Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
During game one of the ALDS between the Oakland Athletics and Detroit Tigers, the Tigers fired on enough cylinders to win the game. They are not 100 percent but they played a near flawless game within whatever percentage they are playing at currently. That should serve as a model for them because they will need to play just about that flawlessly if they are going to hope to defeat the Athletics in the best of five series.
Obviously the first key is to get at least seven great innings from their starting pitching. Max Scherzer modeled it near perfectly, giving up only one mistake that turned into two runs. Anibal Sanchez and Justin Verlander will need to do as close to that as they can. Also the offensive side of things requires the Tigers to score three or more runs, preferably four or more. With that in mind, it would help if they didn’t run themselves into outs with Prince Fielder at the plate since he is their premier power hitter right now.
They are lacking the power in their best power hitter and they continue to have a struggling bullpen except for the two guys that key the end of it. Even during game one, that one mistake made the game winnable for the A’s. That is a picture of just how much fight there is in that team. The Tigers are good enough to pull this off but if they play less than their best in three of the next four games, they will lose this series.
David Miller is a Senior Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @davidmillerrant, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google
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