Detroit Tigers Links: KC Royal babies, September experience, clock running on for Anibal

Tigers, Royals show some fire, setting stage for another hot series – Chris McCosky, Detroit News

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"Royals center fielder Lorenzo Cain stood in the on-deck circle and glared out at the mound where Al Alburquerque was wildly pumping his fists and dancing off the mound after striking out Mike Moustakas to wriggle out of a bases loaded, no-outs jam in the eighth inning Wednesday night. He wasn’t mad, necessarily, but, let’s just say his testosterone levels went up a tick.“It definitely got me fired up,” Cain told Terry Moore of the Michigan Radio Network. “To see him strike out Moose and fist-pump like that, I was fired up the entire inning. I felt like I had to go up there and do something to prove myself in that next at-bat.”"

And this is why I give the AL Central edge to the Detroit Tigers: experience and maturity. The Kansas City Royals don’t understand that when you’re in a pennant race, it’s exciting and when you do something good, you celebrate. It’s funny, not a word was spoken out of the Royals clubhouse after Joe Nathan and Ian Kinsler had a bit of an animated celebration after picking Jarrod Dison on Tuesday and Nathan’s animated fist pump after the game-ending strikeout of Salvador Perez, but they lost and had they complained, they’d be sore losers. If Lorenzo Cain needs someone celebrating a personal achievement to get “fired up” in September, than the Royals are in trouble.

Detroit Tigers’ youngsters learning how to play September baseball – Jeff Seidel, Detroit Free Press

"This is all so new for Martinez. He came from the Houston Astros, a team that never won more than 56 games in the three seasons he was stuck there. And he is learning how to handle the pressure by watching players such as Kinsler and Hunter.“Kinsler had a freakin’ great at-bat,” Martinez said. “He is battling and fouling pitches up and Torii came up and did the same thing. You see that, and you see how they keep battling.”"

Like Cain, J.D. Martinez has no pennant race experience but he’s concerned about his own game and his own teammates and not the other team’s fist pumps.

For Tigers’ Anibal Sanchez, time running out for regular-season return – Chris McCosky, Detroit News

"Sanchez has been out since Aug. 9 with a right pectoralis strain. With a little more than two weeks left in the regular season, it seems unlikely he will be able to pitch again until, at best, the postseason.He still has several hurdles to clear before being game ready — throwing off a mound, throwing at full velocity, throwing all his pitches at full velocity and then throwing simulated games to get his endurance back."

Anibal is a gamer, but am I the only one that would be concerned with letting start a postseason game after missing two months? Should the Tigers get to the short series of the ALDS, I’d expect a healthy Anibal Sanchez to pitch out of the bullpen and should they go to the ALCS they can reevaluate before the series.

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