The finale of the White Sox-Tigers series was ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball Game tonight. Detroit finished off a series sweep in crushing fashion. Detroit destroyed Chicago 18-2 tonight, scoring 16 runs on 22 hits in the first 6 innings.
Chicago scratched 2 runs across in the top of the 9th off Duane Below to avoid the ugliest shutout loss of the baseball season. They settled for the second biggest beat down of the year, behind only a 19-1 pounding that Cleveland put on KC back in April.
The accolades go on and on. Every Tiger starter had a hit by the 6th inning. 11 Tigers had hits in all. 7 guys drove in runs. 10 guys scored runs.
Miguel Cabrera was 2-4 with a 2-run homer that traveled 435 feet to dead center field and a 2-run double. He had 4 RBIs. Jhonny Peralta was 2-5 with a double and 3 RBIs. Victor Martinez was 3-5 with a double and 2 RBIs. Alex Avila was 4-6 with a double and 2 RBIs. Andy Dirks came in as a defensive replacement but was still 2-3 with a 2 run homer (his 7th of the season) and a 2 run single to tack on 4 RBIs.
Brandon Inge was 3-5 with an RBI, and Delmon Young was 2-4 with an RBI. Magglio Ordonez was 2-4 as well. The hot hitting Austin Jackson was 2-5 with a double and scored 3 times. His batting average is up to .261. I don't think it's a coincidence that he's 15-24 with 3 doubles, 3 triples, 2 home runs, 5 RBIs and 12 runs scored in the last 5 games, while Detroit's offense has scored 5, 8, 8, 9, and 18 runs in that time. He's starting or prolonging rallies rather than killing them and finally getting on base a ton where the guys who have been pretty hot all year behind him can drive him in.
In all Detroit pounded out 24 hits. It was a season high in runs and hits by the 6th inning. Detroit pounded Mark Buehrle for 8 runs, 7 earned, on 10 hits in 3.1 innings pitched. It's the most runs Buehrle has given up in 2 years. He's normally tough on the Tigers.
Max Scherzer stayed sharp through 2 very long Tiger half innings, their 5 run 4th and 7 run 6th, to pitch 7 shutout innings. He allowed 5 hits and struck out 6 to improve to 14-8 on the season. The win wasn't in doubt tonight. The quality of his start was what was important as Detroit tries to get all of the non-Justin Verlander cylinders firing for a playoff push then hopefully a post-season run.
Detroit's now up 6.5 games on Cleveland and 8.5 on Chicago. But they head to Cleveland to start a series tomorrow afternoon.
A 6+ game lead at Labor Day is nice. But it ain't over til it's over. Detroit hasn't won a division title since winning the AL East in 1987. They've had division leads in September 4 times since then, having but one wild card appearance to show for it.
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