Tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET, the Detroit Tigers and Oakland Athletics open up their best-of-five series in American League Division Series action live from the O.co Coliseum in Oakland. The game can be live streamed here. Detroit fans can tune into all the action on the radio by turning their dials to 97.1 The Ticket while Oakland fans can hear it on 95.7 FM The Game
Visiting Detroit turns to Max Scherzer, who led the MLB in wins this season while posting a 21-3 record to go along with a 2.93 ERA while Oakland will counter with veteran Bartolo Colon (18-6, 2.65 ERA), who put together a solid year in Oakland.
The two sides square off in a rematch of the 2012 NLDS, which was won by Detroit in five games. Aside from a solid pitching staff that includes the one-two punch of Scherzer and Justin Verlander, Detroit features a potent lineup with some boppers in a batting order that includes third baseman and AL MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera and first baseman Prince FIelder.
Cabrera led the league in average (.348), OBP (.442), slugging (.636) and OPS (1.078) and was second in homers (44) and RBIs (137) during yet another dominant regular season despite injuries plaguing him. Fielder, meanwhile, hit .279 with 25 homers and 106 RBIs while playing in all 162 games for the third year in a row. Cabrera and Fielder were key reasons in the Tigers winning their third AL Central title in a row.
"I'm as proud of this team as any team," Leyland said per MLB.com. "I mean, people were setting us up for failure from day one. We have a good team. If we don't win the division, there's something wrong. Well, it's not easy to live with that from Spring Training, all winter and through the whole season. And these guys did that. They showed me something."
The Athletics, meanwhile, won their second straight AL West division crown this season, and feel like they're a lot better this campaign than they were last year when they fell to Detroit in the division series, especially after winning three more games than the Tigers to ensure home field advantage.
"I feel like we're a better team right now than we were last year," manager Bob Melvin told MLB.com after the A's clinched the AL West.
The Athletics have had some solid players of their own that haven't garnered quite the attention that the Detroit sluggers have. Third baseman Josh Donaldson put up an .883 OPS while first baseman-outfielder Brandon Moss had an .859 OPS.
Detroit will attempt to defeat Oakland in the ALDS for the second straight year while the Athletics will try to avoid having history repeat itself in this series, and it all starts with Game 1 tonight in Oakland.
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