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Tigers manager Jim Leyland said Justin Verlander had a callus on his right thumb that broke open and started to bleed. That's why he only went 7 innings when he was only at 104 pitches.
Alli made a joke about Verlander stopping the bleeding. I decided to use it as the headline.
Hey, whatever it takes. The Tigers were a game under .500. The west coast trip wasn't going awful, but it wan't going well either. The ace did what he does: stepped up to lead his team to victory. I would not even want to picture fan reaction if Detroit had lost this one.
In seven innings, the A's managed to reach base successfully just three times against Verlander. The first came on a fourth inning single. The next on a fifth inning home run. The last on a seventh inning walk.
Verlander said on the Fox Sports Detroit post game he wasn't really sure what happened to his thumb. He said he's battled it before this season, but noticed it bleeding by the end of the seventh.
"Obviously I wanted to go back out, but the risk-reward, you know, it's the seventh inning, ... we've got (Joaquin Benoit and Jose Valverde) lined up to go, so there's no point to going out and risking maybe something serious happening," Verlander said.
He added that he didn't think it would be a lingering issue.
Detroit improved to 17-17 for the season. Combined with a loss by the Indians, Detroit is a game out of first in the AL Central.
Nuts and Bolts recap:
3 ROARS
Austin Jackson - 3 walks (RBI walk!), H, 2 R
Miguel Cabrera - 3 hits, 2 RBI
Justin Verlander - 7 IP, 1 R, 2 H allowed
3 HISSES
Prince Fielder - Went 0-5 Sunday, 0-18 in Oakland, 0-22 dating back to Seattle
Delmon Young - 0-4
Alex Avila - 0-4. So yeah. 4-5-6 didn't do so well today.
Game 33 Tigers POG
Doug Fister ran away with it. We like our starting pitchers around here. Well, that and the lineup can't score.