Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians split Sunday doubleheader

It took the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians two days to play the second game of their scheduled four-game series, and they played another one just after as the rivals split a pair of games on a long afternoon/evening/night of baseball at Progressive Field.

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In the first game, Justin Verlander was cruising along with minimal run support (per usual). The Tigers scored first in the top of the first inning when Ian Kinsler singled in Anthony Gose off Indians’ starter Cody Anderson.

It stayed that way until the bottom of the fifth inning when Verlander, who had surrendered just one run to that point, allowed a rally when Chris Johnson and Francisco Lindor singles plated three runs.

The Tigers answered back in the ensuing inning when Nick Castellanos hit a sacrifice fly to bring home J.D. Martinez, but Verlander allowed it right back in the bottom of that inning with another Johnson RBI single.

The Indians added single runs in the seventh and eighth innings to put the game out of reach, winning 7-2.

The lone highlight of the first game was Steven Moya, getting his first career big league start. He threw out a runner at home from left field (his second assist since coming up last week) and reached base three times, via a walk, single and triple. He also struck out once, because he’s Steven Moya.

The second game didn’t start much better, as Randy Wolf got the start after struggling in his previous two outings. He threw 50 pitches in the first inning, but limited the damage to two runs, allowing the Tigers to tie and eventually take the lead.

J.D. Martinez brought in the tying two runs a third inning single against starter Trevor Bauer. One inning later, the Tigers went to work with the help of a Dixon Machado double, Rajai Davis single and a run scoring on a Miguel Cabrera double-play, Detroit grabbed a 6-2 lead and piled on from there, scoring single runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings to give them the 9-2 margin of victory.

Castellanos tacked on another three hits in the victory that took just under four hours to play. The two games took roughly eight hours to play, with a half hour break between the end of game 1 and the start of game 2.

The teams do not have any common off days in order to make up the other game missed this weekend, however it is likely it would be scheduled the day after the season ends, on Monday, October 5 should Cleveland be in the position to capture a wild-card spot. Otherwise each team will probably only play 161 games.

After wrapping up their final series of the season in Cleveland, the Tigers will head to Minnesota to finish out the Target Field portion of their schedule, with three games Monday through Wednesday. After that, the Tigers will come home for their final home stand of this God-forsaken season.

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