The Boesch Brothers help avoid the sweep: Tigers 10, Braves 4

OK, so it's a little early to give a cute nickname to the duo of Miguel Cabrera and Brennan Boesch. And if you were to give them one, you'd probably want to avoid memories about those infamous Oakland Athletics, The Bash Brothers.

But it's hard to think of Cabrera and Boesch without the use of onomatopoeia. Bam! Boom! Kerpow! What they do to the baseball hardly seems legal. You could certainly get away with saying they both bash it pretty good. You could even say they Boesch it!

So I don't care. I'm going with the Boesch Brothers for tonight.

Deal with it.

Boesch hit his 12th home run in 52 games. He trails only Cabrera for the club lead, and he's got 20. Boesch is nearly mirroring him in slugging average (.621 and .624). The pair combine four four hits, four runs and four RBI this afternoon. It's safe to say without either batter in the lineup, Detroit is not remotely this close to first place (1/2 game out).

When the team gets back to American League rules tonight against Minnesota and is joined by Magglio Ordonez, you're looking at a 3-4-5 in the lineup whose lowest OPS is .898, and that's Ordonez's.

As we've said around here, caution is always a good thing. Will Boesch keep it up at that level? Doubtful. But 211 plate appearances into his career, he found nothing but success. So we're enjoying the hell out of it.

OK, so the other half of today's equation: Justin Verlander. He did make it through seven innings, so that's a good thing. Credit for that goes to Verlander's six-pitch sixth inning, because otherwise he was pretty inefficient. Jim Leyland had a great view to see that watching from back in the clubhouse after he got booted for arguing. He had this to say:

He just has to continue to work like the sixth inning. He made it look real easy -- real smooth delivery, easy inning for him. But I was worried from the first inning on, because the first inning he was laboring already. That's not good.

"I think the other thing that I've talked to him about, still convincing him about it: I think he's got to get away from throwing 95 percent fastballs in the first inning. When you get into situations, I think it's OK to use your other pitches in the first inning.

So interleague is over for another year. Detroit finished 12-7 overall (8-1 at home, 3-6 on the road).