Detroit Tigers beat Kansas City Royals 9-5; sit one game back of AL Central lead

The Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Royals kicked off a three game series in Detroit on Monday. This series is one of the most crucial of the year for both clubs as only two games separate each other from 1st and 2nd place of the AL Central.

Justin Verlander took the hill for the Tigers today, sporting a 12-12 record and 4.80 ERA before today’s game.

Jeremy Guthrie started for the Royals, sitting at an even 10-10 record with a 4.31 ERA.

After a very quiet 1st inning in which neither tem scored, the 2nd went a little differently . The Tigers were able to score 2 runs on 2 hits, partly in due to an Eric Hosmer error.

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Kansas City was able to counteract Detroit, scoring 2 runs off of an Norichika Aoki single.

The bottom of the 3rd rolls around and so do the fireworks; the Tigers went through the lineup, scoring 6 runs on 8 hits. 3 straight doubles were hit off the bats of Don Kelly, Nick Castellanos, and Alex Avila.

The Tigers now led 8-2.

Nothing out of the ordinary occurred for a few innings until the top of the 7th when Eric Hosmer tripled (you read that right) to CF and was then scored on a ball off the bat of Billy Butler. Lorenzo Cain then hit a solo shot to cut the Tigers lead by another run; Tigers now lead 8-4.

Joe Nathan came in to pitch the 9th, though it was not a save situation. This was Nathan’s fist appearance since September 2nd.

Detroit and KC were both able to tack on one more run, but Detroit came out on top today, winning 9-5.

With this victory, the Tigers now sit at 78-65 and are only 1 game behind KC for the perch of the AL Central.

The two teams face off again tomorrow night at 7:08.