Natural cycle & Justin Verlander helps Tigers survive, 7-5

Justin Verlander helped save Detroit’s season with an tremendous effort as the Tigers broke away with a 7-5 victory that cut the Texas Rangers’ lead to 3-2 in the American League Championship Series.

Delmon Young hit two of Detroit’s four homeruns and Miguel Cabrera had a tiebreaking double in the 6th inning—thanks to a bounce off third base.

A swift turn of events in the 6th inning helped Detroit pull ahead. The Tigers turned a bases-loaded double play to keep the score tied at 2, then opened the bottom half with a single (Ryan Raburn), a double (Cabrera), a triple (Victor Martinez), and a homerun (Young)—in order—to take a 6-2 lead. It was the first time ever in postseason history that four consecutive batters on one team hit for a natural cycle.

After building a five-run cushion, Detroit held on despite Nelson Cruz’s record fifth home run of the series. With closer Jose Valverde unavailable for the Tigers, Texas cut it to 7-5 in the ninth and had Cruz on deck when Phil Coke retired Mike Napoli on a game-ending groundout with two runners on.

Coke got five outs for his first career postseason save.

With a day off on Friday, the Tigers will look to push the ALCS to its limit when they play the Rangers in Game 6 at Texas this Saturday.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland shared his thoughts after the game




Randy Wolf outfoxed the St. Louis Cardinals for seven innings to earn his first postseason win and the Milwaukee Brewers got two more hits from Ryan Braun in a 4-2 victory that evened the National League Championship Series at two. Game 5 is set for this Friday night at 8 pm in St. Louis.