Detroit @ Oakland preview
Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum
Last Meeting ( Aug 23, 2009 ) Detroit 4, Oakland 9
Once the season turned into May, Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander started to turn a corner.
Verlander has won each of his three starts this month and goes for his fourth win in a row when the Tigers open a seven-game road trip tonight with the first of two contests against the Oakland Athletics.
The hard-throwing right-hander has allowed just five runs in his last three starts and is starting to flash the form of a year ago, when he tied for the American League lead with 19 wins and topped the majors with 269 strikeouts.
Verlander (4-2) is coming off one of his better outings of the season, tossing 6 2/3 scoreless innings against the New York Yankees last Thursday.
Yet there’s plenty of room for improvement for Verlander, and if he needs a reminder, all he has to do is check out his counterpart for today’s matchup.
Oakland left-hander Dallas Braden is the early leader in the clubhouse for most memorable moment of the 2010 season. And while it’s still early, Braden set the bar awfully high.
On Mother’s Day, Braden (4-3) became the 19th pitcher in major league history to throw a perfect game when he befuddled the Tampa Bay Rays in a 4-0 victory.
You’d be hard pressed to find a more unlikely candidate than Braden to carve his name into baseball immortality. He entered the season with a 14-21 record and his perfecto marked his first complete game in 53 major league starts.
And even though Braden came back to reality and lost his next start to the Los Angeles Angels, he still went out and threw his second consecutive complete game in Oakland’s 4-0 defeat.
While Braden does not possess Verlander’s overpowering fastball, he has shown far better control – with the exception of his road rage-like tantrum when Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez decided to cross his mound.
Verlander has walked at least three batters in five of his eight starts, including four apiece in his last two outings. Fortunately he has been back by a Tigers offense that has produced at least five runs in six of those starts.
Outfielder Brennan Boesch, who started the season in the minors, continues to tear the cover off the ball. He extended his hitting streak to eight games in Tuesday’s 6-2 loss to the White Sox and boosted his average to a lusty .387. In 20 games since his call-up, Boesch has collected multiple hits in 10 of them.
The A’s are hoping the recent promotion of Jack Cust provides a similar jolt to their offense. Oakland had scored just five runs during a five-game losing streak before busting out for 31 hits in a two-game sweep of Seattle on Monday and Tuesday.
Cust was sent to the minors at the end of spring training despite hitting 84 homers in the previous three seasons. He was recalled Saturday and has five hits in his last 10 at-bats.