DETROIT 3 OAKLAND 1
Justin Verlander pitched Saturday night with a steady rhythm and dispatch that he never attained in last year's post-season after his first playoff start was aborted by rain after one inning.
He took the Tigers a long way toward victory in Game 1 of the AL Division Series with Oakland. Verlan-der allowed no runs and two hits after Coco Crisp's leadoff homer in the first, and he struck out 11 and left with a two-run lead after 121 pitches and seven innings.
And then manager Jim Leyland, as he said he would before the game, brought in Joaquin Benoit for his normal lead-protecting role in the eighth, even though Benoit has faltered lately and, in the longer haul, has allowed 13 homers since June 30. He almost gave up another, but Andy Dirks caught Derrick Moss's bid for the game-tying drive at the right-field wall. That capped quite an 0-for-4 for Moss, who fanned all three times up against Verlander.
Jose Valverde finished off Oakland in the ninth, and the Tigers won, 3-1. To take the series, the A's must take the next three games or overcome Verlander in Game 5.
Doug Fister pitches for the Tigers today against Tommy Milone, who is that species of pitcher that has most often slowed this year's Tigers: a left-hander.
The A's took the field Saturday as perhaps the most remarkable and unexpected entrant in the post-season. The A's are stocked with strong young pitching. Rookie right-hander Jarrod Parker - "a really talented kid," Leyland said beforehand - might have matched Verlander if not for a few balls the A's got gloves on.
Parker is from near Ft. Wayne, the city in basketball-mad Indiana where the Pistons played before they moved to Detroit. And at a key moment Saturday night, Parker committed a baseball equivalent of dribbling the ball out of bounds.
With Omar Infante on third, two out and the score 1-1, Berry hit a 3-2 dribbler between the mound and first. Parker tried to scoop the ball on the run, but he instead he batted it past first base into foul territory. Infante sped home without a play and scored the go-ahead run.
Alex Avila hit Parker's first pitch of the fifth for an opposite-field homer to left-center and a 3-1 lead.
The A's returned to the post-season in the same Comerica courtroom where their last post-season case was adjourned. Magglio Ordonez gavelled the 2006 AL championship series to an end with his pennant-winning, ninth-inning homer off the A's in 2006.
But while Verlander, Omar Infante and Ramon Santiago were on both those Tigers and these Tigers, the A's don't have anyone left from '06.
For the third time since Sept. 1, Verlander allowed a homer to the leadoff man in the first. Crisp pulled a 1-2 pitch down the right-field line and over the fence.
The Tigers' leadoff hitter, Austin Jackson, ripped the ball off the glove of shortstop Stephen Drew and never stopped as the ball rolled into short left. Jackson had a double, and then Berry had a single when
His grounder went off the glove of third baseman Josh Donaldson.
It was first and third with none out, and Comerica Park was in its first bedlam of the night as Miguel Cabrera strode to the plate for his first at-bat on the home stage since he clinched the Triple Crown.
Parker got Cabrera to hit 1-0 pitch to short for a routine double play. Jackson scored, but Parker had quelled any chance of a big first inning.
