Game 21 Preview: Tigers at Yankees

Detroit Tigers (10-10) at New York Yankees (11-8)

Time/Place: 4:00 p.m., Yankee Stadium

SB Nation Blog: Pinstripe Alley

Media: Fox Sports Detroit, MLB.TV, Tigers Radio Network

Pitching Matchup: Drew Smyly (0-0, 1.13 ERA) vs. Freddy Garcia (0-1, 9.75 ERA)

Garcia's performance so far this season has been, in a word, awful. He has given up at least 4 runs in each of his three starts and has only logged a total of 12 innings. This, coupled with his age, makes his career 18-8 record against the Tigers (along with a 3.88 ERA) completely irrelevant.

Side note: I entirely forgot that Garcia pitched for the Tigers in 2008. I'm convinced that Baseball Reference is messing with me.

Smyly needs to keep doing what he is doing. I think any reasonable fan realizes that this 1.13 ERA isn't going to continue for too much longer, but like Brennan Boesch's awesome first half in 2010, I'm going to simply enjoy it while it lasts.

Outlook

On a personal note, this will be the last bare bones preview for a while; I have officially survived my last finals week. On the baseball end of things, the Tigers need to get to Garcia like they did in his only start against them last season. Preferably, they will do so a bit earlier and not let him log a full 7 innings this time.

Prediction

Smyly's ERA goes up but he picks up his first big league win today.