Rapid Reactions: Scherzer Shuts Down Royals

Max Scherzer worked into the seventh inning and allowed only one run to Kansas City tonight. After four attempts at winning his tenth game of the year, he managed to do so on Thursday. Scherzer seemed to be pitching to contact much more than he usually does and the results were very good.
Austin Jackson left the game after just one at bat due to a sore wrist. That left the club with Casper Wells flanked by two infielders for the final few innings. Somehow this lineup didn’t come back to bite them, but Wells made things interesting by crossing just in front of Raburn who was in the process of catching the final out of the game. Had Wells caused a distraction big enough to create a mis-played ball, the tying runs would have easily scored.
All three Tigers runs came via the long ball. This is not surprising. What is surprising is that they came thanks to Raburn and Don Kelly. Of course they did.

Jose Valverde closed it out yet again, remaining perfect at 22-for-22 this year. It wasn’t all that easy though. After retiring the first two, Valverde issued a walk and then Jhonny Peralta couldn’t handle a chopper that put the tying runs on base. Papa Grande battled back from a 2-0 count to Mike Moustakas and wound up dancing at the end.
John Keating just told me that Jackson has some inflammation in his wrist. It looks like he will definitely miss tomorrow’s game and could be held out of the lineup all weekend.
Toronto lead Cleveland 4-1 in the ninth and then served up a walk-off grand slam to Travis Hafner. So that sucks.