The Tigers homered four times, including two off the bat of Delmon Young, and managed to beat the Rangers 7-5, despite Justin Verlander allowing four runs.
The story coming into this game was Verlander and his dominance in the regular season. He started off by allowing a run in the first inning, coming on a Josh Hamilton sacrifice fly to score Ian Kinsler, who led off the game with a double. The next two runs would come via the home team, with homers by Alex Avila in the third and Young in the fourth to give Detroit a 2-1 lead. Verlander would cough that lead up in the fifth, as Hamilton brought in Kinsler again, this time via a single, to tie the game at two.
It would hit the fan for Rangers starter CJ Wilson in the sixth. Ryan Raburn led the inning off with a single, and he was doubled in by Miguel Cabrera on a ball that took a funny hop off the third base bag to make it a 3-2 game. Next up was Victor Martinez, who tripled to right just under the glove of Nelson Cruz. And following Martinez was Young, who hit his second homer of the game to make it 6-2. Raburn would add a solo bomb in the seventh to make it 7-2, and that extra run proved to mean a lot at the end of the day.
The Rangers staged a rally when Verlander came out for the eighth. After a Mike Napoli single, the white hot Nelson Cruz came up, and he tomahawked a bomb off of the left field foul pole to make it 7-4, his fifth homer of the ALCS. That would end Verlander’s night at 133 pitches and 7 1/3 innings. He kept the Tigers in the game, but wasn’t his usual dominant self. Detroit would rally again in the ninth off of Phil Coke, getting three straight runners on with two outs and bringing the go-ahead run to the plate, but Coke would get Napoli to ground out to end the game.
The series will once again move to Texas, with game six coming on Saturday evening. It’ll be Derek Holland and Max Scherzer going at it, in a matchup that seemingly favors the Tigers. First pitch is at 8:05 PM.
