally walking Miguel Cabrera. The Royals did it twice on Monday, taking their chances against the fifth hitter of the night, Ryan Raburn.

Leyland has talked about the risk he runs when he rotates hitters behind Cabrera. Guys who might be batting well in other parts of the order, especially lower, might feel the need to do too much when they bat behind Cabrera. That didn't seem to be a problem with Raburn.

Starter Bruce Chen's final four pitches in his outing were intentional tosses to standing catcher Jason Kendall, putting Cabrera on base in the fifth inning with Will Rhymes standing on first and one man out. Reliever Jesse Chavez's first pitch of the night was a fastball low and over the plate to Raburn, who turned and sent it into the left-field corner to send Rhymes home and Cabrera to third, where he scored on Brandon Inge's sacrifice fly.

"In that situation, you can go up and down the American League and you can go up and down the National League, there's not maybe two hitters that are in Cabrera's class," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "For me, you just can't let him beat you. You just can't. Raburn did a nice job of making sure he did beat us."

Chen (8-7) held the Tigers to two runs over five innings for a victory at Kauffman Stadium back in June. Detroit roughed him up for five runs on five hits over 4 1/3 innings Monday.

Chavez was still in the game and reeling when Johnny Damon's RBI single put runners at second and third with one out and Cabrera up. Again, the Royals walked him to face Raburn. Again, Raburn pounced on the first pitch, this one a slider, and grounded it through the left side to score two.

Seven straight Tigers reached base safely with one out, and Raburn was the first of three straight to get RBI hits on ground balls to left. Inge capped the stretch with a double to left, the only extra-base hit in the bunch, to drive in two and fuel the seven-run surge.

"Normally in the mix of that is a home run, a two-run homer," Leyland said. "But to see good at-bats and base hits, not trying to do too much, just taking what's there, it's nice to see everybody taking a good approach. We did that pretty much throughout the lineup."

Raburn had three hits on the night. Damon, who was claimed on waivers by the Red Sox Monday afternoon and faces a Wednesday afternoon deadline to decide whether to accept a trade, remained in the starting lineup and went 2-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored.

The offensive outburst helped Jeremy Bonderman (7-9) earn his first win since August 3 after losing his last three starts. He allowed two hits and two runs to Gregor Blanco but limited the damage to that, scattering eight hits over six innings.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Porcello's gem gets Tigers back to .500

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/25/10 12:11 AM ET

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DETROIT -- Johnny Damon wants to see this through. He wanted to hear that his teammates believe. They do, but maybe in a different sense.

"I don't know if we were kind of focusing on getting back to .500," said Rick Porcello, whose seven scoreless innings helped push the Tigers back to break-even in a 9-1 win over the Royals on Tuesday at Comerica Park.

"I think our biggest concentration is playing good baseball. As long as we do that, then wins and losses are going to take care of themselves. We really dug ourselves a huge hole coming out of the All-Star break, and now we just have to go out and play every day and grind it out and play hard."

In terms of the standings, the hole is getting a little bit smaller. The Tigers' fifth straight win, combined with the Twins' loss at Texas on Tuesday night, cut Detroit's deficit in the AL Central to nine games. That's still big, but considering the 12-game gap staring at them four days ago, it has been cut down.

Getting back to .500 isn't exactly a milestone. But after three weeks under it, it's another sign that their month-long swoon seems to be over. The way that stretch went, though, they just wanted to get back to playing better.

"I'll be honest with you: I haven't thought that much about [.500], and I don't think many guys have," Alex Avila said. "Yeah, it's important, but what we've been concentrating on is just playing good baseball, and the wins are going to take care of itself.

"Honestly, I haven't looked at our record in a while. I don't intend to pay much attention the rest of the year to where we are in the standings, or what our record is, because that won't do any good. Just be able to play good baseball, and the wins will take care of themselves."

It took them quite some time to do that. Their 31-game stretch against teams with winning records didn't help, including road trips to Boston, New York and Tampa Bay. But for a team that struggled to beat up on lower-division teams last year, and whose second-half skid began with a four-game sweep in Cleveland, they're doing everything they can this homestand.

Whether they believe they can contend requires a lot they can't control. Believing they can play the kind of baseball they played earlier in the year is something they can handle.

"We feel we can string together a nice run," Damon said. "When I was talking to everybody about the decision [to veto a trade to Boston], that's what they all said. Everyone said, 'Don't count us out yet.' We know it's an uphill battle, but that's the kind of stuff you build with a team -- a team that likes each other. We want to get better together, and it seems like we're going on all cylinders.

"We have a lot of young kids in here who may or may not have ever been 11 games back. For them to have that hunger, that fight in them, I love it. That's going to take you a long way."

Among those with some fight is Porcello, whose third quality start in his past four outings was statistically his best performance of the year. Five days after his homecoming start unraveled with four sixth-inning runs at Yankee Stadium, he took his lessons out of that start and applied some of them against Kansas City.

"I threw all my pitches for strikes -- my four-seam fastball, my sinker, slider, curveball, changeup," Porcello said. "At any given point, they were a pitch I could get somebody out with. And I think when you've got a couple pitches going like that, it's a lot harder for a hitter to sit on one pitch."

Porcello retired the first 12 batters he faced before Billy Butler hit a ground-ball single through the left side leading off the fifth inning. Chris Getz's seventh-inning single and Gregor Blanco's ensuing walk were the only other baserunners against him, but he recovered to induce an inning-ending groundout from Jason Kendall.

By then, Porcello was going to his sinker early and often. But because he had thrown off hitters' timing with his other arsenal, they weren't getting quality swings. Aside from a running catch by Ryan Raburn near the left-field track, there weren't many defensive highlights needed.

"We mixed in a lot of offspeed stuff, which kept them off-balance early on," Avila said. "A few of their guys, you could tell they were looking for sinkers, which opened up his fastball later in the game."

With the lead the Tigers built by the middle innings, Porcello could afford to be aggressive. After Austin Jackson singled and scored in the opening inning to put the Tigers in front, back-to-back RBI doubles from Brennan Boesch and Avila plated two runs in the fourth before they busted open their lead an inning later.

Raburn led off the fifth by driving a fastball by Royals starter Kyle Davies to left, the only run the Tigers scored that inning with less than two outs. Davies (6-8) seemingly recovered after singles from Jhonny Peralta and Boesch, but back-to-back doubles from Jackson and Will Rhymes chased him from the game. Rhymes' shot down the right-field line plated two runs for a 7-0 lead.

Boesch and Jackson had two hits and two runs apiece to help Detroit's offense, which has outscored opponents by a 40-7 margin over this winning streak. Tigers pitching has allowed just six earned runs over that stretch.

"People are still coming out to watch us, so we've got to go out and win games," Porcello said, "not only for ourselves, but for fans and everybody else."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Struggles with splitter cost Valverde, Tigers
Bloomquist homers in 12th off Figaro for deciding shot

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

08/25/10 8:05 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Jose Valverde had converted 24 consecutive save opportunities since the Royals beat him on April 7. Four and a half months later, Valverde is starting to wonder what Kansas City has on him.

After what had been a three-run Tigers lead in the seventh became a 4-3 Detroit loss in 12 innings, the Tigers wonder how their chance at a perfect homestand and a return to a winning record got away from them.

"You have to be ready for the hitters," Valverde said. "And these guys hit my best pitch, a split-finger. Nothing I can do. What I can do -- we have one more series with these guys -- is do the best I can to get all my pitches working better and better."

By no means was Valverde alone on the mound in the Royals' late-inning comeback. He was long out of the game by the time Willie Bloomquist homered off Alfredo Figaro to give Kansas City its first lead of the game in the 12th inning. But as the closer, right or wrong, he gets the central role in the bullpen when things go well or poorly.

Sometimes, that role gets him into a game in the eighth inning to try to get the final four outs. Lately, that has been an increasingly challenging role, but that wasn't manager Jim Leyland's issue Wednesday.

"He's had some issues," Leyland said, "but his splitter's not darting like it was before, and I think that's the biggest issue."

A series of issues turned what had been a 3-0 lead into a loss. Though the Tigers had jumped into control of the game with a three-run second inning, paced by Ramon Santiago's two-run triple, they missed other chances, including a missed sacrifice fly chance in the first and an add-on runner stranded on third in the second. Kansas City starter Sean O'Sullivan settled down from there to retire 11 straight batters.

"When they scored three in the second inning, I'm thinking to myself, 'Here we go again,'" Royals manager Ned Yost said. "This team is red-hot. But our pitchers did a good job. We held them in check."

Still, Armando Galarraga's outing made those three runs seem like plenty. After stranding runners in scoring position in each of the first two innings, he settled down to retire 13 of 14 batters through the sixth. For a good stretch, it was about as efficient of a start as he enjoyed against the Indians last Friday, when his seven scoreless innings started the Tigers on this winning streak.

He headed into the seventh and suddenly found trouble. Kila Ka'aihue led off with a home run to break up the shutout bid, then back-to-back singles put the potential tying run on base. Galarraga battled rookie Jai Miller for 10 pitches before getting a swinging strikeout on his 104th pitch of the afternoon.

Leyland had his bullpen warming in a hurry once Galarraga found trouble. Miller's at-bat offered enough warmup time that Leyland turned to Phil Coke, who hadn't pitched in four days due to a sore arm.

Coke fanned Chris Getz and Gregor Blanco to end the threat, but didn't come back for the eighth. With the bullpen well-rested, Leyland opted for Ryan Perry, who has picked up some key outs lately in the seventh and eighth innings.

He did so again after Mike Aviles' leadoff single put the tying run back at the plate again, catching Bloomquist on a called third strike and getting Billy Butler to fly out to the warning track in right. But Leyland's thought going into the inning was to have Valverde ready to face Ka'aihue should he come up in the inning.

Like Coke, Valverde hadn't pitched since last Saturday. The occasions on which Leyland has used Valverde in the eighth have almost always been after multiple days of rest, allowing his arm to rebound.

Valverde did not show the signs of command woes that he has other times. He had Ka'aihue in a 1-2 count, then Brayan Pena in a 2-2 count after that. Both times, he went to his splitter, the workhorse pitch, to try to finish them off. Both batters connected for doubles, including Pena's game-tying hit on a drive over Austin Jackson's head in deep center field.

Aviles and Ka'aihue scored, and the Royals had gotten to Valverde again.

"One or two pitches," Valverde said. "The other pitches are great. There's nothing I can do."

Valverde has had four games since the All-Star break in which he has entered in the eighth inning to try to hold down a lead. He was successful in the previous three, but two of them proved to be endurance battles. He needed 60 pitches to finish off the Red Sox, who scored four ninth-inning runs thanks in part to five walks and had the tying tally on third before Valverde got the game-ending strikeout.

Valverde got the save against the Rays on Aug. 11 with little trouble, but walked four Yankees on Aug. 16 to send in a run before ending that threat.

Leyland doesn't believe it's the innings, but the pitches. As he pointed out, he retired five consecutive Royals to get a save June 12 at Kauffman Stadium.

"He needed to get one out in the eighth and three outs in the ninth," Leyland said. "That has nothing to do with it. The fact of the matter is, his split's not darting like it was. It's as simple as that."

Valverde doesn't believe his splitter is a lingering issue, just the consistency of it. He pores over video after outings, especially rough ones, and he planned to do so again after this.

"For me, my split's good," he said. "I have to be prepared for the hitters."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Scherzer bears down on Jays for victory
Right-hander fans eight; Peralta, Laird go yard in six-run fourth

By James Hall / MLB.com

08/26/10 11:58 PM ET

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TORONTO -- When you're working with half your arsenal, you're going to be half the pitcher.

According to Tigers manager Jim Leyland, that's exactly what starting pitcher Max Scherzer was coping with earlier this season. He was showing up to duel without his pistol fully loaded.

Thankfully for both Scherzer and the Tigers, the right-hander has since curbed this trend, and after being recalled from Triple-A Toledo at the end of May, he has shown complete dominance over his fastball, changeup and slider. To boot, he's mastered pitching inside with conviction.

Using eight outstanding innings from the new-and-improved Scherzer -- and a big six-run fourth inning, which included home runs from Jhonny Peralta and Gerald Laird -- the Tigers were able to glide past the Blue Jays, 7-1, on Thursday night at Rogers Centre.

Entering Thursday riding consecutive wins, Scherzer picked right up where he left off. The St. Louis native cruised through his first six innings, allowing just four hits and one walk, while mowing down five Jays.

His one and only blemish of the night came in the seventh, when Major League home run leader Jose Bautista rung a solo blast off the foul pole in left -- his 41st of the season.

"I think I threw the ball pretty well tonight," Scherzer said. "I can live with a solo bomb."

All in all, the righty went eight innings, surrendering six hits and the lone run to Bautista. He tossed in eight punchouts and pushed his season record over the .500 threshold (10-9) for the first time all year.

Since June 15, Scherzer has posted a 1.85 ERA with an 8-3 mark -- an improvement Leyland doesn't need stats to see.

"I think he has an air about him now," Leyland said. "I think it was a little bit strange for him coming over from a different league. I think he wasn't sure what to expect. I think he figured something out.

"The key for Scherzer has been -- he's pitching with three pitches now. He was pitching with 1 1/2 pitches early in the season ... he's pitching with three pitches now. He's also got the ability to have a little extra in the tank when he needs it."

Leyland said that Scherzer had the fastball and a half-decent changeup. With his evolution has blossomed a plus fastball (which hit upwards of 95 mph in the eighth), a solid changeup and a put-away slider.

"I needed all my pitches all night," Scherzer said. "Didn't throw my slider as well as I am able to, [but] made up with a couple of good changeups tonight. Obviously, pitching everywhere with the fastball and throwing a good changeup allowed me to have success tonight."

Scherzer, who admittedly tends to "dial it up" when his team piles on the run support, was able to turn his dial up after the Tigers' red-hot offense -- 50 runs over their past seven games -- broke out for a six-run fourth off Ricky Romero.

After a leadoff single to Ramon Santiago, Johnny Damon walked to put runners on first and second. Miguel Cabrera then flew out to center field, advancing Santiago to third on the play. In what should have been the second out of the inning, Ryan Raburn hit a soft ground ball to third, but Edwin Encarnacion was unable to catch Damon sliding into second, throwing the ball into right field and allowing Santiago to trot home.

With one out still in the inning and runners on third and first, Peralta -- who also added an RBI walk in the seventh -- launched a three-run shot deep to left field -- his 13th of the season.

The offensive assault did not stop there. With two outs, Casper Wells, playing in just his seventh career game, walked to keep the inning alive. Laird, taking advantage of a laboring Romero, took a 2-0 offering into the left-field seats.

"I'm tickled for him," Leyland said of Laird. "Tough situation yesterday [hitting into a game-ending double play in extra innings], but he bounced back tonight and hit a big home run for us. It's nice to see things happen to people who work hard and try hard. I think he's been pressing all year for the most part, so it's nice to see him get some rewards here. It was a big home run for us. I was thrilled for Gerald."

With the game virtually out of reach in the ninth, Cabrera had a special moment of his own. The slugger hit his 40th double of the season, making him only the fourth Tiger to have at least 40 doubles and 30 home runs in a season. The others to have accomplished the feat are: Hank Greenberg (1935, '37, '39 and '40), Rudy York ('40) and Bobby Higginson ('00).

Despite Cabrera's milestone, and a solid performance from the Tigers' offense and defense, the night belonged to Scherzer -- and his effort to keep Detroit's playoff hopes on life support.

"It's good whenever you have a guy that's going to toe the rubber and take it to the other team," Laird said of Scherzer. "Win or lose, he's going to still be confident and go out there as best he can.

"It's just fun having a guy that you know is going to be a bulldog out there."

James Hall is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Rally, chances wasted in loss to Jays
Tigers send game into extras, strand 16 runners on base

By James Hall / MLB.com

08/28/10 1:20 AM ET

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TORONTO -- One hit, one pitch, one inch -- that's all the Tigers needed Friday night at Rogers Centre.

Amidst the squandered scoring opportunities, the lack of execution, and the one dart that continued to haunt starting pitcher Justin Verlander 30 minutes after the game ended, all the Tigers needed was one thing to go their way.

But you can't always get what you want.

The Tigers staged a ninth-inning rally to force extra innings, but could not overcome a series of early miscues, as they wasted a solid pitching performance from Verlander, falling to the Blue Jays, 3-2, in 11 innings.

After retiring Adam Lind to start what proved to be the final frame, reliever Phil Coke allowed John Buck and Fred Lewis to reach base. Aaron Hill, played hero for the Jays and what remained of the 20,298 in attendance, hitting a soft single into right-center for the game's decisive run.

That's how the curtains closed for the Tigers, but the stage was set long before.

The Tigers' offense, entering the contest with 50 runs over its past seven games, could not clutch-up all night. The club ended the first, second, fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth, and 10th innings with at least two runners on base -- finishing the night 1-for-16 with runners in scoring position.

"Holy crap," Tigers outfielder Johnny Damon said, briefly covering his face after the statistic sunk in.

Manager Jim Leyland, sharing Damon's opinion, conveyed his disappointment with a tad more elegance.

"We've been doing a good job recently, we just didn't do it tonight," he said. "We were looking for a big hit, but couldn't get it. We're going to look back at this game at all the missed opportunities -- a big hit here or there. Good ballgame. Very good ballgame."

Down a run entering the ninth, things looked like they were turning around for the Tigers. Outfielder Austin Jackson led off the inning with a triple to left-center off closer Kevin Gregg. After retiring Ryan Raburn on six pitches, Gregg allowed Damon's 3-2 hit through the infield to tie the game. Still with one out, Miguel Cabrera singled on a ground ball to left-field to put runners on first and second.

But Gregg averted this threat, getting Ramon Santiago to line out and Jhonny Peralta to hit into a force at third.

The Tigers mustered another late push in the 10th. Capitalizing on a Yunel Escobar fielding error, Detroit loaded the bases with two outs -- once again looking for Damon to come through.

The hope was all for naught. Damon, following a pitch he ripped just inches foul down the right-field line, flied out to ice another rally.

"About a baseball width," Damon said of how close he was to putting his team ahead. "I had a decent pitch to hit on the next one and I was thinking changeup away or something away and he threw a slider that jammed me just a little bit. That's the tough thing about this game sometimes."

Building off an outstanding outing against the Indians on Sunday, Verlander looked sharp for the Tigers. The right-hander's only two blemishes were a pair of solo home runs to Jose Bautista in the fourth -- his Major League-leading 42nd of the year -- and Lind in the seventh. Verlander had only given up two long balls in a game twice this season heading into Friday, the last time coming June 16.

In a performance Leyland said was "one of the better game's he's pitched all year," Verlander went eight innings, allowing two runs on five hits, while striking out eight Blue Jays. But he remained fixated on the fastball to Lind.

"Both mistakes, especially the one to Lind," Verlander said. "Bautista: I was trying to go down and away there, it came back to the middle and I'm all right with that. The one to Lind, 2-0: I can't really make a mistake up in the zone. Obviously, this is a team that hits home runs. A fastball in a fastball count that's up in the zone -- a team like this team has a chance to do some damage with it and he did."

Apart from the ninth-inning rally, the Tigers' only other run came courtesy of the long ball. Cabrera hit his 32nd home run of the year, a solo shot in the sixth, off Blue Jays starter Shaun Marcum.

With the Tigers treading water in the American League Central, Verlander had a difficult time savoring his strong showing.

"How good can you feel? Our team lost," Verlander said. "That's what it comes down to. You have to win baseball games."

James Hall is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Team RISP: 1-for-16.
Team LOB: 16.

How the do you expect to win with this poor stat!!!

Tigers' bats come to life too late

By James Hall / MLB.com

08/28/10 7:15 PM ET

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TORONTO -- It is the little things in baseball that make the game so great. But it is those same small details that can haunt managers hours after a game's ended.

Aside from the lack of early production, a rough first frame from rookie starter Alfredo Figaro, and a squandered ninth-inning push from the Tigers offense -- all of which helped to bury the Tigers, 5-4, on Saturday afternoon at Rogers Centre -- there was one play that manager Jim Leyland described as "unacceptable," -- a play, unlike everything else that went wrong, that he just couldn't wrap his head around.

With fans still trickling into the ballpark in the top of the first inning, the series of unfortunate events began on a high note. Leadoff hitter Will Rhymes worked a 3-2 count against Blue Jays starter Brandon Morrow, lacing a double just inside the third-base line -- a good omen, right?

Ramon Santiago, the next batter, immediately nixed the momentum, frustrating Leyland.

Attempting to lay down a routine sacrifice to advance Rhymes, Santiago squared up to bunt the first Morrow offering he saw. Unfortunately for the Tigers, Santiago put the barrel of his bat well above his eyes, popping up the ball just in front of the pitcher's mound.

Hesitant as to whether Morrow would catch the baseball, Rymes found himself caught between second and third. Morrow, scooping the ball off the turf, instinctively fired to third base where a rundown ensued. Not only did the Jays catch Rhymes, but they also tagged Santiago trying to reach second, an unconventional double play.

"It all started by bunting a ball that was over [his] head," an exasperated Leyland said. "You can't make those mistakes. That's just poor concentration. That's all it is.

"That didn't look like much of a play for eight innings, but in the ninth inning, that's a big play."

As it did on Friday night, the Tigers' dormant offense awoke in the final frame.

Trailing by four runs and facing left-handed reliever Scott Downs, pinch-hitter Austin Jackson started the inning by taking an 0-2 fastball off his inner thigh. Ryan Raburn followed with a ground-rule double to put both runners in scoring position.

After Brandon Inge whiffed, Leyand used Jhonny Peralta in lieu of left-handed hitter Don Kelly. Pitching tentatively to Peralta, Downs walked the pinch-hitter to load the bases.

Alex Avila grounded out to drive in one run, prompting Jays manager Cito Gaston to put closer Kevin Gregg in the game. The change didn't matter to Casper Wells, who doubled to drive in two more runs and cut the lead to 1.

Despite the momentum swinging in their favor, the last-ditch effort proved to be all smoke and no fire, as Gregg struck out Santiago to put the game in the books.

Making his first big league start of the season in place of the injured Jeremy Bonderman, Figaro struggled out of the gate. The right-hander allowed the first three Blue Jays he saw to reach base, resulting in a devastating three-run opening frame. The Jays added two more runs, both attributed to Figaro, in the third and sixth innings.

"He's got to get the ball down better," Leyland said of the youngster. "A lot of what they hit was up. Throwing over the middle of the plate, those are bad pitches; [he] can't do that. He's got to improve his breaking ball. He threw a couple good changeups, [and] he certainly didn't embarrass himself."

Like sharks, the Jays could smell fresh blood.

"We came out of the gates against a guy who doesn't have a lot of experience, so you want to jump on somebody like that," Morrow said. "We got three early, and I was able to hold them off."

Morrow was electric for the Jays all afternoon. The right-hander, who has carried a 2.08 ERA through his last 12 starts at Rogers Centre, went six innings, allowing four hits while fanning nine Tigers. His only blemish was a second-deck solo blast from Miguel Cabrera in the second.

"He has almost like a rising, riding fastball," Inge said. "The way he turns, he hides it well, so it looks a lot harder than it is. Then he's got a slider that looks exactly like his fastball, so it's good deception. It makes him very tough. I've faced No. 1 starters on certain teams that weren't as good as him. He's got great stuff."

With Morrow not showing much daylight, Leyland could only sit back and stew on what could have been, especially in regard to the first inning.

"We bunted a ball a foot over our head; that's just poor concentration," Leyland said. "That's just not acceptable. I'm sorry, that's unacceptable."

James Hall is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers notch confidence-building win

By James Hall / MLB.com

08/29/10 6:24 PM ET

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TORONTO -- It was a familiar scene and an all-too-familiar message.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland leaned back in his office chair, paused for a moment to acknowledge the room and delivered the words, "Confidence goes hand-in-hand with success."

While the age-old adage could have come across as just another cliche, the context in which it was offered could not have been more appropriate.

Behind outstanding performances from Tigers starter Rick Porcello and outfielder Ryan Raburn -- two players only beginning to establish themselves at the Major League level -- the Tigers cruised past the Blue Jays, 10-4, on Sunday afternoon at Rogers Centre, splitting their four-game series against Toronto.

Returning to the site where he made his big league debut on April 9, 2009, Porcello turned in nothing short of an impressive sequel. In his first go-around, the Blue Jays tagged the young right-hander for four runs on nine hits, chasing him from the game after just five innings.

Having gained more than a full year of experience and coming off a seven-inning shutout vs. the Royals, the 21-year old looked like a pitcher poised beyond his years on Sunday. Porcello retired the first 11 batters he faced before Jose Bautista singled in the fourth to dissolve the early no-hit bid.

"It crossed my mind," said Leyland, referring to the possibility of a no-no on a day when the Jays were commemorating Dave Steib's no-hitter in 1990.

Porcello, unfazed after the hit, cruised through the fifth before allowing a solo shot to John McDonald with one out in the next frame, his only blemish on the afternoon.

All in all, the 21-year-old, who has allowed a grand total of five hits over his last two starts, went seven innings, recording four strikeouts for his seventh win of the season -- not bad for a guy whose name was misspelled atop his locker.

The victory also marked the first time all year Porcello has earned back-to-back wins.

"I just think he's got his confidence more," Leyland said. "I think he had a bit of an air about him when he took the mound today. I thought he had a real good presence about him.

"When you have a good look about you and a good demeanor, and it's a sincere demeanor, then normally you're pretty good. When you're trying to fool yourself or someone else, that usually doesn't work, and you can usually tell the difference."

The Tigers' starter attributed his slider, along with getting ahead in the count, as his recipe for success.

"I was able to find my slider pretty early, and I think that was the biggest thing," Porcello said. "They are such a good fastball-hitting team, I knew going in I had to have a good offspeed pitch, whether it was my changeup or my slider."

The Tigers' offense, which struggled in the first three games of the series to get on the board in the early innings, pounced on Blue Jays starter Marc Rzepczynski, who was celebrating his 25th birthday, in the first frame. Miguel Cabrera laced a two-out double, plating Will Rhymes for the game's first tally.

The Tigers capitalized on an Aaron Hill fielding error in the fourth, as Casper Wells singled to score Jhonny Peralta. The offense continued to provide Porcello with run support thereafter, putting up two in the sixth on Wells' two-run double, and three in the seventh, on a solo shot from Raburn and Brandon Inge's two-run homer.

Raburn added another home run, a three-run shot, in the eighth to put the game out of reach.

"[Raburn's] starting to understand that he belongs up here," Leyland said. "Like I've said many times, if he thought as much of himself as we thought of him, he'd be a real good player."

Raburn, who is currently just one at-bat shy of his 2009 total, has hit a fantastic .323 with eight home runs and 21 RBIs in August. Playing on a near-daily basis has made a big difference.

"When you're in there pretty regularly, you can kind of put at-bats behind you, knowing you're going to be out there the next day," Raburn said. "Not having to worry ... [about] not knowing when you're going to get your next opportunity -- that helps a lot. It's just a comfort thing. I'm relaxed. I'm not worried about what's going to happen; [I'm] just going out there and trying to get good pitches to hit. Right now, they're just finding holes."

The Jays staged a ninth-inning rally, with Adam Lind tagging a three-run shot off Jose Valverde. That's as close as they came, however, as Valverde retired Hill to end the game.

"It was good to see us come out and kind of jump out there early today," Inge said. "That's something we've kind of needed to do, get early runs. Get some confidence and let our pitchers just kind of do their thing. After we got a few runs, that's what Porcello did -- an unbelievable job."

James Hall is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

In big spot, Tigers' bullpen slips up
Coke, Perry falter in seventh as Detroit's playoff hopes dwindle

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

09/01/10 1:56 AM ET

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MINNEAPOLIS -- The Tigers don't get ideal situations here against the Twins very often. Tuesday night was about as close as they could hope for -- a three-run lead after two innings, a one-run advantage after six with their bullpen set up the way manager Jim Leyland wanted it.

The 4-3 loss they suffered at game's end left them feeling about as frustrated as ever here. They gave up the tying run without the Twins putting a ball in play. They gave up the winning run with one more hit.

"See, that's not baseball," said reliever Phil Coke, who hit back-to-back batters with two outs to load the bases in the seventh. "That was just me stinking."

They were beaten for the sixth time in seven tries at Target Field, and they were beating themselves up for it afterwards.

"It's tough to lose this kind of game," Leyland said. "If they get hits and that, that's just part of it. But two of our outstanding relievers just didn't get the job done tonight. That's disappointing."

Or as Leyland put it seconds later, "That can't happen. It happened. That just can't happen."

The fact that it did happen typifies the way the Tigers have to feel their second half has unfolded. Just as they wrapped up their best offensive month of the season, something else goes astray on a given night.

They could've added on runs after scoring three times in the first two innings, all unearned thanks to Twins errors, but Brian Duensing thwarted a chance in the fourth before Matt Guerrier stranded runners at the corners in the seventh. But the way Armando Galarraga pitched for five-plus innings, it seemed like three runs would be enough.

When a bounce over the fence on Danny Valencia's two-out double prevented the tying run from scoring in the sixth, it seemed like maybe it was supposed to be enough. When Coke floated a nasty breaking ball past Orlando Hudson for the second out of the seventh after a leadoff walk to J.J. Hardy, he had retired the right-handed hitter he needed to set up the showdown he wanted, him against left-handed hitter Joe Mauer.

Coke pounded Mauer inside to keep him honest, put him in a 1-2 count, then used the fastball to set up the changeup he wanted to throw. It was a good pitch in a bad location.

"It actually just squirted out of my hand," Coke said. "As soon as it started coming out of my hand before I wanted it to, I knew that it wasn't going where it should. I think that, especially since he's never seen one off of me, I had him frozen if I put it where I wanted it to go. But it didn't work out that way."

He still had another left-handed hitter to face in Jason Kubel. And after a first-pitch ball, he had the chance to jam him on a fastball. Again, he just missed, nearly hitting the bat but instead only getting Kubel's left hand.

Coke (7-4) is used to being booed at opposing ballparks, actually relishes it sometimes. This wasn't one of them, because the boos weren't for his outs.

"I hate hitting batters," Coke said. "I would've rather given up a homer right there than hit somebody, because it makes me feel like it shows that I have no control. And I don't feel like that's the case, as far as not having control. I know I have control. Those particular pitches, I didn't, and it irks me beyond belief that I hit both of those guys, let alone that I walked Hardy."

Coke left in favor of Ryan Perry, who had gotten his share of key outs in August and was looking for the same on Michael Cuddyer. Instead, he could not find the strike zone, missing high for a four-pitch walk.

"Today, I felt good in the bullpen," Perry said. "Everything looked good in the bullpen. I just wasn't able to come in and execute. I don't know if I was too excited and started working too fast, but everything started elevating."

Perry hit the strike zone on his second pitch to Delmon Young, who grounded his next pitch through the right side to score Mauer. A strong throw from Casper Wells easily retired Kubel at home to keep the Twins' lead at a run, but it was enough for Minnesota's revamped bullpen to protect.

It was a familiar feeling for the Tigers here, not giving up much, but just enough. What was shaping up as a last-ditch effort by the Tigers to whittle their American League Central deficit back to single digits got off to a rocky start. Detroit fell 11 games behind Minnesota with two more games to play in the series.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Scherzer's gem for naught as Twins walk off
Starter goes career-best nine innings but Perry loses it in 10th

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

09/02/10 1:28 AM ET

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MINNEAPOLIS -- The learning process for Max Scherzer is yielding big results. The learning process for other young Tigers this season will soon pay off, the team hopes.

Three months after Scherzer came back from Triple-A Toledo, he's performing like one of the toughest pitchers in the league. After nine innings of one-run ball Wednesday night, the Twins might be believers. But Scherzer can't produce offense for Detroit, which denied him a chance at a victory.

Once the Twins got Scherzer out of the game in the 10th inning, it denied the Tigers a chance, too. As Detroit lamented its second one-run loss to Minnesota in as many nights, this one a 2-1 decision on Danny Valencia's RBI single, they have to look at the learning process and hope it yields better times down the road.

"We're playing a lot of young players," said manager Jim Leyland, "and in big situations, they don't give in and the pitcher doesn't give in, and it's tough for young players in those situations. They press a little bit. We've got them throughout the lineup, and that's going to happen. But we just have to keep grinding. They'll learn. At some point in their careers, they'll learn how to knock in runs. But it takes time."

They have Jhonny Peralta providing clutch hits, but he's only one of nine. As he agreed, it takes time.

"People learn," Peralta said. "I know sometimes for young guys, it's hard to be in that situation. You need time to learn how to be patient at the plate."

Since Scherzer returned from the Minor Leagues at the end of May, his 2.20 ERA entering the night ranked second among American League starters. His 1.85 ERA since the All-Star break ranked fifth in the Majors. Both of those took another tick lower.

"I think he's the best pitcher in the American League, right now, hands down," said catcher Gerald Laird. "I mean, I don't think anybody can name anybody better since the All-Star break, since even being called up from Triple-A."

His two-start stint with the Mud Hens allowed him to make the mechanical tweak he needed to regain control of his pitches. Start by start since then, he has made improvements to gain both better movement and more consistency.

When he returned to the big leagues May 30 with 14 strikeouts against Oakland, he had nasty stuf but struggled to finish off hitters, resulting in 113 pitches over 5 2/3 innings. When he took a no-hit bid into the sixth inning at Tampa Bay just over a month ago, he was similarly stingy but battled command, walking four batters and giving up a Matt Joyce grand slam.

Not only did Scherzer hold the Twins hitless until Delmon Young's double led off the fifth, he struck out six of Minnesota's first 10 hitters. He fanned four consecutive batters in the second and third innings, then rebounded from a Brennan Boesch dropped fly ball to fan Denard Span.

The lone run he allowed came on a rare sacrifice fly double play in the fifth, and he scattered two singles and a walk from there. He didn't throw his 100th pitch until Jim Thome came up to pinch-hit with two outs in the ninth.

"He was a lot different from the first couple times we faced him this year," said Michael Cuddyer, who watched a third strike from him in the seventh with a runner on first. "His stuff was the same -- he always had great stuff -- but he was locating, keeping the ball down."

Scherzer has three out pitches going, and he isn't afraid to use them. When he gets into 0-2 counts, he doesn't throw away pitches. He wants to be aggressive, he said, but he wants to be aggressive with the right pitch.

His pitches lately give him a few choices.

"His changeup is really good, his slider is really good and his fastball was popping," said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire.

All that he lacked was a lead to protect. It wasn't for a lack of trying.

Through 4 1/2 innings, the Tigers had seven baserunners off Francisco Liriano to the Twins' one off Scherzer. Neither team had a run, thanks in part to a pair of Tigers doubled off first base.

A hit-by-pitch to Ramon Santiago and Boesch's single gave Detroit runners on second and third with one out in the third, but Liriano caught Austin Jackson looking at a third strike before overpowering Will Rhymes on a groundout to short. Another scoring chance, this one with runners at first and second and one out in the fourth, was thwarted when Liriano fanned Brandon Inge and induced a Santiago groundout.

Boesch was doubled off on a Laird lineout in the fifth, one pitch before Jackson doubled into the gap in left-center field. Liriano stranded Jackson by shattering Rhymes' bat on a groundout to first, starting him on a string of six consecutive batters retired.

The Tigers' lone run came from someone who's showing as many clutch at-bats as anyone. With Jackson on second following a leadoff single and Ryan Raburn having struck out against lefty Randy Flores, Matt Guerrier gave up a two-out walk to Miguel Cabrera that extended the inning for Peralta.

Peralta got a pitch over the plate, and provided a simple line drive to left to plate Jackson and give the Tigers new life.

"With a guy in scoring position late in the game, I know how I need to approach," Peralta said. "To me, it's natural. I try to patient at home plate and try to look for one pitch. I try to look for contact. In that situation, you don't swing too hard. Try for contract. That's my key right there."

Scherzer escaped the ninth with a Mauer flyout. He was at 106 pitches, and said he had enough left in him for the 10th, but Leyland didn't like the idea of having to lift him in trouble.

One night after Perry walked in the tying run and gave up the go-ahead hit, Cuddyer's leadoff single set Minnesota's offense in motion. Perry struck out Young after a 3-0 count, but Cuddyer swiped second on the play, setting up Valencia for the game-winning single once he ran the count full.

"It was one of the best games I've thrown in the big leagues, and it doesn't feel right," Scherzer said. "We didn't win. I'm so tied to how this team does and my teammates. When we don't come away with wins, it doesn't feel right. That's what kind of stinks about it. Even though I threw the ball well, we didn't win."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Laird's 13th-inning blast gives Tigers win
Late homer caps furious comeback vs. Twins in finale

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

09/03/10 3:07 AM ET

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MINNEAPOLIS -- Somewhere along the course of Thursday night, as the Tigers and Twins traded runs and swapped opportunities, the memory of Game 163 last year had to creep into some minds. It wasn't about what they were playing for Thursday, but who were playing and how they were playing them.

"Those are two of the toughest battles I've had in baseball," an exhausted Brandon Inge said, "and they've both been against this team at their home stadium."

Unlike last year's American League Central tiebreaker, the fact that the Tigers pulled out this 13-inning affair in a 10-9 saga doesn't change where the Tigers are going. They just arrived in Kansas City a little later than scheduled Friday morning and conducted their fantasy football draft on the plane. And at 11 games out in the AL Central, the postseason ramifications aren't nearly as great -- not for the Tigers, anyway, though the Twins have some issues heading into a critical weekend series with the Rangers.

This doesn't send the Tigers anywhere, but they hope it says something about where they're headed beyond this year.

"I think if anybody saw the way our club battled tonight, energy is not a problem," manager Jim Leyland said. "Anybody that thinks we've packed it in, they're crazy. I mean, we don't have ourselves in a very good position, but we're going to play the game hard the rest of the way out, no matter who we play. And I think that would question energy and effort on this team is crazy. I think you saw that tonight.

"I'm awful proud of them. I don't like the results all the time. Sometimes we're just not good enough. But that was pretty impressive tonight."

Detroit was four outs away from being swept out of the Twin Cities when rookie Will Rhymes' two-out, two-run single completed a four-run comeback in the eighth inning. They were three outs away from that fate again in the ninth when Casper Wells' first Major League home run sent them into extra innings.

After trading runs in the 11th, Minnesota's tally coming after two double-play balls turned into an Inge error and a single out from Rhymes, it took a 13th-inning homer from Gerald Laird -- who had entered as a pinch-hitter to lay down a sacrifice bunt in the 11th -- and a third inning of relief from closer Jose Valverde to put Detroit up for good.

The Tigers have a far greater concern coming out of the series with slugger Miguel Cabrera, who left the game with biceps tendinitis in his left shoulder. Yet they somehow mounted their comeback after he was gone. They ended the game with Jhonny Peralta playing first base for the first time in his life, with 14-year Minor League veteran Max St. Pierre as their last remaining bench player and with Friday's scheduled starting pitcher, Jeremy Bonderman, prepared to warm up if the game went any longer.

But hey, Minnesota's scheduled starter for Friday, Nick Blackburn, took the loss Thursday.

"That's a heck of a win," Leyland said. "It wasn't the prettiest of games, obviously."

The numbers were astounding -- 34 combined hits, 25 runners left on base, 15 pitches used, four errors, a few other ground balls mishandled,and 4 hours, 47 minutes of baseball.

All 15 Twins hits were singles. All five home runs came from the Tigers, the first team to do that at Target Field. The last of them came from Laird, his fifth homer of the season and his second at the ballpark, which gives him more homers at Target Field than All-Star Joe Mauer.

"It was a real funny game tonight," Laird said. "You've got [Ryan] Raburn coming off the bench and gets three hits. You've got Wells coming off the bench to get a couple hits and a homer. It was just a weird night. It's just one of those games where everybody contributed and we used a lot of pitchers. It was just an all-out team effort. It was a nice win."

Laird entered the game as a pinch-hitter to lay down a sacrifice bunt after Raburn's 11th-inning single gave Detroit its first lead since the second inning. He had a longer night than planned once a Jose Valverde leadoff walk, an Alexi Casilla single, Inge's error and a Rhymes bobble helped Minnesota tie it again in the bottom half and hand a blown save to Valverde.

"They missed double play chances, we missed double play chances," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "A lot of crazy things happened in the game after that and that's why you end up having to figure out some crazy things here and using all kinds of pitchers. "

Not only did Valverde stay in for the 12th, he actually pitched better as the game went on. He was helped by an impressive grab by Peralta at first.

"It's kind of similar [to third base]," Peralta said, "but I think it's a little bit busy."

Laird came back up in the 13th against Blackburn (8-9) and sent a drive deep to left.

"I knew I hit it good," Laird said, "but I know in this ballpark the ball doesn't necessarily carry that way at night. I was just running and blowing, trying to see if I could get it over."

Had Detroit not taken the lead that inning, Leyland said, Valverde would've been out, Daniel Schlereth would've been in, and Bonderman would've been warming up. Instead, Valverde (2-3) retired the side in the bottom half to finish off his third inning of work.

With all those pitchers, perhaps it was fitting that the one perfect inning of relief came from Tigers rookie Robbie Weinhardt, whose mother Diana works at the Minnesota Zoo. Among the areas under her direction, fittingly, is the tiger exhibit. Two of the tigers were reportedly born at the Detroit Zoo.

She was in the stands Thursday to watch her son star in a game that had to feel like a zoo.

Or as Wells put it, "It was like a ping-pong match."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Rhymes main reason as Tigers win in 11
Two-run triple highlights four-run frame to best Royals

By Robert Falkoff / Special to MLB.com

09/04/10 1:55 AM ET

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KANSAS CITY -- The Tigers are 11 games back in the American League Central, but they're refusing to go gently into these September nights.

The resiliency they showed on Thursday in Minnesota carried over to Friday in Kansas City, when the Tigers broke a tie on Will Rhymes' two-run triple in the 11th inning en route to a 9-5 victory.

Never mind that Miguel Cabrera didn't play, Austin Jackson didn't start and relievers Jose Valverde and Phil Coke weren't available. The Tigers just kept scrapping and found a way, even though they had to dig out of an early 4-0 hole against Royals ace Zack Greinke.

"We were concerned in the fourth inning about a no-hitter," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "That's how good we thought [Greinke] was throwing. I don't know if he got tired. It didn't look like it, because he was throwing great. But we were fortunate to find some holes and get back into it."

The Tigers put together a four-run rally while knocking out Greinke in the seventh. Ryan Raburn and Alex Gordon hit solo homers in the eighth and then Rhymes delivered the definitive blow in the 11th off reliever Jesse Chavez.

"We needed a big hit," Rhymes said. "We didn't need to go any further in that game."

Not after 24 innings of baseball in a two-night span, with a late-night airplane trip spliced in for good measure.

The Tigers got something going in the 11th when Alex Avila had a one-out single and Casper Wells reached on an error by third baseman Josh Fields. That miscue by Fields was the kind of break Detroit needed.

Fields was just activated on Wednesday after being sidelined since Spring Training because of hip surgery.

"I definitely played it into a lot harder ball than it should have been," Fields said.

Rhymes made the Royals pay in a big way. His drive to the alley in right-center came after going hitless in his first four at-bats.

"It has been a long couple of days, but we found a way to come out on top and it was worth it," Rhymes said. "It was worth all those innings."

The Tigers padded their lead thanks to Raburn's RBI single and a perfectly executed suicide-squeeze by Jackson. Reliever Ryan Perry closed it out with two perfect innings.

"Hopefully this will give him a little confidence," Leyland said. "I had the coaches talk to him a little bit. He got on top [of the ball] a little better tonight."

The way his players have picked each other up recently gives Leyland good vibes about the Tigers' future.

"You talk about 'team' and that's what we are," Leyland said. "You've got to use everybody and everybody has to contribute."

In the early going, with Greinke not allowing a hit until the fifth and Detroit starter Jeremy Bonderman struggling to find a groove, it seemed as though it wasn't going to be Detroit's night. But Bonderman steadied himself after allowing four runs in the second inning. The right-hander shrugged off the tough beginning and delivered 5 1/3 scoreless innings before he was lifted in the eighth.

"I was fighting myself until the third inning," Bonderman said. "I was having a hard time finding a rhythm and finding location. But I was finally able to do it."

Coming off a 13-inning game, Bonderman was intent on saving the bullpen early. But he walked the first two Royals hitters and allowed five hits in the second.

"It was frustrating," Bonderman said. "I was pretty much livid."

Whereas Bonderman got stronger as the game went on, Greinke eventually began to waver. A two-run single by Brandon Inge in the seventh and a run-scoring single by Avila made it 4-3 and brought Kansas City's bullpen into the equation.

Greinke didn't compliment himself the way the Tigers lauded him.

"I didn't really pitch great the whole game, so it just kind of evened out in the [seventh] inning," Greinke said.

Each man in the Detroit starting lineup, except veteran Johnny Damon, had at least one hit from the fifth inning through the 11th. But even though he didn't join the hit party, Damon enjoyed the win as much as anybody.

"It's definitely an exciting time to see some of our younger guys play," Damon said. "They've opened some eyes."

Robert Falkoff is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Jackson the catalyst as Tigers roll over KC

By Alan Eskew / Special to MLB.com

09/05/10 12:39 AM ET

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KANSAS CITY -- When Johnny Damon looks at Tigers teammate Austin Jackson, he sees a young version of himself.

Damon was 21 when he broke in with the Royals in 1995. Jackson, 23, had three hits -- including a home run and a single in the eighth to produce the go-ahead run -- as the Tigers topped the Royals 6-4 on Saturday night.

"At this stage of his career, I think he's better right now," Damon said. "I came up two years before him. Probably, when I was his age I was probably more ready. Obviously, my first two years it was, 'Oh my God, here I am let me see what I can do.'"

"He came up with the Yankees and deserved to have been called up when he was 21, and maybe he would have struggled a little bit at times then. But he's very polished. I'm looking for big things from him in September so he can lock down the Rookie of the Year [Award]."

Jackson is hitting .309 and tops AL rookies with 159 hits, the most by a Tigers rookie since Jake Wood's 171 in 1961. He also leads AL rookies with 89 runs, 30 doubles, nine triples and 21 stolen bases.

"I didn't know what my first year would be like," Jackson said. "I knew defensively I could play at this level. Hitting is one of the things I knew that I was going to have to make adjustments. The pitching up here is a lot better. Once they see you the second and third time around, they pitch you different."

His numbers certainly merit consideration for the American League Rookie of the Year Award.

"I would definitely think so," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "I would hope so. If he's not, they shouldn't have one. I'm not saying he should be it for sure, but if he's not in the top two or three, there is something wrong."

Jackson's single in the eighth scored Brennan Boesch, who was pinch-running for Max St. Pierre. St. Pierre had singled for his first Major League hit after 14 years in the Minors. Will Rhymes, who extended his career-high hitting streak to 12 games, scored the other run in the eighth on a passed ball.

Jackson's home run to lead off the fifth, which hiked the Tigers' lead to 4-2, was only his third of the season. After an April 25 home run, Jackson did not hit another one out until Aug. 17.

Miguel Cabrera doubled home Jackson, who led off the game with a walk, and Ryan Raburn in the first, and leads the league with 110 RBIs.

"I've been working for a long time to get to this level," Jackson said. "I couldn't ask for anything more. Everything seems to be falling in place. I would like to be better as a team."

If he thinks he's been working a long time to reach the Majors, it took St. Pierre 978 games in the Minors, beginning in 1997, before putting on a Major League uniform.

"It was even better than I thought," St. Pierre said. "The crowd stood up. It was an unbelievable feeling. I had to hold myself back not to cry. I said, 'I can't start crying here, they're going to think I'm a baby.' It took 14 years to get here, but I'd do it all over again."

In the sixth, St. Pierre was almost in tears -- after fouling a pitch off his knee. The trainer and Leyland came out to check him out.

"It hurt," he said. "It got the nerve right away and I couldn't put any weight on it. I went numb right away, it hit inside my knee. After I struck out and put my shin guards on, I felt all right."

After St. Pierre did a postgame television interview on the field, his teammates doused him with beer as he headed up the runway to the clubhouse.

"The guys kept waiting and waiting and they said, 'Come on Max, hurry up,'" Leyland said. "I said, 'Hurry up, it took him 14 years to get here, so he's not going to be here for awhile.' The guys had a good time with it. It was nice. I gave him the lineup card."

Damon doubled to start the third, advanced to third on a ground out and scored on a Jhonny Peralta sacrifice fly to left, giving Detroit a 3-0 lead.

The Royals came back to tie the game at 4, with Kila Ka'aihue driving in three runs with a two-out single in the third and a two-run homer in the sixth. Billy Butler singled home the other run in the third, as the Royals bunched four consecutive two-out singles off Rick Porcello.

Porcello went seven innings, giving up four runs on seven hits, to pick up his third straight victory and improve to 8-11.

"I thought he was good, real aggressive," Leyland said. "He kept the ball on the ground for the most part. I thought he pitched well. I think he got a little frustrated that one inning when they got those runs with two outs with an infield chopper and a little dunker. That's all part of the game, but he kept his composure pretty good."

Alan Eskew is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Last Updated: September 04. 2010 10:32PM
Max St-Pierre's first big league hit sparks Tigers' tiebreaking rally
Tom Gage / The Detroit News

Kansas City, Mo. -- Now the dream is complete.

Even when he got to the big leagues after 14 years in the minors, Max St-Pierre said he had one last step to go on his climb.

"The dream is complete when I get a hit," he said.

He got his hit Saturday night in the Tigers' 6-4 victory over the Royals -- and it was a huge one.

On a full count pitch with one out in the eighth, after he'd fallen in a 0-2 hole, St-Pierre singled to left in the fourth at-bat of his first start. As a keepsake, the ball was thrown to the dugout, where Johnny Damon made it look like he was throwing it into the stands.

But Damon, with sleight of hand, made a quick transfer with another ball he had in hand. St-Pierre will be able to save the ball forever -- along with the memory of what it led to.

Will Rhymes followed with a single, St-Pierre advancing to second. He came out of the game for Brennan Boesch, as a pinch-runner, at that point. Austin Jackson's single to right drove in Boesch with the tie-breaking run.

The Tigers soon added another on the first two passed balls.

Jackson had another fine game, both offensively and defensively. He hit his third home run in the fifth, ended up with three hits, and also made an outstanding catch in left-center to take extra bases away from Alex Gordon.

But with St-Pierre getting hugs in the dugout from his teammates, it was unmistakable which Tiger had a game he'll always remember.

Rick Porcello (8-11) ended up as the wining pitcher. But it took the two runs in the eighth for him to get the decision.

Everything was going well for him until Kila Ka'aihue took him deep for a game-tying two-run home run in the sixth.

Until then, the Tigers starter seemed to have the game pretty well in hand. After all, the Tigers had led from the first inning, and except for the two runs on a sequence of soft singles in the third, Porcello hadn't been touched by the Royals.

If anything, it seemed like a game in which the Tigers should have led by more than the maximum of three runs they did lead by.

For one thing, Miguel Cabrera stepped up in the first -- after missing Friday night's game with biceps tendonitis -- and quickly drilled a two-run double high off the wall in deep left center.

The Tigers made it 3-0 in the third off starter Bruce Chen on Jhonny Peralta's sacrifice fly. But they struggled to tack on runs after that.

Until St-Pierre got them started in the eighth.


From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100904/SPORTS0104/9040407/1129/Max-St-Pierre-s-first-big-league-hit-sparks-Tigers--tiebreaking-rally#ixzz0ycVKB32O

Low-producing offense costs Tigers in KC
Detroit gets just three hits to back Galarraga; Wells goes yard

By Robert Falkoff / Special to MLB.com

09/05/10 7:36 PM ET

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KANSAS CITY -- Sometimes a pitcher can be displeased with his performance even when there's not a lot of damage done to his ERA.

Such was the case with Tigers right-hander Armando Galarraga on Sunday as Detroit fell, 2-1, to the Royals and saw a three-game winning streak end. The box score shows that Galarraga allowed just four hits and one run in five innings and it came only because right fielder Brennan Boesch misplayed a Wilson Betemit fly ball that turned into an RBI double in the first inning.

But Galarraga walked five and needed 95 pitches to get through those five innings and said he couldn't always extend his right arm the way he wanted because of elbow stiffness.

"It's not a good start," Galarraga said. "My mechanics were bad and my pitches had no movement. I think I got lucky. I'm not happy with the start."

Galarraga is hopeful the elbow stiffness is just part of the wear and tear that starting pitchers sometimes experience at the end of a long season.

"Hopefully, it will feel better," Galarraga said. "I don't know if it's fatigue, just being tired."

Manager Jim Leyland said Galarraga felt "a little twinge" in the elbow warming up but was all right after he got loose. It was a day when the Tigers needed to keep the opponent's offense down, because Royals right-hander Kyle Davies had one of his better outings.

Davies pitched a three-hitter through six innings and came away with a victory when Alex Gordon snapped a 1-1 tie with a home run off reliever Brad Thomas in the sixth. Kansas City's bullpen took it from there, as Gil Meche, Robinson Tejeda and Joakim Soria turned in one scoreless inning apiece.

The Tigers (68-69) missed the opportunity for a winning road trip and a plus-.500 record heading home to face the White Sox and Orioles.

"I was a little disappointed today," Leyland said. "I thought it was kind of a lackluster offensive performance. I thought Davies was throwing a little harder today. We really didn't get many chances."

The one big chance came in the fifth after Casper Wells had tied the game with his second homer in the past four days. The Tigers loaded the bases with two outs and Johnny Damon worked Davies into a hitter's count. But on 3-1, Damon fouled off a fastball that he felt he could have driven sharply. Then Davies offered a changeup to strike out Damon.

"The changeup was just off the plate, too close to take," Damon said. "I felt like I had a good swing on [the 3-1 fastball]. That's the way my year has been going. I feel like I'm attacking the pitches that I need to and just not squaring them up."

On a day when they managed just three hits, the Tigers had defensive issues as well. Two seemingly harmless fly balls fell in. Wells lost Brayan Pena's second-inning fly in the sun, but that didn't cost Detroit. The misplay by Boesch in the first, however, was a sequence that came back to bite the Tigers.

"It took off a little more than I thought," Boesch said.

Said Leyland: "He just didn't get back to the ball."

The Tigers were quick to credit Davies, who fanned four and walked three.

"He was getting into fastball counts and then throwing the changeup and breaking ball," third baseman Brandon Inge said. "He was putting pitches where you couldn't do much with them."

The Tigers would have loved flying home with a four-game winning streak, but now they can only hope to start another streak as they play the White Sox, who are still trying to chase down Minnesota in the AL Central as the Tigers look on from a distance.

"The way I look at it, if a team is going to the postseason, they are going to earn it," Inge said. "I'm not going to give anything to them. If I were going to talk to the guys and be any sort of mentor, that's what I would tell them: You don't lay down for anyone."

Robert Falkoff is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers end up on short end of bullpen battle
Pierzynski's RBI single off Valverde in 10th is difference

By Alex DiFilippo / MLB.com

09/06/10 4:27 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Edwin Jackson and Max Scherzer, the two frontline starters traded for each other last winter, dueled to a statistical draw Monday afternoon. That made sense for the Tigers, who swapped the two.

The Tigers and White Sox bullpens, on the other hand, proved to be the difference in a 5-4 Detroit loss. Considering the Tigers had their second-year setup man and closer going opposite Chicago's just-drafted lefty, manager Jim Leyland and Co. couldn't have figured on that.

Detroit won many of those battles early in the season, which helped make it such a dangerous comeback team. The Tigers aren't winning as many of them now.

"It was a real good ballgame," Leyland said. "We just didn't execute on a couple pitches and got burned."

One of them was a hanging slider from Ryan Perry, who understandably went to his bread-and-butter pitch on a full count with two outs in the eighth. He simply couldn't spot it where he wanted, which allowed Alexei Ramirez to loft an easy line drive into left field and score Brent Lillibridge from second to tie the game at 3.

The other was a 1-2 fastball over the plate from closer Jose Valverde that A.J. Pierzynski turned into a single, which continued Valverde's second-half struggles and marked the third single of the inning -- plating the go-ahead run.

Chris Sale, meanwhile, retired all eight Tigers he faced and struck out three for his first Major League victory. In so doing, the lanky left-hander continued to make the immediate impact the White Sox hoped to have when they called up the Lakeland, Fla., native last month after just 11 Minor League outings.

Like former Tiger Andrew Miller, Sale is making a big league impact just months after he was a first-round pick. Like Miller, Sale is a tall southpaw whose gangly frame and sidearming angle make him tough for batters to face from either side of the plate.

"He's pretty deceptive, and then he has pretty good stuff," Will Rhymes said. "He's tough on lefties and tough on righties, too, because he kind of hides [the ball]."

Unlike Miller, Sale can pitch into the upper-90s with a tailing fastball that breaks away from right-handed hitters and inside on left-handers. The Tigers, whose four runs all came within the first three innings, couldn't solve it.

For a brief moment, they wondered if they had, until replay showed Brandon Inge's go-ahead two-run home run was actually a full-count foul ball.

In hindsight, the eighth-inning shot wasn't really close, instead foul by several feet. Inge actually stopped and was ready to head back to home plate until third-base umpire Tony Randazzo ruled the ball was fair. He didn't get to second base before White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen was out at home plate to ask for a review.

Once replay overturned the ruling, Inge came out of the dugout and back into the batter's box for another full-count pitch. Sale dropped a full-count breaking ball on the outside corner for a called third strike and an end to Detroit's last -- and best -- threat of the afternoon.

Sale (1-1) entered at almost the same point that Perry did a half-inning earlier. Both Scherzer and Jackson allowed four runs on nine hits over 7 1/3 innings, overcoming early mistakes to salvage deep start. The only difference in their pitching lines was an extra walk by Scherzer.

Scherzer left after a one-out single from Andruw Jones to give way to Phil Coke, who retired left-handed hitter Pierzynski. Once Guillen brought in Alexei Ramirez to pinch-hit, Leyland turned to Perry, who had turned in two perfect innings to earn a win Friday night at Kansas City, over Coke, whom right-handed batters have hit for a .318 average since the All-Star break.

Once Perry fell behind Ramirez and pinch-runner Lillibridge stole second base, Perry came back at Ramirez with fastballs to run the count full. Ramirez fouled back a 3-1 fastball high and over the plate. He did not miss the 3-2 slider.

"He hung a slider," Leyland said. "He left it right up there for him, and he couldn't miss it. Up here, you have to make big pitches at the right time, big situations, and he just left it up."

Perry retired the White Sox in order in the ninth to send the game into extra innings, but it's the eighth-inning offering that haunted him. He unquestionably understood the urgency there.

"If I located where I wanted to, I would have got the results I wanted," Perry said. "I left it up and he was able to get a piece of it."

Perry has two blown saves, a win and a loss in his past four outings. Before that, he had seven holds in seven chances and a win over his previous three months since returning from the disabled list. By contrast, Valverde's second-half search for consistency has been running longer.

Manny Ramirez's third single of the game, Ryan Raburn's error on the ball in left field and back-to-back one-out singles from pinch-hitter Alex Rios and Pierzynski led to Chicago's go-ahead run in the 10th. Valverde (2-4) avoided further damage with a Gordon Beckham double play, but still allowed a run for the fourth time in five outings and the 10th time in his past 14 appearances.

"I'm not worried about Valverde at all," Leyland said. "He's our closer."

Scherzer ended up with as many earned runs (four) over 7 1/3 innings as he did over 37 innings in his previous five starts combined, yet still retired 10 of his final 12 hitters to give the Tigers a shot. Half of his damage came in a second-inning rally that Don Kelly helped halt with a sliding catch in short left field.

Kelly also plated three of the four Tigers runs with his first-inning RBI single and two-run homer in the fourth inning.

"It was a tough game," Kelly said. "The whole second half we've played in some tough games. We just continue to battle. As far as myself, I've got to go out there and try to help the team any way I can."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Two homers, Verlander's stuff pace Tigers
Damon, Inge go deep as Detroit dumps White Sox

By Alex DiFilippo / MLB.com

09/08/10 12:29 AM ET

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DETROIT -- Justin Verlander is known for clocking in his fastball in the mid-90s and overpowering opposing hitters.

In Tuesday's 9-1 victory over the White Sox, Verlander didn't need to rely on his heater quite as much. No, his go-to pitch on the night was his curveball, which he dropped in and out of the strike zone. And when Verlander's breaking ball is working, it sets up his high-octane fastball perfectly.

"I've always talked about the breaking ball as my second-best pitch," Verlander said. "But it hasn't quite been there all year. I felt like tonight it was definitely the best it's been."

His ability to mix his pitches allowed him to keep the White Sox hitters off balance all night. He tossed seven innings of one-run ball on five hits with seven strikeouts on the way to his 15th win, snapping the White Sox seven-game win streak and moving them 4 1/2 behind the Twins in the American League Central race.

"He didn't spot his fastball as good as he can," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "But I thought he had a real good breaking ball. He threw some great curveballs tonight. That really helped him out. He gave us a tremendous outing and we needed that. We got some innings and we needed that. I thought his curveball was probably the key pitch."

With the Tigers ace clearly in the zone, Detroit's bats really didn't need to do much work. But from the get-go, they gave Verlander more than enough support to cruise along.

Johnny Damon got things started for the Tigers in the first inning when he lofted a two-run homer off White Sox starter Freddy Garcia to right field, despite a gusty wind blowing out to left.

Garcia (11-6) pitched a scoreless second inning before exiting with lower back stiffness. Right-hander Lucas Harrell entered in his place to start the third inning -- a move that initially worried Leyland.

The Tigers had never seen Harrell before, as he was making his third Major League appearance. But even an unknown pitcher couldn't slow Detroit's bats on this night.

Rookie Austin Jackson reached on Mark Kotsay's error to start off the third inning, and fellow rookie Will Rhymes pushed him to second with a sacrifice bunt. With first base open, slugger Miguel Cabrera was intentionally walked to put runners on first and second with two outs.

Don Kelly continued his hot hitting for the Tigers by drilling an RBI single to right, and Brennan Boesch followed suit with an infield single that scored a run. Then Jhonny Peralta lined a two-run double down the right-field line to give the Tigers a commanding 6-1 lead, with all four runs in the third frame unearned.

"I thought we did a pretty good job," Leyland said of the offense. "You could tell Freddy wasn't quite right. I don't know what was wrong, but you could tell he wasn't quite right. I was a little worried because they brought in a guy we hadn't seen before. I was a little concerned about that. But we were able to add on a couple runs. Peralta got that big hit down the right-field line. That was probably the biggest hit of the game."

Harrell shut the door for the next three innings against the Tigers, a feat that even impressed Verlander.

"The guy that came in, he's a young guy and he's no slouch," Verlander said. "He had some really good stuff. He had good velocity and good offspeed stuff. But our guys hung in there and put in some quality at-bats and some good two-out hitting to score some runs. It was big for us today."

Verlander's only blip came in the third inning when he allowed a double to Juan Pierre and an RBI single to Omar Vizquel. But from there, it was smooth sailing.

Verlander was obviously pleased with his strong outing. Making it even sweeter was a curveball he threw in the sixth inning. Knowing his pitch count was already quite high, Verlander made a point to up the velocity and really attack the hitters, which led to back-to-back strikeouts to start the inning before one slipped out that hit Manny Ramirez in the hand.

"The sixth inning I came out and was a little more aggressive with my body," Verlander said. "I was making sure I stayed back with my back leg then charge it with my fastballs. Then I think I just did that on the breaking ball, just stayed back and went after it. It allowed me to get on top of it and get it out front. It was like a light bulb went off. I was like, 'Oh, there it is. Where's that been all year?'

"Most of the year I've had that get-me-over [curveball], the soft one. But I haven't had the hard one. When I go to throw it hard, it pops out a little bit. I felt like tonight I threw one hard and was able to get on top of it and it had that sharp late bite that I like to see. Hopefully I'll retain that feel for it and move forward."

Rookie right-hander Robbie Weinhardt entered for Verlander in the eighth inning, and although it wasn't necessarily pretty, he tossed two innings of shutout ball. He admitted he couldn't find the strike zone with his sinker, normally his go-to pitch, but made up for it with his slider, which he said was the best it's been all year.

A day after being denied a home run because of instant replay, Brandon Inge scored some redemption with a three-run shot to left in the eighth inning to put a stamp on the victory that pulled the Tigers (69-70) one game shy of .500.

"I figured it would hit a bird or something that would knock it foul or something," Inge said of his homer. "Or maybe it would hit a jet stream that would kick it out foul. But it was good to see it stay in."

Alex DiFilippo is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Bonderman, Tigers breeze past White Sox

By Jason Beck / MLB.com

09/09/10 12:37 AM ET

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DETROIT -- Jeremy Bonderman can't control where he ends up next year, not now. He can't control whether the Tigers decide to bring him back, turn to one of their youngsters like Andy Oliver, or hit the market for an arm to fill out their rotation. All he can control right now is the way he pitches.

Wednesday night, maybe more than any other outing this season, showed how well Bonderman has progressed with his control. He commanded a game in which the Tigers didn't have MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera, Johnny Damon or Jose Valverde, and he made it look like a relatively easy cruise toward a 5-1 win over the White Sox at Comerica Park.

It was a night for the Tigers to play spoiler in the AL Central race, costing the White Sox a game in the standings on a night when they didn't have to face Cabrera and the Twins had to face Zack Greinke. The unexpected twist in the division chase came largely from a pitcher whom few really expected to make this transition.

"He's kind of adapted, hasn't he?" Brandon Inge said. "To me, it's pretty amazing. Bonderman was blessed for many, many years to just blow it by guys -- a 96-97-mph sinker that was coming in like a bucktoothed termite. Guys did not want to face him. And now, he has the surgeries, he has the injuries, and he's forced to pitch."

Bonderman topped 90 mph with just two of his 114 pitches, according to MLB.com's Gameday application -- once in the first inning, and once in the fourth.

He not only made that combination sink the White Sox offense, he did it quickly -- to the point where he worked through his first seven innings in 100 pitches and then worked the eighth. He would've had a chance at a complete-game shutout if not for Omar Vizquel's fourth-inning homer, the lone extra-base hit Chicago managed against him.

"We didn't get anything done today," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "We couldn't get it going."

Five days after Bonderman overcame a four-run opening inning to give the Tigers a fighting chance against Greinke, he didn't allow any big innings at all. The entire game lasted just two hours and four minutes.

"I was just trying to go in and out and throw breaking balls, and slow them down and try to speed them up at times," Bonderman said. "The guys made some plays and we were able to get a win."

Bonderman said earlier this summer that he sometimes wishes he knew then what he knows now about pitching, how to change speeds and set up batters, and make adjustments. He has picked up more as the season has unfolded, partly through talking with other pitchers, such as ex-teammate Kenny Rogers, and partly through tinkering between starts.

He might actually have less on his fastball now than he did earlier this year, or he did on this night, but he put his knowledge to work better. He worked through the White Sox lineup in order the first time around and retired the first 10 batters he faced. Vizquel's homer not only was the lone White Sox run, it was their first baserunner.

Bonderman (8-9) gave up a Paul Konerko single and a Manny Ramirez walk with two outs in the same inning, then settled down to retire 14 of the final 15 batters he faced. Vizquel's sixth-inning single was the only other hit he allowed.

"He was throwing strikes and changing speeds," catcher Alex Avila said. "There was barely anybody on base. Really, I was just putting down a finger and putting up the glove. He was locked in today. It was a great effort on his part. It was really good pitching today."

Bonderman's eight strikeouts -- seven of them on offspeed pitches -- matched a season high. Just as impressive, 13 more outs came on ground balls, just three on flyouts.

"I thought he changed speeds on his breaking ball," manager Jim Leyland said. "I thought he made them mishit the ball a little bit. He wasn't overpowering by any means. He didn't have the overpowering fastball, but I thought he changed speeds on his breaking ball. And he kept the ball down pretty good."

Those who remember Bonderman from his younger years, before the shoulder problem two years ago and the nerve issue last year, will remember wondering if Bonderman would ever effectively change speeds. Now he can do it on multiple pitches. He has to do it.

"He was doing that with his four-seam [fastball] and his two-seam, too, at the same time," said Avila, whose two-run double capped a four-run fourth inning off White Sox starter John Danks (13-10).

"He was throwing some at 88, 89 and others at 84. They were a little slower and they had a little movement. That two-seamer, sometimes, he throws it like a changeup. When he throws it at 83, that's about as good as a changeup and it acts similar to [how] a changeup does, it kind of goes down and away to a lefty. He changed speeds at the right times and located."

He has to do it to succeed, to pitch effectively beyond this year. He still hopes to get some life back on his fastball as he moves on. He's a free agent at season's end, but he only turns 28 years old this fall. He's still young for a pitcher.

On nights like this, he's still effective, too.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Porcello pitches Tigers to third straight win
Starter goes eight frames; offense collects 13 hits, all singles
By Alex DiFilippo / MLB.com | 09/09/10 5:54 PM ET

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DETROIT -- After watching the first three pitchers in the Tigers rotation toss impressive outings, Rick Porcello was eager to take the mound and follow suit Thursday afternoon.

Sure enough, the 21-year-old went out and had one of his strongest outings of the year against the White Sox, the team that issued the young right-hander his worst outing of the season that eventually led to a stint in the Minors.

But in Thursday's 6-3 win, it seemed that start back on June 9, in which he gave up eight earned runs, was ancient history. It was the new and improved Porcello, who made his eight innings of work look effortless en route to his fourth straight win.

"I feel a little more confident out there now," Porcello said. "I feel like I'm throwing the ball a lot better. It's a little easier to be calm when you are confident and you feel like your stuff is good."

Porcello worked eight innings and allowed three earned runs with three strikeouts and no walks. It marked his fourth straight start where he'd lasted at least seven innings without issuing more than one free pass.

His strong start mirrored that of the rest of the rotation. This series, all four starters worked at least seven innings, with three of them allowing no more than three runs to help the Tigers secure the series win and pull above .500 (71-70) for the first time since July 31. In fact, the Tigers starters gave up only nine runs, while the White Sox pitchers had to deal with eight unearned runs dealt their way.

"The way our entire staff pitched this week, starting with [Max Scherzer] and [Justin Verlander] and then [Jeremy Bonderman], it just kind of trickles down," Porcello said. "It's like, 'OK I did my job and now it's on to the next guy.' We are all aware of that. I've got to go out and do my job and tomorrow [Armando Galarraga] goes out and does his job. When you get into a rhythm like that, it definitely helps."

Porcello has taken major strides since starting the year with a 4-7 record and a 6.14 ERA before being sent down to Triple-A Toledo. His sinker is dipping in the strike zone and his slider has plenty of bite.

"I think the work of going down to Toledo and ironing out my delivery has helped my control," Porcello said. "I feel like I know where the ball is going, as opposed to before where it's all over the place. It's been the combination of that and also being able to throw my slider for strikes. I'm confident I can go to that now in a 3-2 count instead of just pumping fastballs. I can go to a slider. That's been big."

Because catcher Gerald Laird has been out with a back spasms, rookie Alex Avila was behind the plate for the series. Avila said getting ahead in the count was a point of emphasis entering the four-game set -- a message that Porcello obviously heard loud and clear.

"These guys have been making my job easy," Avila said. "Porcello was very good today. His sinker was really good. We used that more today than we have in his previous starts. It was very good, so was his changeup. We were able to mix in breaking pitches in there, too. He did a real good job of just changing speeds and just locating.

Just like Bonderman the previous night, Porcello retired the first 10 batters he faced before giving up a base hit to Omar Vizquel. Then Alex Rios ran into a fastball and powered it over the fence in left field. But it was a pitch that Porcello said was actually quite good.

But by that time the Tigers already had a four-run lead to give Porcello some breathing room.

Whatever momentum the White Sox thought they could garner with the homer was quickly erased when Porcello retired the next two batters to end the inning.

"That inning, especially after they hit the home run, it was big to sit those guys down and get us back in the dugout to get some more runs," Porcello said. "Our offense did a great job and battled."

The offense went on to record another run in the fourth inning to put the two-run shot out of memory, and after Porcello committed two wild pitches that led to a run in the seventh, Detroit again countered with a run.

Those add-on runs proved to be costly for the White Sox, who dropped to six games behind the Twins in the American League Central race.

"That's what we talk about as managers," Jim Leyland said. "I'm sure [White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen] is talking about it, too. They get on the board and they let us come right back and score. That's usually the kiss of death for you."

The Tigers nickeled and dimed White Sox starter Gavin Floyd (10-12) with 13 singles, including four by Johnny Damon and three by Will Rhymes, that were mainly bloops into the outfield or infield hits.

"He was hitting his spots. He did a pretty good job keeping us off balance," Rios said of Porcello. "He used his slider a lot. We couldn't do what we had to do."

With the way he was dealing, Porcello didn't need much help. The win pulls him to 9-11, a far cry from the 4-10 record he held at one point this season.

"I don't want to invest too much into records," Porcello said. "I think I'm just more confident and happier with the way I'm throwing the ball now compared to where I was at the beginning of the year. That's more of what I look at. Not so much wins and losses but going out there and having quality starts and keeping us in the game. Those are the things that I value."

Alex DiFilippo is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.