Sometimes it doesn’ t matter which team is 50-plus games over.500 and which is 16 games under.
Detroit – Sometimes just the game itself is good enough.
Sometimes it doesn’ t matter which team is 50-plus games over .500 and which is 16 games under. Sometimes it doesn’ t matter which team has been magical and which has been abysmal.
Sometimes it’s just about a game.
On Sunday, in the Tigers 6-1 win over the Dodgers, a pair of impressive right-handed pitchers put on a show. The Tigers’ Justin Verlander and the Dodgers’ Kenta Maeda took no-hit bids into the sixth inning.
Maeda was perfect through five, striking out six and not allowing any hard contact.
For Verlander, it was the second time in 12 days he took a no-hitter into the sixth, though he had one blemish – a one-out walk to Yasiel Puig in the fifth inning. His bid was aided by a terrific running, leaping catch in right-center field by right fielder Alex Presley, taking a double away from Corey Seager in the fourth.
Verlander had nine strikeouts with two outs in the sixth inning when former Tiger Curtis Granderson broke it up. In his third game with the Dodgers, Granderson reached out and flipped a 2-2 slider off the foul pole in right field. It was his 20th home run of the season.
BOX SCORE: Tigers 6, Dodgers 1
Verlander had struck him out in the two previous at-bats, and he thought he had him again. Verlander froze Granderson with a 1-2 fastball, which television replays showed to be on the border of the strike zone. He did not get the call from home plate umpire Chris Segal.
Granderson was out in front of the next pitch, a fairly well-placed and biting slider down and in, but he was able to get the barrel to it and lift it down the line and off the pole.
The Tigers, though, responded quickly in the bottom of the sixth.
John Hicks rifled a single to center to end Maeda’s perfection. And once he had to work from the stretch, his pitches were staying up in the zone. Andrew Romine slapped a double to left-center, sending Hicks to third.
Dixon Machado then bounced one over the third-base bag and into the corner, a two-run double to put the Tigers up 2-1.
With two outs, Justin Upton stayed back on a 2-1 hanging off-speed pitch and launched it on a high arc off the foul pole in left field. It was his 26th home run of the year.
Maeda had entered the game Sunday on a six-game unbeaten streak, allowing only seven runs in 32 innings. And in his last nine starts, he was 7-1 with a 2.44 ERA.
The Tigers tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the eighth on a two-run double by Miguel Cabrera. With Ian Kinsler on second and JaCoby Jones on first, he hit a laser into the gap in right-center.
There was miscommunication between Dodgers’ right fielder Puig and center fielder Kiki Hernandez and the ball dropped between them. Jones was running right on Kinsler’s back from second base to home.
Both runners scored just ahead of the throw – Kinsler standing up and Jones with a head-first slide. Pretty exhilarating play from a team not known for speed on the bases.
Verlander was unaffected by Granderson’s homer. He put down the next eight batters before allowing a two-out single by Austin Barnes in the eighth.
He left to a well-earned standing ovation after finishing the eighth inning. His line: two hits, one run, one walk and nine strikeouts. He had 12 swing-and-miss strikes (seven with his fastball) and 20 called strikes (13 with his fastball) .
His slider was also biting hard. He seemed to be throwing both the cut-slider (91-92 mph) and a regular slider (88-89 mph) . He got five swing-and-misses and five called strikes with that pitch.
He’s now won four of his last five starts. And in the four wins, he’s allowed no runs in three of them, and just two runs in 29 innings.
Daniel Stumpf finished it off with a scoreless ninth.
With the win, the Tigers snapped their six-game losing streak and the Dodgers’ six-game winning streak.
