With only one week left in the season, the Detroit Tigers are in must-win mode as they trail the Chicago White Sox in the Central division.
On Monday night the Tigers kept themselves alive, beating the Royals 6-2 to keep pace and stay just one game behind. The White Sox beat the Cleveland Indians 5-4 on Monday to maintain their lead.
Justin Verlander, last season's Cy Young award winner, pitched a strong game for the Tigers, lasting eight innings, giving up two runs and striking out eight to get the win. He threw 114 pitches, including 89 strikes.
Verlander dominated the Royals lineup, but got into some trouble in the fifth inning when Kansas City had the tying run on third base with only one out. Detroit was up 2-1 when a routine throw from the catcher to the pitcher went short, forcing Verlander to lunge at the ball with his non-throwing shoulder.
"With a guy on third and the ball coming back on the ground, I've got to try to stop it," Verlander said. "So I went down to get it, and my body just wasn't prepared for that. All my weight landed on my left arm, and just kind of jarred my shoulder a little bit. I felt it for a little bit and then it went away."
He toughed it out and stayed in the game, pitching out of the jam and pitching the Tigers to a win just a day after getting swept in a doubleheader by Minnesota. Verlander earned his 16th win of the season against a Royals team that dominated him the last time he pitched against them, scoring eight runs on 12 hits.
"He just threw strike after strike after strike. There's not much you can do when he's throwing like that," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "We had a couple good at-bats against him, but he was extremely good tonight. You just need to get lucky when he's going that well, and we didn't."
The Tigers got off to an early lead and never looked back.
Prince Fielder hit a 421-foot home run in the first inning and Detroit added another run on Alex Avila's double in the second to go up 2-0. In the fourth the Royals cut the lead in half with an Alex Gordon home run, but Detroit pulled away soon after.
In the fifth inning the Royals threatened, putting runners on first and third with only one out and almost caught a lucky break when Verlander had to lunge for the throw back to the pitcher. Avila hit the hand of the home plate umpire as he threw, which made the ball skip low across the ground in from of Verlander, who was able to stop it.
"I gave myself a little bit of a scare -- and everybody else," Verlander said. "But it's my left arm. Maybe I can throw with it just dangling. Who knows?"
In the bottom of the inning the Tigers broke the game open on another odd play. After scoring a run on Austin Jackson's double, Kansas City threw the ball away on a throw to second base, allowing Omar Infante to score. Jackson was thrown out trying to advance to third on the play, but the Tigers went up 4-1.
"We try to entertain everybody," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "We try to give everybody a good piece of entertainment."
Billy Butler had three hits on the night for the Royals and made the score closer on an RBI single in the eighth inning.
Luke Hochevar pitched for the Royals, lasting seven innings, but giving up 12 hits and six runs.
Manager Jim Leyland won his 600th game with the Tigers and Verlander took the lead in AL strikeouts with 231 on the season. Detroit will throw Anibal Sanchez on Tuesday against Kansas City's Bruce Chen.
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