Detroit Tigers

Could Tigers ace Justin Verlander be tipping his pitches? Manager Jim Leyland certainly didn't dismiss the possibility Friday afternoon. Read more Justin Verlander news

The pitching matchup is certainly in Detroit's favor. Anibal Sanchez has been one of Detroit's most consistent starting pitchers this season. Twins right-hander Samuel Deduno will make his first appearance this season. Read more Anibal Sanchez news

A night off for Torii Hunter means a night in the lineup for Avisail Garcia against a right-handed pitcher, Samuel Deduno. Don Kelly starts in center, with Garcia in right. Deduno has pitched effectively against the Tigers, and he has pitched colossally bad, like someone averse to the strike zone. The trouble for the Twins tonight is that their bullpen has logged a lot of innings lately. If the Tigers wait out Deduno and try to run up his pitch count, and he can’t throw strikes, it could put the Twins in a really bad spot, not just for tonight but for Saturday afternoon. As for the Tigers bullpen, the one guy on break tonight is Jose Valverde, who finished out the last three games. Joaquin Benoit will get the save opportunity if there is one. What happens against right-handed batters leading up to the ninth could be more interesting, with Leyland potentially mixing Jose Ortega and Luke Putkonen. It could also end up being a night when Anibal Sanchez gets a bigger pitch count. The one Tiger with good numbers off Deduno is leadoff man Andy Dirks. Still, it’s tough to go against Cabrera in MLB.com’s Beat the Streak game, even though you know his run will end for a night at some point. You can follow the game online via Gameday, watch online through MLB.TV or listen on MLB.com Gameday Audio. Locally, you can watch on Fox Sports Detroit and listen on 97.1 FM AM 1270. TIGERS Andy Dirks, LF (3-for-6 off Deduno) Omar Infante, 2B (1-for-4 off Deduno) Miguel Cabrera, 3B (1-for-5, walk, K off Deduno) Prince Fielder, 1B (1-for-3, 2 walks, K off Deduno) Victor Martinez, DH Jhonny Peralta, SS (1-for-3, 2 walks, K off Deduno) Alex Avila, C (1-for-4, walk, K off Deduno) Don Kelly, CF Avisail Garcia, RF P: Anibal Sanchez TWINS Jamey Carroll, 3B (3-for-9, 2 K’s off Sanchez) Joe Mauer, C (4-for-8, walk, K off Sanchez) Josh Willingham, DH (2-for-12, 8 walks, 5 K’s off Sanchez) Justin Morneau, 1B (3-for-10, walk off Sanchez) Oswaldo Arcia, LF (0-for-3, K off Sanchez) Chris Parmelee, RF (1-for-8, 3 K’s off Sanchez) Eduardo Escobar, SS Aaron Hicks, CF (0-for-4, walk, 2 K’s off Sanchez) Brian Dozier, 2B (0-for-5, 2 K’s off Sanchez) P: Samuel Deduno

Detroit Tigers: 26-19, 2nd Place (.5 behind Cleveland) At this particular moment in time the best hitter in baseball walks the earth in a Tiger uniform with a big number 24 on the back. Once again, for the 6th time in the past 4 games, Miguel Cabrera cleared the fence and led the Tigers to a 4th consecutive victory, a come from behind 7-6 victory over the Minnesota Twins.  The impressive thing about the recent Cabrera home run barrage is that they have been mostly to center, on pitches that have been spread around the strike zone. For an impressive graphic depiction of how well Miguel Cabrera covers the plate with power, take a look at this fascinating piece on Fangraphs, where Drew Sheppard takes 6 Cabrera home runs and combines them into one composite gif. You will not watch it only once. ***** Of course Cabrera didn’t win the game single-handedly. For the fourth consecutive game, Prince Fielder knocked in a run following a Cabrera walk. He may have popped up in every other at bat in the game, but if Fielder continues to hit consistently following Cabrera walks, things will work out very well indeed. The bottom of the order continued to contribute (I’ll throw temporary leadoff man Omar Infante in that group); in fact the Tiger 7-9 hitters are now 3rd best in the AL with a .718 OPS, and 2nd with a .268 BA. Really the only weak spot in the lineup right now is the 5th spot, and if Martinez regains his form this team will plate a lot of runs. The icing on the cake for last night’s game was the quick and efficient job by Jose Valverde to close the game out. This was by far the best outing by Papa Grande v. 2.0; he had both velocity and location–Pena barely moved his glove. This is the first time this season I felt like this Valverde thing might actually have a chance of working. ***** Today’s Player of the Pre-game: Omar Infante. Infante just keeps hitting. His 3-for-5 night last night brought his average up to .323, and his Comerica average up to a ridiculous .429. Cabrera, eat your heart out (a mere .402). A couple times on base in front of Cabrera will put the pressure on the Twins. Today’s First-Time-For-This-One Lineup: Dirks, LF Infante, 2B Cabrera, 3B Fielder, 1B Martinez, DH Peralta, SS Avila, C Kelly, CF Garcia, RF

Minnesota Twins (18-26) at Detroit Tigers (26-19) Time/Place: 7:08 p.m., Comerica Park SB Nation blog: Twinkie Town Media: Fox Sports Detroit, MLB.TV, Tigers Radio Network Pitching matchup: Samuel Deduno (2013 debut; 6-4, 4.44 ERA in 2012) vs. Anibal Sanchez (4-4, 2.77) This marks Sanchez's third start against the Minnesota Twins. He has a 2.45 ERA in 11 innings against them this year, allowing seven hits and five walks. Naturally the Tigers lost both games by scoring two runs each of those games. You just can't depend on run support, can you? Deduno started twice against the Tigers in 2012, allowing 10 runs in a tick over nine innings on the mound, and this will be his 2013 debut after three starts for Triple-A Rochester, none of which seem particularly notable. Jesse of Twinkie Town wrote: "clearly the Twins are looking at this differently than the fanbase. Possibly they see this as an opportunity to see whether or not Deduno has anything to offer the club in the future." Seems like the kind of start that would have given the Tigers troubles in the past. (To be fair, whether that is true or not doesn't really matter, because as a fan base we are relatively certain every pitcher of that caliber will throw a shutout against Detroit based on Bruce Chen expectations alone.) Outlook: Can Miguel Cabrera continue his hot streak? More recently, he has six home runs in the last four games. Longer term, he's batting .355 / .424 / .668 with 50 home runs and 159 RBI in his last 162 games. Yet for your meaningless small sample size of the day there is this: Cabrera went just 1-for-5 against Deduno last year. Something's got to give! Odds are Cabrera comes out on the winning side of this battle, and his Tigers teammates likely will, too. Yet this being baseball, who knows? Prediction: No hitter! Interesting links at Twinkie Town: Local idiot wants Mauer to hit dingers, fix roof -- Yes, this is satire. Yet ... well, it certainly sounds like a lot of sports radio callers (and more than a few hosts) we know, doesn't it? The origin of a meme: 20-year-old Rick Porcello -- Porcello seems to inspire memes. TigerSnark's Rogo has a few ideas what Porcello does in his free time, for instance, which may or may not be true. Twinkie Town has its own meme that .. oh crap 2009 DO NOT READ DO NOT READ DO NOT READ More Roars: • Tigers 7, Twins 6: Comeback cats • Second guessing Jim Leyland • Tiger Beat Magazine gets a gritty reboot • Miguel Cabrera’s superlative year | And plate coverage • Friday’s links: Verlander and Jackson

Samuel Deduno makes his 2013 debut for the Twins against the Tigers, meanwhile Anibal Sanchez is trying to pick up his first win of the year against his Minnesota rivals. Minnesota Twins (18-25) at Detroit Tigers (25-19) Time/Place: 7:08 p.m., Comerica Park SB Nation blog: Twinkie Town Media: Fox Sports Detroit, MLB.TV, Tigers Radio Network Pitching matchup: Samuel Deduno (2013 debut; 6-4, 4.44 ERA in 2012) vs. Anibal Sanchez (4-4, 2.77) This marks Sanchez's third start against the Minnesota Twins. He has a 2.45 ERA in 11 innings against them this year, allowing seven hits and five walks. Naturally the Tigers lost both games by scoring two runs each of those games. You just can't depend on run support, can you? Deduno started twice against the Tigers in 2012, allowing 10 runs in a tick over nine innings on the mound, and this will be his 2013 debut after three starts for Triple-A Rochester, none of which seem particularly notable. Jesse of Twinkie Town wrote: "clearly the Twins are looking at this differently than the fanbase. Possibly they see this as an opportunity to see whether or not Deduno has anything to offer the club in the future." Seems like the kind of start that would have given the Tigers troubles in the past. (To be fair, whether that is true or not doesn't really matter, because as a fan base we are relatively certain every pitcher of that caliber will throw a shutout against Detroit based on Bruce Chen expectations alone.) Outlook: Can Miguel Cabrera continue his hot streak? More recently, he has six home runs in the last four games. Longer term, he's batting .355 / .424 / .668 with 50 home runs and 159 RBI in his last 162 games. Yet for your meaningless small sample size of the day there is this: Cabrera went just 1-for-5 against Deduno last year. Something's got to give! Odds are Cabrera comes out on the winning side of this battle, and his Tigers teammates likely will, too. Yet this being baseball, who knows? Prediction: No hitter! Interesting links at Twinkie Town: Local idiot wants Mauer to hit dingers, fix roof -- Yes, this is satire. Yet ... well, it certainly sounds like a lot of sports radio callers (and more than a few hosts) we know, doesn't it? The origin of a meme: 20-year-old Rick Porcello -- Porcello seems to inspire memes. TigerSnark's Rogo has a few ideas what Porcello does in his free time, for instance, which may or may not be true. Twinkie Town has its own meme that .. oh crap 2009 DO NOT READ DO NOT READ DO NOT READ More Roars: • Tigers 7, Twins 6: Comeback cats • Second guessing Jim Leyland • Tiger Beat Magazine gets a gritty reboot • Miguel Cabrera’s superlative year | And plate coverage • Friday’s links: Verlander and Jackson

After a milquetoast week in the AL Central that saw all the teams tread water, the week of May 17-23 was a week which went completely in the other direction. It saw two teams flip first and second place and two teams have excruciating stretches. Only the Chicago White Sox had an even keel week. They went 3-3 to stay in fourth place. Otherwise we saw the Cleveland Indians take over first place as the Detroit Tigers had a rough weekend in Texas losing three out of four. The Tigers rebounded by marching into Cleveland however to get a two game mini-sweep. Both teams won on Thursday night to allow the Tribe to cling to a half-game lead in the Central. It was in Minnesota and Kansas City where a full out swoon raged for both clubs. The Royals were above .500 all season despite very little power production from it's lineup However the bill came due for the paucity of power and the Royals limped to a 1-6 week and barely held onto third-place. A series loss to the woeful Houston Astros only stuck the knife in slightly deeper. Meanwhile the Twins had been giving their fans some hope in the early weeks of the season by also sticking around the break even point and looking half-presentable. That screeched to an ignominious halt this week with a big, fat 0-fer. An 0-7 week sunk the Twins into fifth place and featured the Twins low-octane starting pitching getting scorched in Atlanta with a series of short outings by nearly every starter. Opening Day starter Vance Worley getting sent to the minors probably illustrated the Twins' pitching woes as well as anything could. With the season still evolving for the short term of 2013 and the trade deadline still two months away, this week let's take a long view look at some players around the AL Central that might be in line for contract extensions. Should the club commit? Will the player take the sure thing or wait? Cleveland Indians: 27-19 Overall, 5-2 on the week Next Up: 3 at Boston, 4 with Cincinnati Spotlight Player: Asdrubal Cabrera Cabrera is set for free agency after the 2014 season (per B-R) and is known as a competent defensive shortstop who can provide plus-production when gauged against his peers at the position. Cabrera has posted an above average OPS+ in the three the last four seasons. Will the two-time All Star get an extension offer from the Tribe? Francisco Lindor is a factor here. Lindor is a 19-year old in Advanced A-ball who the Indians drafted 8th overall two years ago. Ticketed as the shortstop of the future, one only need to look at the rapid rise of youngsters like Manny Machado, Didi Gregorius, Elvis Andrus, and Andrelton Simmons to get an idea that young middle infielders with great skill sets can rise rapidly and grab playing time. How quickly the Tribe projects Lindor's ascent in their system may play into any decision to hold onto Cabrera or deal him prior to free agency. Let's speculate that Lindor is for real and arrives by 2015 at the latest. What would the Tribe do with Cabrera? Jason Kipnis looks entrenched at second base. Can Cabrera make the move to third base? Is he amenable to such a move? Extending Cabrera's deal beyond 2014 would be locking him for his late-20s and early 30s. His prime years of production at the plate could be on tap in that time frame. Is he the bat you want at third base? Certainly his bat plays at SS without question. Personally I think he would fill the spot at the hot corner nicely. Prediction: Lindor is the starting shortstop in Cleveland by mid-season of 2014 and Cabrera is dealt for an influx of pitching badly needed by the organization. An above average shortstop should have market value to add a power arm or two. Detroit Tigers: 26-19 overall, 4-2 on the week Next UP: 3 at home w/Minnesota, 4 with Pittsburgh Spotlight Player: Omar Infante The Tigers have plenty of players we could feature here. Young stars that many fans would love to see locked in for the long term. Miguel Cab

Drew Sheppard of FanGraphs created a GIF today going around the Internet that showed six of Miguel Cabrera's home runs. It is not to be missed. Kurt: Miguel Cabrera's superlative year As Jeff Sullivan noted a few days prior at FanGraphs, one of the most remarkable observations about Cabrera is that there seems to be no weak spots in his plate coverage. There are no safe places a pitcher could put the ball: Cabrera hit it out from anywhere, and he sent it anywhere: right field, center field, left field, whichever was convenient at the time. The GIF shows just that, demonstrating how six pitches with completely different locations all eventually landed in the stands for home runs. Sullivan reached the only conclusion one can reach: "The only explanation is that Miguel Cabrera can do things that other hitters just can't, or don't. The quality of his contact is such that normal rules don't apply." And that's why he's chasing history again this year. ht Hardball Talk More Roars: • Tigers 7, Twins 6: Comeback cats • Second guessing Jim Leyland • Friday’s links: Verlander and Jackson • Tiger Beat Magazine gets a gritty reboot

I'm fresh out of superlatives. The first time Miguel Cabrera came to the plate Thursday at Comerica Park, he drilled a 391-foot home run, his 14th of the year, to put the Tigers on the board first and temporarily take the lead in all three Triple Crown categories. His third time at the plate, he added another RBI, his 55th of the year, with a grounder up the middle. At that point, the Twins got sick of pitching to him, instead deciding pitching around him to issue a walk in the seventh and an intentional walk in the eighth. It's been quite a couple of days for Cabrera: including a three-homer game in Texas Sunday, he has six HR and 13 RBI during the past four games . Today, Cabrera is first in the majors in batting average (.391), first in RBI (55) and second in HR (one behind Chris Davis of Baltimore). If you prefer Lee Panas' sabermetric "alternative" Triple Crown categories, add total bases (129) and times on base (99) to stats Cabrera leads the AL in. (Joey Votto has been on base 107 times for the NL's Reds). Cabrera leads baseball in OPS by .054 and in wOBA by .030. The feats don't end there. Cabrera's RBI pace -- 1.22 per game -- translates to 198 if he continued that rate for the entire 162-game season. The rate is more of a concern than the games played here: Cabrera has participated in 160-or-more games four of his prior five seasons with the Tigers. The most RBI in a single season came in 1930 when Hack Wilson of the Cubs recorded 191. (Digression: Wilson had 56 HR and participated* in more than 28 percent of his team's runs that year.) Even if Cabrera does not set the record (he probably won't), just making the top 10 list puts him among a Tim Kurkjian-ian list of names: You'll find Lou Gehrig (three times), Hank Greenberg (twice) and Jimmie Foxx (twice) there, as well as Babe Ruth and Chuck Klein -- all Cooperstown inductees. (I'll pause only momentarily here to tell you that if someone tries to insult your intelligence for caring about such a Luddite figure as the RBI stat, tell them to kiss off.) The point is this: Every time we see Cabrera doing some amazing feat that seems improbable -- such as winning the Triple Crown last year -- he seems to go out and do something to even top that. Take the Wilson comparison. Cabrera has been a part of 80 runs this season -- or 1.78 runs per game. At that rate, he'd finish at 288 in 162 games. That would be more than Wilson, though just off Wilson's 1.81 rate. What about as a share of his team's runs? Cabrera's 80 runs participated in accounts for nearly 33 of the Tigers' runs this year. Now that is a valuable player! Of course, it seems unlikely to expect Cabrera to finish at such rates, just as it seems unlikely to expect him to win a second-consecutive Triple Crown. He's a great player, but the season is long and with many twists. But that we're sitting here as we enter Memorial Day weekend in the United States -- the first real "pole marker" of the baseball season -- discussing such possibilities tells you all that you need to know about Miguel Cabrera's season. * (RBI + R) - HR More Roars: • Second guessing Jim Leyland • Friday’s links: Verlander and Jackson • Tiger Beat Magazine gets a gritty reboot • Beer of the series: Twins

More Roars: • Beer of the series: Twins • Graph:%20Why%20the%20Tigers%20aren%E2%80%99t%20as%20bad%20as%20some%20think%0D%0A%E2%80%A2%20Home run blunders: Michael Bourn vs. Ryan Raburn • Tigers fans stranded by the bus service ever