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Detroit Tigers Follow Their Stars to Beat the White Sox, 7-1

By Tom Pollin

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David Price and Miguel Cabrera flashed their star power to drive the Detroit Tigers to a 7-1 win over the Chicago White Sox, ending the team’s eight game losing streak.

Price pitched a complete game five-hitter to run his record to 5-2. He struck out 11 for the game, seven in a row between the fourth and sixth innings, two short of the American League record (set by the Tigers’ Doug Fister in 2012).

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The White Sox touched Price for one run in the third inning when Emilio Bonifacio led off the inning with a double. He was driven home by an Alexei Ramirez double. Price slammed the door on Chicago from that point forward.

On offense, the Tigers broke out of their team slump with a five-run fifth inning that chased White Sox starter John Danks (3-5). With one out, Ian Kinsler lined a single to left field. Cabrera followed with a towering home run, his first since May 24, over the center field wall to provide Price with all the run support he would need.

Every player in the Tigers’ lineup contributed at least one hit in the game with Josh Wilson leading the way with four, along with one RBI and a run scored.

With all the hits the Tigers racked up in this game, 18 off of three White Sox pitchers, they were still a miserable 3-for-13 with runners in scoring position and left 12 men on base.

Learn to Love Statcast

It’s going to provide a revolutionary new way for fans to watch games.

One benefit to this game being broadcast nationally on FOX was the information presented from MLB’s Statcast. It’s an analytical tool that at first glance seems like something developed by NASA that uses high-resolution optical equipment installed in all 30 Major League parks. Statcast is already in use by baseball front offices and is now slowly being introduced to the general baseball public.

For hitting it can measure previous unknowns like exit velocity, launch angle, maximum height, distance, and more. For Cabrera’s home run shot, the ball left the bat at 107.1 miles per hour, launched at a 30.2-degree angle and reached a maximum height of 87.7 feet (for comparison, here is an MLB.com list of longest home runs tracked by Statcast as of May 13).

Coming up

The Tigers are back to one game over .500 for the season and go for the series win in Chicago Sunday afternoon with Alfredo Simon (5-3) taking the mound against Jeff Samardzija (4-3).

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