Today at 12:07 p.m. ET the Detroit Tigers will try to salvage a split on the road in their ALDS matchup with the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards after dropping Game 1 10-3. The game will be shown on TBS and can be live streamed online by clicking this link. Tigers fans can listen to the radio broadcast on 97.1 The Ticket, while Orioles fans may do likewise on 1090 WBAL. The Tigers will send Justin Verlander to the mound to face off with left-hander Bruce Chen.
Verlander had his worst season since 2008 this year, going 15-12 with a 4.54 ERA and posting a 1.39 WHIP. He was chosen to start Game 2 ahead of David Price, whom Detroit acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays at the trade deadline in arguably the biggest blockbuster deal of the year.
Tigers manager Brad Ausmus is expressing little concern about Verlander's shaky performance this year, and expects him to rise to the occasion. "I think he's the type of guy, the bigger the stage, the brighter the lights, the better he's going to perform," Ausmus said.
Verlander resembled his old self in his final two starts of the regular season, going 2-0 with a 1.17 ERA in 15.1 innings. He struck out 10, walked none, and gave up just two runs. He'll need to maintain that against a powerful Orioles lineup that flexed its muscle early in the form of a Nelson Cruz home run, and then bludgeoned the Tigers bullpen for an eight-run eighth inning.
Verlander's counterpart today has a fraction of the former Cy Young's playoff experience, but he plans to combat that by treating today's game as he would a typical regular season start.
"Of course (if) you have experience in playoffs, you will know how the crowds would be and how the environment would be," Chen said. "But (I'll) keep doing the same thing I was in the season, so it doesn't change that much for me."
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