2012 DETROIT TIGER SCHEDULE AND RESULTS

Tigers keep position after Verlander enacts revenge

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/15/2012 12:26 AM ET

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CLEVELAND -- So much for the usual Chicago-to-Cleveland letdown the Tigers have suffered whenever they've gone from beating the first-place White Sox to facing the fading Indians.

So much, too, for the notion that Justin Verlander has to win games single-handedly these days. Six weeks after the Indians spoiled a Verlander gem at Progressive Field with a four-run seventh, he got through seven shutout innings with help from two rally-killing defensive stops from his corner infielders, Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera.

Yet Verlander said that Friday's 4-0 win wasn't about exacting revenge -- either his own or that of the team.

He couldn't care less about July at this point. He's more worried about the next few weeks, with Detroit needing to make up a one-game deficit in the American League Central. The Tigers did their part. The White Sox, fittingly, shut out the Twins in return.

Two more matchups await before the Tigers and White Sox have their makeup game on Monday in Chicago. Verlander doesn't want to look that far.

"The rest of the season is going to be pressure baseball," Verlander said. "It seems to me like we play well that way."

He came to that opinion when the Tigers swept the White Sox in Detroit over Labor Day weekend, and he saw it reinforced when they won back-to-back games in Chicago. Their struggles against the Tribe in between don't exactly fit the picture.

"I agree 100 percent," Verlander said. "But what I'm hoping is, coming down this stretch run, we know that every game's a must-win. Maybe that will kick-start us a little bit into knowing that every game is a pressure game. Every pitch, every at-bat is a big at-bat, big pitch. I think this team thrives off of that."

From his first pitch on Friday, his performance seemed to reflect the urgency. The 97-mph fastballs he threw in the opening inning, well off his usual effort to pace himself, were the first sign.

That was more conscious adjustment than adrenaline, a suggestion from pitching coach Jeff Jones after the Royals and Angels roughed up Verlander early in two of his last three starts.

"We talked to him about that," manager Jim Leyland said. "Jonesy [said], 'You might want to come out at 93-94, 94-95, and don't worry about the pitches. We'll take care of that.'"

Verlander's velocity came and went from there, according to the situation. He hit 97 again in the third inning, 98 in the fourth, then carried it farther into the fifth. When Casey Kotchman's single and Lonnie Chisenhall's double gave Cleveland runners at second and third with nobody out, Verlander hit 99 mph to reach strike two on Ezequiel Carrera, setting up a nasty offspeed pitch to fan Carrera for the second out.

If the velocity didn't show the importance, the chest bump Verlander nearly gave Fielder after the next pitch did.

"I battled my [tail] off," Verlander said. "Second and third, nobody out and I get the first two, and then [Jason Donald] hits a jam job, a soft-hit ball that would be a heartbreaker if that falls in there or gets down the line.

"Right off the bat, it's like, 'Oh God.' And then I see it go over the bag and see [the umpire] call fair, and then Prince comes out of nowhere and snags it."

Fielder's dive wiped out part of the foul line behind first base. From there he flipped to Verlander as the hurler raced to cover the bag.

"I thought it was one of those that would skip over the bag into foul territory and go for a double," Leyland said. "He made a heck of a play."

After Shin-Soo Choo's leadoff single the next inning, followed by Carlos Santana's one-out double, Verlander had to do it again. Cabrera repeated the gem, stretching out down the third-base line on Kotchman's grounder and firing across the infield to Fielder, who dug the ball out of the dirt.

The tandem that was put together to win games with their bats might have won this one with their gloves.

"I thought Prince might have made a game-saving play and I thought Miggy might have made a game-saving play," Leyland said. "Two guys on the corners made huge plays."

Verlander stayed on the mound and waited to fist-bump Cabrera, whose defense at third has been debated ad nauseum.

"It means a lot," Cabrera said. "You're not going to win every day with hitting home runs. You win a lot of games with defense. When you're able to do that, your pitchers are going to feel better. They're going to feel more confident."

Verlander seems to have confidence building, not simply in his defense but the team overall. The Tigers struggled to add runs after a pair of two-run innings off Corey Kluber, who struggled to re-create the stingy pitching that beat the Tigers a week and a half ago, but they did enough.

"It's kind of hard to say things are coming together at the end of the season," Verlander said. "We are what we are, but I think we're an extremely good team that's just been a little bit inconsistent. Hopefully, we'll find some consistency down the stretch, and I think we've shown over the last few series, especially against the White Sox, that this is a team that plays well under pressure. That's why we're a real threat in the playoffs, and hopefully, we can get there."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Sanchez keeps Tigers within game of first place

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/15/2012 9:29 PM ET

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CLEVELAND -- The Tigers had a run taken off of their side of the scoreboard before the Indians had put any offensive numbers on theirs.

Quintin Berry, perfect on stolen-base attempts in his brief Major League career, tried to get thrown out on the basepaths -- twice -- and couldn't get the Indians to retire him.

Anibal Sanchez came within seven outs of his second career no-hitter, then didn't retire another batter.

The Indians had three relievers up in their bullpen in the eighth inning as they waited to see whether they could rally to tie the game or pull ahead.

All that made for a bizarre Saturday afternoon at Progressive Field. All that mattered for the Tigers was that it ended with a win, once Jose Valverde sent down the Tribe in the ninth for a 5-3 victory before a similarly bizarre pro-Tigers crowd in Cleveland.

That happens when two teams heading in opposite directions meet. It's just that they took some odd turns along the way.

Like the White Sox in their win over Minnesota earlier in the day, the Tigers took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, then used their bullpen to escape a potential game-changing jam. In the end, Detroit stayed a game behind Chicago in the American League Central, with one more game Sunday before the Tigers and White Sox meet for a makeup game on Monday.

"It is what it is," manager Jim Leyland said. "We're obviously still playing for pretty big stakes, just like they are. You have to give them credit; they went over there and won two. You have to give us credit; we came over here and won two against a club that's been beating up on us most of the year. We have to try to figure out how to get one more tomorrow."

The way Sanchez threw for most of the game, sending Indians hitters chasing pitches through the late-afternoon shadows, they were thinking they could get more than a simple win. They were thinking Sanchez had a chance at repeating history.

Justin Verlander is one of 22 Major Leaguers with two no-hitters on his resume. Sanchez had a real chance to join him.

"From the third inning, I thought I had a chance," Sanchez said. "Everything was working good tonight. I'm hitting my spots and my ball was moving well, so I thought I could do it."

For 6 2/3 innings, the only baserunner Sanchez (3-5 with the Tigers) allowed was Shin-Soo Choo, whose foot Sanchez hit with a breaking ball leading off the fourth inning. A Carlos Santana double play erased him, allowing Sanchez to face the minimum 20 batters through his bid and rekindle memories of his no-hitter for the Marlins on Sept. 6, 2006.

The only play that came close to a hit through six innings was a Lou Marson ground ball up the middle that Omar Infante ran down behind second base before firing across his body to first to end the inning.

"I don't think too much what I did [in 2006]," Sanchez said. "The only thing I thought about between innings was who's coming up, what I have to do. I just tried to be aggressive with every pitch, try to get ahead. That's the most important. Get the first guy out. If I got behind in the count, I tried to be aggressive. I don't feel afraid about it.

"After [striking out Asdrubal] Cabrera, I think I'm going to do it."

That was the second out of the seventh inning, and the third time he had struck out Cabrera. He had retired Santana on two groundouts already and was hoping for another, but he fell behind in the count.

He got away with a 3-1 fastball over the plate that Santana fouled back. Santana didn't miss the full-count offering, drilling it off the center-field fence for a two-out triple.

Catcher Alex Avila "called inside, and I left it away and up," Sanchez said. "That's the pitch for Santana to hit."

Austin Jackson, whose plays have made him a familiar face in no-hit bids, ran after it thinking he had a play. It wasn't until he approached the center-field fence that he knew he didn't.

"Once I left my feet, I pretty much knew," Jackson said.

Santana ended up with a two-out triple.

By then, the Tigers had all their runs, as well as another they seemingly had until Avila was ruled out for missing third base in the fifth inning. Three Indians errors, two Avila RBI hits and a Jackson sacrifice fly completed the scoring damage against Cleveland starter Justin Masterson, who left after 4 2/3 innings before Tony Sipp retired Avila without even throwing a pitch.

Originally, Avila scored after Cabrera's error, though had missed touching third. Berry, whose ground ball single set up Cabrera's error, tried to get thrown out to make sure the run counted, but couldn't get the Indians to bite before they tried an appeal play. That lost run, meaningless for most of the afternoon, loomed large once the Indians started hitting Sanchez.

A Russ Canzler double and Lonnie Chisenhall single followed Santana's triple, the Indians had a ballgame going and Sanchez was out of the game. Phil Coke entered to face Casey Kotchman, then struck out pinch-hitter Matt LaPorta chasing a high fastball to end the threat.

"The last time Sanchez threw and I came in behind him, I gave up two of the runners I inherited from him," Coke said. "I told him I couldn't wait for the next opportunity, because it wasn't going to happen again. I finally got an opportunity to come in behind him and show him that I had his back, like I said I would."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers drop frustrating finale in walk-off fashion

By Zack Meisel / MLB.com | 9/16/2012 8:17 PM ET

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CLEVELAND -- The Tigers' Most Valuable Player candidate did everything in his power to ease the tension on Sunday, but even Miguel Cabrera's go-ahead homer and his attempt at playing peacemaker couldn't keep Detroit from a maddening defeat at Progressive Field.

Cabrera blasted a three-run homer into the left-field bleachers to provide Detroit with a temporary lead in the seventh, but the Indians scored a pair of runs off closer Jose Valverde in the ninth to stave off a three-game sweep and hand the Tigers a 7-6 loss.

The defeat dropped Detroit two games behind the White Sox -- who were winners on Sunday -- in the race for the American League Central crown.

"It was a good comeback win for them," said Tigers manager Jim Leyland, who was ejected in the fifth inning. "There wasn't anything cheap about it. ... Give them credit."

Valverde paraded to the mound in the ninth, aiming to protect a one-run lead and cap an afternoon filled with arguments and injuries. Instead, second baseman Jason Kipnis opened the frame with a double to center. He scored the tying run on catcher Carlos Santana's triple to right that fell just out of the grasp of a leaping Don Kelly. After a pair of intentional walks, third baseman Lonnie Chisenhall delivered a walk-off single.

"We put them up against the wall," Tribe skipper Manny Acta said. "They did what they had to do and Lonnie just drilled that pitch. We felt like it was our ballgame, that we gave it away, and we had to take it back. It was good to win the ballgame."

There never would have been a bottom of the ninth had it not been for Cabrera. His majestic long ball in the seventh appeared to relieve the Detroit dugout of plenty of tension that had built up throughout a frustrating afternoon beside Lake Erie.

"He's a great player," Leyland said. "I obviously think he's the MVP."

In the fifth, after hitting a grounder to short, Indians center fielder Michael Brantley appeared to tag first base at the same time second baseman Omar Infante's relay throw arrived. First baseman Prince Fielder voiced his dissatisfaction with umpire Brian Knight's call and Leyland trotted out from the dugout to argue.

Two batters later, after the Indians had knotted the game at 3-3, pitcher Rick Porcello started a potential inning-ending double play on a comebacker to the mound. He fired the ball to second to retire the lead runner, but Knight ruled that Chisenhall beat out the ensuing throw to first. Cabrera had to separate an enraged Fielder from the other umpires. Leyland sprinted out of the dugout and was tossed within moments for the fifth time this season.

"It's frustrating, especially at this time of year," said Porcello, who allowed four runs (two earned) in 4 2/3 innings. "These are high-intensity games as far as how much they mean. We're right there in this race."

In the sixth, Santana hit a chopper to third, where Cabrera made a diving stop and whirled a high throw to first. Fielder caught the ball, spun around and tagged Santana as he reached first base, but Knight again called the runner safe. As Fielder jumped up and down in anger, Tribe shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera hustled home to push the Indians' advantage to 5-3.

Fielder chose not to speak with reporters after the game.

"They're bang-bang plays and emotions run high this time of year," Leyland said. "They were unbelievably tough calls. I didn't agree with them, but every umpire is out there doing his best to try to get everything right."

The Tigers finally relinquished their frustration in the seventh. With two outs, Miguel Cabrera socked a slider from sidewinding righty Joe Smith 402 feet to dig Detroit out of a 5-3 hole. In 18 tilts with the Tribe this season, he has tallied 23 of his 123 RBIs. Each time he approached the batter's box during the Tigers' three-game sweep this weekend, the clusters of Tigers fans scattered throughout the ballpark chanted "M-V-P" at the club's leader in batting average, doubles, homers, RBIs and slugging percentage. Cabrera totaled six hits in the series and now has nine base knocks in his last four contests.

"You don't know what to do with the guy," Acta said. "I mean, you have a really tough submariner there that is a groundball pitcher and -- somehow, some way -- he ends up hitting that huge homer."

Cabrera couldn't keep the smile from creeping across his face as he circled the bases for the 38th time this year. Still, it wasn't enough to prevent the Indians from taking the season series, 10-8. Now the Tigers enter Monday's makeup game against the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field in need of a victory, and unsure if they'll have the services of center fielder Austin Jackson or catcher Alex Avila, who are both battling injuries.

"[Miguel Cabrera] is just amazing. He's the best," Acta said. "But, it's not about him. We won the ballgame. We won the series against them for the year."

Zack Meisel is a reporter for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @zackmeisel. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers tripped up by White Sox, trail by three
Infante forced into crucial throwing error on double play

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/17/2012 7:47 PM ET

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CHICAGO -- The tarp went on the infield at U.S. Cellular Field almost as soon as the White Sox recorded the final out of the Tigers 5-4 loss on Monday. Time is running out on summer.

It's running low, too, on the Tigers, who left the Windy City just before fall-like weather rolled in Monday night. Just like that, it can change -- the seasons, and the races.

In just over 24 hours and in two different cities, the Tigers went from the confidence of controlling their own fate to the queasiness of needing help to get into the postseason.

"You always need help in some way or another, whether it's an opposing team having a bad day and your guys having a better day than they are," reliever Phil Coke said. "But yeah, I guess you can say that. I'm not going to argue it, because yeah, we're in a position where we have to chase them down."

In just over two innings Monday, the Tigers went from seemingly solving the division-leading White Sox again to staring at another one-run deficit that stood up, sending Detroit three games down to Chicago in the American League Central with 16 games to play.

It came down to something as simple as an Alex Rios slide into second base to turn a potential rally-killing double play into a two-run swing.

"I don't have an excuse. I have to make a good throw," said second baseman Omar Infante, who was toppled by Rios as his throw headed into the dirt and skipped past first baseman Prince Fielder to the Tigers dugout.

For a team that has lost its last 10 one-run games since Aug. 24, two-run swings are potentially devastating. For the Tigers, two-run swings in each of the last two games -- Sunday's ninth inning in Cleveland, Monday's fifth inning in Chicago -- are the difference between a deadlocked division and a three-game deficit.

At the very least, the last game the Tigers and White Sox are scheduled to play against each other this season changes the theme of the race. The Tigers, who seemed poised to draw even with the White Sox on Thursday night before rain washed out Justin Verlander's matchup with Chris Sale, now head back to Detroit as the pursuers.

It has turned that fast, and on that little. The bright side is that it makes a three-game deficit with 16 games left look far from impossible, especially with the White Sox visiting the Angels next weekend and hosting the Rays after that.

"There's plenty of time," manager Jim Leyland said, "but you have to win games. If you don't win some games, then time becomes real short. Obviously, it's not the situation you want to be in, but that doesn't bother me."

The flip side is that everything, even plays that seem minute earlier in the year, becomes magnified. They were magnified on Monday.

"It's going to be tough," Austin Jackson said. "We've just got to really handle our business and keep going out there and trying to win these ballgames. The pressure's on, but it's been that way for a while now. We know what we have to do. We're capable of doing it."

The Tigers made enough plays early to sprint ahead, missing out on a second-inning scoring chance but getting a soft liner to left field from Delmon Young in the third for a two-out, two-run single and a 3-0 lead.

When the White Sox loaded with the bases with one out against Doug Fister in the bottom of the inning, he responded with back-to-back strikeouts on Kevin Youkilis and Adam Dunn, dropping opponents to 0-for-8 against him with the bases loaded.

Dewayne Wise broke the drought with a two-out, two-run single to tie the game in the fourth, but Peralta's diving stop ended the threat and Young delivered another RBI single as part of three straight hits in the fifth for a 4-3 lead. They chased White Sox lefty Jose Quintana from the game and sent Chicago manager Robin Ventura to his talented but inexperienced bullpen.

Nate Jones gave up Young's single, but it was the only hit Chicago's bullpen allowed, starting a hitless stretch with Peralta's second double play of the afternoon. Once back-to-back singles put runners at the corners with nobody out for the White Sox in the bottom half, the Tigers turned to Al Alburquerque to do the same.

He came within a double-play throw of escaping, even after he walked Rios for a bases-loaded, no-out jam.

After A.J. Pierzynski lined out to right, Alburquerque used his darting slider to induce the ground ball he needed from Dayan Viciedo. Peralta fired to Infante for the out at second, but Rios' slide sent Infante tumbling as he fired to first.

"That's a situation where every second baseman knows we're coming in hard," Rios said. "And it was a clean slide, and we took advantage of that."

Infante knew Rios was coming in, but didn't realize he was that close. His left ankle was bandaged up after the game from one of Rios' spikes.

"I've made a lot of errors," Infante said. "I don't care if I make errors if the team does everything. If I make errors and the team wins, I feel good. But when we don't win, I feel bad for that."

Fielder made a last-ditch effort to pick the ball out of the dirt but didn't get the bounce he expected, bringing his glove up early as the ball skipped past him and into the Tigers' dugout.

"It just got under me," Fielder said.

The tying and go-ahead runs both came home, giving the White Sox a lead they wouldn't relinquish. And the Tigers' grasp on their fate slipped a little more.

It won't take much to get it back, the way the race has gone. It might not take much to grow, either. Their fate has turned on less.

"If you win games, this lead could shrink up real quick," Leyland said. "If you don't, then you've got a problem."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers slam past A's behind Miggy's big night

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/19/2012 12:43 AM ET

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DETROIT -- The Tigers came home off back-to-back one-run losses that cost them three games in the standings and broke out the bats in a 12-2 pasting of the A's on Tuesday night.

They faced a rookie hurler with a 6-0 record who hadn't given up more than three runs in a start all year and had surrendered just two runs over 20 1/3 September innings.

They lost their co-ace after two innings with a shoulder injury and had to hand a potential pitching duel to a reliever who hadn't pitched in two weeks.

And they won by double digits.

If you want to quantify the value of Miguel Cabrera, who drove in half of Detroit's runs and scored another in drubbing the American League Wild Card-leading A's at Comerica Park, that's a pretty good place to start.

"When we see [Max Scherzer] was out, we put more pressure on their pitching to get on base, swing the bat, and see if we can have a big lead," Cabrera said.

If you want to quantify the caliber of hitter Cabrera is, there's plenty of evidence. Add this to the list: He got a 68-mph curveball and sent it 446 feet down the left-field line. Then he got a fastball from the same pitcher two innings later and lined it to the fence in right-center field.

"The stuff that he does with the bat is remarkable," catcher Gerald Laird said. "He never ceases to amaze me."

Cabrera can't beat the White Sox to make up ground in the AL Central standings, but that's the schedule's fault. Shortly after the Tigers finished off their largest margin of victory since April 7, Chicago held its ground with a 3-2 win in Kansas City to stay three games up on Detroit with 15 games to play.

The Tigers are in the same predicament they faced going into the day, and they have to wait and see whether they'll have Scherzer for his next scheduled start Sunday against the Twins. Yet after struggling to pull out close games in Cleveland and Chicago the previous couple days, Tuesday's win still put a different feel on their chances.

While the past couple losses reminded everyone what hitting can't do, Tuesday showed what the Tigers can overcome when they're on. What they can do, they can do very, very well.

"It shows you what we're capable of doing," manager Jim Leyland said, "but I didn't go into the season thinking that we'd be taking out Scherzer in the second inning and expect these guys to come in and do that. So this is a little bit of an odd night, so to speak."

When Cabrera put a Jesse Chavez pitch into the left-field seats in the eighth inning, he not only put the Tigers into double digits -- he joined the 40-homer club for the first time in his career while tying his career best with a six-RBI night. He also gave the Tigers their first grand slam of the season.

Not since Cecil Fielder in 1991 had a Tigers hitter posted a 40-homer season, and that came during the days of homer-friendly Tiger Stadium. Fielder's son, Prince, plated Cabrera with his 27th homer of the fifth inning to complete the damage on A's rookie sensation A.J. Griffin, whose first Major League loss was also the roughest start in his brief big league career.

"I just wasn't executing pitches the way I usually do," Griffin said. "I wasn't pounding the zone. I was leaving pitches up, and they capitalized. It happens sometimes, and they didn't miss them today."

Cabrera, on the other hand, praised Griffin.

"It's tough, because he throws that very slow curveball, and he locates his fastball good," he said. "You don't want him to catch you in between because it's when he gets you out. So you have to stay aggressive and try to get lucky like me and catch that curveball."

Cabrera now stands two home runs shy of leading all three Triple Crown categories. His three-hit, two-homer effort boosted his AL-leading average to .333, while he jumped out of a tie with Josh Hamilton in RBIs to jump to 129. That's also a career high.

It made for an easier night for Detroit's bullpen, which delivered seven innings of one-run ball after Scherzer left with what the Tigers described as right shoulder fatigue. An MRI exam showed no structural damage, and the Tigers will rest Scherzer for a couple days before analyzing him further.

Scherzer threw 44 pitches over two innings, including several fastballs a tick or two below his usual velocity.

No sooner had Scherzer gone into the clubhouse after the second inning than Darin Downs began warming for his first appearance in two weeks. He tossed 2 2/3 scoreless innings on two hits for his first win since Aug. 5.

"The first [win] was special, but I threw better this time," Downs said. "Most importantly, it's a big win. I kept the team in the game. That's my job in that situation."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Verlander's gritty effort helps Tigers keep pace

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/20/2012 12:47 AM ET

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DETROIT -- The pitch count Wednesday night looked like the 2010 version of Justin Verlander, but it's actually more modern than you think.

The back-to-back bunts that started Detroit's opening rally looked like something from the punchless Tigers offense of a decade ago. The Miguel Cabrera home run to cap the scoring looked like a continuation of a September to remember.

The resulting 6-2 Tigers win over the A's at Comerica Park, accompanied by a White Sox loss in Kansas City, looked like the American League Central isn't anywhere near over.

Even back to two games behind Chicago in the division race, though, the Tigers aren't focusing on the White Sox. They're focused on their own cause, winning games.

"If you win games and get into the playoffs, I think it'll take care of everything," said Cabrera, now one home run shy of the lead in all three offensive Triple Crown categories.

The Tigers won their second in a row over a team that had been one of the hottest teams in the league, but they did it with the kind of performances they haven't seen in a while.

They did it with 122 pitches from Verlander over just six innings because of 34 pitches A's hitters fouled off. They accounted for nearly a third of his first 100 pitches, a mark he reached with just one out in the fifth.

It looked like a reprisal of Verlander's younger days, when his penchant for max-effort pitches from the start ran up his pitch count in a hurry. Those outings usually ended with a few early-inning runs, a few quick middle innings and a little frustration afterwards that he couldn't pitch deeper into the game.

This was different. While A's hitters never let up on making him work, he never let go of his composure.

None of the 122 pitches Verlander threw resulted in a run.

"I think over the years, he's learned not to get totally frustrated with a game like this, where they're fouling pitches off," manager Jim Leyland said. "He said something to me during the delay, when they were taking [A's starter Brett Anderson] out. I said, 'Geez, do these guys make any easy outs?'

"That can get on your nerves a little bit, when you're making pretty good pitches and they're fouling them off."

Verlander wasn't altogether happy about it, but he credited the A's for making him work.

"The way they were swinging it, they weren't going to do a lot of damage," Verlander said. "They were just looking to put the ball in play somewhere or foul it off. So keep throwing strikes, try to execute and not get frustrated. And I was able to do that."

It might be a reminder of his youth, but the frequency of it this year is surprising. Four times this year, Verlander has had to use 120 pitches or more in outings of six innings or less. He had just two such outings in each of the previous two seasons, and none in 2009.

Wednesday was the first of the four this year that he has won.

"We had quality at-bats to get there, we just didn't get a big hit when we needed to, and that's what it takes," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "It's one thing to get his pitch count up and another to get hits with runners in scoring position, and we didn't do that."

The Tigers actually had the same 2-for-10 performance with runners in scoring position as Oakland. The A's had their two after Verlander left and the game was in hand. Detroit's two accounted for three early runs while Verlander was still on the mound.

Just as the A's had a game plan against Verlander, so did the Tigers against lefty Brett Anderson. The two advance scouts they sent to watch the A's this month, Leyland said, told them about Anderson's tendency to fall off the mound to the right side. Get the ball down the first-base line, the logic went, and there's a chance to get on.

"We got a pretty good report," Leyland said. "We took advantage of it."

Andy Dirks was the first to do so, dragging a bunt toward first base and beating the play to the bag leading off the third inning with the kind of speed he has struggled to find this season while dealing with leg injuries.

Two pitches later, Gerald Laird -- starting in place of injured Alex Avila -- did the same.

"I just figured if I could put it in the same spot Dirks did, I could beat the guy to the bag," Laird said. "I just know if I can get it in the right spot, I've got some gas in the tank still in the legs and I can beat it out."

Omar Infante plated them both with a double down the left-field line before Anderson left with a strained right oblique. Pat Neshek escaped a bases-loaded jam with a sacrifice fly, but Jhonny Peralta's fifth-inning run stretched it further.

The game was pretty comfortably in the Tigers' command by the time Cabrera lofted a Jim Miller pitch into the left-field seats in the seventh inning for his third home run in two nights. The M-V-P chants from crowd showed the timing didn't matter.

It was a fastball chin-high, and he skied it far higher than his usual home runs. It counted just as much.

"It was very high," Cabrera said. "I wasn't sure. I was saying, 'Please go out.'"

It was Cabrera's lone hit on the night, but his 1-for-3 effort maintained his AL-best .333 average to go with his 130th RBI. With 41 home runs, he's just one behind Josh Hamilton.

"You're talking about a guy that's one home run away from a Triple Crown, and that's a rarity in baseball," Verlander said. "I think that's a testament to how good of a player he is, his natural ability."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Defense hurts Tigers as sweep of A's gets away
Infante error, Garcia throw, Jackson misplay prove costly in finale

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/20/2012 6:20 PM ET

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DETROIT -- They know the feeling, watching the White Sox on television after the Tigers' game has ended and wondering where they'll stand. Days like Thursday are when the Tigers' gap in the American League Central looms, perhaps larger than it actually is.

But then, when a Tigers loss in the afternoon precedes a White Sox game at night, it's not going to be a comfortable feeling.

"Obviously we need help," catcher Gerald Laird said after Thursday's 12-4 loss to the A's at Comerica Park. "Our game's over. We lost. But we need help. I'll be watching the game. ... This is an important time, because when you lose games, you're just getting narrower and narrower in your chances."

Until the White Sox finish up their series in Kansas City on Thursday night, the Tigers sit at 2 1/2 games back in the division race as they wait for the Twins to come to town for a three-game series this weekend.

If the Tigers can finish up the homestand next Thursday down one game, Laird said, they like their chances. That night, too, they'll be waiting to see what the White Sox do, since Detroit wraps up its home season that day with a matinee against K.C.

The fact that the rest of the Tigers' schedule features the Twins and Royals gives Detroit hope of making up ground, especially with the White Sox headed for a showdown with the Angels this weekend. Their struggles Thursday in another close contest that turned in the field after taking an early lead give them a reminder for concern heading into winnable games.

"We make errors like any other team," shortstop Jhonny Peralta said. "But the errors we make are when the game's right there. That's the problem."

That said, had they not won both of the first two games, they probably would've accepted winning two out of three from an A's team that hadn't lost a series to a non-division foe in a month.

"It's difficult to sweep a team that's been as hot as they have," manager Jim Leyland said.

In the final days of the regular season, though, it's not that easy to watch those games slip.

They had a lead Thursday with a chance to sweep before the A's rallied with help in the field. Omar Infante's errant attempt to turn a double play on his own and throw against his momentum was a self-inflicted wound, scoring Oakland's first run in the third inning.

It was a ground ball up the middle, giving Infante time to make a play. Though Peralta was closing in on second base and had time to take a flip, Infante backtracked to step on the bag before trying to throw to first while drifting away from the play.

The decision itself wasn't the error, Leyland and Peralta said. Once he made the out, though, Infante rushed the throw.

"He just didn't set his feet and make the throw. I think he could've done that," Leyland said. "That was kind of a fundamental play."

Said Peralta: "He had time to stop and throw. He threw in the air. It's hard to throw straight to the base like that."

The throw from rookie right fielder Avisail Garcia in the sixth inning wasn't classified as an error, but it was a play that the A's took advantage of and used for a key extra base after Yoenis Cespedes' one-out single put the tying run on base. Garcia gathered Brandon Moss' double in the right-field corner and tried to throw to a spot.

"I tried to do too much," Garcia said.

Once the ball rolled into the infield, instead of where Tigers infielders were positioned, Cespedes kept running for home. Moss took third base on the play as the go-ahead run off starter Anibal Sanchez.

Sanchez intentionally walked Seth Smith, who homered off him an inning earlier, to face Josh Donaldson, but fell behind before Donaldson delivered a go-ahead RBI single to left.

The Tigers had a chance to hold it at that, and brought in left-hander Phil Coke to face catcher George Kottaras. The final turn that followed was a doozy, and it was nothing even AL Gold Glove Award candidate Austin Jackson anticipated.

"He makes every play," Laird said of Jackson. "It's hard for him to miss a play like that."

At first glance, Kottaras' line drive seemingly caught Jackson out of position, charging a ball he needed to backtrack to make a play. On replay, the curve in the ball's path became a little more evident.

"I was right there. It took a left turn on me," Jackson said. "It had kind of a knuckleball spin. It wasn't where I thought it was going to be, and it started drifting. ... I don't know if I've ever had a ball hit to me that's done anything like that."

Kottaras ended up with a two-run triple, and the A's ended up with a lead they wouldn't relinquish.

Six more runs in the ninth off Octavio Dotel and Drew Smyly, the rookie lefty starter inserted into a bases-loaded situation, put the game away. By the end, the Tigers were glad it counted the same as one of their one-run losses.

They'll watch. Then they'll move on.

"We win or lose as a team. It's no one's fault," Laird said. "We just didn't have a very good game today, all around. That's the bottom line."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Fister's first shutout tightens AL Central race
Right-hander fans seven as Tigers belt three homers in victory

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/22/2012 9:03 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Doug Fister had nary a threat to escape on his way to his first Major League shutout. He was so good, in fact, that his biggest escape might have been manager Jim Leyland's handshake of doom.

If you've seen enough Tigers games, you know the handshake. It's the greeting Leyland gives his starting pitcher on their way into the dugout when the skipper has decided they're done. When he shakes their hand, almost infallibly, somebody's coming in from the bullpen for the next inning.

Leyland gave Fister the handshake after eight innings and 106 pitches. After some pleading, Leyland gave him a chance at the ninth. Eleven pitches later, Fister gave him a seven-hitter and an easy 8-0 win over the Twins on Saturday afternoon at Comerica Park.

"Let's just say I made a decision that worked out right," Leyland said afterwards. "I'm not sure it was the right one."

The win moved the Tigers within one game of first place in the American League Central race -- pending the outcome of Saturday night's game between the first-place White Sox and Angels.

On the day when Miguel Cabrera tied the Rangers' Josh Hamilton for the American League lead with his 42nd home run, Cabrera's increasingly better chance at the first batting Triple Crown in 45 years was the story. But while Leyland was juggling his rotation and hoping to rest up his bullpen for a day-night doubleheader on Sunday, Fister's performance had the bigger impact.

They had a pretty fresh 'pen coming off Friday's washout, and they had Rick Porcello available in relief with the rain wiping out his scheduled start. However, the Tigers have Max Scherzer starting Sunday afternoon coming off right shoulder weakness that ended his last start after two innings, and they have Drew Smyly making a spot start in the nightcap with no lofty expectations on how many innings he can cover.

As worried as Leyland was about pushing Fister's pitch count too far, his bullpen was still a concern. When Fister wrapped up the eighth, Leyland's concern over Fister momentarily won out.

"I felt like he could definitely get the shutout," Leyland said. "What I was worried about was his next start. I didn't want to get him to 120 pitches or something."

He finished off the eighth inning having retired 12 of his last 13 batters, but his pitch count reached 106. With all his injury issues this season, Fister had topped 110 pitches just twice all season, and struggled mightily in his next time out after both of them.

Leyland remembers those, but he didn't know Fister had never come this close to a shutout.

"I was going to take him out, only because I worried about the pitch count," Leyland said. "But he's never had a shutout. So he said, 'Please let me get it, let me take a shot at it.' So I said, 'All right, I'm going to give you a couple hitters, but you'd better make it quick.' And I'm glad I did."

Thing is, Fister already tries to make it quick.

"Less than fifteen pitches an inning," he said of his goal. "It doesn't change anything for me."

Fister's first four pitches of the ninth were fastballs, before dropping a curveball that Josh Willingham swung at and missed for strike three. Three pitches later, he fanned Justin Morneau for the third time on the day. With the sellout crowd of 40,586 up and cheering, his first-pitch strike to Ryan Doumit pushed him past the 115-pitch mark.

He missed with his curveball, but his slider got an easy groundout to second for the final out. Fister walked none and struck out seven, a stark contrast from the command issues that marked Monday's loss to the White Sox in Chicago.

"Fister was unbelievable," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire. "As the game went along and the shadows were out there, this was a tough time of day anyway. You could see the guys really having a hard time. Great changeup. Good breaking ball. His sinker was going everywhere. He made it really really tough on us."

Said Fister: "I had some fine-tuning with the mechanics today, and I really focused on the little things."

Cabrera already led the league in batting average and RBIs going into the day. Though his gap on the home-run leaderboard made the Triple Crown look like a dream a week ago, his five home runs over the previous six games had vaulted him onto Hamilton's doorstep. A 3-1 pitch from reliever Anthony Swarzak set up the shot to give him a share of the lead.

"Fastball, middle-in," Cabrera said. "I was kind of like, 'Please go out.'"

Cabrera's shot carried over the left-field fence, as Willingham watched it in retreat until he ran out of room. The chants of M-V-P followed Cabrera around the bases.

Cabrera's blast gave Detroit an 8-0 lead after a five-run third inning put the Tigers in command and chased Twins starter Sam Deduno. Former Twin Delmon Young's three-run homer provided the bulk of the damage before Andy Dirks tripled and scored a batter later.

"It's like a freight train. We couldn't stop them," Gardenhire said. "We couldn't get a pitcher warmed up quick enough and next thing you know you're down whatever, seven runs just like that."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Scherzer, Tigers can't slow Twins in Game 1
Five-run sixth pivotal as Detroit seeks share of AL Central lead

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/23/2012 6:32 PM ET

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DETROIT -- The Tigers had Max Scherzer pitching effectively on Sunday, if not overpowering. They had another clutch run-scoring hit from Miguel Cabrera. And with the White Sox battling Jered Weaver later in the day, they had a chance to stake their claim to the American League Central lead.

Then came the sixth inning and a momentum swing bigger than any physical swing even Cabrera could produce.

"Just a couple of bloops and all hell broke loose," manager Jim Leyland described the five-run Minnesota rally that turned a low-scoring duel into a Twins takeover and a 10-4 Tigers loss in the opener of a day-night twin bill at Comerica Park.

They'll take the consolation out of a healthy Scherzer, whom they expect will be back at his normal velocity when he faces the Twins again on Friday at Target Field. They won't take over the division, at least not yet.

But the White Sox 4-1 loss to the Angels gives the Tigers a chance to gain a share of first place with a win in Sunday's nightcap.

A healthy Scherzer might eventually help them get there. He almost got them far enough on Sunday before a combination of well-placed hits and defensive miscues turned a rally into a runaway.

"It was good that I was able to bounce back and be able to get healthy and at least be out there for the team," Scherzer said. "I thought I was able to pitch effectively today. Just some things happened there in the sixth that I need to be better at, not falling behind in counts and stuff. It's just one of those things that happened today."

It happened on the wrong day. Scherzer's upper-90s fastball, the pitch he has been able to locate on the corner time and again during his run of a 10-1 record over his previous 15 outings, wasn't part of his arsenal in his first start since shoulder fatigue forced him out of his last outing on Tuesday night.

His fastball sat anywhere from 90-93 mph on the Comerica Park radar gun, instead of his usual 95-97, and topped out at 94 instead of 99. He got outs with it, but mixed it with more sliders, changeups and an occasional curve.

"My arm felt good. I didn't feel any fatigue or anything like that," Scherzer said. "I wasn't in my normal routine this past week of throwing how I throw, and really how I run and lift too, so I think that's why I didn't quite have the zip on my fastball today."

As far as the Tigers were concerned, they didn't want him to look for it quite yet.

"I didn't really want him to try to get the extra today," Leyland said. "I don't want to get him hurt. He's pretty important for us in the future and obviously the rest of this season."

Said Scherzer: "Given that, I realized I didn't have the zip and I was able to pitch today, I thought. [Catcher Gerald Laird] did a good job of mixing pitches up and I was able to pitch with a slider, curveball and a change. I thought I was able to mix that pretty well."

He struck out just four Twins over five-plus innings, a low strikeout total by his league-leading standards, but two of them accounted for his last two outs, fanning Pedro Florimon on a 92-mph heater before spotting a full-count slider on Denard Span to strand a runner at second.

Scherzer had retired 14 out of 16 hitters after back-to-back singles in the first, including 10 consecutive batters from the first into the fourth. It was a 2-0 game at that point on Cabrera's 132nd RBI and a Delmon Young single, yet the Tigers barely seemed threatened.

Three batters into the sixth, however, Scherzer was out, and Detroit's bullpen was struggling to halt a Minnesota rally.

The first two hits arguably could've been outs, though they wouldn't have been ordinary plays. Ben Revere's leadoff fly ball caught in a swirling wind blowing out to left and carried Andy Dirks all the way to the fence, where he eventually caught up with it.

"At first I thought I was going to be able to go back and stop and catch it," Dirks said, "then I realized I wasn't going to be able to. It hit off my glove then I ran into the wall and he got the triple."

Joe Mauer's ensuing ground ball to the right side forced a barehand grab from Omar Infante, whose attempt at a submarine throw bounced in the dirt as Mauer hit the bag and Revere scored.

Josh Willingham's double down the left-field line chased Scherzer (16-7) to set up left-hander Phil Coke against Justin Morneau, who entered the day batting .232 against lefties compared to .300 against righties. Coke got the fly ball he wanted, but off the end of Morneau's bat and into left field as Dirks struggled to read it.

"Cokey made a good pitch on Morneau," Leyland said. "He just blooped the ball."

The ball fell in front of Dirks to tie the game. Coke's four-pitch walk to Ryan Doumit loaded the bases with none out for Trevor Plouffe, who greeted Brayan Villarreal with a go-ahead ground-ball single.

That's when the game truly turned. Villarreal got the strikeout he had been seeking to slow the Twins, but his pitch in the dirt bounced away from Laird to send Morneau breaking from third. Laird fired to Villarreal in plenty of time, but Villarreal failed to tag Morneau as he slid in, believing he had a forceout at the plate.

"He got a little confused when [batter Eduardo Escobar] took off for first," Leyland said.

Once Florimon beat out a potential double play to score Doumit, the Twins had an ample lead for starter Scott Diamond (12-8), who reprised the Tigers' summer struggles against left-handers by holding down Detroit after the two-run fourth. Diamond tossed seven innings of two-run ball in Detroit for the second time this season.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers lose ground after dropping twin bill
Detroit falls one game behind White Sox for first in AL Central

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/24/2012 1:05 AM ET

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DETROIT -- Tigers manager Jim Leyland said Sunday morning it could be a tough day at Comerica Park. He wasn't expecting this.

He was talking about his starting pitching when he worried about Sunday's day-night doubleheader. He had one starting pitcher coming back from shoulder weakness and another making a spot start for the first time in a month. He wasn't thinking about the offense, not with an MVP candidate on a Triple Crown chase, and a lineup that produced a dozen runs against the Twins a day earlier and 22 runs over three games against a stingy A's pitching staff.

Once Jamey Carroll's 10th-inning single scored Denard Span in Sunday's nightcap, and the Twins were on their way to a doubleheader sweep with a 2-1 win, the offense was all Leyland could think about.

"There's not really much to explain here tonight," he said. "I'm not trying to get rid of you guys. I'm just telling you it's disappointing that we didn't score more runs today. In two ballgames today, I felt that we would certainly score more runs than we did, and we didn't."

As a result, the Tigers dropped a half-game in the American League Central standings on a day when the White Sox lost to the Angels for a series sweep. Detroit heads into its four-game series against Kansas City trailing Chicago by one full game with 10 games left to play, a gap that's far from impossible to clear.

That was the concern at the other end of the clubhouse, where players were trying to look ahead minutes afterward.

"You play 162 games. It's not like we put ourselves in a hole. We're one game out," said Drew Smyly, who allowed an unearned run over 4 1/3 innings in his spot start and ended up with a no-decision. "If [the White Sox] lose and we win, we're right there. I don't think anyone's pressing.

"They've got some big games left. We've got some big games left."

Said Austin Jackson: "I think this team is very capable of reaching our goals and [getting] past [this]."

Eventually, Leyland will move on as well. This one, however, is going to linger for a little bit for him. It marked the Tigers' 11th consecutive loss in one-run games since Aug. 23.

His team's defense, turbulent as it was at several points over the doubleheader -- including Minnesota's first run Sunday -- wasn't his primary concern. Even an add-on run that scored when reliever Brayan Villarreal mistakenly treated a play at the plate like a forceout in the 10-4 day-game loss, an obvious mental mistake, didn't get to Leyland like the bats did.

For the doubleheader, the Tigers scored five runs in 19 innings, two of those runs coming against the bullpen in the ninth inning of the opening game. In the nightcap, a first-inning run was all they got.

"I really can't answer that," Leyland said when asked about any frustration over his defense, which committed four errors, not counting Villarreal's miscue. "What cost us today is we didn't score runs. We have to score more than one run. ... That's why we didn't win the game. We just didn't score runs."

Miguel Cabrera drove in two of the five runs on RBI doubles, one in each game to extend his MLB-leading RBI total to 133, and scored another. His first-inning RBI double in the nightcap hit the out-of-town scoreboard in right-center field to score Jackson following his leadoff single. From there, however, P.J. Walters shut them down over six innings, handing a tied game to the bullpen.

"That's what you play the game for -- big games, big moments," Walters said. "Being able to come in here and try to keep Detroit out of the playoffs, it's fun."

For Walters, it was his fifth quality start in 11 outings for the Twins this season. Three of those quality starts have come against the Tigers. He has a 2.95 ERA against Detroit, and a 6.70 ERA in his other eight starts.

"He's a lot like [Doug] Fister," catcher Alex Avila said of Walters. "He's a sinkerballer with a slider and a cutter and a curveball and a changeup. He didn't make many mistakes today. Normally when you see a guy like that, you have to take advantage of the mistakes they make."

The pitching from Walters allowed the Twins to take advantage of fifth-inning defensive miscues to tie it, capped by Avila's throw over first base and into right field on a potential double-play ball as Matt Carson slid into him at the plate.

Span's pinch-hit single leading off the 10th inning set the Twins' offense in motion against Tigers closer Jose Valverde. Ben Revere worked out of a 1-2 count to run the count full, allowing Span to take off for second as Revere grounded out to third. Carroll's ensuing single to right-center allowed Span to score easily.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers' pursuit gains steam behind Verlander

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/24/2012 11:53 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Justin Verlander can spot a 99-mph fastball on the corner to strike out a hitter, come back with curveballs to get ahead of the next batter, then send down that hitter swinging at a 100-mph fastball.

About all he couldn't do for the Tigers in the American League Central race Monday was retire Adam Dunn, if only because he wasn't facing him.

No sooner had Jose Valverde finished off Verlander's third straight victory with a 6-2 win over the Royals than manager Jim Leyland turned his attention to the Indians' lead over the White Sox while he talked with reporters in his office. He saw Dunn's first home run.

"Oh boy, that's a bomb," Leyland said.

The clubhouse had cleared out by the time Dunn homered again with a go-ahead three-run shot in the eighth, sending the White Sox on their way to victory and keeping the Tigers a game back in the American League Central with nine games to go.

Verlander can't control that. In fact, with his next start Saturday in Minnesota likely the last of the regular-season barring a one-game division playoff, he can't control much on Detroit's side the rest of the way either.

He's in line to pitch the Tigers' postseason opener in a week and a half. Now it's a matter of finding a way to get there.

"It's not like every game's a must-win," Verlander said, "but it's getting close to that point. It's a lot of pressure on us, but I think this team thrives under pressure. And if we start winning a few of these ballgames that switches everything and puts the pressure on the White Sox."

Part of thriving, Andy Dirks said, is focusing on what they can do, not the other side of it.

"It would be good," Dirks said of a White Sox loss, "but we can't worry about what the other team's doing. You've just got to take care of your own business, and then however it plays out in the end is how it's going to play out."

The only other game Verlander seemed to be thinking about going into his start was the last meeting he had with the Royals. Kansas City jumped on his early pitches that August night at Kauffman Stadium for seven runs in the first two innings and eight runs on 12 hits over 5 2/3 innings.

He thought about that and changed his approach to some hitters this time around, he said. And clearly, he wasn't afraid to go to his power pitches early.

His first three pitches of the night were fastballs to Jarrod Dyson at 94, 95 and 97 mph, putting to rest the old plan of starting out slow and building up. He put four hitters in 0-2 counts the first time through the batting order, and he kept the Royals from getting anything in the air without authority until Alex Gordon homered leading off the fourth.

"Maybe [the playoff race] fueled him a little bit more," Gordon said. "He was throwing harder from the get-go than we've seen him the last couple of starts."

By then, Verlander already had a lead, which Gordon's homer cut in half to 2-1. Once Verlander got in trouble again in the fifth, he was determined to protect it.

In hindsight, Austin Jackson's running catch in left-center field on Eric Hosmer's drive prevented potential disaster, sandwiched in between singles from Jeff Francoeur and Johnny Giavotella. Instead of a tie game, Verlander had runners at the corners with one out, but he had to get through the top two hitters in the order to keep them there.

At this point, watching Verlander approach triple-digit radar readings with command is so common, it's easy to get spoiled by it. The weight of the game and the similar situations Sunday against the Twins might have actually helped the crowd of 31,521 fans appreciate it more.

"That was a pretty tough situation to get out of," Leyland said. "To get Dyson and Escobar, that's pretty tough. They're both pretty good contact hitters."

Dyson entered the night with 50 strikeouts in 308 plate appearances, and had swung and missed at just nine percent of the total strikes he had seen, according to baseball-reference.com. His strikes looking obviously was much higher, and he took a fastball and curveball to fall into a 1-2 count.

He wouldn't offer at Verlander's slider in the dirt, but he couldn't catch up with Verlander's 99-mph heater on the inside corner on his next pitch.

Escobar, whom Verlander struck out on a slider to strand a runner in scoring position in the third inning, almost went by the same script. For him, however, Verlander cranked it up one more tick and sent it off the plate as Escobar swung.

"It's a tight spot," Verlander said. "You want to keep the momentum on your side and we come right back and score some runs the next half inning."

Jackson's double to right and Francoeur's error stretched out the lead in the bottom half, one of three Jackson hits on the night. Verlander gave up an RBI single to Billy Butler, one of three Butler singles to improve him to 21-for-53 against him, but lasted eight innings with eight strikeouts.

Whether it's Verlander's last start at home this year depends a lot on what happens in Chicago this week. But he can't control it.

"You can't get uptight," he said. "This is a fun game. Obviously it is crunch time. It's time to put up or shut up, but I'm confident with our guys. We play our best baseball when our back's against the wall."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Anibal's shutout lifts Tigers to first-place tie
Right-hander yields just three hits, fans 10 to beat Royals

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/25/2012 11:40 PM ET

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DETROIT -- This is why the Tigers traded for Anibal Sanchez, for nights like Tuesday. It just took him a while to fit into it.

"That's why the team brings me here, to help the team make the playoffs," Sanchez said after his three-hit shutout in the Tigers' 2-0 win over Royals. "That is what I'm doing. When I get the chance to be on the mound, I'm just going to do my best to pitch games like that."

The American League Central deadlock with the White Sox that resulted from the victory is what the Tigers have been working to set up seemingly forever.

"It is what it is," manager Jim Leyland said. "Then there was eight. We thought all along it was going to be a dogfight, and it is."

The season-long dance between the Tigers and White Sox atop the AL Central is down to eight games over the next eight days. The runaway expectations they took into the season are gone. All they have to do is just play.

This is what Detroit wanted when it was down three games coming out of Chicago last week. The Tigers have won four of seven since then, missing a golden chance to take the division lead on Sunday against Minnesota, but the White Sox have struggled in the same span.

They haven't been atop the division by themselves in two months, but they haven't been more than three games out the whole time. That gap that seemed like a gulf the past couple weeks is finally gone, the Tigers' fate back in their hands. They'll take their chances.

Detroit doesn't have to win by eight games; one game better than Chicago over an eight-game stretch will do.

"I love our chances," catcher Gerald Laird said. "This team's got tremendous talent. One through five, I like our rotation. Our bullpen's strong. We've got two of the best hitters in the game. What's there not to like about this team? ...

"We have an exciting team. We just have to put it all together and catch the ball and we're going to be fine."

They've had that talent all year, of course, which is why the Tigers were expected to score runs aplenty each game. The way their pitching has come together, especially Sanchez, just a few runs can work.

On a night when Royals lefty Bruce Chen pitched well enough to play spoiler once again, Sanchez wouldn't let him. His old teammate, Miguel Cabrera, gave him a hand along the way.

Not only did Sanchez (4-6 with Detroit) retire the first 11 batters in order, he allowed only one ball out of the infield in the process. His fastball, which seemed to languish at times in August, was darting at 95-96 mph, setting up a breaking ball that Kansas City's young, aggressive lineup couldn't seem to resist.

"His curveball was devastating tonight," Royals manager Ned Yost. "The first time around, we had our regular approach, but we were 0-and-2 on everybody. So we looked up and the kid had like 30 strikes and five balls. So let's get after him, and we still couldn't center him up."

That last part was the difference. Sanchez had shown flashes of that form over his past few outings, notably when he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning a week-and-a-half ago in Cleveland. His previous couple starts fell apart abruptly somewhere along the line -- the seventh inning in Cleveland, the fourth inning five days ago against Oakland.

Sanchez had two chances to break this time. Cabrera, his old teammate with the Marlins years ago, took care of one. Sanchez took care of the other.

Cabrera has built an MVP resume carrying the Tigers with his bat for the past month. This was a game he might have won with his glove, which he extended as high as he could towards Salvador Perez's line drive after back-to-back singles gave Kansas City a two-out threat in the fourth.

The ball seemingly hung in the air. When it hit the top of Cabrera's glove, it stuck.

"I was very lucky right there," said Cabrera, allowing himself to laugh about it. "Yeah, it was a good play. It was exciting to catch that ball."

From there, Sanchez held the Royals to an Alcides Escobar bunt single and an Alex Gordon walk, both with two outs in the sixth inning. Faced with another potential jam, this time with All-Star Billy Butler at the plate, Sanchez and Laird set him up looking to back-to-back called strikes, including a breaking ball Sanchez dropped over the plate.

When Sanchez got Butler to swing and miss at another breaking ball, this one in the dirt, he pumped his fist and yelled at the ground. It was easily his strongest show of emotion since the trade.

"Yeah, because that guy is a pretty good hitter," Sanchez said. "With one shot, he can put his team ahead. That strikeout was the key to the game."

It was also the start of his game-ending roll of 10 straight Royals retired, half of them by strikeout to finish with 10 for the game. He hadn't gotten an out past the seventh inning as a Tiger; this time he got them all.

"That's him right here," said Cabrera, remembering his old form from Florida. "He's not going to pitch nine innings every game, but I see the confidence and I see the control. I see everything. When you see a pitcher like that, he's a tough night for hitters."

When the Tigers see Sanchez like that, they have a rotation that looks formidable for the final week.

"We work for the whole season for this moment," Cabrera said. "Hopefully we can stay focused, we can go out there and play hard and try to win."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers top Royals, stand alone atop AL Central

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/27/2012 1:17 AM ET

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DETROIT -- The groan from the crowd at Comerica Park when Jhonny Peralta hit a ground ball in the eighth inning was unmistakable. So was the sense of urgency from Andy Dirks as he charged into second base.

The next reaction from the crowd was among the signs that Dirks had done his job. He wouldn't get the go-ahead RBI in the 5-4 win over the Royals on Wednesday night, but like Alex Rios against the Tigers nine days ago, he'll take a game-winning takedown.

"When [Royals second baseman Irving Falu] came back down ... and then the crowd went nuts, I realized he didn't throw it," Dirks said. "Or if he did, it went in the dugout somewhere."

It was that fundamental play, not a walk-off homer, that earned the Tigers their first one-run victory in a month after 11 one-run losses since Aug. 24.

And once the Indians beat the White Sox a few hours later, Dirks' was the play that put the Tigers atop the American League Central by themselves for the first time since July 23.

If you wanted a sign that the Tigers are looking at this final week with a playoff urgency, that was it.

"We haven't always played good, but we've played hard," manager Jim Leyland said. "Effort has never been a problem here, or guys being into it. If anybody questioned whether we were into it, if they watched the game tonight, then hopefully that will erase any thought like that.

"We're into it. We're just not a rah-rah team."

They haven't been much of a baserunning team for most of the year, either. Yet Dirks' slide completed a go-ahead rally that the Tigers pretty much manufactured to complete their comeback from what was once a three-run deficit.

"That was awesome, how we won that game," said Don Kelly, who scored the go-ahead run thanks to Dirks' slide. "The stolen base, Dirks gets a big hit and takes a guy out, that's playing baseball."

Two fourth-inning home runs from Alex Avila and Austin Jackson brought the Tigers back from the deficit the Royals inflicted on Rick Porcello, whose eighth consecutive start without a win was also his fifth straight start without getting through the fifth inning. After a highlight play from Miguel Cabrera on a first-inning grounder, Porcello gave up six of his seven hits in the air, including three doubles in a three-run third and Jeff Francoeur's solo homer in the fourth.

It looked like a sign of playoff urgency when Leyland went to the bullpen for September callup Luis Marte, who replaced Porcello in the fifth inning with the score suddenly tied. In actuality, it was a sign of concern about what Leyland was seeing in Porcello's pitches.

"I was suspicious," Leyland said. "I just didn't like the velocity drop. That's usually a red flag. There's nothing wrong. He told [pitching coach Jeff Jones] that during the third inning, he just had no feel for it."

Marte, Al Alburquerque and Joaquin Benoit combined for four scoreless innings and six strikeouts to keep the score tied. Add Jose Valverde's perfect ninth for his 32nd save, and it was one of the best performances from Detroit's bullpen in the second half.

That bought some time for the offense, which couldn't get another rally going against Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie, who retired the final eight Tigers he faced to wrap up his seven innings. The Tigers finally rallied once Guthrie left, and they manufactured a run off a flame-throwing reliever to do it.

Delmon Young's one-out infield single sent Leyland to his bench, using Kelly to pinch-run. He did it knowing that he would probably try to send Kelly against Kelvin Herrera.

"We knew [Herrera] was slow home," Leyland said, "but that guy's really a good thrower, and I wasn't sure if Donnie could make it or not. But I was emphasizing before he went out there to get a good lead.

"Everybody thinks a good jump is the most important thing, but a good lead is important, too, because if you've got an extra half-step or an extra step in your original lead, that makes a big difference. And he had a good lead."

That was probably the difference, because Kelly barely made it in. The play was close enough that catcher Salvador Perez was stunned he didn't get the call.

"I thought I was safe," Kelly said. "I thought it was a good call."

Dirks' ground ball through the left side advanced Kelly to third, but a charging Alex Gordon in left field left third-base coach Gene Lamont with a low-percentage play at best if he sent him. Instead, Lamont held Kelly in hopes that the struggling Peralta could put a ball in play and send him home.

Leyland thought about having Dirks try to steal second but wasn't sure whether the Royals would then intentionally walk Peralta and bring in lefty Tim Collins to face Avila. In fact, he was second-guessing the decision after the game.

When Peralta hit the grounder to third, Leyland was filled with dread. The difference that allowed Dirks to hone in on Falu, he said, might have been the same secondary lead that benefited Kelly.

"I don't know if it's where the throw was or what, but he was on my side of the bag, which gave me a better chance at him," Dirks said. "I was just going in hard and trying to make a good, clean, hard slide, and that's what I did.

"You just try to get a piece of him. You're not trying to hurt him per se. You're just trying to break up the double play. However you can do it to help the team is what your goal is."

With the Tigers now owning a magic number of seven, "however they win" is pretty much the theme.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs

Tigers keep grip on first with walk-off sweep
Avila's RBI grounder caps strange afternoon in series finale

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/27/2012 6:26 PM ET

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DETROIT -- The Tigers' magic number fell to six on Thursday. Their magic seems to be multiplying.

On the first day in two months with the American League Central race in their control, the Tigers took care of business with a 5-4 walk-off win to sweep the Royals out of town and move a game-and-a-half ahead of White Sox, pending the result of Chicago's night game against the Rays.

The fact that the Tigers did it on one of the strangest days they've had at the office this season is secondary.

Doug Fister's nine consecutive strikeouts set an American League record en route to seven of the best innings a Tigers starter has thrown this year. But the ninth inning, after he had exited, left him with a no-decision.

When Billy Butler's game-tying home run off Joaquin Benoit quieted the crowd of 33,019 on a September afternoon, the Tigers seemed set up for a potentially crushing loss that would reshape the division race. When Prince Fielder's comebacker skipped over reliever Tim Collins and under Johnny Giavotella's glove, Detroit had its first signs of offensive life since the second inning with a seeing-eye double.

"It reached the outfield," Fielder said with a smile, when asked if it was his first career infield double. "Barely."

When Jhonny Peralta hit a chopper to third, the feeling of dread at a potential inning-ending double play was inescapable, until Mike Moustakas' error of the game loaded the bases with one out.

When Brayan Pena, a backup catcher filling in at first base for injured Eric Hosmer, made a diving stop on Alex Avila's ground ball at first, the split-second of fear at another potential double play was understandable.

When Pena touched first base with a look of resignation as Don Kelly sprinted home with the winning run, the sense of the race turning further in the Tigers' favor was unmistakable.

"It was just a great day," manager Jim Leyland said. "It turned out great for us, and it could've been a really tough, tough loss. But like I say, you can see that everybody's playing for something."

Fielder might have described it best when asked if he could remember another win this year quite this, well, you know ...

"Weird?" Fielder asked. "Nah. It's a first for me."

Weird sounds about right.

"That was unbelievable," Kelly said. "That was fun."

Those are other suggestions.

"This is a crazy game," Leyland said. "It's almost a shame [Fister] didn't get the win. But the Tigers got the win and that's, right now, the most important thing."

That was the bottom line in the Tigers' clubhouse as they packed up for their season-ending road trips to Minnesota and Kansas City. In the end, no matter how weird or crazy, they took care of business, and they put pressure on the White Sox in their series opener with Tampa Bay on Thursday.

"They're playing against a team that's just as big of a threat as anybody else," reliever Phil Coke said.

Fister's strikeout streak took him through the first seven innings with a shutout bid, allowing four Tigers runs over two error-marred Royals innings to loom as a formidable margin. Once Moustakas and Jeff Francoeur doubled leading off the eighth, the Royals were back in the game.

It took a ranging play from second baseman Omar Infante to stop the Royals' rally and keep it a one-run game. Once Butler led off the ninth with a game-tying home run off Benoit, closing in place of the ill Jose Valverde, the comeback was complete.

The Tigers had managed just two singles since the second inning when Collins took the mound for the ninth. Fielder's bouncer up the middle didn't look like it would join them.

An aggressive, and admittedly lucky, turn from Fielder turned it into a two bases.

"I thought I had a shot, so I kind of went for it," Fielder said. "Probably would've been out if [shortstop Tony Abreu] made a good throw, but it was going to be tough for him because he was on the run."

Fielder was safe when Abreu threw wide of second. It opened up first base for Greg Holland to intentionally walk Delmon Young and set up a double play after Ramon Santiago's sacrifice bunt attempt couldn't get Fielder to third.

Once, maybe twice, it looked like the Royals might get the double play. Kelvin Herrera faced Peralta in almost the same situation as Wednesday night. Instead of a takeout slide at second erasing the twin-killing, Moustakas' bobble never gave him a chance to start it.

"No excuses for that, it's a play that has to be made," Moustakas said of the Royals' fifth error. "Kelvin did a great job getting a ground ball to me and I just missed it."

With the bases loaded, Avila came precariously close to a walk-off walk. Then his sharp grounder down the first-base line looked at first like a walk-off hit.

"When I hit it, I thought that it was down the line," Avila said. "And then, all of a sudden, I just see [Pena] dive and catch it. It's a good thing he couldn't get it out of his glove."

Kelly, pinch-running for Young, was watching from across the infield.

"You have to go hard on that, because if he comes up and tries to throw home, I thought that I had a chance to beat it," Kelly said. "If he touches first and then tries to throw home, you have to get in there."

Pena said later his first reaction was to try to throw home. His position and Avila's charge down the line gave him no choice.

"I dove and I saw him coming my way, so I had no shot," Pena said. "So I just took the out, for whatever it was worth."

For the Royals, it wasn't worth much. For the Tigers, it was priceless, even if it was weird.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs

Tigers' loss to Twins keeps Central race tight

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/29/2012 1:07 AM ET

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MINNEAPOLIS -- Drew Smyly had a harder time getting to Target Field on Friday than he seemingly had once he took the mound there. Smyly got lost in the Skywalks of downtown Minneapolis, he said, until he finally made his way back to the team hotel.

"I got very turned around," Smyly said. "I was struggling at first. I didn't know which way to go, but finally, I found it."

If that maze sounds like the American League Central race right now, it's understandable. With five games left and the Tigers' lead down to a single game after Friday's 4-2 loss to the Twins, the nervous weekend Detroit fans were anticipating is on.

The White Sox, who began the day two games back, beat the Rays, 3-1, at U.S. Cellular Field.

"This year nothing comes easy for us, it seems like," catcher Gerald Laird said. "We've been through a lot with injuries and the ups and downs of playing good baseball at times and not playing good baseball. It's just one of those things where we know it's going to be a dogfight to the end."

Like a confused tourist on the Skywalk, just when the Tigers think they've found the direct path to their goal, they run into another obstacle. On Friday they found two: Scott Diamond -- again -- and Ryan Doumit.

"Every game's going to count," Laird said. "We knew the White Sox weren't going to go away. We've just got to come back, bounce back tomorrow and get a win and give us a chance to win the series."

With Justin Verlander and Anibal Sanchez taking the mound the next two days, they have the pitching for it. But Smyly gave them the pitching for it on Friday. The way this division race is unfolding, that might end up being the one blessing they get out of a frustrating evening.

Smyly started in place of Max Scherzer, who continues to deal with soreness in his right shoulder. If Scherzer can't make his next scheduled start in Wednesday's regular-season finale at Kansas City, it will be Smyly's outing. The Tigers' postseason berth could hinge on that game.

This situation bears a little resemblance to 2009, when the Tigers had to go with then-20-year-old rookie Rick Porcello in their AL Central tiebreaker against the Twins. Friday's performance gave every reason to believe that Smyly, a 23-year-old rookie in just his second pro season, can handle it.

Smyly gave Detroit a chance on Friday, holding down Minnesota's lefty-loaded lineup. His only hits were third-inning singles to Eduardo Escobar and Denard Span, and he stranded both by fanning Joe Mauer for his fourth strikeout through the Twins' first 12 batters.

"I know what you have to do up here to get wins, and our starting pitcher did enough of that tonight for us," manager Jim Leyland said.

So, however, did Diamond.

Before the game, Leyland talked about his hitters making adjustments against the left-hander after he'd thrown seven innings of four-hit, two-run ball five days earlier at Comerica Park. When Diamond adjusted as well, however, he nearly duplicated his pitching line.

"Our mentality going into it was [to] just keep that same mentality we had in Detroit, just attack and work the outside half and mix up speeds," Diamond said. "When we saw them making the adjustment, that's when we started to shift ours."

For the first seven innings, in fact, Diamond shut down Detroit's offense, his lone threat thwarted when Ben Revere threw out Miguel Cabrera by at least three strides at the plate on Delmon Young's two-out single in the sixth with Jhonny Peralta on deck.

Cabrera had started the two-out rally with a line drive that looked like it was headed out before bouncing high off the right-field wall. Cabrera ended up at first base when Revere fielded the ball off the hop and fired quickly to second, and he looked frustrated at second after Prince Fielder's ensuing single. Rounding third, however, he looked limited.

Cabrera said afterward that his right ankle, which had limited him last month, was not hampering him.

Smyly retired the final nine batters he faced before Span's groundout leading off the sixth inning pushed his pitch count to 93. That was enough for Leyland, who went to Phil Coke to finish the sixth.

Coke started the seventh with a Justin Morneau ground ball, but it skirted past Fielder for his 11th error of the year. Coke recovered from a 2-0 count to get back to even against Doumit, but he paid for a fastball that Doumit sent out for his 17th home run of the year.

That looked like it would be enough for Diamond, but once again an infield error started a rally, this one a Trevor Plouffe miscue putting Austin Jackson on ahead of Omar Infante's fourth Tigers home run this season.

Octavio Dotel had finished the seventh inning for Detroit but felt soreness in his biceps. Rather than risk worsening it and losing him for the stretch run, Leyland went to Brayan Villarreal, who walked the bases loaded before paying for a first-pitch strike to Doumit.

One of the walks was intentional, a free pass to Mauer after Revere had sacrificed Span to second. Villarreal's ensuing 3-0 count and five-pitch walk to Morneau, however, was the killer, leaving him no room to fall behind Doumit.

"I thought about calling a breaking ball, but my thought is, 'I have to get ahead right here,'" Laird said. "If I call a breaking ball and he falls behind, sometimes it takes a couple of pitches to get his fastball command back. ... I'm thinking, 'If he makes a good fastball pitch down and away at 97 mph, the guy's going to hit a ground ball.' Unfortunately, he just got it up a little bit, and Doumit made a good swing on it."

Doumit jumped on a first-pitch 98-mph fastball and sent it into the gap in right-center field, scoring two.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs

Verlander, Miggy boost Tigers' cushion to two
Ace dominates, while Triple Crown hopeful ties for AL homer lead

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/29/2012 10:28 PM ET

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MINNEAPOLIS -- The Tigers knew what the White Sox were doing Saturday afternoon. They couldn't miss it on the huge out-of-town scoreboard on the right-field wall at Target Field.

By the time they watched Ryan Doumit's opposite-field grand slam land in the flower bed beyond the left-field fence, they were worried about their own score.

"The heart starts pumping a little faster, obviously. That's a good thing," manager Jim Leyland said about Minnesota's eighth-inning comeback after Detroit held on for a 6-4 win. "If it don't pump at all, that's not good."

Or, as he described the American League Central race, which the Tigers now lead by two games, "It hasn't lacked for excitement."

Particularly on Saturday, it hasn't lacked for standout performances, either.

Justin Verlander put himself back in front of the conversation for another AL Cy Young Award with seven-plus strong innings. Miguel Cabrera put himself back in line for the Triple Crown with his 43rd home run of the year.

More important to both, the Tigers are back in a commanding position for their second straight AL Central title.

"Big game for us to gain a game in the standings," Verlander said. "Back to two games [up] with four to play, obviously it's big for us."

The Tigers' fifth win in their past six games combined with the White Sox 10-4 loss to the Rays created that two-game lead. Any combination of three Detroit wins or Chicago losses over the next four days will clinch the division.

To say the Tigers can smell it would be melodramatic, especially when taking care of their own business involved so much drama. Still, as they watched the White Sox game unfold on the scoreboard, they knew the significance.

"You've got to focus on your game," Cabrera said, "but somebody touching your back and saying, 'Look! Look!' That's the time when you look [at the scoreboard]. But you can't lose your focus. You have to stay in your game.

"First of all, you have to win games. If we win, we take care of it."

The sooner the Tigers can do it, the better, because it would allow them to rest ailing starter Max Scherzer for a potential Division Series start. Scherzer's availability for Wednesday's regular-season finale is a looming question.

Saturday, meanwhile, was a reminder that Verlander is a near certainty when he's on, and a potential handful for opponents in the postseason. Once he got his full assortment of pitches going in the early innings behind the late-afternoon shadows, he didn't give the Twins much of a chance.

Verlander (17-8) retired the first eight Twins he faced and allowed a lone walk through three innings. Yet Ben Revere's leadoff single in the fourth and a Joe Mauer walk gave Verlander his best showcase of the afternoon.

Up came the middle third of the Twins' order, beginning with Justin Morneau, owner of two home runs off Verlander in his career. In came Verlander's complete arsenal.

The fastball that had been 94-95 mph for the first few innings hit 99 mph twice against Morneau, who swung and missed at the latter of them.

Doumit, who drove in all four of Minnesota's runs in Friday's win, didn't see a fastball in any of his three pitches. He took a first-pitch changeup, watched a second-pitch curveball drop on the corner, then swung at a 90-mph changeup for strike three.

For Chris Parmelee, Verlander threw fastballs at 98, 99 and 100 mph, missed on an 0-2 curveball, then went back to it for a called third strike.

It won't go down among Verlander's best single innings because he allowed two baserunners. Still, it was a display.

"He knows how important that part of the game was," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "He really started to let it fly there for a couple innings. And that's what he brings to the table. That's why he's won a Cy Young and is probably up there again."

The White Sox were down big early thanks to a rough start for Chris Sale, as the Tigers knew soon after they took the field for their game, which started at the same time. Once Prince Fielder hit his 29th home run and Jhonny Peralta doubled in a run, it looked for a long while that was all the lead Verlander needed.

With the score still 2-0, Austin Jackson's leadoff single and Quintin Berry's walk chased Alex Burnett in the eighth inning. Cabrera greeted ex-teammate Casey Fien with a line drive just over the left-field fence for his 43rd home run, tying Josh Hamilton for the AL lead.

Andy Dirks' eighth home run of the year completed the four-run inning. By the time Detroit batted in the ninth, it was a critical insurance run.

Verlander went into the eighth inning with 111 pitches, and Peralta's throwing error put Denard Span on base on pitch 117 to lead off the inning. Leyland said he was not going to let Verlander top 120 pitches at this point in the season, not with potential postseason outings looming.

"Verlander was getting to 116-117 and the part of the order that's had some success with him," Leyland said. "That was a no-brainer. I don't know if Joaquin, his concentration wasn't real good. I can't answer that. He just wasn't sharp."

Benoit has given up his share of home runs this year -- Doumit's was the 14th -- but 11 of them had been solo shots. When Mauer and Morneau drew back-to-back walks, it was just the second bases-loaded situation Benoit faced all year.

Doumit, obviously, emptied them.

"The location on the home-run pitch was perfect, fastball down and away," Avila said. "This is a tough park for a left-hander to go opposite field on, so you tip your hat to Doumit."

Once Trevor Plouffe singled and Jamey Carroll walked off Al Alburquerque, Pedro Florimon was the potential go-ahead run. He worked the count full before Alburquerque spotted a slider for strike three, pounding his glove on his way to the dugout. Jose Valverde worked the ninth for his 33rd save.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs

Prince's blast moves Tigers step closer to berth
Coupled with White Sox loss, Detroit's magic number reduced to one

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 9/30/2012 7:30 PM ET

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MINNEAPOLIS -- With one loft into the left-field flower bed at Target Field, Prince Fielder might well have buried the suspense from the American League Central race, not to mention a summer's worth of questions about whether the Tigers would take over the division.

When Fielder was done rounding the bases on the go-ahead two-run home run in the eighth inning of an eventual 2-1 Tigers win over the Twins, he almost bowled over a couple teammates bounding into the dugout, nearly slipping on the steps.

"Yeah, that's not a good time to be in his way," manager Jim Leyland said.

Miguel Cabrera, who caught Fielder in the dugout, returned the favor in the postgame celebration when he jumped on his back for a piggyback ride. The way the game unfolded, it seemed fitting.

All season long, Fielder has been one of the most steady presences in the Tigers clubhouse. His outlook often made it hard to tell on a given day whether the Tigers had won or lost. Maybe it was the situation or the scene, but the emotion bubbled out of him.

"When it's there, I let it out," Fielder said with a smile.

With his 30th homer of the year, what would have been a frustrating shutout loss to the Twins became the kind of win the Tigers have started to pull out lately -- low-scoring decisions dictated by pitching. Once former Tigers reliever and current Rays closer Fernando Rodney shut down the White Sox in the ninth inning minutes later, Detroit reached the doorstep of its second straight AL Central title.

The Tigers' magic number is down to one, meaning they need only one win over the next three nights in Kansas City, or one White Sox defeat in Cleveland in the same stretch, and they'll be the first Tigers team to reach the postseason in back-to-back years since Charlie Gehringer led Detroit to back-to-back World Series in 1934-35.

Less than two weeks after falling three games back, and a week after missing a golden opportunity to take the lead in a doubleheader, the Tigers are right where they want to be. They have two nail-biting wins to thank for it.

"We have to wait," said closer Jose Valverde, who finished off Anibal Sanchez's third win in four starts with his 34th save. "It's not over yet. I want to win already, but you never know. Baseball's so crazy."

Detroit will still have some work to do to finish the job, and some concerns about its offense. The Twins entered the day with an AL-high 4.79 ERA, but held Detroit to 10 runs over three games, including just four runs against Minnesota's three starting pitchers.

Liam Hendriks delivered the stingiest performance of them all, holding the Tigers to five hits over seven scoreless innings. He escaped two-on, one-out situations in the fifth and sixth innings, the latter with a Fielder double-play grounder after Quintin Berry's sacrifice bunt opened up first base for Hendriks to intentionally walk Miguel Cabrera.

"He used all pitches, spotted both sides of the plate, threw a breaking ball behind in the count," Leyland said. "Very effective, obviously, and we haven't seen much of him. He did a good job."

Sanchez kept pace for as long as he could, holding Minnesota's lineup to five singles over the first six innings with the same type of pitching that helped him shut out the Royals on three hits Tuesday in Detroit. It made for all the more sudden of a turn when his first three seventh-inning pitches turned into the game's opening run -- a first-pitch infield single to deep short from Trevor Plouffe, a sacrifice bunt from Alexi Casilla and a first-pitch RBI single from rookie shortstop Pedro Florimon.

"They're able to push a run across with an infield hit, a broken bat hit," Alex Avila said, "and up until Prince's home run, it seemed like we had so many hard-hit balls at guys with guys on base. It's a funny game."

If not for a step saved or a piece of strategy, Fielder might not have gotten the second chance. Austin Jackson's leadoff single off Jared Burton in the eighth set up the Tigers with a similar situation to the sixth. With the Tigers down a run, however, Leyland didn't want to play for one.

"I think that last situation, down a run, I wanted both the big guys to have a chance to hit," Leyland said.

After Burton struck out Berry, Cabrera saw a potential game-tying double nearly turn into an inning-ending double play on Florimon's leaping catch. Cabrera's liner was hit so hard, it looked like a hit.

"I really didn't have enough time to make the decision if I was going to go or not," Jackson said. "I kind of froze a little bit. If that ball gets through, I'm looking to get to third."

Fielder, by contrast, came up just hoping to get the ball out of the infield for the first time all day. He was 2-for-7 in his career off Burton, both singles.

"I don't think I've made contact off him the past three at-bats," Fielder said. "So I figured if it was something straight, I'd better swing."

He got a first-pitch fastball over the plate and lofted it.

"Burton's been so good for us," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "I think he was trying to go with a fastball outside and actually yanked it to the middle, and the guy did what he does. They got those big guys in the middle. You know if you make a mistake, they're going to hurt you. And that one ended up hurting us."

It might be the shot that ends up propelling the Tigers. Asked if it was the biggest home run of his career, Fielder smiled.

"At least on this team," he said. "Like I said, I'm just happy I was able to help out today. It was tough today, but it ended up well."

It could end up sweeter on Monday.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs

Tigers are the ones to reclaim AL Central title
Miggy's 44th fuels decisive sixth as Detroit goes back-to-back

By Jason Beck and Vinnie Duber / MLB.com | 10/2/2012 1:05 AM ET

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KANSAS CITY -- The Tigers' roller-coaster season led them to town with three chances to wrap up their second straight American League Central title. They only needed one, and they roughed up Royals nemesis Bruce Chen to do it.

What looked like another pitching duel between Chen and the Tigers broke open when Miguel Cabrera's AL-leading 44th home run of the year -- part of his four-hit game -- ignited a five-run sixth inning. The other end of the pitching duel, Rick Porcello, earned his first win since Aug. 7, and the Tigers secured a return trip to the postseason with a 6-3 win Monday night at Kauffman Stadium.

Thus, a month since being swept in Kansas City, two weeks after losing in Chicago to fall three games behind the White Sox, and eight days after missing a chance to take over the division by getting swept by the Twins, the Tigers completed their late-season surge to become the first AL team this year to wrap up a division title. They're the first Tigers team with back-to-back postseason berths since Hall of Famer Charlie Gehringer led Detroit to a pair of World Series in 1934-35.

"It's great, man. We got it," Cabrera said. "This feels awesome. We've got to give credit to the White Sox, Kansas City, everybody, because it was a good race, unbelievable race. We're happy. We're proud, too, because it was a lot of pressure. Everybody said we weren't going to make it. We did. It's unbelievable."

The Tigers have no idea yet who they'll face, but they know they'll start at home to open the AL Division Series on Saturday and Sunday at Comerica Park.

Chen was strong through the game's first four innings, allowing just a pair of singles. And, after striking out Delmon Young to start the fifth, Chen had retired 12 of the first 14 hitters. But Jhonny Peralta snapped a scoreless tie by smoking the first pitch he saw into the Royals' bullpen for a solo home run.

Chen allowed three consecutive singles from there but somehow escaped damage. The following frame, though, Cabrera took a sixth-inning sinker and lined it into the right-field bullpen for home run No. 44 and RBI No. 137. The third baseman finished 4-for-5 and upped his AL-leading batting average to .329. With two games left, his bid for baseball's first batting Triple Crown in 45 years is the one bit of suspense left for Detroit. He'll go into Tuesday with not just a lead, but a cushion in batting average, home runs and RBIs.

Prince Fielder, who also finished with four hits, followed Cabrera's blast with a double, which went to the wall after Royals center fielder David Lough couldn't make a diving catch. After a flyout, Lough then dropped a Peralta fly ball, allowing Fielder to score. Andy Dirks singled, and Royals manager Ned Yost made the odd decision to intentionally walk rookie Avisail Garcia and let Chen face Gerald Laird. The Detroit catcher picked up a base hit an inning earlier and went 2-for-3 against Chen last week in Detroit.

Laird worked a 3-1 count before lining a bases-clearing double into the left-field corner and bumping the Detroit lead to 6-0, breaking the game wide open.

"I just wanted to have a good at-bat," Laird said. "Chen had been working me pretty tough all night, and I just wanted to make sure he got a pitch up in the zone. He kept cutting me in, and I was able to lay off some tough pitches. And then finally I got a fastball up in the zone that I was looking for, and I just didn't miss it. A guy like that, who's crafty like that, when he gives you something to hit, you can't miss it. I was able to put good wood on it, and it found a hole."

Laird's three RBIs were the most he's picked up in a single game since Aug. 3, 2008, against the Blue Jays. And, with three being the final margin of victory, the hit couldn't have been any bigger.

"It was great," Laird said. "You want to end it as quick as you can because you know Chicago won [11-0 over the Indians] tonight. You didn't want to give that young, good club over there [Royals] any momentum and have them sweep us like they did already. We want to come out and get a lead for our pitching staff. It just feels really good. For them to walk [Garcia] and to get a chance to be the one to get a big hit, that's what you play this game for."

It was also a great night for Porcello, who won for the 10th time this season and first time in nine starts. His string of brief outings continued, as he lasted just 5 1/3, but he allowed just one run, the fewest since July 21 against the White Sox.

Porcello made his exit after surrendering a solo home run to Alex Gordon to leadoff the bottom of the sixth. The Royals scored another two runs off the Tigers' bullpen, but Jose Valverde pitched a scoreless ninth inning for his 35th save of the season.

"On a personal level, it felt really good, just because I wanted to contribute," Porcello said. "I knew we were going to do it. I just wanted to help out. Obviously, my last couple starts haven't ended the way I wanted to, so tonight was a good finish to the regular season. I'm just happy for everybody around us. I just love all the guys on the team and it's just a great feeling to share this with them and the city of Detroit."

The division title is the Tigers' third since winning their last World Series in 1984.

"That's what baseball's all about: races," Laird said. "And Chicago battled us to the end. They've got a good ballclub over there. We knew they weren't going to go away. They got up three games about a week-and-a-half ago, but we didn't panic. We just played our game, and we got some help from other teams and were able to play good baseball."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. Vinnie Duber is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers take their loss against Royals in stride
Leyland opts to shorten players' nights with playoff berth in hand

By Vinnie Duber / MLB.com | 10/2/2012 10:55 PM ET

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KANSAS CITY -- One night after clinching their second consecutive American League Central Division championship, the Tigers' cast was missing many of its usual characters.

Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder were out before the end of the sixth inning. Starting pitcher Doug Fister was given the hook in the fifth after 79 pitches. Austin Jackson, Andy Dirks and Jhonny Peralta didn't make an appearance.

"You want to win every game, but that's not a necessity anymore," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said after his team's 4-2 loss to the Royals on Tuesday night.

The lack of regular starters might explain why Detroit was held to just two runs on six hits at Kauffman Stadium.

The word used around the Detroit clubhouse: relax.

"It was pretty good, just a little bit more relaxed," outfielder Quentin Berry said of the team's energy. "I think it's well deserved with the way that we've been playing lately, coming back and clinch the division. Take a step back and enjoy it and be smart about it."

"This is supposed to be a game where you want to win it, but you're supposed to relax a little bit," Leyland said. "You just have to work your fanny off even in games like this, because you've got some major decisions to make. A major decision being getting Fister out after a pitch count, making a decision on when to take Prince out and Miguel out. Jackson didn't play at all."

But not all the credit for Detroit's loss belongs on the visitors' shoulders. Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie was strong and effective like he has been most of the season's second half.

The right-hander has enjoyed a resurgence in Kansas City, something the Tigers have now experienced first-hand several times. This performance was reminiscent of the game here on Aug. 30, when he held the Tigers to just one run over 7 1/3 innings. On this night, he was nearly as hard to score on, allowing just two runs on five hits over six innings.

"He didn't miss over the middle of the plate too much," Berry said. "He was working the corners, mixing a lot of balls and strikes, but the strikes are right there on the corners. Any pitcher's going to be successful if you're doing that."

The only Tiger that caused Guthrie consistent headaches was -- who else? -- Miguel Cabrera, who is chasing baseball's first Triple Crown since 1967. He entered the game batting .304 in his career against Guthrie -- 7-for-23 with a pair of home runs and four RBIs. He went 2-for-3 in this one before leaving in the middle of the fifth inning, raising his AL-leading batting average to .331. It was Cabrera that temporarily gave Detroit the lead in the top of the third.

Trailing 1-0, Don Kelly led off with a well-struck ball to right field, which was caught by Jeff Francoeur. But it was a sign of things to come. Danny Worth walked, while Berry and Ramon Santiago singled to load the bases for Cabrera. He lined the first pitch of his at-bat into center field, bringing in two runs for a 2-1 lead.

The Tigers missed a chance to do more damage. After Cabrera's single, Fielder walked to again load the bases with only one out. But Delmon Young followed with a soft liner to second baseman Tony Abreu, who threw to Billy Butler to double Fielder off at first base and end the inning.

"We had a couple of those tonight," Berry said. "There's nothing you can do about that. Donny [Kelly] hit some balls hard tonight and came away with just one. A couple hits by [Avisail] Garcia and [Brayan] Holaday that could've sparked something, but they made good plays. They've got a great defensive club and good young players over there. Credit to them."

When Detroit took the field in the bottom half of the fifth, Cabrera was out of the game.

"You do a lot of things instinctively as a manager," Leyland said. "Some you can plan out, but they seem to never work out. But some you just kind of use instinctively. And I said, 'You know what? Three at-bats is enough.'"

One of Leyland's other managerial decisions was to lift Fister in the fifth after the right-hander gave up the slim one-run advantage. Back-to-back singles by Irving Falu and Jarrod Dyson to lead off the inning put runners at the corners with none out. Alcides Escobar -- who homered off Fister in the first to give the Royals an initial lead -- followed with a single through the left side of the infield to tie the game at 2.

A one-out walk to Butler loaded the bases, and that was the end of Fister's night. Luke Putkonen came on in relief, and the second pitch he threw was bounced to short by Salvador Perez. Worth flipped to Santiago for one out, but Santiago couldn't get a grip on the ball and Perez beat the throw to first to plate the go-ahead run.

Fister took his 10th loss of the season. His two-start run of extended outings was snapped with just 4 1/3 innings. He allowed three runs on seven hits and a pair of walks. In three starts against Kansas City this season, Fister went 1-1 with a 4.50 ERA.

"I'm not worried about him. He's fine," Leyland said. "The pitch count got up there where I just couldn't go anymore. I didn't really want to go more than 75. I was hoping with Butler we could get a double-play ball, but we didn't so I had to make the move. We've hopefully got bigger fish to fry, so I thought it was important to get him out of there."

Even with a playoff spot locked up, though, there will be drama in Wednesday's series finale as Cabrera's chase for the Triple Crown will come to an end, one way or the other. The question: Will the third baseman play?

"There won't be any debate if he wants to play," Leyland said. "If he wants to play, he'll play."

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

Tigers close with victory on Miggy's big night

By Vinnie Duber / MLB.com | 10/3/2012 11:20 PM ET

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KANSAS CITY -- As October marches on, the Tigers will play far more important games. But when the regular season's final out was made, Miguel Cabrera assured the night would always have a place in the history books.

The Tigers third baseman became baseball's first Triple Crown winner since Boston's Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, as Detroit posted a 1-0 win over Kansas City on Wednesday in the rubber game at Kauffman Stadium.

Despite going 0-for-2 with a flyout and a strikeout, Cabrera was the highlight of Detroit's victory. His at-bats might have been uneventful -- and even caused the slightest of dips in his league-leading average -- but each time he strolled to the plate, the largely pro-Royals crowd greeted him with loud ovations.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland lifted Cabrera from the game with two outs in the bottom of the fourth. Ramon Santiago ran out to take Cabrera's place in the field, and the American League Most Valuable Player Award candidate received a hug. Cabrera made his way to the dugout as the Kauffman Stadium crowd rose to its feet in a standing ovation. The crowd was a big one at 30,383, and 12,503 of those tickets were sold on Wednesday.

Cabrera tipped his cap to the fans and he received hugs from teammates in the dugout. The Tigers on the field took off their gloves and clapped, and cheering grew louder as the fans requested another appearance from the Triple Crown winner. Cabrera made his curtain call, once again tipping his hat and gesturing in thanks to the Royals' dugout, where players and coaches all rose in applause.

Cabrera finishes his regular season with a .330 batting average, 44 home runs and 139 RBIs. There was no multi-homer day from Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton in Oakland. Mike Trout didn't go 6-for-6 in Seattle. Even Curtis Granderson, who hit two home runs in the Yankees' win over the Red Sox to come within one of Cabrera, was removed from his game in the seventh for a pinch-hitter.

Meanwhile, though, on a night celebrating the utmost in offensive achievement, runs were hard to come by.

Detroit struck for the game's only run, thanks to the baserunning of Omar Infante.

Infante singled to leadoff the top of the fifth against Royals starter Luis Mendoza, and proceeded to steal second during the following at-bat. After a strikeout, he stole third and scored easily on an Austin Jackson hustle double into left-center field.

The double was Jackson's second hit of the night, and he departed after the hit as the proud owner of his first career .300 season.

In the bottom of the fifth, following the exit of starter Max Scherzer, Tigers relievers Drew Smyly and Luis Marte loaded the bases. But Detroit escaped the jam when Billy Butler flied to right to end the inning.

Both teams stranded a bevy of runners, with the Royals leaving 10 men on base and the Tigers stranding seven.

Scherzer made the start for the Tigers despite being deemed unable to do so the night before. The righty sustained a twisted right ankle during Monday's AL Central-clinching celebration, but nonetheless he made his first start since Sept. 23 against the Twins.

Scherzer's postseason tune-up certainly could've been more efficient. Sure, he didn't allow a single run and surrendered just three hits to the Royals, but he lasted only four innings after amassing a whopping 75 pitches in that span. He had 65 after three innings, generated mostly by a 29-pitch third.

He didn't qualify for the win, which would've been his third in as many starts against the Royals this season, but he did lower his ERA against them to 2.12.

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

Verlander's 11 K's help Tigers grab ALDS opener
Ace allows leadoff homer, walks four; Avila hits solo shot

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 10/6/2012 9:05 PM ET

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DETROIT -- Technically, the A's hold home-field advantage in this American League Division Series. But when Justin Verlander opens a postseason series on the mound at Comerica Park, it's his game.

He had to shrug off a home run on his fourth pitch Saturday night, but Verlander soon took over, striking out five consecutive Athletics at one point on his way to 11 strikeouts, tying his postseason best, over seven innings. Alex Avila's solo homer and two manufactured runs were enough from there, sending the Tigers to a 3-1 victory.

"Well, obviously Game 1 is important," Verlander said. "Having two games at home to start is important; we need to win both of them. Going to Oakland is a tough place to play. We got one, hopefully we win here tomorrow then go into Oakland and win one there."

It was the series opener, but with this year's best-of-5 format that has Games 3-5 in Oakland, it amounted to a must-win for Detroit. Verlander pitched up to the occasion. His 1-2 fastball to Coco Crisp actually was up, and he paid for it with a solo homer, but he took over from there by pounding the outside corner.

Some pitches were right around the edge of the plate, and others were well off. But generally, when Avila set up outside and Verlander spotted the ball where Avila put his mitt, he demonstrated enough command to coax the call from plate umpire Jim Reynolds.

"I felt pretty good," Verlander said. "I was a little out of sync early, but I was able to get some outs with some guys on base and keep the score at one run. I had faith in our guys that we could come back and score runs.

"Then I started to get in a groove later on in the game, started to find my rhythm and my mechanics. I feel like the adrenaline got to me a little bit early, but I was able to rein it in and make some pitches later in the game."

Though the A's worked 61 pitches out of Verlander over the first three innings, he ended each of them with swinging strikeouts. Once Verlander got through the A's lineup the second time around, he settled in. The A's waited him out, but didn't like what they found.

Verlander got Brandon Moss swinging for the third time leading off the sixth, then spotted a 98-mph fastball off the outside corner on Josh Reddick. Once he spotted a 99-mph heater in on Josh Donaldson to end the inning, the sellout crowd of 43,323 was on its feet.

Oakland's third, fourth and fifth hitters combined to go 0-for-8 with a walk off Verlander, striking out five times.

Seth Smith and Derek Norris both swung and missed at fastballs in the seventh, sparking memories of Doug Fister's 10 consecutive strikeouts two weeks ago. Verlander couldn't get Cliff Pennington to offer at ball four, but retired Crisp on a groundout to third to close his outing.

Whatever momentum the A's got from Crisp's leadoff homer didn't last through the first inning. Once Austin Jackson's chopper deflected off Stephen Drew's glove and into left field, Jackson had a leadoff double. Quintin Berry squibbed a grounder off Donaldson's glove down the third-base line, putting Jackson in position to score on Miguel Cabrera's double-play grounder.

Berry, starting in the postseason a year after he was a Minor League free agent, came up big again in the third inning. His roller to first base left A's starter Jarrod Parker scrambling toward first. Berry beat him out before Parker's fielding error allowed Omar Infante to round third and score, putting Detroit in front for good.

Joaquin Benoit survived a Moss fly ball to the right-field fence to hold down the A's in the eighth before Jose Valverde pitched the ninth for the save.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers go up 2-0 after Kelly's walk-off sac fly
Detroit just one win from reaching ALCS after wild see-saw affair


By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 10/7/2012 6:52 PM ET


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DETROIT -- Don Kelly saw his fly ball travel deep enough into right field, trotted up the first-base line while watching Josh Reddick camp under it, then raised his arms while Omar Infante came home from third with the winning run.

Then, as the Tigers spilled out of their dugout to celebrate Sunday's 5-4 walk-off win over the A's in Game 2 of the American League Division Series, the 190-pound Kelly lifted 275-pound Prince Fielder off the ground, hugging him at first base. It was a sight that seemingly defied physics, yet it was probably fitting for the way the Tigers took a commanding 2-0 series lead to Oakland.

The Tigers returned to the postseason on the strength of Miguel Cabrera, Fielder, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, but they're a road win away from returning to the AL Championship Series thanks in part to Doug Fister, Al Alburquerque, Danny Worth and, of course, Kelly.

The big names got them this far, including Cabrera's single -- his third hit of the day -- to put Infante on third with one out in the ninth inning. For at least a day, the role players lifted them, capped by a fly ball from the utility man the Tigers outrighted to Triple-A Toledo in August and brought back in September.

It was the first Tigers walk-off win in the postseason since Magglio Ordonez's home run off another A's closer, Huston Street, to complete a 2006 ALCS sweep.

It was the first game in Major League postseason history in which both teams tied the game on a wild pitch in the same inning, according to STATS.

It may or may not have been the first postseason game in which the winning pitcher kissed the baseball on the last out he recorded, a fact that irked the A's but didn't particularly surprise the Tigers with the quirky Alburquerque.

"Yeah, Tuesday's going to come and it's a new day. Anything can happen that day," said Fister, whose pitching duel with A's rookie lefty Tommy Milone for six-plus innings became a distant memory by game's end. "But it's a matter of we're feeling good about ourselves. We've taken care of business here."

The Tigers split four games in Oakland in early May, long before the A's went on their second-half run. None of those games, even the one with former Tiger Brandon Inge's grand slam, swung quite as dramatically, either way, as this one.

Three times, the Athletics scored to pull ahead. Three times, the Tigers scored in the same inning. They finally pulled ahead after Alburquerque, seemingly as much in danger of a go-ahead hit as a wild pitch, stranded a runner on third by retiring Yoenis Cespedes.

"You almost expect a counter-blow from a team, especially like the Tigers, in the postseason," said A's reliever Sean Doolittle. "You're playing to get that momentum and keep it on your side, and it seems like the momentum keeps going back and forth, and that's a tribute to them. When we have it, they're fighting and clawing to get it back."

Detroit scored in each of the last three innings against an Oakland bullpen that posted the AL's second-lowest ERA and OPS allowed during the regular season, yet none of the four runs scored on a base hit. When the Tigers took the lead in the seventh, Doolittle seemingly had escaped a cruel fate against Cabrera with a fly ball to shallow center, until the ball hit off the heel of Coco Crisp's glove and bounced away for a two-run error.

The Tigers were down again, 4-3, in the eighth after Josh Reddick followed Joaquin Benoit's run-scoring wild pitch with a go-ahead solo shot. It was the first ball Reddick put in play all series after six strikeouts and a walk, and it handed the lead back to setup man Ryan Cook.

Again, the A's bullpen seemingly had escaped, with Cook striking out Quintin Berry pinch-hitting for Avisail Garcia with one out and runners at second and third. Yet a pitch in the dirt to pinch-hitter Alex Avila brought home Kelly, pinch-running for Delmon Young after his leadoff single.

Worth, who was pinch-running that inning for Jhonny Peralta, stayed in at shortstop for the ninth and likely prevented a go-ahead run by ranging deep in the hole and retiring the lead runner on Crisp's ground ball. Crisp moved to third on Stephen Drew's single off Phil Coke, but Alburquerque snared Cespedes' chopper back up the middle to halt it there.

All the while, Kelly -- usually a defensive replacement in games like these -- was still in the dugout as the designated hitter. He'd be up fifth in the ninth inning if the Tigers could get a rally going.

"I was thinking about the situations that could happen before the inning started," he said. "That was the main one. If guys got on, I would walk Miggy and Prince to face me as well. That's the right move."

It was a single from Cabrera, not a walk, that set up the situation, but Grant Balfour walked Fielder to face Kelly. With switch-hitting Ramon Santiago the last position player remaining on Detroit's bench, Kelly was their best hope.

Two pitches later, Fielder was airborne annd Kelly was a Division Series hero.

"I don't know about that," Kelly said. "I didn't even get a hit today. My teammates put me in that position."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Tigers headed to Game 4 after being shut out
Sanchez solid for 6 1/3; Fielder victimized by two defensive gems

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 10/10/2012 2:30 AM ET

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OAKLAND -- The roar of a sellout crowd quashed any hope that the Tigers could stroll through town and get a win like it was a regular-season series. The energy on Brett Anderson's fastball dashed any hope of a Division Series sweep.

It's melodramatic to declare it's a series now, after Tuesday's 2-0 loss to the A's in Game 3, because the first two games were way too close to think it wasn't already. Detroit had just crept enough runs across to squeak out close games.

"We knew they weren't going to lay over," catcher Gerald Laird said. "They won their division and they got good pitching. And this kid Anderson's probably their ace. We knew it was going to be a tough test, but you've got to tip your cap."

What the Tigers have now is a battle on their hands, even with a 2-1 series advantage and Justin Verlander awaiting in a potential Game 5. They'll send Max Scherzer to the mound Wednesday night in Game 4 hoping to close it out, but they'll have to plate some runs to give him some help.

With Anderson's six scoreless innings on two hits, A's starters have held Detroit to four earned runs over 18 1/3 innings. Their only run-scoring hit so far this series is Alex Avila's solo homer in Game 1 on Saturday night.

The way Anderson pitched in his first outing since leaving his Sept. 19 outing in Detroit with an oblique injury, he didn't give the Tigers much of a chance. When he did, the A's defense was there to take it away.

It was the kind of stretch the star-studded Tigers have experienced more times than one might expect for their power. However, it was just the third time all year the Tigers have been shut out.

"They pitched and played a perfect game," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "You have to tip your hat to them. Nothing you could do about it."

If Coco Crisp's leaping catch at the fence in right-center field didn't rob Prince Fielder of a home run, it dramatically altered the rest of the inning given the back-to-back singles that followed from Delmon Young and Jhonny Peralta. Not only did Anderson not allow a hit after that stretch, he didn't allow a ball out of the infield. Nine groundouts, two strikeouts and two walks followed.

Fielder had two more hard hits after that. In the fourth inning, his ground ball up the middle, seemingly headed through an infield shift, became another of Stephen Drew's stellar plays as he ran it down and fired to first.

Once left fielder Yoenis Cespedes made a diving catch on Fielder's seventh-inning liner toward the gap, preventing a leadoff double off Ryan Cook, all Fielder could do was take off his batting gloves and head to the dugout.

His teammates knew the feeling. The Tigers put six runners on base safely. Peralta was responsible for three of them, producing two singles and a walk.

"You can go out and pitch to contact, and not worry about the results as much," Anderson said. "Coco set the tone with robbing the homer. You don't expect that when you're pitching. But he was tremendous. The guys up the middle were tremendous."

Anibal Sanchez, making his first career postseason start, did all he could to keep the Tigers close, using a darting breaking ball to recover after a walk and two singles greeted him with a 1-0 A's lead in the first inning. Sanchez retired nine consecutive A's and had a 2-2 count on Seth Smith when he shook off a sign and delivered a fastball, which Smith hit out of the park to straightaway center field in the fifth.

It was Smith's career third home run off Sanchez, and it improved him to 7-for-15 off his former National League foe.

"I don't know what it is," Smith said. "There's no secret to my success against him. It's just baseball, and some guys you see better than others. And maybe my swing has been in a good place every time I faced him, I don't know."

Sanchez acquitted himself well, delivering 6 1/3 innings of two-run ball on five hits before Leyland went to his bullpen once Smith came back up in the seventh. Sanchez became the first Tiger in history to make his postseason debut with that kind of pitching line and lose.

"I think I just came here today to throw my best game, like I always do," Sanchez said. "Today we have to give credit to their pitchers. They worked good and they threw a good ballgame today."

The Tigers were shut out and shut down for extra-base hits, and they struck out four consecutive times from the eighth inning into the ninth against Oakland relievers Sean Doolittle and Grant Balfour. Yet when Miguel Cabrera singled in the ninth, Fielder stepped to the plate once more as the potential tying run.

This time, Balfour jammed him into a game-ending double play. It was that kind of night.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Valverde, Tigers stunned by A's in ninth
Closer gives up three runs, setting stage for decisive Game 5

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 10/11/2012 4:25 AM ET

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OAKLAND -- The Tigers stood three outs away from a return to the American League Championship Series. All the ups and downs of the season, all the times they seemed out of it, were three outs away from character building.

Now, they'll need nine more innings, many of them from Justin Verlander, before a raucous A's crowd to get there. As tough as these last two nights have been for them, they probably haven't seen anything yet.

"Yeah, well, it's baseball," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said after a three-run A's rally off Jose Valverde in the ninth inning sent the Tigers to a 4-3 loss Wednesday night. "I mean, that's why this is the greatest game of all. It looked like we were going to get it. We didn't do it. We didn't quite get the 27 outs, that's part of the game."

As a result, their AL Division Series is headed to a Game 5 on Thursday night. It's the situation they coveted coming into the series, a winner-take-all matchup with the reigning American League MVP and Cy Young Award winner on the mound. The setup, however, is nothing like what they could have anticipated.

"We're in a one-game playoff right now and anything can happen," said Max Scherzer, whose five-plus innings Wednesday night set the Tigers up to close it out in Game 4. "Granted, we have our best pitcher going tomorrow, so obviously we like where we sit, but this is a hostile place right now."

If Leyland's long-held theory holds that momentum is only as good as the next day's starting pitcher, the Tigers should feel confident. Yet after a Game 4 rally off their closer, it's hard not to feel some momentum on Oakland's side.

"Yeah, they're pressing," A's outfielder Josh Reddick said, "but they know they've got their best pitcher on the mound. It's going to be an interesting game, and we know we've got to battle and they know they've got to battle because he threw a heck of a game over there."

What had been eight stingy innings from Tigers pitchers, including five dominant ones from Scherzer, went to waste within a three-batter span in the ninth inning. The last of them, Seth Smith's two-run double, tied the game before Coco Crisp's walk-off single sent the Tigers to their second loss in as many nights.

It came together so quickly that there was hardly time to react. By the time Crisp's ground ball through the right side crept under the glove of charging right fielder Avisail Garcia, allowing Smith to dash home unchallenged, it was almost too loud to think.

"I think this is one of the toughest moments I've had in all my career," Valverde said. "It's tough, but you have to be ready for tomorrow. You have to be serious for the game."

A year after Valverde finished perfect in save chances, he has spent much of the year struggling to follow it up. He has had his share of big pitches in tough situations and come through, but after a 49-for-49 campaign last year, this season's 35-for-40 looks like a letdown.

Wednesday felt different, from what looked like undulating mechanics in his delivery -- Valverde insisted it was the same motion he has done all year -- to an arsenal that consisted almost entirely of fastballs until his final couple hitters.

Reddick's ground ball barely eluded Omar Infante's outstretched glove through the right side for a leadoff single, awakening the sellout crowd of 36,385. Once Josh Donaldson lined Valverde's next offering off the left-field fence to put runners at second and third, the crowd was on its feet.

"We were in Detroit last time and he blew me away with three fastballs," Donaldson said. "I wasn't going to let it happen again. He threw me a fastball over the heart of the plate, and I was able to get a good piece of wood on it."

Smith swung and missed at one fastball but didn't miss the next, finding the gap as both runners scored to tie the game at 3.

Valverde nearly took the game into extra innings, getting a foul popup from pinch-hitter George Kottaras and a called third strike on Cliff Pennington.

All he had to worry about was Crisp, who went from goat to hero from Game 2 to Game 3 in the series.

"It was a split-finger down and away," catcher Alex Avila said of the first pitch, "and Crisp just caught it out in front and found a hole."

With that, the plastic coating that had lined Detroit's clubhouse lockers quickly went down, and the intensity for Game 5 went up. While A's players talked about the magic they've had all through this past month, the Tigers talked about the consistent approach they've had through their challenging times all season.

For a team that didn't take over the division race until the last week and a half of the season, it might be fitting.

"You draw on the talent we have, the fact that we know we belong here and we have our best pitcher going," Avila said. "There's a lot games you're going to lose. You're going to lose a lot of close games. They're definitely tough, but we're professionals for a reason. You've just got to come back and get them tomorrow. That's it.

"Yeah, it's tough. I'm upset right now. But you don't cry about it. I'm going to get ready. That was a great game."

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Verlander sends Tigers to second straight ALCS
Right-hander tosses four-hit shutout, strikes out 11 A's in clincher

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 10/12/2012 3:43 AM ET

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OAKLAND -- The A's seemingly had destiny on their side. The Tigers had Justin Verlander on theirs.

Destiny didn't stand a chance.

For a pitcher with two no-hitters, an All-Star Game start and a World Series appearance as a rookie, this was Verlander's finest night. He took Thursday night's deciding American League Division Series Game 5 against an A's team coming off back-to-back wins, including a ninth-inning comeback, with a thunderous sellout crowd behind it, and shut it all down in a complete-game four-hitter with 11 strikeouts.

By the time the Tigers batted around in a four-run seventh inning, turning a pitching duel into a runaway 6-0 win, they had sapped the magic out of an A's run that a night ago seemingly had them headed to a Division Series comeback.

Instead, the Tigers are heading to their second straight AL Championship Series, where they'll await the winner of Friday's Game 5 between the Yankees and Orioles.

"After yesterday's loss, I'm sure not everybody in Detroit thought we were going to win today," catcher Alex Avila said. "But we had the best pitcher in the game going, and I liked our chances."

When manager Jim Leyland talked time and again over the last six years about momentum being as good as the next game's pitcher, this is what he meant. Even he might not have imagined this, the first postseason shutout by an AL pitcher in a winner-take-all game since Jack Morris of the 1991 World Series.

"He had that look in his eyes today," Leyland said. "He was determined. He had a complete-game look in his eye. And we were thankful to get that."

Tigers fans have been thankful for years to have Verlander on their side, but maybe never as much as this night.

"I think this is number one," Verlander said. "The two no-hitters are obviously up there, but that's something a little bit different. This is win or go home. My team needs me. And I was able to go out there and have one of the better performances I've had."

Verlander's outings have grown big enough in Detroit that he draws cheers whenever he emerges from the dugout a half-hour or so before a game to start warming up in the bullpen. As soon as he emerged from the visitors' dugout Thursday night, the boos rained down from the fans that had settled in at the Coliseum -- not just along the first-base side, but all over.

Once he took the mound for the bottom of the first inning, the noise enveloped him. That was pretty much all the noise the A's would make against him on the evening.

It wasn't a particular pitch that made this outing so great for him. His hardest fastball was 98 mph, and he only did it once or twice. The buckling curve he can use so well for strikeouts wasn't nearly as devastating as it has been on some nights.

This was a performance where the total package was greater than any one highlight pitch. It still left the unmistakable feeling that Verlander, whose reign as AL MVP will soon end, remains the toughest pitcher in the game. He now has a big-game gem to prove it.

"When Verlander gets on a roll like he was today, especially once he gets into his rhythm, you get into the middle innings and he's rolling along pretty good, it's tough to stop him," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "It's like a locomotive going at a high speed. He was tough to deal with."

A two-out, first-inning double from Yoenis Cespedes gave Oakland its only runner in scoring position through the first seven innings. Not until Josh Donaldson's single in the eighth did the A's put a leadoff man on base.

In between was a mix of mid-90 fastballs, upper-80s changeups, awkward swings and mishit balls. The foul tips that ran up Verlander's pitch count against the A's in September and again in Game 1 were tougher to find.

"They tried to bring up his pitch count a little bit today," Avila said. "It's just that with his command, at times when they were taking, he was able to throw strikes, and when we thought they were going to be a little more aggressive, we were able to go out the zone a little bit. It was just a great combination of his stuff and command."

By the time Verlander threw his 50th pitch, he had an out in the fourth. His first baseman, meanwhile, had a feeling they had this game.

"I'd say maybe the fourth inning, I thought, 'All right. He hasn't thrown 100 yet but he's still got it,'" Prince Fielder said, "Whenever he doesn't have to throw as hard and they still can't touch it, it's all right. We have a good shot."

He had thrown 88 pitches through six innings, ended the seventh with called-third strikes on Seth Smith and Josh Reddick, yet still stood in double digits. He threw his 100th pitch to Donaldson leading off the eighth before his single gave the A's one more rally.

Cliff Pennington's two-out single in the eighth put two men on against Verlander and brought up Coco Crisp, whose at-bats had been the toughest on Tigers pitchers all series. After a first-pitch ball, however, Verlander used a 95-mph fastball to jam Crisp into an inning-ending groundout to second.

No pitcher has struck out more batters in a winner-take-all postseason game. Verlander's performance tied him with Cliff Lee, who struck out 11 Tampa Bay Rays over a complete-game victory for the Rangers in Game 5 of the 2010 AL Division Series.

The Tigers manufactured a lead for Verlander after Austin Jackson doubled in Omar Infante in the third and scored on a wild pitch. Singles from Jhonny Peralta and Infante chased A's starter Jarrod Parker in the seventh, and the Tigers put five consecutive baserunners on against Oakland's previously formidable bullpen, including a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch for Miguel Cabrera and Fielder's bloop single.

"When you're facing that kind of pitching, you just try to get the runs in whenever you can," Fielder said. "Today, they were facing our guy as well. We knew if we got him a couple, we had a good shot. I'm just glad we were able to come away with it."

Infante, who quietly had one of the best series by a Tigers position player, and Jackson both had two hits and two runs scored, giving the Tigers a spark on a night when they stole three bases to tie a postseason record.

But this night was all about Verlander. When he stepped into the clubhouse afterwards, he was doused with champagne as his teammates chanted, "Cy Young!"

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Forced to regroup, Tigers claim Game 1 in 12
Young's third RBI is winner after Valverde allows four runs in ninth

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 10/14/2012 3:16 AM ET

NEW YORK -- The Yankees' game-tying four-run rally off Jose Valverde in the ninth Saturday had plenty of Tigers fans calling for someone else to finish out a win. Few would've figured that chance was coming in the 12th inning.

Even fewer would've figured it would go to Drew Smyly.

"They did a great job of making a comeback. I think we did an even better job of staying strong and fighting," Smyly said after his two scoreless innings and Delmon Young's go-ahead double turned what looked like a nightmarish open to the American League Championship Series into a 6-4 victory Saturday night.

Or as Octavio Dotel said, expressing the prevailing sentiment in the clubhouse, "Today was a tough game, but thank God we won."

It doesn't make for an easy night's sleep for manager Jim Leyland, who faces perhaps the toughest test of his previously unwavering loyalty to his closer. The four-hour, 54-minute marathon had barely ended when Tigers officials already planned to gather and discuss Valverde's situation, including the possibility that he has been pitching with an injury.

"We are going to put our heads together and we'll talk with him," Leyland said. "We will talk with the staff and try to figure out if there is something going on that maybe is being camouflaged. ... And everything will be cleared up for everybody by the time I come in here before the game tomorrow."

Still, he'll be coming in with a chance to have his team take a 2-0 series lead back home if they can find a way to beat Hiroki Kuroda, pitching on three days' rest, and a Yankees lineup that will be without Derek Jeter, who fractured his left ankle in that 12th inning diving for a Jhonny Peralta ground ball.

Leyland has that chance because a team whose dugout reaction looked defeated after Raul Ibanez's game-tying two-run homer gathered itself. Through 3 1/3 scoreless innings from Dotel and Smyly, the Tigers outlasted the late-inning teeth of the Yankees' bullpen before rallying off David Phelps.

The way the Tigers season has unfolded, it's just another chapter.

"I didn't know we had to take that many, but we have been taking punches all year," Leyland said. "If we are going to be good enough, we have to be able to take a punch, and we took a big punch. We took a right cross in the ninth inning and we survived it."

The last time Smyly pitched in Yankee Stadium he earned his first Major League win in April to end the Tigers' season-high five-game losing streak. His performance that day earned him raves for his poise for a kid in his second full season as a pro.

It was nothing compared to what he was in for with his postseason debut.

When he began warming up in the third inning, he was a potential injury replacement for Doug Fister, who took a comebacker off his wrist on his way to escaping his second straight bases-loaded jam. Fister was surviving, but searching for his command. Even after he found it, he had to strand the bases loaded one more time by striking out Curtis Granderson and Russell Martin to end the sixth.

Fister left with one out in the seventh, having walked four and struck out five. Once Phil Coke and Joaquin Benoit finished the seventh and eighth, the Tigers were three outs away from a 4-0 shutout, and Fister was in line to become the first Tigers pitcher ever to beat the Yankees twice in the postseason.

Two-run homers from Ichiro Suzuki and Ibanez off Valverde, who nearly squandered a four-run lead here in Game 2 of last season's AL Division Series, erased that. It wasn't nearly as sudden as Valverde's blown save in Game 4 of the AL Division Series in Oakland on Wednesday, but it was just as crushing.

Add them together, and Valverde has allowed seven runs on seven hits with four outs in his last two games.

"In this game, you never know what's going to happen," said Valverde, who insisted he could still do the job despite his manager's questions. "All those guys did a good job against me -- Ibanez, Ichiro, all those guys. There's nothing I could do. Thank God my team won."

The reaction from the Tigers' dugout as Ibanez's third lead-changing home run this postseason landed in the seats said plenty. Many players watched aghast, having witnessed what looked like a huge series-opening win turn into a new game.

From a practical standpoint, the Tigers looked shaken. They weren't yet beaten.

"We're big leaguers," said Young, who drove in half of Detroit's run total. "Things are going to happen. The other team wants to drive Mercedes-Benzes and eat [at] Morton's, too."

Smyly, Young and others hammered home the same point: As bad as it looked, they treated it like a 0-0 game. Young, however, was still hitting hot.

Young's sixth-inning single drove in Detroit's second run before his eighth-inning homer built a 3-0 lead. It also gave him the Tigers' franchise record for career postseason home runs with six.

When Young grounded out leading off a 1-2-3 10th inning, the Tigers seemed lifeless. When he came up in the 12th against Phelps with Miguel Cabrera on second, he had a glimmer of hope.

Young's line drive seemed headed directly at right fielder Nick Swisher.

"I thought it was going to hook right back to him," Young said. "I don't know what happened."

Said Swisher: "I just got caught right up in the lights, and I just went completely blind. It kind of handcuffed me, and I didn't even see it for the last five, 10 feet."

Smyly, who entered for the left-handed-hitting heart of the New York order in the 11th, retired six of the seven Yankees hitters he faced to earn the win. Once Detroit took the lead, he racked up back-to-back strikeouts of Eric Chavez and Swisher in a surprisingly easy bottom of the inning as the remaining crowd emptied.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Anibal's gem gives Tigers 2-0 ALCS lead

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 10/14/2012 10:30 PM ET

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NEW YORK -- This is why the Tigers felt they could do something in October if they could only get there. Whatever the other factors, they felt they could dictate the game with dominant starting pitching.

After Sunday's 3-0 win over the Yankees sent them home to Detroit with a 2-0 lead in this American League Championship Series, it's not just a game the Tigers are dictating. With seven more shutout innings from Anibal Sanchez on top of Doug Fister's stinginess Saturday night, they're leveraging their strength in the series.

"They've done it in the past," team president/general manager Dave Dombrowski said, "but right now they're in a really good groove."

As they left the Big Apple on Sunday night and headed for an off-day at home, their first in a week, the Tigers stood two wins away from a spot in the World Series with their best starter, Justin Verlander, awaiting the Yankees on Tuesday at Comerica Park.

The Tigers became the 23rd team in LCS history to take a 2-0 series lead since it became a best-of-seven competition 26 years ago. Nineteen of the previous 22 went on to the World Series, the exceptions being the 1985 Blue Jays and Dodgers and the 2004 Yankees.

It's not over, but it's going to take the Yankees breaking up this stretch of starting pitching -- not once, but four times in five games. At this point, the Tigers are showing no signs of letting up.

"The thing is, we knew with our rotation, if we're able to get in, we knew we could do some damage," catcher Alex Avila said. "We have guys that can strike guys out, which is big in the playoffs. That's always like a must-have. And obviously, we have Verlander, so we were going to have a shot."

Yes, the Tigers got away with a missed call at second base on Sunday, extending the eighth inning for two add-on runs. But the Tigers were already up, 1-0, and Yankees were shut out. It cost them hope, but it didn't change the lead.

Hiroki Kuroda had five perfect innings and struck out seven of Detroit's first nine batters before giving up the game's first run in the sixth inning on a potential double-play ball and a fumbled exchange from second baseman Robinson Cano, giving Sanchez his first run of support in three weeks.

The Tigers had a closer-by-committee situation ready in Game 2 after back-to-back rough outings from Jose Valverde, leaving Detroit's bullpen a man short and Phil Coke closing Sunday's game with two innings. The Yankees never got a run.

"We have to make adjustments," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "We know what they are doing to us."

Raul Ibanez entered Sunday on a postseason tear with three lead-changing homers. He couldn't get the Yankees a run.

Sanchez never allowed it. No Tigers starter has allowed it, not an earned run anyway, since Game 3 of the AL Division Series last week in Oakland. No Tigers pitcher did it in two games in New York aside from Valverde's four-run ninth inning in Saturday's series opener.

For the postseason, Tigers starters have allowed just five earned runs over 48 innings, averaging just under seven innings per start.

"I think it kind of started the last month of the season, knowing that we had to catch the White Sox," Avila continued. "Each one of our guys went out there and kind of one-upped the other, really pitched well the last month of the season to get into the playoffs, but also continued doing that into the playoffs."

Sanchez fell victim to a shutout in his postseason debut last week in Oakland, as the Tigers were silenced by left-hander Brett Anderson and the A's bullpen. It fit a pattern of run support, or lack thereof, for Sanchez that dated back to the first inning of his three-hitter on Sept. 25 against Kansas City.

For six innings, it looked like more of the same. While Kuroda got on a dominant roll early, Sanchez changed speeds and got awkward swings for 12 groundouts. One was a behind-the-back grab from Sanchez on a Russell Martin comebacker to strand runners at first and second in the opening inning.

At least three others were solid plays from shortstop Jhonny Peralta, including a charging barehand grab and throw on Martin's dribbler to strand Ichiro Suzuki at third.

As he had before, Sanchez kept them in it.

"I can throw all my pitches for a strike," he said, "and then hopefully if I'm behind in the count or ahead in the count, I can throw whatever on any corner. I talked before with Avila, and I think we were on a good page, and I think that's why we had a successful game today."

Not until Peralta singled leading off the sixth inning did the Tigers have a baserunner, and he was promptly stranded on three straight groundouts. The two hardest-hit balls off Kuroda, ironically, came from speedy slap hitter Quintin Berry, whose ground-rule double to straightaway center finally put Detroit in business leading off the seventh.

Miguel Cabrera's single moved Berry to third with nobody out, but Kuroda struck out Prince Fielder for the first out and had two strikes on Delmon Young. After a foul ball into the seats to stay alive, Young hit a ground ball that sent shortstop Jayson Nix, filling in for the injured Derek Jeter, into the hole.

Nix made a quick grab and flip to second to get Cabrera, but Cano couldn't handle the exchange to try to fire to first base, allowing Berry to score.

"I didn't get a grip on the ball," Cano said. "I looked at the replay, and I would say he might have been safe. That's no excuse. I didn't get a grip on the ball."

The two-run eighth continued on second-base umpire Jeff Nelson's missed call, having mistakenly ruled that Omar Infante got his hand back into the bag on Nick Swisher's throw behind him on Austin Jackson's single. From there, however, the Yankees bullpen couldn't get a stop, allowing back-to-back RBI singles to pinch-hitter Avisail Garcia -- his third late-inning RBI single of the postseason -- and Cabrera.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi was ejected for arguing the call with Nelson.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Verlander delivers Tigers to doorstep of Series
Coke closes tense moment in ninth after ace goes 8 1/3 innings

By Jason Beck / MLB.com | 10/17/2012 2:18 AM ET

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DETROIT -- Nobody makes a two-run lead feel like a chasm like Justin Verlander. In case anybody forgot, the Yankees nearly erased it at the very end.

Five days after Verlander diverted the destiny of the upstart Oakland A's, he all but sealed the fate of the top-seeded New York Yankees, one win away from an American League Championship Series sweep after a 2-1 Tigers win in Game 3 Tuesday night. In both cases, he didn't give the hitters much of a chance.

Then came the ninth inning, which seemed to last as long as the first eight, like a reminder to the 42,970 at Comerica Park to never take a Verlander gem for granted.

The end result of was the same. Thanks to Eduardo Nunez's leadoff home run in the ninth, the Yankees barely avoided being shut out in back-to-back postseason games for the first time in their illustrious history, but that was all they salvaged. And the Tigers stand on the precipice of their first World Series since 2006 -- a 4-1 loss to the Cardinals -- with a chance to claim their first World Series championship since 1984.

Verlander barely missed out on becoming the first pitcher since Orel Hershiser in 1988 to post back-to-back playoff shutouts, having thrown 132 pitches, but tied Kenny Rogers' Tigers record for postseason shutout innings at 23.

"Normally, I guess you don't take Secretariat out in the final furlong," manager Jim Leyland said, "but that was pretty much it for him."

The Tigers' rotation finally gave up an earned run for the first time in a week since Seth Smith homered off Anibal Sanchez in Game 3 of the AL Division Series. Yet in between homers, Detroit set a Major League postseason record with 37 2/3 consecutive innings by starting pitchers without an earned run.

"I think that's a great thing when you can get your entire rotation doing that," Verlander said. "And I think we're starting to click at the right time. The guys are getting healthy and starting to throw the ball the way we have been capable of all year."

It took what Leyland called the best breaking ball he has seen from Phil Coke all year, throwing it in a full count hoping that Yankees postseason hero Raul Ibanez would chase, to end it.

"I kind of felt like I might have gone a little unconscious as soon as I posted it up and let it go," Coke said.

And yet it never really felt that close. A 3-0 series lead, despite two wins that came down to the final at-bat, feels much the same. Whether or not Coke lost consciousness, Tigers starters have kept the Yankees lineup slumbering, no matter who's in it.

It included neither Alex Rodriguez nor Nick Swisher, both benched by manager Joe Girardi in an effort to spark a Yankees offense whose lone runs this series had come in a disastrous ninth inning from Jose Valverde in Game 1. In came speedy Brett Gardner and veteran Eric Chavez, who killed Tigers pitching for four games here in August.

Neither of them got a hit off Verlander. For that matter, neither did anyone else except Ichiro Suzuki, who leveraged two 3-0 counts into ground-ball singles. Verlander retired the first 10 batters he faced before Ichiro's single with one out in the fourth, then retired the next eight before Ichiro's next hit.

It wasn't the overpowering form Verlander used to strike out 11 Athletics last Thursday. He struck out just three Yankees, and he had to battle out of many more three-ball counts. But the awkward swings from Yankees hitters, and the looks on their faces coming back to the dugout, told the story of Verlander's dominance.

"Verlander, who averages I think over nine strikeouts per game, struck out three guys tonight," Girardi said. "And I think our guys really tried to put some good at-bats on him, and they did."

Said Verlander: "My approach was to get ahead and be aggressive and not let anybody score. That approach kind of went out the window in the fourth. I kind of fell out of rhythm a little bit and started falling behind guys."

He had to challenge them with fastballs to hit, by his standard. And except for Ichiro, he still didn't give up a hit.

"That tells you a lot about his stuff," Tigers catcher Alex Avila said, "and it tells you how hard it is to hit."

Delmon Young's seventh career postseason home run gave Verlander a lead to protect. Yankees starter Phil Hughes left seven pitches later with a stiff back, starting the Yankees on a parade of relievers as Girardi played matchups to keep it close.

He didn't have David Phelps walk Miguel Cabrera with first base open in the fifth inning following Quintin Berry's stolen base, and he paid for it with Cabrera's double over Curtis Granderson, who didn't get a good read on the ball as it soared deep to the gap in right-center.

The Yankees held Detroit there, getting an inning-ending double play from Cabrera with the bases loaded in the sixth. The way Verlander was pitching, it didn't seem to matter, even as he entered the ninth with 115 pitches.

Then came a nine-pitch duel with Nunez, starting in place of the injured Derek Jeter.

"Nunez put up one of the best at-bats, given the situation, I have ever seen, especially with me on the mound," Verlander said.

With the shutout gone, Leyland made the slow walk to the mound to tell him he had one more hitter. Gardner then worked him for eight pitches before grounding out.

They were the kind of at-bats the Yankees used to frustrate Verlander in past outings, and they kept them up after Coke retired Ichiro for the second out. Mark Teixeira battled out of a 1-2 count to get a full-count grounder through the middle past a diving Omar Infante. Robinson Cano lined a 2-2 pitch to left to end an 0-for-29 slump.

Ibanez had a 3-1 count and fouled off back-to-back fastballs, setting up Coke's leap of faith. If Ibanez doesn't offer, the bases are loaded for Swisher on deck to pinch-hit.

He offered.

"It came out of my hand like [a fastball], and then it fell off the table," Coke said.

Jason Beck is a reporter for MLB.com. Read Beck's Blog and follow him on Twitter @beckjason. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.