Consecutive Singles - Tigers Stay Alive In Alcs; Verlander Gives Offense Chance To Erupt - Sporting News - Mlb

DETROIT Justin Verlander didn t dominate, but he was plenty good enough.

Verlander was staggered more than once through the first six innings of Game 5 of the ALCS Thursday, but the Tigers scored four times in a decisive bottom of the sixth and hit four home runs in the game to take a 7-5 victory over the Texas Rangers at Comerica Park.

Game 6 will be Saturday at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

The Rangers got to Verlander early, scoring in the first inning. Ian Kinsler led off with a double and after Elvis Andrus moved him to third with a ground ball to second. Josh Hamilton lined a sacrifice fly to center to score Kinsler.

Rangers starter C.J. Wilson retired the first seven batters he faced, but the eighth, Alex Avila, got him for an opposite-field home run to tie the game. In the fourth inning, Delmon Young smoked a first-pitch fastball from Wilson over the left-center field wall for give Detroit a 2-1 lead.

A one-out walk to Kinsler hurt Verlander in the fifth. Consecutive singles by Andrus and Hamilton brought around Kinsler to tie the game.

The Rangers kept the momentum through most of the sixth inning, loading the bases with one out and driving Verlander s pitch count to 115 in the process. No one would have been surprised had manager Jim Leyland lifted Verlander at that point.

But he left him in to pitch to Kinsler, who bounced a 99-mph first-pitch fastball to third baseman Brandon Inge, who stepped on the bag and threw to first for an inning-ending double play.

Ryan Raburn started the bottom half with a single, and Miguel Cabrera followed with a ground ball down the third-base line that hit the left front corner of the bag and bounced over Adrian Beltre s head for a go-ahead RBI double.

The hits kept coming. Victor Martinez tripled past a diving Nelson Cruz in right field to score Cabrera, and Young followed his fifth postseason home run, to almost the same spot he hit his fist one Thursday. That blow put the Tigers up, 6-2.

Detroit took a 7-2 lead in the seventh on a homer by Raburn, but Verlander surrendered a two-run shot to Cruz in the eighth to make it 7-4. Verlander departed after 7 1/3 innings and 133 pitches. Phil Coke recorded the final five outs, but not before allowing a run in the ninth and putting the tying runs on base.